136. Memorandum From the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs (McGhee) to the Director of the U.S. Information Agency (Murrow)1
SUBJECT
- Psychological-Political Program
The purpose of our meeting on May 232 is to provide you with a status report on the psychological-political program which you helped launch as a member of the President’s ad hoc committee on this problem. I have asked Mr. William J. Jorden of my office to report to us on what is being done and what is planned in this area. He has been assigned primary responsibility for developing, coordinating and conducting programs in the psychological-political field.
He will discuss the organizational forms he has developed to carry out this function. He will also describe programs now underway or soon to be launched. Among others, these will include:
- 1)
- The positive “image” of the United States—the effort to explain to our own people and to the rest of the world what we are for, and why; to counter the impression that we know better what we oppose than what we favor; to correct the distorted image of America that has developed in many parts of the world as a result of misinformation and Communist propaganda.
- 2)
-
The failures of the Soviet bloc—to expose for all to see the weaknesses and failures of the communist system; to counter the “wave of the future” propaganda line; to reveal the flaws of communist theory and Soviet practice.
A number of sub-themes fall in this broad category:
- a)
- The Sino-Soviet split—to expose the facts of increasing dissension within the Bloc; to stimulate broad discussion of the theoretical and practical problems that bedevil the Bloc and divide Moscow and Peking; the strike at the fiction of “monolithic unity” in the Communist world.
- b)
- Bloc agriculture—to reveal in detail the story of the huge and continuing failure of the communist system to produce enough food for its people; to destroy the fiction that collectivization provides the best pattern for less developed countries in facing their agricultural problems.
Countering short-range moves by the Communists, such as:
- a)
- The Helsinki Youth Festival
- b)
- The Accra Peace Assembly
- c)
- The Moscow Conference on Peace and Disarmament
- 3)
- Future developments which we can begin now to counter or
minimize, such as:
- a)
- achievement of a nuclear capability by the Chinese Communists
- b)
- claims or demonstrations of an anti-missile or anti-satellite capability by the Soviets
- 4)
- Promoting the flow of information to our posts abroad and, through them, to our friends and other governments and individuals.
- 5)
- Extending the breadth and depth of our contacts abroad with non-governmental groups and individuals—intellectuals, youth, labor unions, political oppositionists, etc.
Any ideas or suggestion you may have on these or other possible activities in the psychological-political field will be welcome.