This book has told a complex story spread across a forty-six-year span. Stepping back from the details of the year-by-year development, it is worth reconsidering the whole in search of the broader patterns of narrative, the big geographic sweep of USIA history, and the lessons that may be derived for those who practice public diplomacy today.

FIVE TRAJECTORIES

The preface to this work identified five core elements of public diplomacy – listening, advocacy, cultural diplomacy, exchange diplomacy, and international broadcasting. Each has – to a greater or lesser extent – been woven into the fabric of this history, but considered in isolation the individual trajectory of each is instructive.

The USIA and listening

The core of the USIA's engagement with world opinion was its network of posts in the field, which continually fed back evidence and assessments of the international mood into the agency system. The USIA's career as a listening agency was further advanced at the time of its foundation by the appointment of Henry Loomis as special assistant to the director. Late in 1954, Loomis founded the USIA's Office of Research and Intelligence. The ORI's specialized research and public opinion analysis reports informed the agency's engagement with the key issues of the day and were of considerable use in alerting the wider administration to the scale of particular problems.