By S.T. Patrick
At a 2018 panel organized by the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Stengel said, “There’s another word for ‘master narratives.’ It’s called ‘history.’ Basically, every country creates their own narrative story. My old job at the State Department was what people used to joke as the ‘chief propagandist.’ I’m not against propaganda. Every country does it and they have to do it to their own population. I don’t necessarily think it’s that awful.” Today, Stengel is the most prominent media appointee to Joe Biden’s transition team.
As Barack Obama’s undersecretary of State for public diplomacy and public affairs, Stengel created what he described as the “only entity in government, non-classified entity, that combated Russian disinformation.” The entity was the Global Engagement Center, Ben Norton of “TheGrayzone. com” described as “a massive vehicle for advancing U.S. government propaganda around the world.”