Editorial Note

On March 2, President Truman sent a request to Congress for a supplemental appropriation of $97.5 million for the construction of additional transmitting facilities for the Voice of America (House Document 74). On April 5, following reports that the House Committee on Appropriations would drastically cut the request, Truman issued a statement to the press opposing such a reduction and asserting the importance of prompt construction of the new facilities; the statement is printed in Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Harry S. Truman, 1951, page 218. The following day, the House Committee on Appropriations reported the supplemental appropriations bill, H.E. 3587, to the House, recommending an appropriation of only $9.5 million for the Voice of America (House Report 298). After some debate which was generally critical of the information program, the House approved H.R. 3587 on April 10 with no change in the appropriation recommended by the Committee. The Senate approved the bill on May 10, and it received the final approval of both Houses on May 21 (Public Law 45, approved June 2, 1951; 65 Stat. 52). For testimony before the House and Senate Committees on Appropriations concerning the information program, see Third Supplemental Appropriation Bill for 1951: Hearings before a Subcommittee of the House Committee on Appropriations, 82d Cong., 1st Sess. (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1951), Part 2, pages 219–293, and Third Supplemental Appropriations Bill, 1951: Hearings before the Senate Committee on Appropriations, 82d Cong., 1st Sess. (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1951), pages 353–461. For the debate in the House concerning the information program, see the Congressional Record, 82d Cong., 1st Sess. (1951), pages 3536–3556.