President Eisenhower took office with an unequivocal pledge to wage the Cold War. “Freedom,” he declared in his inaugural address, “is pitted against slavery, lightness against the dark.” Although he soon backed away from early talk of actually liberating the Communist bloc, Eisenhower worked consistently to reinvigorate U.S. information. As a soldier he had learned the value of the psychological dimension of power – “the P-factor” as he called it – on the battlefield. As President he promptly launched two inquiries into U.S. information overseas: the President's Committee on International Information Activities, chaired by William H. Jackson, and the President's Advisory Committee on Government Organization, chaired by Nelson Rockefeller. Meanwhile, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee continued its investigation of information initiated by Benton and chaired by Fulbright under the new chairmanship of Bourke Hickenlooper (R-IA). The net result of these three committees would be the creation of the United States Information Agency in August 1953.

The idea that information needed an independent agency came from three key sources: Eisenhower's adviser on matters of propaganda, C. D. Jackson; Nelson Rockefeller; and the new Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles.