Controversy
In 1972, Senator James L. Buckley (New York) obtained a copy of Czechoslovakia 1968 to show on New York television stations. The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, J. William Fulbright, objected to the broadcast based on an interpretation of the Smith-Mundt Act, which would prohibit the domestic dissemination of material produced by the U.S. Information Agency (USIA). Fulbright complained to the Attorney General, but the Justice Department refused to intervene based on the interpretation of existing U.S. law. In 1972, Congress amended the Smith-Mundt Act, based on this event, to explicitly prohibit the domestic dissemination of materials produced by the USIA. The USIA was abolished in 1998.
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