Edward R. Murrow’s Lasting Contributions to PD

In 1961, America’s most prominent journalist, Edward R. Murrow, ended a quarter-century career with CBS to join President John F. Kennedy’s administration as director of the United States Information Agency (USIA). Over the next three years, Murrow led the agency in explaining U.S. policy to a global audience during numerous Cold War crises: the rise of the Berlin Wall, the Cuban Missile Crisis and growing American entrenchment in South Vietnam.

Greg Tomlin, author of Murrow’s Cold War: Public Diplomacy for the Kennedy Administration, discussed several key lessons of Murrow’s directorship that remain relevant for students and practitioners of public diplomacy today. The program was moderated by Nicholas J. Cull, Professor and Director of the Master of Public Diplomacy program.

About Greg Tomlin

Gregory M. Tomlin was as an assistant professor of history at the United States Military Academy at West Point, where he earned the history department’s top teaching award in 2013. A career army officer, he recently began an assignment in the Directorate of Intelligence, the Joint Staff, at the Pentagon. He has served in Germany, Korea, Kosovo, and Iraq, as well as at the White House as a military social aide for the Obama administration. Greg is the coauthor of The Gods of Diyala: Transfer of Command in Iraq.