Public Diplomacy officers are often called on to speak at openings and conferences, and every American diplomat drafts remarks for Ambassadors and other administration principals. These skills are always improved by reading and listening to speeches from the past. Nearly eight decades after his death, memories of the American cowboy, movie star, and humorist Will…
This reflection comes from a Fulbright music scholar whom I met in Korea,Thomas J. Wegren, Ph.D. He is now Professor of Music, Faculty Emeritus at the University of Minnesota-Duluth. By Thomas J. Wegren My approaches to teaching, my perspectives on interpreting piano and music compositions, and my artistic vision were profoundly expanded by my enriching, year-long…
When I entered the Foreign Service in 1979, my class of 16 new Public Diplomacy officers was taught to cultivate “the Foreign Service manner,” the habits of diplomacy — listening, accurate reporting, careful speaking, and a certain care in asking questions without an edge. So much of Public Diplomacy is about “telling,” it’s good to…
Events more than seven decades ago prompt this short Memorial Day meditation for Public Diplomacy. On September 15, 1942, the aircraft carrier USS Wasp (CV-7), supporting the Guadalcanal campaign, was 170 miles southeast of San Cristobal Island in the Solomons. It was mid-afternoon on an active day of air operations — planes launched and planes…
In China, a Public Diplomacy officer is at dinner with officials. The host remarks, “we’re always amazed how sex can gum up American politics.” His tablemates chuckle. “And tax returns!” They chuckle some more. A Foreign Service officer attending a festival in Nigeria sits next to a member of the National Assembly. The parliamentarian asks,…
I am increasingly persuaded that the effectiveness of U.S. official Public Diplomacy depends not just on messages, programs, or technology, but also on the strength and health of the Foreign Service. This article is more about the Foreign Service than about Public Diplomacy per se, but these factors need to be part of the whole…
The name of the American poet and short story writer Stephen Vincent Benét (1898-1943) should be known to all Public Diplomacy practitioners. When war came, he tirelessly applied his gifts to the American cause, so ardently that he died from overwork in 1943. A giant in American letters in the late 1920s and the…
In his State of the Union Address of January 6, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked Congress for authority to provide Lend-Lease assistance to the United Kingdom. To strengthen his appeal, FDR traced a vision of “a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.” “The Four Freedoms” eventually became shorthand for the war aims of…
Edward G. Lansdale (1908-1987) – whose career included service in the Philippines during the Huk Rebellion and in Vietnam during that war – was a major thinker and practitioner in counterinsurgency. When William J. Lederer and Eugene Burdick wrote their influential 1958 novel, The Ugly American, “Colonel Hillendale” was modeled on Lansdale. He is the…
Living and working in other countries, Public Diplomacy practitioners hear a mix of many ideas – political, economic, social, and religious. Among them are patriotism and nationalism. A recent video – and the controversies it sparked – presents a case study that can give viewers some perspective on today’s currents of Russian nationalism. Last year,…