Nine Lives

This book describes how the U.S. Information Agency (USIA) conducted its varied media, cultural, and educational exchange programs in nine countries during the Cold War, through the eyes of a Foreign Service veteran. It depicts the excitement, frustrations, satisfactions-and sometimes glamour-of a career in the Foreign Service of the United States Information Agency (USIA). It describes how the U.S. government agency responsible for what is now called "public diplomacy" conducted its varied media, cultural, and educational exchange programs in nine countries during the Cold War. The author, a 32-year veteran of USIA, demonstrates how USIA operated at its headquarters in Washington and abroad, where it was known as the U.S. Information Service (USIS). When at overseas posts he describes both American and local personnel; some of USIA's achievements and, at times, the lack thereof; his professional relationships with embassy colleagues of the Department of State and other agencies; and addresses such unusual events as an earthquake in Mexico, a murder in Montevideo, coups d'état in Venezuela and Bolivia, and a civil war in the Dominican Republic.