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“The Kitchen Debate” in Retrospect

By Patricia H. Kushlis

On July 24, 1959, exactly fifty years ago this month, a dispute took place between then Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and US Vice President Richard Nixon not only in the model kitchen at the first US cultural exhibition in the Soviet Union but also in front of some 125 journalists who accompanied them – notepads open, pens scribbling away. It was truly a 1959s kitchen – or actually two halves of a standard, tract-home American kitchen cut down the middle by a path for viewers to walk along – and it was part of the US National Exhibition, a much larger display of Americana and America at the time.

There’s a transcript of the debate on the Teaching American History website which is certainly worth reading – but Hans Tuch, then American Embassy Press Attache who accompanied Nixon, Herbert Klein, the president’s press secretary, and the journalists covering that infamous exhibition walk-through recently wrote – to his knowledge no official transcript was kept, tape recording made or filed. So whatever transcripts are available on Teaching American History or elsewhere, they are likely patched together accounts of the dust-up over the dishwasher as reported by various news sources including and especially The New York Times. The best first person account of the event I’ve read thus far is in Tuch’s recent book Arias, Cabalettas and Foreign Affairs but feel free to suggest others in the comments section below.

Please get the location right

There’s another small problem with the transcript on the Teaching American History site and that is the argument did not occur at the US Embassy Moscow despite the transcript’s subtitle. Rather, the Exhibition was held across town at Sokolniki Park in Moscow’s northeast.

Yet the importance of this exhibition was neither its location nor what brought it the sensational headlines in the western media: that famous verbal clash between Nixon and Khrushchev amongst the pots and pans.

Obama in Cairo

By: Bill Stewart

President Barack Obama delivered an historic speech in Cairo this week. His talk to the Muslim world was one he promised to give during the presidential campaign. He made good on that promise with an address no other American president in living memory could have made. George Bush had neither the intellectual equipment nor the inclination to give such a talk. Bill Clinton could empathize with his fellow Americans but not with the world's Muslims. George H.W. Bush, along with his Secretary of State James Baker, had a far better understanding of the Middle East than did the second President Bush, but like his son, the father was simply ill equipped to deliver an inclusive, historical round-up of American-Muslim relations.

The fact the speech was made in the first place is extraordinary. As in dealing with the economic and financial crises, he pulled no punches and went straight to the source. Cairo is the religious and intellectual heart not only of the Arab world, but of Islam world-wide. If Obama were to address the Muslim world, this was the place to do it. So far, his foreign policy, like his domestic policies, is a high-wire act of exceptional daring. At times, as with his Cairo speech, we can only hold our breath.

He didn't have to give this speech; it was a self-appointed challenge. In my view, he more than met it. This was not a talk about specific policies, though he did not flinch from addressing specific problems, especially the mother of all Middle Eastern challenges, the Israeli-Palestinian struggle. He met it head-on, just as he did those of Afghanistan, Iraq and democratic values as we understand those values, including the evolving role of women in the Muslim world.

What he did was to set those problems in the wider context of changing American-Muslim relations, going back to Morocco's recognition of the fledgling American republic in the late 18th century. He also has an enormous cosmetic and cultural advantage. Obama looks like the man in the street in Cairo, a factor the Egyptians clearly appreciate. While Obama forthrightly identified himself as a Christian ( the Egyptian Copts are an ancient Christian community), he is also a son of Islam, as he reminded his audience about his father's Muslim family in Kenya and his own childhood years in Muslim Indonesia. Then too, he quoted from "the Holy Koran," a phrasing that won applause from his audience, putting the Koran on an equal footing with the Holy Bible (both Jewish and Christian) as well as the Jewish Talmud. That is both smart and deft. He knew his audience. Obama also used a few Arabic phrases as well as saying "Blessed be his name," when referring to the Prophet Mohammed. That shows a cultural awareness that few world leaders can boast.

Obama came right to the point when discussing Israel, Israel's right to exist and the Palestinian's right to their own state side by side with Israel. This is dangerous territory for an American in Cairo; I know it from my own experience in working for years in the Middle East, both in Beirut and in Jerusalem. But the issue cannot be avoided, and it must be dealt with directly. This was the whole point of his coming to Cairo, and mercifully he did not shrink from the task. He spoke about America's strong bond with Israel, about Israel's right to exist and about the long suffering of the Jewish people culminating in the Holocaust, a tragedy beyond tears. He condemned those who denied the Holocaust, and he condemned the denial in Cairo. That cuts close to the bone in that citadel of Muslim values. His condemnation was met with silence. But he was met with applause when he spoke of Palestinian suffering, of the need for a Palestinian state, and of the illegitimacy of Jewish settlements on the occupied West Bank. This was even-handedness of a kind we have rarely - if ever - heard from an American president. It is essential, and it is long overdue.

Israel has already let it be known that in its view, Obama is violating previous verbal agreements with the US over settlement activity. This ignores Israel's violations of written agreements, including the roadmap to peace, reached with the Bush administration over settlement activity, violations winked at by the Bush White House. No more. Those cozy days seem to be over, and while this might be unsettling for the present Israeli government and its many supporters in the US Congress, it is a clear sign that Obama means business, and that is good for the hopes of any future agreement. If we are to condemn the Palestinians for the use of violence - and we are right to do so - then we must also condemn Israel's illegal use of force in the occupied West Bank, including settlement activity, which is one of the underlying reasons for Arab violence in the first place. Those who have misgivings about the Palestinians should note that the need for a Palestinian state has the moral equivalency of that for a Jewish state.

The speech in Cairo was historic for its daring. Obama took the quest for peace to the Arab and Muslim heartland in an effort to change attitudes and outlook. We won't know the results for sometime, but it was an impressive attempt.

Prologue or First Act? Obama's speech to the Muslim world

By Patricia H. Kushlis

On The News Hour Friday evening,Washington Post writer Ruth Marcus characterized President Obama’s June 4 speech in Cairo as a prologue. Earlier that day FT columnist Roula Khalaf described it as “turning the page” on the last eight years when Bush’s “war on terror” was seen by Muslims as a war on Islam.

Giles Kepel, France’s best known specialist on the Islamic world, told an interviewer in Le Monde not just that “Barack Obama has made Islam an American religion” but that also the objective of his speech . . . was to change the perception of the United States.

But could Obama’s speech have been little more than empty rhetoric – as some critics on the left and right charge? Did it amount to a sellout of Israel – as the Greater Israel crowd scream? Will it result in no significant changes in US policies towards the Middle East and in public sentiment among Muslims and others towards the US? Will it have no impact on the people - as a commenter on an earlier post of mine about Obama’s April visit to Turkey claimed – with no data to support that contention, I might add? Is it one apology after another – as certain Republicans – grasping at straws – have chosen to paint Obama’s foreign policy initiatives?

COMMANDER IN CHIEF

By: Bill Stewart

One of the main Republican fears during last year's presidential campaign was that Barrack Obama simply was not ready to be Commander on Chief. He lacked vital experience. Even Hillary Clinton, Obama's chief Democratic rival, bought into that view with her famous who do you want answering the White House phone at three o'clock in the morning question? Actually, no president answers the White House phone at three o'clock in the morning, that's why there's a switchboard. But that's another matter.

This week, President Obama should have laid those fears to rest with his national security speech in the National Archives building in Washington. It was measured; it was detailed and it was forceful. None of that means he is right, but it does mean he is in command. No president is ever fully prepared for the job, especially when it comes to matters of national defense. National security is simply too complex to be learned on the road during a presidential campaign. Security threats and the intelligence that surrounds them are constantly changing, requiring daily briefings in which previous assumptions need to be reevaluated. That means the ability - and the courage - to change one's mind, if need be. An inflexible mind signifies an ideologue, the last kind of person we need in command. What matters most is good judgment, which means not only the readiness to listen to the experts but the maturity needed to sift through the evidence and make the right choice. Even so, a president doesn't always make the right choice. But the lack of those factors will guarantee that a president makes the wrong choice.

One of President Obama's first acts in office was to declare that he would close down the Guantanamo Bay prison by the end of the year. "Gitmo" had earned the world's opprobrium with allegations of prisoner mistreatment and the questionable legality under which many of the prisoners were held. During his national security speech, Obama repeated his view that the detention of prisoners at Guantanamo, and the use there and elsewhere of "enhanced interrogation techniques," i.e., torture, had harmed our security rather than strengthened it. Following the speech, former Vice President Dick Cheney vigorously defended "Gitmo" and the use of those "enhanced interrogation techniques" as having helped to prevent further terror attacks against the US, and that Obama's actions were undermining US security.

The most troublesome problem of closing Guantanamo Bay is where does the US then put the 240 detainees currently imprisoned at the facility? The US Senate this week voted 90 to 6 to cut from a war-spending bill $80 million Obama had requested to close "Gitmo." Democrats joined Republicans in this act of political and moral spinelessness. No senator wanted it on the record that he - or she - had voted to have suspected terrorists moved to a maximum security prison in the continental US, on the assumption, presumably, that their presence in the US would increase the threat to our national security. It was a charge raised again by the former vice president. This, despite the fact that no one has ever escaped from a maximum security prison. Obama's plan was not helped by a Pentagon report revealing that one out of seven of the 534 prisoners already transferred abroad from Guantanamo had returned to terrorist or militant activity. No doubt the issue will be resolved before the end of the year. But where leadership was called for in the matter of bringing the whole "Gitmo" issue to a close, the US Senate this week failed miserably.

Surrounded by the US Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, each a cherished symbol and a potent instrument of a nation of laws, Obama stressed that in the struggle against terrorism, we must remain true to both. He said that each of the remaining 240 prisoners was being reexamined by his administration. Some could be tried in US civilian courts. Those who violated the rules of war would face revamped military commissions, a decision that has dismayed liberal activists who say Obama is reneging on a campaign pledge to abolish the commissions. Some could be released while still others could be safely transferred to other countries, a procedure that so far has met with limited success.

The most difficult category of prisoners are those who cannot be prosecuted for one reason or another but who clearly present a threat to US security. These are the ones Obama is proposing to transfer to maximum security prisons in the US. Who else is going to take them? The tooth fairy? It's time to get real, something the US Senate so far is not prepared to do.

President Obama is finally getting into his role as commander in chief. It isn't an easy one, and he has already soured some of his support among liberal activists in the Democratic party. What is clear is that Obama is no radical. He is prepared to break new ground, but look at his closest national security advisors: Secretary of Defense Bob Gates, a seasoned hold-over from the Bush administration; National Security Advisor James L. Jones, a retired marine general; Hillary Clinton, steeped in national defense issues, and Vice President Joe Biden, a frequent visitor to US battlefields as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. They are sturdy supporters of the foreign policy establishment. And so is Barack Obama, even as he seeks to take a new approach.

Obama’s Speech to the Muslim World

By Patricia H. Kushlis

On June 4, 2009 President Barack Obama is slated to address the Islamic world from Cairo. The contours of that speech are likely to be being discussed, debated, written and rewritten as I post this even though the final draft is unlikely to have yet approached the finish line.

The speech should set the course this administration hopes to take in its dealings with the some 1.3 billion or more Muslims many of whom live - like the Egyptians - in countries that straddle the equator.

Certain individuals – particularly western human rights firsters – have criticized the administration for choosing Cairo as the location for the speech. They point to Hosni Mubarak’s authoritarian regime in power since 1981 and its suppression of the political opposition arguing that Obama’s speech would better be delivered from Turkey or Indonesia, two moderate Sunni majority nations with multi-party democratic governments. Or even Malaysia, Indonesia’s neighbor to the northeast.

Detroit on the Potomac

By Patricia H. Kushlis

In a provocative Op Ed in The New York Times on April 27, 2009, Mark Taylor, Columbia University religion department chair, likened American graduate school education to Detroit. In the piece, he argued that “most graduate programs in American universities produce a product for which there is no market.”

All too true in far too many cases.

Or the product simply does not have the skills needed to fulfill the realities of the market. Nevertheless, the student is too often encouraged by the graduate department or by his or her own wishful thinking to think otherwise.

Unless, of course, the graduate student wants to become a university professor and continue the tradition of writing articles couched in obscure jargon for publication in obscure journals that few practitioners read because they are unreadable and irrelevant in the real world. This at least is what I’ve observed over the years in the fields of political science and international relations. It’s the rare professor who has spent his or her entire life in academia who is capable of bridging the gap between theory and practice. This role is increasingly left to think-tanks and their versions of highly politicized policy studies where those out of government seek refuge until they can return to government once more.

The same problem is emerging in the newly minted “field” of public diplomacy – a hybrid “discipline” that draws upon the social sciences, journalism, foreign language and cultural expertise. Public diplomacy is foremost a skill, like it or not, that is most effectively learned from practitioners and best acquired on the job.

Elbow grease - not theorizing - is the key

David Brooks pointed out in a recent New York Times column that much of what is called intelligence or genius is, in reality, grounded in the hard work of practice. For Jane Austen fans, remember when Elizabeth Bennett in Pride and Prejudice observed that she would be far more proficient at the piano if she practiced more? More practice with an experienced teacher, I’m sure, would also make me a better oboist, skier, photographer and writer.

To cede public diplomacy training to the theoreticians is not only a disservice to students but a vacuous undertaking that does not serve the country well.

The dilemma

Yale Richmond’s From Nyet to Da (4th edition), Book Review Essay

By Patricia H. Kushlis

It’s good to see that Yale Richmond’s book From Nyet to Da: Understanding the New Russia has recently been released in its updated fourth edition. This book, first published in 1992, was designed as a practical guide for Americans interested in conducting business with the newly created Russian Federation as well as other parts of the Former Soviet Union.

What has kept From Nyet to Da from descending into obscurity is that it retains much of its original usefulness. First, not only was it written by a well respected practitioner who spent a substantial part of his US professional career as a negotiator on cultural and educational affairs with the then Soviet Union and learned firsthand how to reach agreement with the Soviets but also because the advice it contains is just plain useful for various kinds of US-Russian negotiations. Moreover, the book is written for the lay person with an interest in Russia as well as the first time negotiator who needs to make use of the advice immediately if not sooner.

Understanding Cultural Differences Is Imperative

What Richmond does best is to 1) explain the importance of understanding cultural and historical differences and nuances when negotiating with Russians; 2) describe these differences by comparing and contrasting American and Russian cultures highlighting how our respective cultures influence our respective negotiating behaviors – so this book should be useful to Russians interested in dealing with Americans too; and 3) provide practical suggestions for reaching successful outcomes.

Along the way, Richmond includes real life vignettes as well as updated data on Russian economic, demographic, geographical, political, legal and social conditions to help provide needed context for the negotiator.

When in Moscow, speaking the vernacular helps

I completely agree with Richmond when he describes the importance of speaking and understanding Russian when negotiating in the country – or the rest of the CIS. It does matter to the outcome. When in Rome, as the old adage goes, do as the Romans do – and speaking the language is a major part of the story. Language study is not just learning and stringing words, phrases and sentences together. Languages are loaded with subtle and not-so-subtle cultural meanings that are crucial for understanding how others think and live.

It’s a sad commentary on American education that the number of American students of Russian has continued to decline since the end of the Cold War. This problem, however, is not just a lack of interest on the part of American youth, rather I think it is more closely related to the downturn in US government funding for programs on and research about this huge part of the globe.

A point of disagreement

Where Richmond and I disagree, however, is with his observation that small talk is necessary to precede successful negotiations with Russians. Even in 1978-80 when everything I did as educational exchanges officer in Moscow involved some level of negotiation – from helping our exchangees get approval for study trips outside of Moscow to participating in the educational exchanges subgroup of the 1979 US-USSR Cultural Agreement negotiations as a member of Richmond’s team. I did not, however, encounter the need – or even the interest – in small talk on the part of the Soviet government officials with whom I dealt.

Whereas, I certainly found the need to speak and understand Russian. This was the language in which we conducted business face-to-face and also by telephone. Even after ten months of intensive training at the State Department’s Foreign Service Institute, it still took several more months in Moscow for me to bring my skills up to a comfortable level of communication.

This is not to say that I disagree with Richmond when he advises first time visitors to Moscow, for instance, to arrive with names and contact information of trusted Russians to meet or to take the opportunity to see as much as possible of the “real” Russia. These are excellent ideas even though, as he points out, personal safety has become a far greater consideration than in earlier days. Yet in the end, it’s those unique personal experiences which mean exploration well beyond the hotel, dorm room or apartment that make it the fascinating country that it remains.

Yale Richmond, From Nyet to Da: Understanding the New Russia, 4th edition, Intercultural Press, 2009.

WhirledView review of Yale Richmond’s Practicing Public Diplomacy: A Cold War Odyssey. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2008.

The Good, the Bad and the Questionable

By Patricia H. Kushlis

The Pentagon announced earlier this week that it had disbanded its office of public diplomacy – the successor to Rumsfeld’s controversial Office of Strategic Influence which was officially “closed” – for excellent reasons - due to Congressional pressure shortly after it was opened.

Hopefully, the Obama administration understands – unlike W – that the US military should never again be the preeminent face of America abroad – even in wartime. Leading with the tanks – even pictures of tanks and other warfare paraphernalia – does not win friends or positively influence most foreigners. On the contrary, it angers and frightens them away.

Psyops and public diplomacy are poles apart

Likewise, the Pentagon should not be charged with leading or coordinating US information programs overseas. This sends the wrong signals – besides, the Pentagon doesn’t do it all that well despite its oversized budget and far superior Internet skills. Military Psyops campaigns and public diplomacy should never be mixed but I question whether the military leadership really understands this.

Moreover, I’ve never been convinced that Psyops belongs in the US government’s information tool box at all. If nothing more than the problems encountered because of a far too large potential for blow-back of concocted stories into the US media. This is compounded in the Internet Age. Not only can it mislead the American public but it can also negatively impact foreign policy decision-making as well.

For that matter, the Obama administration should review the overall efficacy of US Psyops - particularly in countries where the media especially the print media – is not read, viewed or listened to or considered a trusted source of information. Rather from what I understand, these are countries where word of mouth still often carries the day. I would also argue that radio – not television or the Internet – reaches far more people than any other mass communication tool available in many parts of the world.

More questions than answers raised

The Pentagon’s announcement of its public diplomacy office closure raises far more questions than the New York Times report answers. This is also compounded by the White House’s April 14 announcement of the nomination of Judith McHale to be the latest Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy at State.

Iran and the Perils of Impatience

By Patricia Lee Sharpe

A waved olive branch isn’t a magic wand.  When U.S. President Barack Obama delivered a live televised Nowruz or New  Year's greeting to Iran a little while ago, his message was received with scepticism by the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is reported to have dismissed it as “sloganeering.”

The Iranian response, in turn, was noted with dismay back home and in Europe.  Rejection!  How awful!  A humiliating mistake. A futile gesture.

Another Perspective

I wonder.  What if the shoe had been on the other foot?  What if we Americans had suddenly received an unusually friendly New Year’s message from a virtually unknown incoming Iranian President? Wouldn’t the reception have been cautious, even cynical, as in What’s this guy up to?  Wouldn’t American leaders, similarly, have said, Hey! actions speak louder than words?  And wouldn’t we, too, have sniffed that one little old speech doesn’t make up for decades of villainy, that one swallow doesn’t make a summer?

There’s another reason why it was utterly unrealistic to expect an instant We love America reaction, much less a We’ll do whatever you want.  It would be unseemly, undignified.   Iran would appear too eager to please.  Most countries don’t like to look needy.  Even a positive response is likely to be measured, even disguised,  and not too quick in the coming.

On a more practical level, immediate acquiescence would empty the shop before the negotiations began. This would have been foolish in the extreme.  Iran aspires to participate in world affairs as a respect-worthy regional power, a status that has been denied much too long, from the Iranian point of view.

What’s more, as the Arab News noted,

...Obama has not ruled out military action if Iran does not comply with UN standards for transparency over its nuclear program.  Nor did Obama take the opportunity to resile [sic] from the crass Bush characterization of Iran as being part of the “Axis of Evil."  He also demonstrated the blinkered superpower approach to nuclear deterrence, whereby it is entirely all right for the US and Israel to have a nuclear arsenal but wrong for non-nuclear powers to aspire to the same.

Put yourself in Muslim shoes of any sort.  This critique will not seem off the mark.

Do as We Do

The Arab News editorial appeared on March 21st.  By April 1 the nuclear equation had already begun to shift.  Although commentators have pointed out, ad nauseam, that U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev didn’t fall in love at first sight when the G20 met to discuss economic and financial issues last week, and they didn’t certainly didn't overcome every obstacle to good relations, they did announce a very important understanding: further nuclear arms cuts are in the offing.

There was always a huge element of fantasy in the Bush notion that the U.S. could enhance its nuclear capabilities while preventing non-nuclear nations from going nuclear.  The do-what-we-say-not-what-we-do enforcer stance was a formula for long range failure, even though Dick Cheyney and others promoted it as the best defense for the U.S. (and Israel). 

If, on the other hand, the U.S. and Russia agree to further reductions and actually do reduce their nuclear arsenals, the signal is clear.  These things are nasty.  Their only usefulness is defensive and, for that purpose, not many are needed.  So, for goodness sake, don’t burden yourself (or set off a scary costly arms race) by making a lot of useless bombs as we so stupidly did.

This is a message that wouldn’t cut much ice with Kim Jong Il.  However, although Mahmoud Ahmedinejad is as verbally intemperate as they come, he’s not the Numero Uno in Iran, and there is no evidence that the far more powerful Ayatollah Khamenei is suicidal.  It would indeed be unthinkable for Iran’s top leader to appear to fawn over the first few more or less nice words from a U.S. president, even a brand new one.  But impatient Americans need to rein themselves in and remember that buildings are built brick by brick, girder by girder.  What took nearly a century to be damaged cannot be repaired overnight, but repairs can and must succeed. A cooperative Iran is essential for success in Afghanistan—and for a stable Middle East.

The Percolation Effect 

Meanwhile, Iran is not North Korea.  People in Iran are not cut off from the rest of the world.  They have access to TV and the internet, which means that many Iranians will have heard or viewed the unprecedented gesture by an American president who understands what civility is.  They, like their leaders, will be processing it.  And they will be voting for a new President shortly.  No doubt Obama’s advisors were aware of the upcoming elections when they came up with the idea of a Happy New Year message.

Of course, I do not know what the ultimate effect of the presidential New Year message to Iranians will be.  All I do know is that it is much too soon to judge that the gesture was a failure.  Furthermore, it is absurd to believe that a single speech can make everything right, as if by magic.  An improved relationship will occur only if both sides see real benefits from better relations.  Bombs won’t accomplish that.  Real world based diplomacy may.

Thinking Public Diplomacy

By Patricia H. Kushlis

Sometimes interesting ideas come from the unlikeliest of places. That’s how I read the 2004 RAND Occasional Paper “Public Diplomacy: How to Think About and Improve It” by Charles Wolf, Jr. and Brian Rosen that recently came to my attention.

It’s not exactly as if either Wolf or Rosen have the public diplomacy practitioner or academic credentials to write about this politically charged topic in any kind of depth.

It’s also not exactly clear how this short study was financed or why it so recently resurfaced – but I think both are important because different players in the contentious public diplomacy debate have different objectives and perspectives. Since RAND is often closely associated with the US military, I’m going to bet that this Occasional Paper's funding comes from the “strategic communications” side of the US government house. But who knows – I could be wrong.

Some ideas that Wolf and Rosen presented in this paper are – in my view – zany, ill-informed or tortuously argued and not worth the time it took me to read them. So skim the pages on why public diplomacy and public relations are not the same and why parts of public diplomacy should be “outsourced” to the private sector. But please read on . . .there is at least one core idea identified that remains crucially important.