“Don’t talk to strangers,” is the advice we’ve all heard growing up from our parents. However, for a young girl from rural Illinois talking to strangers would lead her to countless unexpected moments of spontaneous citizen diplomacy and a rewarding career in public diplomacy. Dr. Sherry Mueller disobeyed her mother’s advice as she boarded a…
After the first dozen days of the New Year, events in the Middle East appeared to be deteriorating daily in a procession of grim setbacks. Can this be reversed in the second dozen days of a new decade? There appears to be no substitute for honest, at times painful dialogue — with other powers informing…
First Monday Forum attendees got a panoramic view of U.S. public diplomacy over the past 70 years through the practiced eye of Dr. Vivian Walker, Executive Director of the United States Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy. Previewing the Commission’s annual recommendations to the U.S. Congress and public, due out in about one week, Dr. Walker…
Surveying the world scene as a new year and new decade dawns, many would agree, on the basis of events this past year that there aren’t many rays of hope on the horizon. 2019: —As Middle East Institute President Paul Salem describes the year past: “In the Middle East and North Africa, there were five…
This is the Season of the year when we offer family, friends, and colleagues various wishes and positive admonitions – Best wishes for the Holidays, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, Have a prosperous New Year…Whatever phrases you use, you are letting them know that you hope all unfolds well for them during this special time of…
Public Diplomacy Council member David I. Hitchcock, a Foreign Service Officer in the U.S. Information Agency for 35 years, wrote a short and clear description of how the Public Affairs Section in Tokyo in the 1980s developed a “plan of action” to advance a U.S. foreign policy goal. Since that time, U.S. Public Diplomacy has…
As a 36-year VOA professional who retired at the end of last century, I recall vividly a day when VOA’s then record weekly global audience reached around a hundred million followers. A Voice technician, in a conversation in a Voice corridor, noted an irony in this good news. Referring to the scarce coverage in the U.S.…
During his career, George Gallup (1901-1984), the pioneer of opinion surveys and founder of the Gallup Poll, frequently commented on issues relating to Public Diplomacy. He was a member of the U.S. Advisory Commission on Information from 1973 to 1978. In a 1963 essay, he focused on the Soviet Union, but the principles Gallup advocated…
Ambassador Linda Jewell, who died November 18, was treasurer of the Public Diplomacy Council and a longstanding board member, active up to the time of her passing. She was one of the most distinguished public diplomacy officers of that generation in charge when the U.S. Information Agency was abolished and incorporated into the State Department…
In a few sentences, an older Public Diplomacy officer gave me a key insight about many of the “isms” since the French Revolution – Jacobinism, Marxism, militarism, fascism, Communism, and Islamism among them. And it came from his study of inanimate machines. Here’s the story: In 1985, Arthur J. McTaggart (1915-2003) — a USIA officer…