TRANSCRIPT:
Many, many years ago in the 1970s, I was a young guide on a U.S. information agency cultural exchange exhibit in the USSR. And I traveled to cities far and wide, including Almaty as well as Kyiv. And every day we had visitors coming to the exhibit and telling us how they were risking their lives to quietly listen to VOA. Not only for the news that it brought them, but also the story about America, American jazz, American culture. And they loved it even though they were risking their lives to listen.
Americans should care about VOA because the United States has been bestride the world for so many years, really driving culture and driving how people think about what is the best and brightest in the global order. And so VOA is a critical messenger for us in terms of getting out the American story.
And so that’s why I think people in America should care if we want to be the ones dominating the world with our films, with our music, with our culture. That is an important role that VOA can play. I think about it in the future, you know, is it going to be Chinese films everybody’s watching? I hope not. I think it needs to be Hollywood films everybody’s watching.
Published
Gottemoeller served as deputy secretary-general of NATO from 2016–2019 during the Obama and Trump administrations. Before that she was the U.S. under secretary of state for arms control and international security during the Obama administration.