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I suggest that establishment of a “USIA 2.0” might lie closer to the mark than Mr. Gates’s prescription.

He retired in 1990 after directing USIA’s translation, libraries and English language teaching programs.

Clinton tapped him in 1993 to run USIA, an agency that promoted U.S. policies overseas before being abolished six years later, with most of its functions taken over by the State Department.

But USIA’s tank was an engineering disgrace.

It was USIA’s attempt to avoid taking blame for the disaster, but the notion of a Communist plot against the United States was one that would become a huge and serious issue in the country in 1919.