United States Information Agency

The United States Information Agency (USIA) was a United States government agency devoted to propaganda which operated from 1953 to 1999. The agency's primary mission was to promote favorable view of the United States abroad, focusing exclusively on international audiences until 1990. USIA sponsored various educational and cultural programs, such as cultural exchanges and international broadcasting, aiming to influence foreign perceptions of American democracy and market principles.

Previously existing United States Information Service (USIS) posts operating out of U.S. embassies worldwide since World War II became the field operations offices of the USIA. In 1978, USIA was merged with the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the Department of State into a new agency called the United States International Communications Agency (USICA). Use of the name United States Information Agency (USIA) was restored in 1982.

In 1999, prior to the reorganization of intelligence agencies by President George W. Bush, President Bill Clinton assigned USIA's cultural exchange and non-broadcasting intelligence functions to the newly created under secretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs at the U.S. Department of State and the now independent agency, the International Broadcasting Bureau. USIA's broadcasting functions were moved to the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which had been created in 1994.

Since the merger of USIA with the Department of State, public diplomacy and public affairs sections at U.S. missions have carried on this work. When USIA was disbanded in 1999, USIS posts once again were operated by the Department of State.

Former USIA director of TV and film service Alvin Snyder recalled in his 1995 memoir that "the U.S. government ran a full-service public relations organization, the largest in the world, about the size of the twenty biggest U.S. commercial PR firms combined. Its full-time professional staff of more than 10,000, spread out among some 150 countries, burnished America's image and trashed the Soviet Union 2,500 hours a week with a 'tower of babble' more than 70 languages, to the tune of over $2 billion per year." The USIA was "the biggest branch of this propaganda machine." Provided by Wikipedia