News In Brief

Panel raps cuts in funding at US Information Agency

A bipartisan presidential commission criticized administration cuts in funding for the United States Information Agency and the linking of anti-Castro Radio Marti to the Voice of America.

The US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, in a 1983 year-end report, said the USIA, America's overseas information agency, had been ''forced . . . to compete in the war of ideas with inadequate resources and obsolete equipment.''

It also said the decision to make Radio Marti part of the independent VOA was ''questionable public policy'' and suggested that Radio Marti be linked instead to Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, the USIA stations that broadcast to Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.