Smith-Mundt Act

The U.S. Information and Educational Exchange Act of 1948 (Public Law 80-402), popularly called the Smith–Mundt Act, is the basic legislative authorization for some of the activities conducted by the U.S. Department of State commonly known as public diplomacy. The act was first introduced by Congressman Karl E. Mundt (R-SD) in January 1945 in the 79th Congress. It was subsequently passed by the 80th Congress and signed into law by President Harry S. Truman on January 27, 1948.

The Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012, which was contained within the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013 (section 1078 (a)) amended the United States Information and Educational Exchange Act of 1948 and the Foreign Relations Authorization Act of 1987, allowing for materials produced by the State Department and the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) to be available within the United States. The Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012 effectively returned the legislation to the original purpose before Senator J. William Fulbright (D-AR) amended the Smith-Mundt Act to prevent his colleagues in the U.S. Senate, Members of the U.S. House of Representatives, as well as the U.S. media and academia from reviewing, except in Washington, D.C., or otherwise reusing or material produced by the United States Information Agency.

The original legislation authorizes the U.S. State Department to communicate to audiences outside of the borders of the United States through broadcasting, face-to-face contacts, exchanges (including educational, cultural, and technical), online activities, the publishing of books, magazines, and other media of communication and engagement. Funding for these activities comes from other legislation passed by the U.S. Congress called appropriations.

The legislation was introduced in the House Committee on Foreign Affairs in January 1945 by Rep. Mundt, a member of the Committee. It was modified a few months later at the request of the State Department. At this time, it did not include broadcasting. The bill was reintroduced with the State Department’s requests and renamed the Bloom Bill, after the committee's chairman, Rep. Sol Bloom (D-NY). The purpose was to make permanent various exchange activities, and some information programs such as books and other printed material. President Truman's dissolution of the Office of War Information included moving substantial OWI programs over to the State Department, including a radio broadcast operation not-yet-commonly known as the . The Bloom bill was altered and reintroduced in October 1945 to include the substantial information programs from OWI, notably the libraries, book publishing, movies and film strip production, and speakers tours. In December 1945, it was reintroduced again as HR 4982, but whereas the previous iterations amended pre-war legislation from 1939 authorizing exchanges in the American Republics, plus the Philippines, this time was a stand-alone and it also included the radio operation. The language “shall disseminate” abroad found in the early versions was a specific authority requested by the State Department to permit it to operate globally. Under previous authorities, the department was restricted to operating these programs within North, Central, and South America. It would provide legislative approval for a new peacetime instrument of foreign policy.

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