Dialogue, Defense and Media Messaging: U.S.- Russian Citizen Diplomacy Past and Present     Internews Interactive / Kennan Institute Citizen Diplomacy Seminar - April 21, 2010 Internews Interactive and the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Kennan Institute hosted Phil Donahue, America’s famous television talk-show host; and the renowned Russian journalist and TV commentator Vladimir Pozner, as featured speakers at the Kennan Institute in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday April 21, 2010. While Mr. Pozner and Mr. Donahue are both multiple-award winning journalists who have achieved great fame individually, they share a unique history as key players in the US-USSR citizen diplomacy movement of the 1980s, when they co-hosted a series of televised dialogues between citizens of the United States and the Soviet Union. These “spacebridge” programs ran on national networks in both nations and were watched by hundreds of millions of people. The seminar discussion focused on the role of media in US-Russia relations, and the continuing threat of nuclear weapons. The Seminar included video clips of the 1985 Citizens’ Summit, and of recent news coverage of the START talks by Russia Today and Fox News. The Seminar was part of Internews Interactive’s Citizens Diplomacy Archive Project (CDAP), which has established the first collection of primary source materials from the era of citizen diplomacy, at the Hoover Institution Archives at Stanford University. To learn more about the archive project, or to donate materials, please contact InterAct. SEMINAR PARTICIPANTS: Vladimir Pozner is the host of Pozner, the interview program on Russian Channel One. He was a commentator for the North American Service of Radio Moscow when he became the host of several “Spacebridges,” including the Citizen Summit series with Phil Donahue. He has won two Emmys, seven TEFY’s, (the Russian equivalent) including a TEFY for Lifetime Achievement. Mr. Pozner has hosted a long list of popular Russian TV series’, and was president of the Russian Academy of Television. He is the author of the 1990 American bestseller, Parting With Illusions. Phil Donahue is most recently the co-director and executive producer of the documentary, Body of War. He is an American icon, best known as the creator and star of The Phil Donahue Show, which had a 26-year run on U.S. national TV. He co-hosted a series of spacebridges with Vladimir Pozner in the 1980’s, as well as an interview series on CNBC in the 90’s, Pozner & Donahue. Mr. Donahue also hosted a talk show on MSNBC from 2002 – 2003. He has won nine Daytime Emmys, and a Lifetime Achievement Emmy in 1996; among many other awards and distinctions. David E. Hoffman is contributing editor at the Washington Post and has been a journalist for 30 years; he is most recently the author of The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous Legacy, published in 2009. As a White House correspondent for the Post, he covered the major U.S.-Soviet summits of the Reagan years. Mr. Hoffman was diplomatic correspondent at the time the Soviet Union collapsed, and from 1995 to 2001, he served as Moscow bureau chief. Heather Hurlburt is executive director of the National Security Network. Hurlburt served in the Clinton Administration as Special Assistant and Speechwriter to the President, speechwriter for Secretaries of State Albright and Christopher, and member of the State Department's Policy Planning staff. Ms. Hurlburt has also worked for the International Crisis Group, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and the Helsinki Commission. She is a regular contributor on Blogging Heads TV.