97-241 renamed ICA to be the U.S. Information Agency (USIA). As of October 1, 1999, USIAwas abolished and its functions were merged back into the Department of State. After the abolishment of the United States Information Agency (USIA) in 1999 and theterrorist attacks two years later, the U.S. government expedited implementation of public diplomacyto help win its war on terrorism. More recently, the President created the Muslim World Outreach Policy CoordinatingCommittee in July 2004 which replaced the Strategic Communications Policy CoordinatingCommittee. Thisreport reviews 29 articles and studies on public diplomacy that have been identified by theDepartment of State as being credible reports with valuable suggestions and compares therecommendations. A brief discussion of recommendationsimilarities and differences follows each matrix. Recommendations on improving government coordination of public diplomacy entities and programs include 
(1) the Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy suggests assigning the StateDepartment's Office of Policy, Planning, and Resources with the responsibility foroverseeing the strategic planning of all public diplomacy programming andresources; 
(2) the Heritage Foundation seeks better coordination through the White House,specifically through the Office of Global Communications; 
(3) the Public Diplomacy Council recommends that a new U.S. Agency for PublicDiplomacy be responsible for coordinating all U.S. government public diplomacyefforts and establish an Interagency Committee on PD at the Cabinet level tocoordinate and direct the national PD strategy; 
(4) the Council on Foreign Relations recommends that a coherent strategic andcoordinating framework for public diplomacy be developed, including a presidentialdirective on public diplomacy and a Public Diplomacy Coordinating Structure led bythe president's personal designee; 
(5) the Advisory Group on Public Diplomacy for the Arab and Muslim World advisesa strengthening of the role of the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy to coordinategovernment-wide public diplomacy activities, review country program plans withrespect to public diplomacy, allocate human and financial resources, and play a rolein performance evaluations. 2001. "America Needs a Voice Abroad," Washington Post, February 26, 2005. Foreign Policy Association. September 2003. I. II.
Public diplomacy has been officially acknowledged as a tool in the foreign policy arsenalsince World War I. Later, during World War II, it became part of the U.S. government structurewhen in 1942 the President issued an executive order to create the Office of War Information (OWI). OWI aired the first Voice of America program on February 24, 1942, in Europe. These activitieswere carried out without any authority or formal recognition by Congress.
More recently, during the post-Cold War era of the 1990s, public diplomacy was viewed asa low priority, and was often seen by lawmakers as a source of funds to tap for other programs. Thisculminated in 1999 when Congress abolished the agency primarily concerned with public diplomacy-- the U.S. Information Agency (USIA) -- and merged its public diplomacy functions into theDepartment of State.
Following the elimination of the USIA and after the September 11, 2001 attacks, U.S.government officials, foreign policy experts, and academicians began to assess the direction of, andthe increased need for, public diplomacy.
This report looks at 29 articles and studies on public diplomacy that have been identified bythe Department of State as being credible reports with valuable suggestions. Variousrecommendations from these studies are similar. This report organizes the recommendations andprovides a brief discussion of them. CRS takes no position on the recommendations.
This report will not be updated.