Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–1954, General: Economic and Political Matters, Volume I, Part 2

033.1100 CO/4–2053

The United States High Commissioner for Austria (Thompson) to the Department of State¹

confidential
No. 1754

Vienna, April 20, 1953.

• Subject:
• Visit to Vienna of representatives of the Senate Permanent Investigating Subcommittee

Mr. Roy M. Cohn, chief counsel of the Senate Permanent Investigating Subcommittee, and Mr. David Schine, chief consultant of the same, arrived in Vienna on Friday evening, April 10 in the course of their investigative tour of overseas USIS establishments, and departed on Sunday, April 12.

Directly upon their arrival, Messrs. Cohn and Schine met with representatives of the US and Austrian press, and at the outset of a one-hour conference, stated that the purpose of their trip was to investigate the general efficiency with which USIS operations were being conducted in the countries visited. Discussions with Embassy officials concerning the Austrian program began at noon next day with a half-hour meeting with the High Commissioner,² followed by brief interviews with three officers of the Public Affairs Division’s Information Branch and visits to the Soviet and US Information Centers. On Sunday, April 12, the investigators paid a second visit to the US Information Center and later conferred with the Embassy’s Counsellor for Economic Affairs, the Director of the Administration Division, and two officers of the Security Branch.

Apart from the Center and the offices of three Information Branch officials, no USIS installations were visited, and general briefing on the Public Affairs Program was not requested or encouraged, with the result that none was given. Because of the schedule they had set themselves, Messrs. Cohn and Schine were unable to devote more than 3½ hours to discussions with Embassy officers and visits to the US Information Center.

The remainder of the visitors’ time, apart from two press conferences, was reserved at their own desire for what they described as meetings with other local “contacts”. Embassy officers were given no indication as to who these might be, but in their talks with the press Messrs. Cohn and Schine stated that some of these were Austrians particularly qualified to give information about the conduct of USIS operations here. To correspondents they explained, further, that some of these were persons with whom the Subcommittee had already maintained contact “for some months”, while others were individuals with whom contact was now about to be established.

In their meeting with the High Commissioner (attended also by the Deputy High Commissioner and the Public Affairs Officer) the visitors inquired as to the role of the USIS daily newspaper, the Wiener Kurier, and the USIS Red-White-Red radio network, and were briefed as to the special usefulness of these instruments as counterweights to Soviet occupation pressures and as guarantors of the dissemination of truthful news and opinion supporting US policy in this area. On inquiring into the costs of the Kurier, the investigators appeared favorably impressed by the information that high sales and advertising revenue had enabled the paper to come very near to breaking even. In general, both in this interview and in subsequent comments made to the Public Affairs Officer, they appeared receptive to the role of the USIS newspaper.

In the radio field, in connection with testimony recently given at the Subcommittee’s hearings, questions were asked concerning the reduction in height ordered in 1951 of the new Vienna Red-White-Red transmitter then to be installed. The investigators were reminded of the highly technical nature of the dispute between consultant engineers then employed by the Department of the Army and State Department, respectively, concerning the possible coverage effects of such reduction, and it was recalled that nothing in any instruction given to the Embassy had considered the use of the Red-White-Red-Vienna transmitter for purposes other than local broadcasting in the German language.

Other questions asked at this meeting included one on the general usefulness of motion pictures provided by the Department, to which the reply was made that while some documentaries provided were excellent, a greater flow of educational pictures provided by the motion picture industry itself would also be desirable. In reply to a query as to the usefulness of USIS pressfile and feature material, the high rate of consumption of much of this material by indigenous newspapers was stressed.

Proceeding to the Information Branch, where the visitors had expressed a desire to interview Mr. Henry Reinert, the editor of the Wiener Kurier, they questioned Mr. Reinert about his opinion of the Kurier and Red-White-Red, the number of employees on the Kurier staff and their security-clearance status, the purposes and costs of the USIS program and what he considered to be the purpose of the Senate Permanent Investigating Subcommittee. The interview lasted ten minutes.

Before concluding the questioning, Messrs. Cohn and Schine interrogated Mr. Reinert concerning two alleged communists associated with DENA, the wire agency established and licensed in Germany in 1945–47. Mr. Reinert was able to supply certain information concerning the movement of these journalists to East Berlin in 1947, but stated he was unaware of their activities subsequent to that time.

The visitors next asked to see Mr. Harry Skornia, the Radio Officer, whom in a fifteen-minute interview they interrogated concerning personal background, the cost of the Red-White-Red operation, the number of its employees, and their security-clearance status. He was asked to evaluate the Wiener Kurier and to state which of the two instruments—radio network or newspaper—he considered the more valuable in the event that one of them was to be dropped. Mr. Skornia answered that in his opinion, the two were complementary instruments of equal value.

In conclusion the Radio Officer was asked to supply the committee information that would give a “complete picture” of the USIS radio operation in Austria. The interview closed with the visitors asking him about the desirability of a 900-foot transmitter tower for Red-White-Red-Vienna as against a 400 or 450-foot tower. Mr. Skornia explained that the frequency being used was a shared one, that the power used could not be much increased beyond its present range, and that for this amount of power, the present tower was more than adequate. A 900-foot tower, were it possible even to establish one in the Vienna area, would produce little if any additional strength of signal.

The visitors then briefly conferred with Mr. Laurence P. Dalcher, the Information Officer, explaining that time did not permit them to explore more fully on the scene, and that they would like to have complete reports on the entire information operation sent to the Subcommittee.

Having stated a desire to inspect both the Soviet and American Information Centers, Messrs. Cohn and Schine were conducted to both by the Public Affairs Officer and Mr. E. Wilder Spaulding, the Cultural Affairs Officer. At the Soviet Center, they examined the library card catalogue closely, presumably to ascertain whether it contained titles by US authors. (It is known that the Soviet Center’s library contains books by Agnes Smedley, Theodore Dreiser, Jack London, Upton Sinclair, and Mark Twain, among others.)

Proceeding to the US Information Center, Messrs. Cohn and Schine glanced into the various reading rooms and then examined the reference card catalogues. The Embassy escorting officers were not able to see what cards were being consulted, but the visitors appeared to be particularly interested in books on Far-Eastern affairs, and at one point stated that they were searching for any titles by one L. K. Rosinger.

Mr. Cohn then asked what titles had been removed from the USIS Vienna library as a result of the Department’s directive of February 17.³ It was explained to him that a thorough canvass of the collections had been made, but that since PAD had already in years past pursued a policy of periodically reviewing all matter on its library shelves, extremely little material falling under the terms of the new directive had been found. For example, a volume called A Handbook to the U.N. by Louis Dolivet had been removed, because of the author’s subsequent political orientation; and a book on the Soviet ballet had been withdrawn, as had a few remaining copies of novels by Howard Fast. In response to Mr. Cohn’s question as to whether books by three authors cited in a recent Department Circular (#976, dated March 25, 1953)⁴ had been removed, he was told that no books by these had been present in the library, Mr. Cohn then inquired whether any further list of banned authors had been received from the Department; he was informed that the Embassy had not received such a list.

Turning to the periodical racks, Mr. Cohn asked whether the Vienna library carried the American Legion Monthly. He was told that it did not, that this was presumably because the publication was chiefly addressed to American veterans, the number of whom in Austria is not large enough to indicate sufficient potential interest in the publication to warrant its inclusion in the Center. He then asked whether the Center carried The Freeman. The escorting officers declared themselves unfamiliar with the magazine. At this point the examination of periodicals in the Vienna Center ended, and Mr. Cohn asked to be provided with a periodical list; the escorting officer agreed to forward the list requested.

Directly afterward, Messrs. Cohn and Schine met representatives of the US and Austrian press for their second press conference. On obtaining from the visitors the statement that in addition to consulting with US officials, they were holding meetings with other “contacts” including unnamed Austrians, several correspondents questioned the investigators as to the identity of these individuals and inquired whether the visitors were convinced that the procedure they had adapted was the best that could be devised for the purpose at hand. The reporters asked Messrs. Cohn and Schine whether they were confident that the time they were spending in Vienna was sufficient to permit of sound evaluation of the qualifications of their Austrian informants. They also asked whether, in view of the complex political currents in Austria, the investigators could be sure that their informants were not given to partisan judgment. One correspondent inquired into the investigators’ own qualifications for assessing the effectiveness of an information program. Another correspondent, the representative of a U.S. wire service, took the occasion to voice personal disapproval of methods being pursued by the investigators.

In their responses to these questions, Messrs. Cohn and Schine stated that while they could divulge no names of local informants, they knew them to be highly qualified. Further, they said, the Subcommittee had closely studied the US information program in Austria before arriving here, and had the benefit of constant liaison with the State Department on the subject. “We are not trying to get a representative cross-section of Austrian opinion on the information program here,” Mr. Cohn remarked; “we brought names of certain people from the States with whom we shall talk.” In response to further questions, Mr. Cohn stated that the Subcommittee had found evidence of both mismanagement and disloyalty in USIS offices in other countries. Mr. Cohn stated that some persons now in Austria might be asked to testify before the Subcommittee, or that, instead, testimony might be taken from them here. In responding to a correspondent’s question, he did not exclude the possibility that some of these persons might be Austrians.

Mr. Cohn then turned to the subject of USIS libraries, and cited testimony given before the Subcommittee to the effect that “among the 500-odd magazines these libraries carry, there just aren’t any magazines fighting communism.” The local correspondent of Time (which is represented in multiple copies in all USIS libraries in Austria) asked Mr. Cohn whether he did not regard Time as anti-communist. Mr. Cohn repeated the previous charge, and cited the absence of the American Legion Monthly from the racks. He also reiterated that American libraries should carry The Freeman.

A discussion arose over removals of books from US libraries, one correspondent asking why some writers of past communist sympathies who had since recanted should now be regarded as “heroes”, while others who had also broken away but had not made public confessions should be proscribed. Except for praising the aid given to the US Government by such converts from communism as Whit-taker Chambers and Louis Budenz, Messrs. Cohn and Schine declined to be drawn into a debate on the pros and cons of individual authors, and also declined to answer one correspondent’s question as to whether the Department should now ban from its libraries any author who happened also to be represented in a Soviet library—“even Mark Twain”.

On the following morning, Mr. Cohn paid a return visit to the US Information Center in the company of the Cultural Affairs Officer and the Center librarian. Again, he concentrated his attention on the reference catalogue, looking under the general headings “China” and “Communism.” He wrote certain names and titles on a sheet which he took with him. He indicated neither approval nor disapproval, nor did he look at any of the books themselves.

Again, Mr. Cohn asked the Cultural Affairs Officer which books had been discarded in the light of the March 17 directive. The statement made at the Center the previous evening was recalled to him, and he was told that in addition, we had withdrawn a book by the historian W. E. Dubois, one by Agnes Smedley, and were examining a few other titles like those by the former communist, Freda Utley. When Mr. Cohn declared that Miss Utley was a “good” author, since she had recanted, Mr. Spaulding replied that this reaction showed exactly why he, Spaulding, did not wish to read off the names of the authors whom the Embassy was now checking on, pending final determination or the receipt of a definitive list from the Department itself.

Apart from the conversations summarized above and some incidental talks with the PAO and Press Officer between appointments, no contacts took place between the visitors and members of the Public Affairs Division.

Following his second visit to the Center, Mr. Cohn met in the Bristol Hotel lobby with Mr. Orville Transtrum, Director of the Administration Division, and Messrs. Trout and Supple of the Security Branch. (For their conversation, reference is made to Embassy Despatch #1744 dated April 14.⁵)

Finally, on the eve of his departure Mr. Cohn met briefly with Mr. Ben H. Thibodeaux, Counsellor for Economic Affairs. Their conversation will be the subject of a separate communication.⁶

For the High Commissioner:

William Harlan Hale
Public Affairs Officer

1. Drafted by William H. Hale, Laurence P. Dalcher, and Herman Stein of the Public Affairs Division.
2. No record of the meeting under reference has been found.
3. For documentation on the various directives issued during 1953 concerning standards and criteria for books to be included in USIS libraries, see volume ii.
4. For text, see ibid.
5. Ante, p. 1444.
6. No record of such conversation has been found.