Foreign Relations of the United States, 1977–1980, Volume XXX, Public Diplomacy

44. Memorandum From the Chief of the Research Review Staff, Office of Research, United States Information Agency (Halsema) to the Director (Reinhardt)¹

Washington, May 2, 1977

SUBJECT

• The Agency’s Electronic Future

In your staff meeting of April 12 you reiterated your interest in receiving directly the comments of Agency officers on USIA’s management and asked for imaginative program ideas. At the same meeting you also warned that if we should decide not to do something it should be a conscious decision. I am therefore sending you this memorandum as a personal communication because of my concern for our organization’s future. Its opinions are my own.

In my opinion we may be in the process of allowing time to foreclose our options in the field that is our life blood: communications. After years of hearing Buck Rogers-like² promises that may have lulled us into a false sense of complacency, communications technology applications are taking a quantum jump that can affect most of what we do.

The marriage of the speed and precision of the computer with the high capacity and quality of the communications satellite has made it possible for us to reach and to be reached by our establishments around the world instantly and accurately, freed from the vagaries of airplane schedules and ionospheric propagation conditions. Developments are taking place so rapidly that they have outrun the capacity of the regulators like the FCC to deal with them. Distinctions between modes of communication have been blurred by technological advances. The same broad band communications channel can be used alternatively or even simultaneously for the transmission in digital form of voice and music, photographs, television, teletype, computer data or facsimiles of letters and documents. The increasingly high power of communications satellites is making it possible to communicate directly via them to and from simple, low-cost ground stations which can be housed in an embassy communications room, eliminating ground links. The actual cost of communications should no longer be a function of distance.

Already the technology exists which would permit

—VOA to transmit its programs from Washington to its overseas relay stations without the use of costly U.S. transmitters and free from the vagaries of shortwave reception.

—VOA or IMV to transmit radio and color television programs directly to home or community receivers in any part of the world.

—IPS to transmit the Wireless File at 10 to 15 times its present rate, again without the errors or blackouts caused by dependence on shortwave transmission.

—IPS to edit its publications at the regional service centers from Washington without the weeks of delay caused by dependence on pouched galleys which limit the editorial content of our magazines.

—IMV to provide television stations with live color coverage of events in the U.S. and instantly service all USIS posts with copies of its programs.

—ICS and CU to conduct face-to-face electronic conferences between specialists in the U.S. and their counterparts abroad at reasonable cost.

—ICS to provide USIS libraries with reference materials that are really current and on any subject desired, based directly and immediately on the vast resources available here, in place of fast outdated book collections.

—IOR to obtain public opinion polling and other data from overseas contractors in immediately processable form for quick service to the U.S. foreign affairs community.

—The Agency to send and receive letters and other communications in facsimile form instead of using slow and unreliable pouches.

This is not to imply that Agency elements are not already taking an interest in some of these developments. VOA has contracted for satellite circuits to service its stations in California and Greece. IPS and IEU have plans to test the applicability of a computerized Wireless File transmission to USIS London which would permit retrieval of any item by the post. IOP is looking into providing the Agency with the optical scanning of telegrams already used by State and is examining electronic means of copy preparation and printing. IMV makes occasional use of satellite feeds to provide foreign TV networks with coverage of such occasions as presidential elections and inaugurations and visits of foreign chiefs of state. ICS uses overseas telephone lines for its electronic dialogues, and it is collaborating with the Agency Library in studying various data retrieval systems. And there may be other plans of which I am not aware.

But these efforts are individual and uncoordinated. None of them is part of an overall Agency effort to explore how we could most reliably and most cheaply establish the basic circuits between Washington and our establishments overseas which could carry all these communications—and much more. No single office or individual in USIA has the responsibility for the major initiatives that will be required if we are to take maximum advantage of recent breakthroughs in communications technology and avoid being outmoded by it. Agency elements are proceeding independently to poke and prod at various parts of the communications elephant, and naturally drawing different conclusions.

If this new technology is to be practical for USIA use it must be cost-effective. We cannot save money by adding to existing systems. We must be able to give up the old in order to pay for the new. We should not operate high power broadcast transmitter complexes in the U.S. to service overseas relay stations when their functions could be taken over by much smaller sideband transmitters or satellite circuits. We might reduce our great rental expense by reducing the size of USIS library reference sections in favor of servicing by data banks in Washington. Secure two-way conference calls could substitute for much of our present costly overseas travel. Air pouch costs could be slashed by providing posts and relay stations with high quality audio-visual materials and correspondence by videodisc³ and satellite instead of on film, tape and paper. I believe that we could make a convincing case to OMB and Congressional committees that judicious capital expenditures now would save funds later, or at least prevent costs from escalating at their present ruinous rate.

None of this is pie in the sky. The technology already exists and some of it already is being used. Last December a front page of the Washington Post was transmitted to Rome to demonstrate the feasibility of communications satellites for high-speed, overseas distribution of reproduction-quality proofs to printing plants far removed from the editorial office and composing room here. The Wall Street Journal has used such a system domestically for over a year to link two of its satellite printing plants to its editors and has two more going on stream. By 1980 Satellite Business Systems will be interconnecting customers from Alaska to Puerto Rico, using their own on-premises earth stations not only to replace existing voice and low-speed data circuits but also to provide intracompany mail services, extremely high speed data transfers, and teleconferences whose participants will see each other as they talk. Facsimile already is cutting so significantly into U.S. first class mail volumes that it is the subject of serious concern of the House postal operations and services subcommittee.

Time is an important element. Planning and policy decisions are being made which may foreclose some of our options. Over a year has passed since a task force recommended that the Agency immediately examine new possibilities for VOA transmissions, pointing to an increase in engineering costs which even then was threatening not only the Agency’s overall budget but the Voice’s own program resources. A USIA reorganization that separated VOA would remove the possibility of using the same technology to service both our radio and other Agency operations.

A variety of means exist or could be established to provide the circuits we would need. Commercial satellite circuits of course already exist and are used. These are relatively costly and their ground links in foreign countries are not under our control. It would be wise to at least attempt to negotiate for permission to operate our own receivers abroad. A major cost saving could come if the Agency were able to utilize completely U.S. Government-owned facilities. However, a major policy roadblock exists in the form of a group of rulings by the FCC, opinions of the OMB and Office of Telecommunications Policy which promote the use of commercial carriers. So far, only the military, and to some extent NASA, have succeeded in obtaining relief. However, these rulings are not immutable. Other agencies of the Federal Government with extensive overseas communications requirements have a stake in undertaking the determined and sustained effort that would be necessary to change the situation. There already are indications of a desire for modification. Abbott Washburn, for instance, has insisted that the FCC review its 1966 ruling on the subject.

Meanwhile the Agency seems to be doing nothing while the Department of Defense prepares to launch its second generation Defense Communications Satellites (DSCS.II) beginning in October and plans the configuration of its third series for use in the early 1980s. This year also will see the launch of the global Navy and Air Force FltSatCom system, which will further add to DOD capabilities. Two foreign affairs agencies have for some time been working out the policy problems of their Skylink system. The House Interstate Foreign Commerce communications subcommittee and its Senate counterpart are holding hearings which may lead to a complete revision of the Federal Communications Act.⁴ Howard Chernoff is advising the House subcommittee chairman but I have not heard of any USIA intention to ensure that our interests are protected and advanced in that forum. The U.S. position in the January 1979 World Administrative Radio Conference which may prove crucial to the future of international broadcasting is being established without top-level Agency attention.

You already are or soon will be receiving requests for new equipment from various parts of the Agency. These requests will be based on the parochial needs of the elements concerned. In many cases these needs will have been determined in purely technical terms, without regard to broad Agency requirements and in some instances without even a complete knowledge of the full range of technical developments either in being or imminent. I have a vivid memory of the strong assurances given to us by engineers only a little more than a year ago that the direct satellite broadcast of television to home receivers would be impossible for at least a decade. One of the speakers at the recent Georgetown conference on DBS which you attended implied that the cost and complexity of receiving and conversion equipment would make DBS impractical. Yet even as you read this it is possible to see color TV transmitted from Cleveland, Ohio via satellite to the FCC headquarters on M Street, where it is received on an ordinary set fed by an antenna and converter which the Japanese and Canadians expect to be able to produce for $100 or less.

I urge that you factor into your examination of the most effective reorganization of USIA the problem of how best to get the informed, impartial advice that you and the Agency as a whole should have on its communications for the 1980s—which are only two and a half years away.

1. Source: National Archives, RG 306, Office of the Director, Executive Secretariat, Secretariat Staff, Correspondence Files, 1973–1980, Entry P–104, Box 119, 7701380–7701389. No classification marking. Reinhardt and Fraser initialed the memorandum, indicating that they saw it.
2. Reference is to the fictional character, introduced during the 1920s, known for his space exploration exploits.
3. One 12-inch videodisc costing under a dollar, weighing three ounces will carry the same information as 1,200 feet of 1/2” videotape, 675 80-slide carousel trays or 30 large textbooks—54,000 pages. [Footnote is in the original.]
4. Reference is presumably to the Communications Act of 1934 (P.L. 416), which replaced the Federal Radio Commission with the Federal Communications Commission.