Editorial Note

When Congress considered appropriations for the Department of State for fiscal year 1952, debate centered on the information program. In his annual budget message to Congress on January 15, 1951, President Truman had requested $115 million for the operation of the information program; for the text of the message, see Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Harry S. Truman, 1951, pages 61—106. The House Committee on Appropriations reported H.R. 4740 to the House on July 10 with a recommendation of an appropriation of $85 million for the information program (House Report 685). On July 26, after a debate dominated by criticism of the Department of State and the information program, the House defeated, by a vote of 245 to 142, a motion by Representative Cliff Clevenger of Ohio which [Page 933] would have cut another $15 million from the USIE appropriation, and approved H.R. 4740 with an appropriation of $85 million for the information program.

On August 20, President Truman sent a message to Congress conveying the Soviet reply to the McMahon-Ribicoff Resolution (see footnote 12, page 916), describing the Voice of America broadcasts concerning the resolution, and urging Congress to provide the full $115 million he had requested for the information program; the text of his message is printed in Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Harry S. Truman, 1951, pages 475–477. The following day, the Senate Committee on Appropriations reported H.R. 4740 to the Senate after further reducing the USIE appropriation to $63 million (Senate Report 697). During the debate that followed, Senator Benton and Senator Karl E. Mundt of South Dakota led the defense of the information program. Benton proposed an amendment to increase the USIE appropriation to the $115 million originally requested by the President, but he withdrew it in favor of an amendment offered by Mundt and other senators restoring the $85 million appropriation approved by the House. On August 24, the Senate accepted Mundt’s amendment by a vote of 52 to 16 and approved H.R. 4740. The final bill thus included an appropriation of $85 million for the information program. It received the approval of both Houses on October 12 (Public Law 188, approved October 22, 1951; 65 Stat. 575).

For testimony before the House and Senate Committees on Appropriations concerning the information program, see Department of State Appropriations for 1952: Hearings before the Subcommittee of the House Committee on Appropriations, 82d Cong., 1st Sess. (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1951), pages 705—1114, and Departments of State, Justice, Commerce, and the Judiciary: Appropriations for 1952: Hearings before the Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, 82d Cong., 1st Sess. (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1951), pages 1626–1982. For the debates in Congress concerning the information program, see the Congressional Record, 82d Cong., 1st Sess. (1951), pages 8674–8696, 8748–8802, 8877–8906, 8948–8985, and 10618–10650.