Abstract

Public diplomacy was first implemented under the impulsion of John F. Kennedy and Edward R. Murrow by the United States Information Agency in the 1960s. This article emphasizes the critical role of public diplomacy in the fight against communism as well as the way the British authorities resorted to this concept almost forty years later to offer public opinion abroad a more modern and efficient image of the UK. In this perspective, it is legitimate to observe the evolution of both technology and the various media as well as to focus on Edward R. Murrow and Mark Leonard, Murrow’s British counterpart. Far from being mere communication, public diplomacy consists in the actual representation of a country’s policies and core values, and can therefore not avoid being assimilated to propaganda, even if it serves the noble purpose of information, not disinformation.