There have been plenty of bad days in U.S. history. But Oct. 1st should be higher on the list than most people think. On that date in 1999, President Bill Clinton formally abolished the U.S. Information Agency, spinning off its broadcasting element into an independent agency and merging most of the rest into the Department of State. The effort was the product of a curious bipartisan alliance between conservative Sen. Jesse Helms and liberal Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, and its effects were far reaching – shooting U.S. public diplomacy in the back with some six bullets.

Robert Banks, CPD Public Diplomat in Residence 2009-11, reviews CPD University Fellow Nicholas J. Cull's recently published book, The Decline and Fall of the United States Information Agency: American Public Diplomacy, 1989-2001.