 Alvin Snyder, Author, Warriors of Disinformation  President Reagan communicated regularly with international audiences via simulcasts on the Worldnet TV network and the Voice of America, during his 8 years in office.  Our video about the Soviet downing of a passenger jet, Korean Airlines flight 007, was played at a special session of the UN Security Council, forcing the Soviets to admit what it had done.  Here I am with Prime Minister Eugenia Charles of Dominica, chairman of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States, October 1983. We were discussing how to best communicate the story of the U.S. invasion of Grenada to the rest of the world.  Worldnet International TV Studio, Washington, DC, site of U.S. government broadcasts during the Cold War |
WelcomeThe web site focuses on my book, "Warriors of Disinformation: American Propaganda, Soviet Lies, and the Winning of the Cold War." For almost 8-years during Ronald Reagan's presidency, I was the Director of the United States Information Agency's worldwide Television and Film Service. Our mission was to effectively reach international TV viewers, especially those behind the Iron Curtain in Communist Eastern Europe, to promote US policy objectives. It was quite an adventuture, and I wrote this book and articles about public diplomacy while a Senior Fellow at the Annenberg Washington Program in Communications Policy Studies, in DC. Commenting on the book, Time magazine's Hugh Sidey characterized those of us at the USIA's worldwide TV operation as "a band of propaganda irregulars." But he believed we "deserve a bit of the credit for helping to push the Soviet Empire over the edge...The war of words and ideas was fierce and it sometimes got a little zany; the guys on our side understood it and played the game with their own quirks and imagination -and had some good laughs along the way." The USIA's Director, Charles Z. Wick, to whom I reported, was President Reagan's close friend and former neighbor from California. My TV operation, therefore, had the attention of the White House. The President took personal interest in what we were doing, and he pitched in himself to help make our product better. This web site provides highlights from "Warriors," plus some of my newpaper and magazine articles about international broadcasting and "public diplomacy," as we practiced it eyeball-to-eyeball against the Evil Empire. Today my public diplomacy articles can be found at http:/ on the webisite of the University of Southern California's Center on Public Diplomacy, where I am a Senior Fellow. My column, WorldCasting, appears each week. |
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