Comments by Ken Yates, Senior Vice President, Jefferson Waterman International, regarding "Avatar" and Public Diplomacy

[Editorial note: Links and bracketed item added by JB]


John, as a fellow retired FSO [Foreign Service officer] who spent over three decades in USIA I found your drawing of parallels between the film "Avatar" and the communication process I was familiar with as unsettling.

I had no real interest in seeing the film, and any curiosity I might have had died after reading your description. However, I realized that I must take issue with your characterization of the communication process USIA was conducting and the objectives we pursued by that work.

Perhaps a bit of a recount of personal experience can illustrate my misgivings. My first assignment was in the southwestern part of South Korea at a one-man branch that served as the principal point of contact with a large region of South Korea. The USIS [United States Information Service, as USIA was named overseas] Cultural Center was the only Embassy contact point for two provinces in Korea and served as a lightning rod for opinions of the Korean intellectual community and a focus for both positive and negative expressions of opinion on US policy. People who took the trouble to come to the center, participate in programs and speak out on issues of concern to them did so with a full awareness that they were being heard by an officer of the American Government. Much of their intent was specifically to have their voice heard by an American official and have their views communicated into the diplomatic process between our countries. They took pride in that ability and in the presence of an appendage of the American Embassy in their community. It was a sort of recognition that their opinions counted.

"Intel" in the sense of clandestine activity done to gain some sort of edge of understanding in a competitive environment was not an objective. Each quarter the four BPAOs [Branch Public Affairs officers] from around Korea would travel to Seoul to meet with the Ambassador and recount what was being talked about and sometimes who was doing the talking, but the purpose was to understand the context of the environment in Korea and, hopefully, improve our ability to communicate. As BPAOs, we knew that what we collectively reported often made its way into the regular reporting the Ambassador made through channels, sometimes confirming what he had gleaned from other sources and sometimes at variance with what others had told him. It was part of the larger assessment of the setting for the exercise of US policy in Korea.

"Humint" in military parlance, in its broadest interpretation, would approximate what we were involved in, but the purposes it was devoted to were very different. "Humint" for the military is to expand their understanding of the battlefield - or potential battlefield and to reach an understanding of the broader sentiment of the community it exists in. It defines a major component of the environment that a fighting force will have to confront in situations of violence. For USIS, however, its purpose was to develop awareness of the issues that were paramount among the audiences we were trying to reach and thereby improve our ability to address those issues and efficiently meet the needs of the environment in which we worked.

Not all observers appreciated the process. When I served first in Korea, we were embroiled in a controversial war in Vietnam. Our Peace Corps Volunteers also serving in Korea brought with them images of officialdom from the street in the US and sometimes did real damage because of negative impressions of US policy they communicated to Koreans they met and worked with. Specifically, they were spreading the fiction that USIS operations were somehow connected to the clandestine operations of the CIA. Such innocent misinformation threatened serious harm to our programming efforts and the channels of communication we worked so hard to create and husband.

At one point, PCVs were called together and given a "Dutch uncle" talk by Embassy officers to set them straight and give a warning that any Volunteers who would not accept a true understanding of the function and purpose of the USIS Cultural Centers would be politely, but firmly, invited to return home. That effectively ended the problem, albeit with some grumbling from Volunteers who had difficulty believing that Embassy officials were not just a part of a despised conspiracy and a hated war.

Later in other assignments, most notably in the PRC, the separation of "intel" activities of the CIA and overt communication by USIS centers and programs had to be kept distinctly separate, particularly because of the super-heated issues of the moment. At a time just after the Tiananmen incident in Beijing when separations between Americans and Chinese were most pronounced, one of the few places where Chinese and Americans could mix was in USIS programs at the American Center. CIA officers hungry for Chinese contacts were specifically excluded from mixing in with audiences at the Centers because of the possibility of destroying the very fragile relationship that had to be rebuilt with internationalist Chinese who sought an improvement in Chinese-US relations. That clearly defined separation was the source of some hard feelings within the American community, but was maintained nonetheless. It was a good policy.

A following tour for me as USIA Advisor to the Pacific Command in Hawaii provided a front row view of the military requirement for "Humint" at some variance with the familiar USIS variety. Much earlier experience as a GI in Japan with the Army Security Agency afforded a bit of background in "Elint" as a comparison. The military has a well defined need for intelligence and "psyops" that allow an edge in military confrontations. However, it is for different purposes and is collected using different methods. This difference is currently at the root of the dilemma that confronts us in Afghanistan and in a varying degree in Iraq. Yet, the difference is sometimes lost in the dialogue of debate over winning the "hearts and minds" of people within the area of combat.

Perhaps my fundamental concern about the gloss of media such as "Avatar" lies in that difference. More than ever we have to distinguish among the separate purposes and methods of "Intel" aimed at improving communication and understanding and "Intel" with the purpose of more efficient military or security operations. There is unquestionably some conceptual and real overlap, but because the purposes and goals of the two must be kept separate, the admixture of "Avatar" cannot but add to the confusion.

Therefore, I guess I will not be buying a ticket for that film, although I guess that the special effects alone might by worth the price, "senior" discount or not.

Regards,

Ken

Ken Yates
Senior Vice President
Jefferson Waterman International
1401 K Street NW, Suite 400
Washington, DC 20005