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Foreign Communication Policy and DBS: 1962-1984 95

this period of reckoning was Edward P. Hennelly, Heritage Founda-
tion member and a Vice President of the Mobil Oil Corporation. After
attending his first UNESCO meeting and subsequent negotiations
with UNESCO officials, Hennelly surprised Reagan by recommend-
ing that because significant progress had been made in his talks the
United States should retain its membership. American allies, includ-
ing Israel, also wanted the United States to remain in UNESCO, as
did the USIA and even the CIA. Nevertheless, the US withdrawal
85
was to proceed as scheduled. According to a confidential State
Department memorandum, dated 13 December 1987, arguments
that the US absence would create an international void in valuable
cultural, educational and scientific exchanges were dismissed by the
administration. As its author writes, 'given the fact that neither cul-
ture, commerce, nor world science can proceed meaningfully without
the participation of US nationals and American institutions, coopera-
tive [alternative] arrangements ... will surely be activated - and on a
healthy non-ideological basis. ' 86
In July 1984, less than five months before its scheduled withdrawal,
State Department officials sent UNESCO Director General Amadou-
Mahtar M'Bow a letter specifying the precise terms for a US policy
change. These included proposals that were tantamount to a US veto
over all UNESCO budget allocations and policies. The goal, said the
letter, was to ensure that UNESCO would never again sanction
'uncritical and simplistic approaches to disarmament, economic theo-
rizing, and global standard-setting' and would never again become a
'partisan participant in existing quarrels' such as the debate on the
free flow of information versus prior consent. 87
With the US withdrawal from UNESCO in December 1984, it
appeared as though US efforts to compel international institutions
and nation states to accept the precedence of free flow over prior
consent principles had failed. However, this 'failure' may well have
constituted a calculated first step in a more general effort to redefine
the institutional terrain on which a larger hegemonic struggle was
taking place. It became apparent in the 1980s that US officials pre-
ferred the absence of agreement when faced with alternative agree-
ments involving prior consent. Rapidly developing technological
capacities and the emerging neo-liberal market interests of transna-
tional corporate actors took precedence over any potential comprom-
ise of free flow principles.
Again, the historical context in which this US challenge to LDCs
took place goes some way in explaining the aggressive nature of the