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74 The challenge mounted by UNESCO to the 'common sense' of free flow
of information and First Amendment principles constituted not only a
potential threat to US hegemony but, more fundamentally, a threat to
the profit-making capacities of transnational media and marketing
interests. In 1973, the US-based World Press Freedom Committee was
formed with the mandate to resist any UNESCO proposal that in some
way could limit the 'freedom' and 'independence' of Western mass-
media corporations. This marked the beginning of a series of US news
reports on the 'radicalism,' 'bureaucratic incompetence' and 'anti-Amer-
icanism' of UNESCO.
75 See, for example, United States Congress. House, Committee on Inter-
national Relations. Subcommittee on International Organization. hear-
ings on 'UNESCO: Challenges and Opportunities for the United States,'
94th Cong., 2nd Sess., 14 June 1976.
76 George McGovern, 'The Role and Control of International Commun-
ications and Information.' Report to the US Senate Committee on
Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on International · Operations
(Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1977) p. v.
77 The substitution of the gold-dollar linkage with a floating exchange rate
introduced largely unforeseen bouts of instability and uncertainty in
international monetary relations.
78 Craig N. Murphy, International Organization and Industrial Change
(Cambridge: Polity Press, 1994) pp. 248-59.
79 George McGovern, 'The Role and Control of International Commun-
ications and Information,' p. vi.
80 Emerging out of the Commission was the MacBride Report. It based its
questions, research and recommendations on the assumption that com-
munication policy cannot be developed without simultaneously addres-
sing economic, cultural, educational and technological issues. US
officials generally considered such complex interconnections to obfuscate
and distort the essentially 'neutral' and 'righteous' free flow of informa-
tion principle. See Rafael Roncagliolo, 'New Information Oi"der in Latin
America: A Taxonomy for National Communication Policies,' in Jorg
Becker et al. (eds), Communication and Domination, pp. 168-76.
81 Sarah Goddard Powell, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Human Rights
and Social Affairs, US Department of State, quoted in Preston et al.,
Hope & Folly, p. 129.
82 David Stockman, Reagan's first Director of the Office of Management
and Budget (OMB), wrote a position paper during the Carter-Reagan
transition period recommending that the United States withdraw from
UNESCO due to its 'pro PLO policies, and its support for measures
limiting the free flow of information.' Quoted in Seymour Maxwell Finger,
'Reform or Withdrawal,' Foreign Service Journal, 61(6) (June 1984) 20.
83 Personal interview with Diana Dougan, Senior Advisor and Chair of the
International Communications Studies Program, Center for Strategic
and International Studies, 3 September 1992, Washington, DC.
84 From 1981 to 1983, the Reagan administration launched a news media
attack on UNESCO. In the fall of 1981, President Reagan accused
UNESCO of turning 'its back on the high purposes ... [it] was originally