The Bad News: America’s good news only Ambassadors

By Patricia H. Kushlis

In case you missed Nick Kralev’s exclusive in the Washington Times September 16, 2009 on the suppression of negative reporting from US Embassies abroad, it is well worth reading.  The story came out of a litany of complaints by an unnamed disgruntled US Foreign Service Officer who is resigning or has resigned after three tours of duty.  If this were just one individual’s lament about the state of working for State that would be one thing.  But it’s not.

According to Kralev, “more than a dozen diplomats serving in Washington and abroad” said “that they agreed with most of” the unnamed former diplomat’s criticisms, that censorship had reached its height during the George W. Bush administration “and that the censorship has continued to a lesser extent in the Obama administration.”

Most of the comments on Kralev’s article with the exception of one by an ex-FSO were insipid, ignorant and/or unrelated – unfortunately par for the course for WT commenters.  But Kralev raises a serious issue that administrations regardless of party need to address.  Kralev’s, by the way, is the kind of report that the Washington Post should publish but rarely does.

 What good do gilding the lily reports do in the long run?

 Here’s the problem: US government analysts require unbiased, hence reliable, information and US Embassy reporting should be at the top of the unbiased reliable reports list.

 Certainly US government foreign affairs analysts draw, or should draw, upon a plethora of different information sources – most overt and a few covert - but traditional Embassy political and economic reporting cables should tell it like it is.  This has become even more important as a result of our increasingly politicized media, shrinking newsrooms and the ever decreasing number of experienced American reporters abroad. 

 Embassy political and economic reports should not advocate a particular policy or hype a particular leader.  There are other ways an Ambassador or chief of mission can do that.  Reporting should be just that, reporting what’s happening on the ground, who said what and why and the context in which events are happening or may happen.

Furthermore, an Ambassador, after all, does have a cable’s last word.  He or she can comment in a cable’s final paragraph or paragraphs stating his or her reservations or objections to a report and why – but no Chief of Mission should stand in the way of a reporting cable’s transmission unless the contents themselves are inaccurate (like erroneous election statistics or results) or the text is poorly written.  Otherwise, if an Ambassador makes a habit of gilding the lily, he or she should be admonished or if the varnishing becomes an epidemic perhaps even recalled.

State Department cables are signed off by the highest ranking person at an Embassy at the time – usually an Ambassador or his or her deputy.

I always thought it was a good thing that the heads of USIA, USAID and other non-State agencies signed off on their own cables or those ancient things called airgrams that went by snail-mail - aka the diplomatic pouch - and arrived two weeks to a month later.  They escaped the bottleneck at an Embassy's top - crucial for timeliness since most USIA communications were purely operational and often required tight deadlines or to tell a story, report an incident in greater detail and without what used to be called "cablese."   

If we thought we needed an Ambassador’s approval before sending out a cable because of the contents – we would get it.  If not, our cables did not languish in his or her in-box waiting for him or her to appear several hours or days later to place initials on paper.     

Other ways information gets back to Washington

The importance of rapid transmission of unvarnished information is one of the reasons USIA’s unclassified daily media reaction reports sent in from Embassies abroad through a separate USIS channel (not cleared or likely even read by the Ambassador) were so important - as were the CIA’s Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) translations of foreign media broadcasts.  Media reaction, survey research and foreign broadcast translations helped round out the picture of what was happening in a country or region for use by analysts and policy makers back home.        

Skewed, feel good reporting can result in bad policy decisions: it's happened for decades

But let’s get this straight: skewed, feel-good reporting from an Embassy too often helps to produce skewed, bad analysis that can result in skewed and hence bad policy decisions.

While the Bush administration fit the entire world into a black-white “with us or agin us” paradigm – and skewed reporting would have best fit into that Manichean, super-secretive view, the Obama administration recognizes the nuances – the shades of gray which allow for greater flexibility in pursuing international affairs goals.  The new administration should also, therefore, recognize the imperative of transmission of unvarnished information whether or not it is favorable to a particular country, its leaders or even in support of US policies.

Negative consequences can last for a very long time: the Greek case

The Bush 43 administration was far from the first to encourage slanted Embassy reporting.  My first Embassy experience in Athens, Greece in 1970 -71 was among the worst I ever saw in this regard in over 27 years of Foreign Service life.  Nixon was President and Spiro Agnew was Vice President.  I mention Agnew because of his special interest in Greece along with his penchant for abject support for the ruling junta.  Ambassador Henry Tasca understood this and played along.  So did his DCM and the Embassy political section.  The problem was that anyone who understood Greek politics, knew Greek and talked with the intelligentsia as well as the people on the street also realized that the junta’s power rested on grains of sand not a foundation of granite - yet this was not the picture reported through Embassy channels.   

There was plenty of anti-Americanism in Greece before the military coup in 1967 but the American government’s enthusiastic support for the junta between 1967 and 1974 intensified it.  In fact, terrorism against official Americans had its origins under the junta.  Cyprus deteriorated – in fact, it brought down the junta in Athens and resulted in the divided island and stalemate that afflicts Cyprus, the region and the EU today.     

Had the Ambassador (and the Nixon administration) permitted unvarnished reporting, the US might have – at least - been more circumspect towards the junta’s leaders. Had this happened, in the long term the anti-Americanism – and at the very least terrorism against Americans and US interests might not have turned so virulently destructive.   

In no one's best interest 

I told Nick when he asked me that I thought the censorship at American Embassies stems from a stultified bureaucracy and a State Department afraid to rock the boat for a variety of reasons – some good, others not. But that there had always been legal ways around the system if one looked (for them) and (finding them) was the hallmark of a good bureaucrat.  Those possibilities include e-mail, letters, telephone calls and simply briefing trusted journalists on deep background. 

Should this have to happen?  No.  It's in no one's best interest.  But until attitudes and instructions change at the top, it will.