Abstract

Will Congress Kill TV Marti?

As Congress attempts to clean its legislative house before the August recess, it has the opportunity to eliminate one of the premier cold war programs, the U.S. Information Agency's $70 million TV Marti broadcasts to Cuba. Opponents of U.S. intervention have long opposed TV Marti and its sister program, Radio Marti, as instruments of imperial meddling, but over the past couple of years liberals and even some fiscally minded conservatives in Congress have turned sour on the TV broadcasts, since it's embarrassingly clear that no one in Cuba can see them. Joseph Duffey, director of the United States Information Agency (USIA) asserted that TV Marti is serving the best interests of the U.S. and is consistently being received by a sufficient Cuban audience to warrant its continuation. By law, Duffey had to make that stipulation to keep TV Marti beaming; last year Congress mandated that the broadcasts be terminated in 1994 unless the USIA director could certify they were being watched.