President Dwight D. Eisenhower established the United States Information Agency in 1953. The USIA's mission was "to understand, inform and influence foreign publics in promotion of the national interest, and to broaden the dialogue between Americans and U.S. institutions, and their counterparts abroad". The United States Information Agency (USIA) was established "to streamline the U.S. government's overseas information programs, and make them more effective". The United States Information Agency was the largest full-service public relations organization in the world, spending over $2 billion per year to highlight the views of the U.S. while diminishing those of the Soviet Union, through about 150 different countries.