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Abstract

Concurrent with the ongoing public diplomacy initiatives was a mushrooming body of special reports. Historically, these reports constitute an important body of work that reveals some of America’s best thinking on what was in 2001 a relatively new or“newly important” phenomenon and helped shape the direction of future U.S. public diplomacy initiatives. The reports provide a panoramic overview of U.S. public diplomacy during this critical period. Viewed together, the reports were strikingly similar in their focus, findings, recom mendations and blind spots, which would continue to frustrate officials. Indeed, as the battle for hearts and minds continued into the 2005–2008 period, U.S. public diplomacy individual initiatives grew more creative and focused more on direct person-to-person contact, but overall U.S. public diplomacy still appeared to lack stability and effectiveness.