Propaganda, Inc:
Selling America's Culture to the World

by Nancy Snow
Foreword by Herbert I. Schiller
Introduction by Michael Parenti

fter participating as a graduate student in a Presidential intern program in the early nineties, Nancy Snow took a job with the US Information Agency (USIA), an organization set up near the beginning of the cold war era "to promote a better understanding of the United States in other countries, and to increase mutual understanding" (in the words of the congressional act which established it).

Snow, however, based on her several years work for it, would define the agency as "a public relations instrument of corporate propaganda which 'sells' America's story abroad by integrating business interests with cultural objectives." In this small book she details the USIA's transformation in the Clinton era from a cold war anticommunist orientation into its role as an instrument for the promotion of American big business interests overseas—one part of the change in the culture of the federal foreign affairs bureaucracy "from one steeped in a political-military tradition to one driven by economic and commercial engagement."

USIA Director Joseph Duffey (appointed in 1993 and formerly president of American University), is the husband of Anne Wexler, who heads the powerful Washington lobbying firm which represented the pro-NAFTA coalition of Fortune 500 companies known as USA*NAFTA, and which later represented another big business coalition in support of Clinton's push for fast-track trade authority in 1997. Their marriage was a fitting symbol of the underlying meaning of the "public-private partnerships" promoted by the Clinton administration as the USIA also worked hard to promote NAFTA.

The fact that the USIA has functioned as a propaganda agency is well brought out by Snow, but a curious ambivalence lurks within her analysis, probably the result of her own idealistic hopes as she joined the agency. Alongside her analysis of the role and function which the USIA has had are some scattered wistful sentiments citing the educational exchange programs and the mutual-understanding-between-peoples language of the law which established the USIA. Such hopes hardly seem congruent with her delineation of the way in which the agency has actually functioned. It's less illusory, I'd think, to see such expressions as an oratorical smokescreen than as a sign of original purpose which has since been lost.

The question of realizing such "mutual understanding" goals is moot in this particular case, as the USIA was abolished in 1999 (a move already in the wind when Propaganda, Inc. was published, and mentioned by Snow). But understanding its historical role remains important, as does the question of what it is realistic to hope for from such governmental agencies, given our understanding of their function historically.

Snow ends her pamphlet with a "7-point plan for a citizen-based diplomacy," which includes points such as "restoring the body politic," emphasizing people and progress (not markets and growth), redignifying work and labor, etc. Who could disagree? Not me, certainly—and probably not a lot of Democratic candidates on the campaign trail, either. (Compare Clinton in 1990—and he was by no means the most populist of the Democratic candidates—with his actual policies in office.)

Which points to the problem: the ideals articulated by Snow, agreeable as they may be, by no means constitute a plan. We can and should debate the shape of the ideal society, but what's more desperately needed is analysis and understanding of the powers ranged against the great majority of the people here and internationally, and strategies and tactics for winning power for the people.

Reviewed by John Stevenson
09.10.01

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