ABSTRACT
The Soviet response to the KAL 007 crisis ushered in a new phase of Soviet international public relations. The United States Information Agency (USIA), part of the State Department, was established at the height of the Cold War in 1953. Using a fictitious developing country, the authors showed how poorly the Americans performed in the propaganda war compared to communists. Image cultivation public relations however are conducted in the United States by a number of institutions with a number of objectives. A turning point in the propaganda war between the United States and the USSR was the public relations regarding treatment of the shooting down of Korean Airlines flight 007 in September 1983 in which 269 people were killed. Recently the USIA has given particular attention to developing countries because of their importance to the US economy. According to Hansen, the USIA had been incorrectly using television, the most effective vehicle available to public diplomacy in developing countries.
