A Superpower's Soft Targets
Values and Voices
“Eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law.”
An executive order from the White House on March 14 mandated the dismantling of “elements of the Federal bureaucracy that the President has determined are unnecessary.”
I was particularly interested in the United States Agency for Global Media, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in the Smithsonian Institution. I knew their impact from experience.
Other institutions had already been targeted, reduced in size or stature, or closed altogether, including USAID; the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor; and the Department of Education.
These agencies were all in one way or another established to enhance the life and/or spirits of Americans and people around the globe, where the “indispensable nation” (as former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright called the United States) is meant to provide support and social services.
What they do not do is expand the autocratic powers of the executive or enrich moguls and his family, the priorities that are the focus of Donald Trump’s presidency. In effect, a firing squad has been established for the losing side in MAGA’s takeover of politics and how we live.
Is there a strategic vision for what has been happening, a gospel or creed, like Marxism or National Socialism (the scourges of the twentieth century), or protection of our democracy, the avowed objective of every president since Washington?)
No, all of this of is an amalgam of the instincts of one man and his relentless pursuit of retribution against those who underestimated him or laughed at him, because in so many ways he had been laughable. And if he thinks that what these agencies do is “unnecessary,” why should Americans pay for them?
(I should add that no matter how cleverly Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, John Oliver, et al., skewer him now, what he’s doing to the country is definitely not laughable, even if you think what he’s doing is right.)
I have to wonder how many of the 77 million Americans who voted for Trump in 2024 did so to crush the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, the Middle East Broadcasting Networks, or the Open Technology Fund.
To anyone who did vote for that reason: Congratulations, you have been successful.
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The “radios,” as they are collectively known — even though they are (or were) available in latter-day formats like video, podcasts, and the internet — began during World War II and continued into the Cold War. They expanded to other regions of particular importance as U.S. interests evolved.
I came to know them well during my time working in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and Washington. Because my stories in the Washington Post were translated and broadcast over the radios in Russian and other languages, correspondents like me were the “free press” in countries where there was none. (I described what that was like in this short piece.
The Voice of America by tradition was non-ideological, meaning that while it was an American voice, its programming avoided rhetoric and propaganda. For many years, ending in 2003, VOA’s most popular program was Willis Conover’s jazz hour, and jazz continued to be a mainstay. VOA correspondents, wherever I knew them, were excellent and bristled at the suggestion that because they were employees of a government agency, they were suspect in some way. (I was not a listener to the dozens of foreign language programs but was told that they maintained standards similar to the English-language ones.)
Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty were different. They were established specifically to broadcast to the countries behind the Iron Curtain. The staffs were primarily exiles or area specialists. After it was disclosed in 1967 that both stations were funded by the CIA, their resources came from congressional appropriations.
RFE/RL was also a research organization and produced reams of material — notably reliable — about the countries it covered.
Leadership of the radios tended to reflect the U.S. presidential administrations, as they came and went. Edward R. Murrow was director of what was then called the United States Information Agency and oversaw the VOA in the Kennedy years. I looked at the list of VOA and RFE/RL directors over the decades. A number were my friends, and I can vouch for their distinction in journalism.
The history of the radios has not always been smooth. Any institution dependent on government funding and the goodwill of politicians is at risk from changing moods and interests. In Trump’s first term, his emerging animus led to the appointment of a loyalist hack, who left in disgrace.
The executive order of March 14 eliminating soft government agencies is now being tested in litigation. The remnants of the radios are doing what they can. At least the United States has a court system. Russia and China, which maintain massive and slick global propaganda media, face no such obstacles. Doing away with values and voices means a much-diminished United States, here, there, and everywhere.
