Quote Originally Posted by selil View Post
I thought the purpose of smith-mundt was to restrict propoganda from the military and empower the press to cover without coercion.
Your impression is not unique, not rare, and not unsurprising. It is, and don't take this personally, completely false. Smith-Mundt did not cover the military. In fact, JFK, when he re-interpreted USIA et al's mission, as presidents are known to do, explicitly left out Defense information operations.
[USIA] staffs abroad, acting under the supervision of the chiefs of mission, are responsible for the conduct of overt public information, public relations and cultural activities -- i.e., those activities intended to inform or influence foreign public opinion -- for agencies of the U.S. government except for Commands of the Department of Defense
The emphasis is mine. To hammer the point, there has been friction between base commanders overseas when base newspapers get into the local population. From at least one Ambassador's POV, this was an information campaign and thus covered under Smith-Mundt (or at least under its notions) and thus under his responsibility. The base commander exercise "command communication" to circumvent this and the 'leak' of information was to be seen as 'unforeseen' and not preventable. (Of course, allowing others to overhear your conversation to influence them isn't new and is something Churchill practiced in Canada and elsewhere before WWII).

As far as "empower", also wrong but not an unsurprising view. It was to protect the free press. S-M was to protect not only the First Amendment right but also the profits. The fear of coercion wasn't there, just the thought of being overwhelmed or marginalized by expected competition from a government news service (feared follow-on leg to shut down papers was implied but not really discussed).