The Smith-Mundt Act

• Smith-Mundt Act: Facts, Myths & Recommendations
• Report on the 2009 Smith-Mundt Symposium
• Additional Resources, Recommended Reading
• US Law
• Key Dates for the Smith-Mundt Bill

Smith-Mundt Act: Facts, Myths, and Recommendations

This 3-page report (PDF, 202kb) was written at the request of and for a specific audience. It is not intended to be an all-encompassing analysis of the Smith-Mundt Act but rather a high-level fact sheet to correct misinformation about the purpose of the Act and intentions of the 80th Congress that passed and the intentions of two Senators who, in 1972 and 1985, dramatically changed the function and perception of the Act.

2009 Smith-Mundt Symposium

The Final Report on the 2009 Smith-Mundt Symposium is a 23-page PDF (442kb) summary of the discussions at the landmark 2009 Smith-Mundt Symposium.

The subtitle of the event - "A Discourse to Shape America's Discourse" - hinted at the Symposium's real purpose. Taking place a week before the Obama Administration came in and just short of the sixty‐first anniversary of the Act, this one‐day event was intended to fuel an emerging discourse inside and outside of Government on the purpose and structure of public diplomacy.

The January 13, 2009, symposium was attended by nearly two hundred. Held the Reserve Officers Association on Capitol Hill, the symposium was a frank and on the record discussion among a diverse group of stakeholders, practitioners, and observers from Congress, the Departments of State, Defense, and Homeland Security, and outside of government, many of whom never had a reason to be in the same room with one another before, to discuss public diplomacy, strategic communication, or whatever their particular "tribe" calls information and perception warfare.

Transcripts, audio, and panelist bios are available at the event's website.

Additional Reading

• Rethinking Smith-Mundt (interim draft) (PDF 140kb)
• Smith-Mundt Act: A Legislative History - 1953 (PDF 5mb)
• Post on 1948 Brookings report: Overseas Information Service
• "Cooper Criticizes 'Voice of America'; It Is Impotent, He Says at Medill School Jubilee, Speaking Not as AP Chief" (May 27, 1947), The New York Times.
• "Benton Questions Attack by Cooper: Replies in Detail to Criticism of Voice of America Made by Associated Press Chief" (June 15, 1947), The New York Times.

US Law

• v|lex
  • Section 1461
  • Section 1461-1a
• Cornell
  • Section 1461
  • Section 1461-1a

Key Dates for the Smith-Mundt Bill

• October 1945 - Bloom Bill introduced in Committee to disseminate information abroad and fund "interchange" of students, teachers, specialists
• December 1945 - Bloom Bill comes out of Committee
• January 1946 - AP tells Voice of America and the State Department that it will no longer permit VOA to rebroadcast its wire stories claiming AP will be tainted by stigma of being a government propaganda tool (State Department and other newspaper editors later point out that AP fails to harbor similar qualms when selling to TASS or other foreign government news operations)
• Feb 1946 - US Ambassador to Russia declares "the Russians declared psychological war on the US, all over the world... a war of ideology and a fight unto the death."
• July 20, 1946 - Bloom Bill passes the House after amendment requiring maximal use of private resources
• Aug 1, 1946 - Amendment to Surplus Property Act of 1944 passed, funds Sen. Fulbright's exchange programs
• Aug 2, 1946 - Bloom Bill blocked in Senate by lone Senator, Sen. Taft, who never gives a reason
• August 2, 1946 was the last day of the session. Earlier, the Congress rejected the State Department's request for $19 million for 1947 programming that would today be considered public diplomacy. Congress instead authorized $10 million while publically complaining about "loafers, incompetents" and "drones" at State.
• March 1947 - State Department formally asks for legislation to empower and make permanent its global public affairs operations
• May 1947 - Smith-Mundt Bill introduced, it is largely the same as the Bloom Bill
• June 5, 1947 - Secretary of State George C. Marshall gives a "routine commencement speech" at Harvard that would launch the Marshall Plan
• Sep/Oct 1947 - Congressional Delegation to Europe encounters dramatic propaganda from the Communists without little to no defense or response from the US
• December 1947 - House passes the Smith-Mundt Bill
• January 1948 - Senate passes the Smith-Mundt Bill
• January 27, 1948 - President Harry S Truman signs the Smith-Mundt Act