Office of the Historian

1. Memorandum From the Acting Director of the United States Information Agency (Wilson) to President Johnson1

Washington, November 25, 1963

SUBJECT

  • USIA Coverage of President Kennedy’s Death and Your Assumption of the Presidency

USIA is using all media to describe your accession to the Presidency and to document the orderly transfer of power following President Kennedy’s death.

Since 2:00 p.m. Friday,2 the Voice of America has been broadcasting a special program around the clock to all parts of the world. This coverage will continue through your address to a joint session of the Congress on Wednesday.3

Our Wireless File,4 a teletype service to 108 posts in 101 countries, has carried full accounts, including biographies of you and the late President. News photos, including a 17-picture biography of you, were rushed out by air.

We are transmitting the text of a brief pamphlet on you to all posts for immediate translation and distribution.

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Extensive newsreel coverage, for both theater and TV use, is being air-shipped daily.

A 15-minute TV biography of you is almost completed, and will be air-shipped to countries having TV by Tuesday.5

A full half-hour TV documentary of your rise to the Presidency will be completed and shipped within 10 days.

Two motion picture documentaries in color, one featuring the life work of President Kennedy and the other on your life and assumption of the Presidency, are to be completed within 30 days.

A six panel photographic exhibit on your career is in preparation for shipment to all posts by air on Friday.6

Donald M. Wilson7
  1. Source: National Archives, RG 306, Office of Policy and Plans, Subject Files, 1953–1971, Entry UD WW 151, Box 113, White House—1963. No classification marking. Drafted by Burnett Anderson (IOP). Printed in Foreign Relations, 1961–1963, vol. XXV, Organization of Foreign Policy; Information Policy; United Nations; Scientific Matters, Document 158.↩
  2. November 22.↩
  3. Reference is to Johnson’s November 27 address before a joint session of the Congress. For text of the address, see Public Papers: Johnson, 1963–1964, Book I, pp. 8–10.↩
  4. Reference is to USIA’s press service, which disseminated time sensitive information, such as transcripts of speeches, press conferences, Congressional testimony, as well as texts of published articles and interviews.↩
  5. November 26.↩
  6. November 29.↩
  7. Printed from a copy that bears this typed signature.↩