COLLECTED BY
Organization: Internet Archive
Alvin Snyder, Author, Warriors of Disinformation
Worldnet International TV Studio, Washington, DC, site of U.S. government broadcasts during the Cold War
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.
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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 reach international TV viewers, especially those behind the Iron Curtain in Communist Eastern Europe, to promote US government policy objectives. It was an extraordinary adventure, and I wrote this book and newspaper articles about communicating during the Cold War with international publics while a Senior Fellow at the Annenberg Washington Program in Communications Policy Studies. 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 (who)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 and film operation, therefore, had the attention from the White House, right at the top. The President took personal interest in what we were doing, and pitched in himself to help make our product better. This web site provides highlights from "Warriors," plus some of my newspaper and magazine articles about international broadcasting and "public diplomacy," as we practiced it eyeball-to-eyeball against the "Evil Empire." Among many reviews, Asia Week said the book was "Surprisingly entertaining but in the end leaves the reader wondering if he is not being manipulated once again." I can assure that he (and she) are not. |
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