To the Secretary Read online

  The under secretary of Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs job may well be harder than its counterpart position in Political Affairs. The latter has boundaries largely defined by tradition and is replicated in most of the world’s foreign ministries. There is a tidiness about the many geographic offices, with desk officers reporting to their office directors and up through deputy assistant and assistant secretaries. This structure is more or less symmetrical with foreign ministries around the world, making the routine communication of day-to-day diplomacy relatively easy.

  Public diplomacy, by contrast, is a uniquely American job that usually has no foreign counterpart, because the American approach pulls everything under one roof, from hard-hitting policy speeches to long-term academic exchanges like Fulbright scholarships.

  While discontinuity and long gaps have made it difficult to lead the Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs division convincingly, the records of the under secretaries have been checkered by their actions as well as their absences. In a few cases, they have been excoriated by both domestic and overseas media. Communications expert Karen Hughes personified the Bush administration’s conviction that public diplomacy meant opening a dialogue with the Arab world. As mentioned earlier, Hughes gamely traveled to the trouble spots—Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Indonesia. She brought along a young American Muslim student and tried to connect with female audiences, but critics were quick to pounce on what they saw as the cluelessness of her mission.

  Philip Giraldi, a former CIA counterterrorism expert, wrote that Hughes blamed the glitches in her listening tour on U.S. embassies and ordered her senior assistants to shake up embassy staffs and demand a more aggressive delivery of the administration’s message. She set up an infamous “echo chamber,” designed to keep everyone on message.49 In a sure sign of discontent, her message to the field, “Karen’s Rules,” was leaked and published in the Washington Post, the Nation, and elsewhere. The memo was given to the Post by a recipient who noted that “if all were well, nobody would have leaked it.” 50

  The rules reinforced an image of micromanagement—for example, Rule #2: “You are always on sure ground if you use what the President, Secretary Rice, Sean McCormack or Senior USG [U.S. government] spokesmen have already said on a particular subject.” And Rule #5: “Don’t Make Policy. This is a sensitive area about which you need to be careful. Do not get out in front of USG policymakers on an issue, even if you are speaking to local press.”

  Even an assessment in the usually pro–State Department Foreign Service Journal was fairly damning. Shawn Zeller, senior staff writer for Congressional Quarterly and frequent contributor to the Journal, wrote that Hughes was seen as too controlling. “Many in the field say that Hughes’s public relations–style approach to public diplomacy reflects the kind of top-down thinking that works better in politics than foreign affairs. Many of Hughes’ initiatives, in other words, started with a dictate from Washington that the field must then follow, with little receptivity to ideas coming from the other direction, they say.” 51

  Charlotte Beers was criticized for an attempt to “brand” America the same way she had earned fame branding Uncle Ben’s rice. And when Margaret Tutwiler suddenly announced her switch from government public relations to the executive suites of the New York Stock Exchange, the timing of her move, which occurred during the week that the first brutal images of abused Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib were released worldwide, raised eyebrows.52 James Glassman, who lasted only seven months, seemed not to believe in the job. He wrote, “Trying to get foreigners to like us is the default endeavor of the State Department’s public affairs office, and in my view, it’s largely a waste of time.” 53

  When Judith McHale was rumored to be next in line, the Washington Post’s Al Kamen noted that the job “has been especially difficult given Washington’s reputation abroad.” He shrugged off her lack of diplomatic experience, noting, “We’re reminded that this is a job that involves selling a message.” 54

  Others were not so sanguine. George Washington University professor Marc Lynch protested that McHale would be “a terrible, terrible selection. The position . . . should go to someone with experience in and a vision for public diplomacy, and who will be in a position to effectively integrate public diplomacy concerns into the policy-making process.” 55

  Chaos at the top had consequences below. Weak and absent leaders failed to incorporate the newly consolidated division into the State Department’s bureaucracy. The former USIA’s largely civil service component ran academic and cultural exchanges with a firewalled budget and worked for years out of the same building at L’Enfant Plaza, six Metro stops and a considerable walk away from the State Department’s Foggy Bottom. The sense of remaining separate from the State Department was stronger than the sense of working together. ECA program officers and branch chiefs routinely spoke of the State Department as a separate entity. Both civil and foreign service officers were demoralized, having seen their former agency undervalued and dismantled by Congress, only to find themselves white elephants in a State Department that was mystified and bemused by its newfound assets.

  A gap in the middle, among public diplomacy implementers, compounded the leadership gap at the top. Like all FSOs, those assigned to hardship and dangerous posts in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan serve for only a year. Many were simply not present, since, as the GAO study noted, numerous overseas assignments were going unfilled. A host of other, greater hardship countries are two-year assignments, and the maximum an officer may stay in any country is three years. Given the need to interact with local opinion leaders, nearly all public diplomacy overseas assignments are language-designated, but shortfalls in language skills and the long lead time needed to teach difficult languages compounds the problem. Combined, these conditions created a shortage of experienced public diplomacy officers with language skills and in-depth knowledge of the countries in which their expertise was needed. And the Wikileaks cables illustrate the consequences of that gap.

  PROGRAMS IN THE FIELD: FROM MEALS TO IDEALS

  For the most part, American diplomats work out of embassies—the lead diplomatic facility that is always located in the capital city. In larger countries, the State Department also staffs consulates, secondary facilities that extend diplomatic reach, headed by a consul general who reports to the ambassador. In some countries, such as Canada, the United States supports not only an embassy in Ottawa but multiple consulates in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Montreal, Quebec City, and Halifax. There is also an American Presence Post (APP) in Winnipeg. APPs are usually single-officer posts with very limited services; they do not issue visas. The State Department also staffs diplomatic missions to international organizations, starting with the United States Mission to the United Nations. Other examples include the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, (OSCE), and the UN’s Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). It is possible to have more than one ambassador in a city. Brussels hosts three—one at the U.S. embassy, one at the U.S. Mission to NATO, and one at the U.S. Mission to the European Union.

  The State Department expects all officers, including the ambassador, to engage in public diplomacy, and nearly all embassies and many consulates include a public diplomacy section, headed by a Public Affairs Officer (PAO) whose job is to think strategically about assets to be used in public outreach and to plan programming. These officers perform the obvious tasks—running exchange programs, monitoring the media, and writing speeches for the ambassador. The WikiLeaks cables show there is also room for considerable creativity, and those diplomats proposed and organized an ambitious range of events.

  Officers at the U.S. embassy in Paraguay attempted to reach a new audience—people interested in environmental issues—by hosting a bird-watching tour on embassy grounds. They pulled out all the stops, inviting bleary-eyed government officials, NGO leaders, and journalists to a 6:30 a.m. pre-breakfast tour led by bird-watching
experts. They published a foldout guide, “Birds of the U.S. Embassy Gardens,” that helped visitors identify more than sixty species of birds inhabiting the ten-acre compound. They also assisted with the publication of the companion guide, “Birds of Asunción,” which they distributed to guests. The embassy figured there was just something irresistible about bird-watching.56

  A continent away, the three U.S. diplomatic installations in Italy—Embassy Rome, Embassy Vatican City, and the U.S. Mission to UN Agencies—joined forces to spotlight the United States as a leader in the fight against hunger through a “hunger banquet” at the ambassador’s residence. The missions reported that the event divided attendees according to access-to-food proportions found in the world. At the special Thanksgiving reception, 60 percent of the guests were served rice under a tent outdoors; 25 percent ate rice and beans in the residence foyer; and a handful were served a posh meal with wine. The ambassadors wrote that a “hunger banquet might also help soften the USG image in light of the rise in anti-Americanism worldwide . . . and presents an opportunity to discuss humanitarian assistance with embassy contacts not aware of the role the U.S. plays.” 57

  In Cuba, where the United States had an Interests Section in lieu of an embassy, the staff tried to turn down the temperature on politics with a baseball-themed Fourth of July reception. Guests dined on hot dogs and popcorn while being entertained with baseball-themed music, videos, and a reenactment of Abbott and Costello’s “Who’s on First?” Cubans loved the party favors, which included baseballs, baseball cards, and material donated by Major League Baseball.58

  In the early 2000s, every embassy worthy of the name began hosting iftar dinners, traditionally celebrated to break the fast during Ramadan. In Muslim-dominant countries, these made good sense and had been going on long before 9/11. In countries such as Germany and the United Kingdom, with significant Muslim minority populations, they also worked well. But in countries with few Muslim residents, the dinners smacked of pandering or a desire to check the box on Muslim outreach to satisfy anxious Washington policymakers. They were attended only by Muslim members of the diplomatic corps and interfaith leaders.

  Over time, embassies began to look beyond the now-obligatory meal. Embassy Athens and the consulate in Thessaloniki hosted iftar dinners but emphasized to Washington that they were only one element in a sophisticated outreach program to a complex and divided community. While one Muslim community in Thrace dated back to Ottoman times and comprised ethnic Turks, Pomaks, and Roma, it contrasted with a very distinct urban community of recent Muslim immigrants from Albania, the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa. The mission strategy for the Thracian Muslim community focused on exchanges and partnerships with civil society organizations, support for minority rights, and cultural programming, while outreach to the recent immigrant community focused on partnerships with Muslim organizations, religious freedom and refugee issues, and fostering Muslim–host country dialogue.59 This kind of analysis and targeted programming goes well beyond the somewhat superficial thinking on iftar dinners. Embassy London created a counter-radicalization multi-agency working group to improve its understanding of a very complex UK Muslim community. It made the point that one-size-fits-all programming doesn’t work in a single country, or even in a single city. “Programs are shaped to fit particular neighborhood needs and dynamics, recognizing that the diversity of Muslim communities precludes a monolithic set of responses.” 60

  U.S. Consulate Jeddah wrote that even a short-term event can require exhaustive and elaborate planning. It created an American Culture and Commerce festival from scratch in the Saudi city of Abha. The post hoped the event would engage broader, younger, and harder-to-reach audiences outside major cities and educate Saudis about U.S. culture, education, and commercial partnerships. The four-day event featured a gala VIP opening, English teacher training workshops, presentations on study in the United States and visas, panel discussions, presentations to local businesses, and much more. The post proudly reported that some eight thousand people attended, many of them students. And yet, scant funding from Washington sent the consulate scurrying to find sponsors and partners. Why Washington stinted on an event that seemed to hit all the bells on Muslim outreach is mystifying.61

  Embassy Benin coupled iftar and Ramadan with the idea of service and organized the first-ever community blood drive at the Cadjehoun Mosque in Cotonou in response to President Obama’s call for an interfaith day of volunteer service.62 Mauritania brought an American Muslim couple to interact with locals, a foreshadowing of a frequent and popular programming effort to bring American Muslims to audiences overseas.63 But even innocuous events such as iftar dinners can be controversial. Embassy Asmara, operating under some of the most hostile host country conditions anywhere on the globe, reported that the government of Eritrea shut down its iftar dinner, sending a diplomatic note verbale (an unsigned diplomatic note written in the third person) expressly forbidding the planned meal. This came after the embassy’s official protest of Eritrean security forces roughing up a U.S. public diplomacy officer and many of his guests as he hosted a public event at a rented auditorium.64

  Embassies far from the Muslim world also tried new forms of outreach. In Buenos Aires, the embassy wrote in November 2008 about its efforts to combat the highest level of anti-Americanism in the Western Hemisphere, a status that had persisted for six years. A cable reviewing attempts to reverse the trend found a formula for success in relentless media outreach (several times a day), focused attention on youth, and augmented involvement with NGOs and community activities. That said, the embassy had a lot of help. Writer Tom Wolfe came for the International Book Fair; figure skater Michelle Kwan met with youth leaders; violinist Joshua Bell performed, as did headliners such as Ozomatli, Toto, Béla Fleck and the Flecktones, the Black Eyed Peas, and reggaeton stars Wisin and Yandel. The State Department chose an Argentine to receive the Secretary of State’s International Women of Courage Award and funded exchange projects for the country’s high school students and English teachers. Yet measuring the results of all this activity remained difficult. The post noted, “We are beginning to see our [public opinion] numbers head north again,” falling prey to the use of public opinion polls as a measure of success.65

  As Buenos Aires’s efforts indicate, public diplomacy costs money, and the cables show embassies thinking beyond the next meal, pitching Washington with programming ideas and funding requests they linked to wider strategic plans to advance U.S. interests. Larger posts, such as Buenos Aires and Riyadh, sent multipage requests for elaborate and multifaceted programming. Smaller posts, such as Paramaribo, looked for amounts as small as $13,350.66

  Any thoughtful reading of the cables leads to the conclusion that designing public diplomacy is a task for those on the ground, not those in Washington. No Washington panel could anticipate the subtle differences of the Thracian Muslims. A hunger banquet would never work in countries where hosts deem it a point of honor to offer guests their very best—a cold bowl of rice would be an unpardonable insult. It worked in Rome because diplomatic receptions are plentiful and food is never in short supply.

  Although anti-Americanism had infinite variations, too much of the public diplomacy toolkit from Washington continued to be standard issue: exchanges, cultural programming, and American speakers. And plenty of embassy proponents of activist programming argued that conquering public opinion was only a matter of adequate resources skillfully used. In a frenzy, posts mounted program after program while Washington continued to pursue a foreign policy that was certain to alienate.

  TO KNOW US MIGHT NOT BE TO LOVE US

  Given the implacable and pervasive nature of anti-Americanism, it is time to consider the assertion propounded by former Under Secretary James Glassman at the outset of this chapter. Is trying to get foreigners to like us a waste of time?

  Perhaps Glassman failed to acknowledge the strength of the American desire to be liked. Obama took up the fight at a town hall meeting in Strasbou
rg in April 2009. Acknowledging that “there have been times when America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive,” he also chided a uniquely European style of anti-Americanism that clearly annoyed him. “In Europe there is an anti-Americanism that is at once casual, but can be insidious . . . these attitudes have become all too common. They are not wise. They do not represent the truth. They . . . fail to acknowledge the fundamental truth that America cannot confront the challenges of this century alone, but that Europe cannot confront them without America.” 67

  Obama’s words were politely received in Strasbourg, but they did not spark discussions back home about whether work to combat anti-Americanism is worth pursuing. Obama spoke for the optimists who believe that anti-Americanism can be conquered. No one is asking (or at least not very loudly) whether the United States should accept that anti-Americanism is the price paid for pursuing unpopular policies. And no one has yet proven that fear of losing the world’s good opinion has ever constrained the United States from taking action. The idea that world public opinion should be part of any policy decision-making process was famously articulated by the USIA’s director, Edward R. Murrow, who said, after dealing with the results of the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, “Dammit, if they want me in on the crash landings, I’d better damned well be in on the take-offs!” 68 Murrow was arguing that it is unreasonable to turn to public diplomacy practitioners only when it’s too late. They deserve a seat with policymakers at the takeoffs, too. It’s still a valid request today and still ignored.

  From Argentina to Zimbabwe, the leaked cables show embassies operating according to a predictable pattern. Posts attempt to gauge the depth and virulence of anti-Americanism, hold earnest discussions with opinion leaders, and then plan programs aimed at moving the needle of public opinion. The underlying assumption is that if diplomats could only perform enough outreach, sit down with enough people, and engage in enough useful dialogue, they could solve the problem. Rather than sound out the depths of the harm caused by disasters such as Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and drone strikes, diplomats appear to have become uncritical believers in the power of their own programs. Happy talk and can-do cables full of public diplomacy triumphs seem aimed to please policymakers rather than educate them on what might be wrong. When in doubt, the common solution is to plead for resources to do even more programming. Too many cables cater to Washington’s insatiable demand for success stories, when a more courageous stance might have been to write about failure and to insist that some of Washington’s policies were so unpopular, no amount of clever programming would turn the tide.