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DBS and the Structure of US Policy Making 121

foreign countries. Perhaps in the hope of minimizing intra-state con-
flict over this State Department assertion of policy leadership, the
Secretary stressed that 'No single agency possesses the resources or
expertise necessary to advance ... the interests of the United States in
this area.' As such, Diana Dougan was to become the Coordinator for
International Communication and Information Policy. 52
The formation of Dougan's office, however, did not necessarily
signal the sudden realization of the importance of government efforts
to shape and implement a coherent foreign communication policy on
behalf of the President - the constitutional head of foreign policy.
More accurately, the Reagan administration had little interest in
facilitating any kind of definitive public sector leadership in this
area. This was made apparent in its heavy reliance on private sector
participation at the 1982 ITU Plenipotentiary Conference held in
Nairobi. Moreover, the long-standing practice of appointing senior
policy personnel on the basis of party patronage rather than the
development of a knowledgeable and capable cast of policy officials
continued. The most extreme example of this came to light when
former Reagan bodyguard, Dennis LeBlanc, was given an executive
position at the NTIA (see Chapter 1). Diana Dougan's qualifications
to lead the State Department office that was supposed to coordinate
all US foreign communication policy were not much better. While
Dougan had been a local television producer in Salt Lake City, then a
Promotions Director for Time, Inc., and then a Reagan-appointed
Board Member of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, more
importantly, she was a life-long Republican Party activist. 53
In the first year of her appointment, Dougan vaguely recognized
that while foreign communication policy 'plays a prominent role in
international trade,' the communications-trade relationship was, at
this stage, imprecisely understood. 54 However, echoing the views of
American Express and others, Dougan explained that,

as we deal with the trade issue, we must be careful how it is
packaged, because this commodity approach has particular appeal
to governments inclined to view information services as a source
of tax revenue. This approach could, in fact, sanction Government
controls of the free flow of information, which is of deep concern
to our country. 55

Despite her generally uncontroversial viewpoints, Dougan and her
new office of seven officials faced resistance both from other agencies