68. Memorandum From the Deputy Director of the United States Information Agency (Akers) to the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy)1
Given a world situation in which the greater part of humanity is increasingly dissatisfied with its economic circumstances, and is determined in various revolutionary ways to change this condition, economic development is a critical determinant in U.S. foreign policy, and of the USIA programming in support of that policy.
Directly or indirectly, support of AID consumes much more than one-half of total USIA resources in the underdeveloped world. In some countries, the effort to derive maximum psychological effect from the AID program, in effect IS the USIS program, consuming 95% of USIS resources in Nigeria, for example. In most USIA media geographical divisions, the AID subject is the single largest concern dealt with directly: 40% of the VOA Far East program, for instance.
[Page 195]Massive and continuous promotion of U.S. economic assistance programs has been provided by USIA and its field posts, from the Marshall Plan to the Alliance for Progress2 and the distribution of Food for Peace.3
In clusters of countries, a public conviction of economic progress being made is the factor that assures the nature of the governments and the political order of nations. There, USIA has taken major steps, such as appointing senior officers whose only activity is the effective spread of information on the U.S. aid effort. Four such men are assigned in the Near East and South Asia, six in South-East Asia, seven in Latin America. A large number of information officers work most of their time at it.
Support of AID is by and large a localized operation, performed in the field at the initiative of men on the scene in response to specific projects and problems. Nevertheless, the centralized effort is still very large. The latter comprises the films, TV programs, pamphlets, features, packets, books, various analyses and daily news stories distributed from USIA Washington, either on a regional basis or on a world-wide basis.
All major developments related to AID are reported in the news, world-wide if of sufficient significance, or regionally. This work most heavily bears on the VOA and its counterpart in print, IPS, the press service. Supplementing their news is a continuous production of secondary materials, scripts and program series in the case of VOA, features and analyses by IPS.
Recent VOA productions have included a six-part series on “Food for Peace,” and programs in the continuing series on “Modernization Around the World.” Unexceptional, but illustrative of VOA’s specially targeted productions, are signing ceremonies for new AID agreements and swearing-in ceremonies for country AID chiefs, regularly recorded for broadcast to countries concerned; dedication and presentation ceremonies in the field are taped for broadcast from Washington; interviews with hundreds of AID grantees visiting the U.S. are recorded for incor [Page 196] poration in targeted programs, and also shipped to the field for local placement.
VOA’s World-Wide English programming is heavily involved. Recent examples from its schedule include interviews with or statements by Secretary Rusk, Undersecretary Ball, AID Administrator Bell, Undersecretary Mann, Senators Dodd and McGovern, and Food for Peace Director Reuter.
The Press Service’s Wireless File output is comparable to daily VOA programming in news and background pieces. Illustrative of Wireless File background items in recent months: “U.S. Food for Peace—Unique Assistance Program” (Nov. 16); “Johnson Signs Food for Peace Extension” (Oct. 8); “Johnson Urges More Private Enterprise in Foreign Aid” (Aug. 25); “AID Official Looks to Rehabilitation of Vietnam”, an interview with Charles A. Mann (Aug. 16); “Massive Free World Aid Helps Vietnamese at all Levels,” A 1400-word feature written in Saigon for world-wide distribution (Mar. 3).
The Press Service provides Airmailed Features, to single countries or to all posts:
“World Bank Facilitates Assistance for Developing Nations,” by George Woods, President, World Bank.
“Foreign Aid: Building a Better Life,” by David E. Bell.
“U.S. Foreign Aid in 1965: Strength, Hope, Self-Aid,” yearender.
“U.S. Economic Aid to Vietnam Totals $1,500,000 Per Day,” yearender.
On the same basis, the Press Service provides picture stories: In the spring of 1962 IPS sent a photographer on a 50-day tour of five Latin American countries to photograph the sites of 20 Alliance projects; the same man revisited the projects in 1964 for progress pictures. Twenty-four picture stories resulted, plus the materials for press placement pamphlets, posters and books.
The Latin American wireless file produces about five stories a day on the Alliance for Progress. IPS produces a regular newspaper column, “Hace la Alianza,” widely used. Its Regional Service Center in Mexico has printed 52 leaflets and pamphlets on the Alliance since its inauguration, or a total print run of 2,600,000, and a miscellany of bookmarks, rulers, pennants with slogans, 50,000 bus cards, placards for store windows. Fifty million IPS cartoon books, directly concerned with economic growth, or indirectly with its correlative, insurgency, have been circulated.
USIA’s Motion Picture (IMS) and Television (ITV) services are heavily involved in AID. There are centralized and particularized activities in both, as in the VOA and IPS programs.
Most TV film output on AID is made in the field. In every country where there is a USIS cameraman, and where there is an AID program, [Page 197] there is a sizable interaction providing full and intimate coverage for local newsreels and TV.
ITV has produced one major color documentary on U.S. foreign aid: “Tomorrow by Their Hands,” for world-wide distribution. Much more work is directed regionally, in established program series, newsreels produced in Washington, or in separate items.
Regional or more localized series distributed to posts for placement include “Panorama Panamericano” for Latin America, “Thai Washington Newsletter,” Iranian Washington Report.”
“Panorama”, 15 minutes weekly in Spanish and Portuguese, distributed to 19 countries, is keyed almost entirely to the Alliance, and its concerns, modernization, industrial development, public health. It plays on 115 television stations in Latin America, to an estimated weekly audience of 14,000,000. Following are typical stories from this year’s Panorama filmed on the scene:
Cooperative housing in Costa Rica; new dam in Nicaragua; water purification in San Salvador; textile and handicrafts in Ecuador; hydroelectric power in Guatemala; electric co-op in Ecuador; remodeling airport at La Paz; school construction in rural Colombia; slum clearance in Rio de Janeiro; the Furnas Dam in Brazil; construction of steel mills in numerous places.
ITV also produces a 26-part series of half-hour family-drama programs entirely in support of the Alliance. It currently plays on 16 TV stations in 13 countries, and in many cities is commercially sponsored.
Approximately 35% of the Motion Picture services African production is devoted to publicizing AID programs; 65% in the Near East and South Asia; 40% in the Far East. In Latin America, films supporting the Alliance and AID, directly and indirectly, in all aspects of their meaning, constitute more than 90% of IMS production.
Spot status reports from IMS include the following:
India: Six films in production, from 10 to 30 minutes long, “Kanpur Institute of Technology”, “Agriculture in India”, “Four Men of Kottayan” (self-help), “River Valley Projects”, “Forest Research Institute”, “Dehradun”, “Port Development”.
Thailand: Molam Series (monthly explanations of development projects).
Latin America: Horizons “newsmagazine”, two 10-minute issues a month with 200 prints each for use theatrically, on TV and for other showings; 50% on subjects directly in support of Alliance and AID.
USIA’s Information Center Service is largely concerned with long-range effects: developing books, producing exhibits, English Teaching programs and the like. Its activities on behalf of the AID program include:
[Page 198]Publishing some 50 million books of which 42 million were textbooks; publication of U.S. encyclopedias in foreign languages and bi-lingual dictionaries; operating the Informational Media Guarantee Program facilitating the distribution of U.S. publications, and educational films. ICS exhibits program directly supports the AID program.
- Source: National Archives, RG 306, DIRCTR Subj Files, 1963–69, Bx 6–29 63–69: Acc: #72A5121, Entry UD WW 257, Box 27, Government Agencies—White House 1965. No classification marking. Drafted by Keogh and Akers. A copy was sent to Gaud.↩
- The Alliance for Progress was a United States program to seek economic development in and ties with Central and South American countries, which originated with the Kennedy administration and was first publically articulated by Kennedy on the Presidential campaign trail in November 1960. For further information about the origins and development of the Alliance for Progress, see Foreign Relations, 1961–1963, vol. XII, American Republics, Document 1.↩
- Food for Peace, also known as PL–480, was an act passed in 1954 that permitted the President to order the shipment of commodities to U.S. allies on concessional or grant terms and authorized the U.S. Government to donate commodities to religious and voluntary organizations for humanitarian purposes.↩
- Printed from a copy that bears this typed signature.↩