The version in my fortune file is better:

A Russian and an American get on a plane in Moscow and get to talking. The Russian says he works for the Kremlin and he's on his way to go learn American propaganda techniques.

"What American propaganda techniques?" asks the American.

"Exactly," the Russian replies.

I'm of the opinion that there is considerably more wailing about US government propaganda than actual US government propaganda. People who reference supposed US government propaganda rarely provide much in the way of concrete examples. Probably because there are legal restrictions on covert propaganda in the US:

https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/covert_propaganda

To be clear, I'm happy to grant that:

* The Pentagon won't provide jets for your war movie if your war movie portrays the US military in a bad light

* The US engages in information operations in foreign countries, e.g. discouraging people in the Philippines from getting the Chinese COVID vaccine

* Voice of America and similar US-government sponsored outlets are, in fact, sponsored by the US government

But the notion that covert, English-language US government propaganda is ubiquitous and effective seems like a half-baked, un-falsifiable conspiracy theory with little supporting evidence.

The internet is full of false or misleading claims about the US which go un-refuted. There's just way too much low-hanging fruit going un-picked here to believe that the USG is running massive English-language covert propaganda ops.

A specific example of a false anti-American claim which is extremely widespread: Many Europeans believe that the US promised to protect Ukraine in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum. This is false. We only promised to go to the UN Security Council, which we did. You can verify for yourself with a quick trip to the UN website, the memorandum is not very long: https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%203007/P...

If the American government possessed the propaganda wizardry that people ascribe to it, I expect the entire internet would be well-acquainted with the actual contents of this memorandum. Instead, you have randos like me trying to fight a tsunami of misinformation (likely Ukrainian-origin) related to this memorandum, using only a shovel.