133. Memorandum From the Director of the U.S. Information Agency (Murrow) to President Kennedy1
Weekly Report:
1. Izvestia moved your interview2 to the last two pages in the second of its two editions. (The first edition is primarily for street sales; subscribers get the second, which is believed to be the larger in circulation.) Khrushchev’s Novosibirsk speech of November 26 on agriculture occupied practically all of pages one, two and three in the second edition.
[Page 251]The interview may have been read by as many as 40 million people. On a story of this great interest, Izvestia is credited with up to ten readers per copy, or roughly one out of every five citizens of the USSR.
Our experts do not believe the “debate” character of the exchange, widely commented on here, detracted from the intense interest with which readers searched your words for clues to the question of war or peace.
You may now wish to consider doing the same thing from time to time for other countries such as Poland where the American view does not get through adequately.
2. Outside the Communist Bloc, editorial comment on your Izvestia interview was largely favorable, with most editorials stressing the significance of an uncensored presentation of U.S. policies. Some European media credited the Soviets with a sincere effort to present the U.S. view. A number of Near and Far East papers strongly approved both the granting of the interview and the content; Asahi of Japan suggested an exchange of such interviews with Communist China. Three French papers, however, expressed concern over the development of bi-lateral relationships. A Cuban radio commentator charged you with lies, hypocrisy and a variety of other evils.
3. A tough Pravda editorial and a TASS dispatch on December 1 may signal intensification of the Soviet propaganda drive to keep Austria out of the Common Market. Pravda said flatly that Austrian participation would violate neutrality, and TASS equated the Market with NATO. Preliminary Austrian reaction was firm and cool, with officials taking the position that Austria must be the judge of its own neutrality.
4. The construction of our new shortwave transmitting complex near Greenville, N.C., is proceeding well, with all phases on schedule. I inspected the work last week, and was well satisfied with both the design and progress in construction. The Greenville facility will give us a capacity of 4,800 kilowatts, on eighteen transmitters, as compared with a present east-coast capacity of 1,385 kilowatts. It will provide a greatly improved signal to Africa, the Middle East, South America and Europe for direct shortwave, relay and emergency communications. The entire installation will be operational at the end of 1962.
5. More than half the British public (52 per cent) supports admission of Communist China to the United Nations, according to a Gallup survey made available to USIA. Another Gallup survey showed 42 per cent of the British people favoring representation of both Communist China and Nationalist China, 11 per cent opposed to both, 9 per cent for Nationalist China only, 9 per cent for Red China only, and 29 per cent without an opinion.
6. The Scandinavian press continues uneasy over Soviet pressures on Finland, after temporary relief over what appeared to be a solution. [Page 252] The conviction now is widespread throughout Scandinavia and Western Europe generally that this is only the first in a series of moves aimed at Finland.
7. Communist Bloc distribution of books and periodicals in Africa has increased markedly in 1961, according to a year-end USIA research report.3 The countries well-penetrated include Cameroun, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal, Somali Republic and Zanzibar.
8. I am leaving for Paris Thursday evening for three days of discussions with my British, French and German opposite numbers in the continuing effort to harmonize our activities. I expect to be back on December 13, after a brief stop in London.
- Source: Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Departments and Agencies Series, USIA, Box 290. No classification marking.↩
- For the transcript of this interview on November 25, see Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1961, pp. 741–752.↩
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At a news conference on March 23, President Kennedy was queried about Soviet and Chinese Communist publication of “3 to 4 million books a year,” and sending many of them to “noncommitted” nations. In comparison, the USIA’s book delivery paled in what the questioner termed a “book gap” that would perhaps “present a tremendous obstacle to our winning the minds of the uncommitted peoples.” The President responded: “Well, I agree that both the Chinese Communists and the Russians have poured large sums of money into subsidizing cheap book publications which have poured into many sections of the world and is a matter of concern. I think the point is excellent. Mr. Murrow has been considering what we could do in an expanded way in this area. There are areas where they’ve also made a greater effort, radio broadcasts to Africa and so on as well as exchanges. So that we have the whole problem, of which books is a part, in this struggle between freedom and control.” (Ibid., p. 219)
In a weekly report from Murrow to President Kennedy, August 27, two related items were presented: “6. The Soviet Union spent an estimated $10,000,000 on propaganda in India last year, according to a USIS-New Delhi study. The tab for paid advertising alone ran to one million dollars. Our own budget for India was $4,900,000 in the last fiscal year, a rate that can only be supported because of the supply of local currency available under P.L. 480. 7. The volume of orders for books and pamphlets on Communist China, produced by USIA’s special China Reporting Program in Hong Kong, doubled during the last fiscal year. In FY 1962, USIS posts ordered 140,000 for distribution in their respective countries; last year it was 287,000.” (Kennedy Library, Arthur M. Schlesinger Papers, White House Subject Files, Classified Subject File, USIA, Box 48)
↩ - Printed from a copy that bears this typed signature.↩