Creative Compromise

This is William G. Harley's personal account of the process that produced the MacBride Commission reportUNESCO's International Commission for Study of Communication Problems. Harley was present at all Commission meetings; he had the complete collection of reports he had sent back to the U.S. State Department. Furthermore, he had a file of relevant personal notes, memos, and letters, a comprehensive collection unique in all the world. The author's account not only tells how international agencies function, for better or worse, but it also sketches the personalities involved in negotiating international communication problems. Harley's reports of the meetings are fascinating exercises in group dynamics which capture the substance and spirit of the debates. The sixteen experts appointed in 1977 by UNESCO Director-General, Amadou Mahtar M'Bow, were responsible for preparing a report that would remedy issues such as Third World hopes for a new world information order and the flow of international information. It was a conscientious effort to reach a consensus in the study of these relations between and within nations and Harley's Creative Compromise affords the reader insights into the complexity of modern communications and their interrelationships with the economic, cultural, and social aspects of our interdependent world.