FOREIGN RELATIONS, 1977–1980, VOLUME XXX, history.state.gov
159. Memorandum From the Director of the International Communication Agency (Reinhardt) to President Carter
Washington, November 30, 1978
Excerpt:
The issue is whether, how, and in what time frame to expand our academic and other exchanges programs. ...
Influential foreigners, brought here to be impressed by the U.S., literally stay in third-rate hotels, travel in the company of inadequately trained escorts and interpreters, or with inadequate attention to their programs from overworked contract agencies. The average duration of academic sojourns has been reduced, typically, from an academic year to a semester or less; the value of stipends has eroded so dramatically as to make it difficult to attract truly authoritative scholars; the value of a grant for a doctoral scholar is now, typically, the cost of an airplane ticket. ...