Office of the Historian

158. Memorandum From the Acting Director of the U.S. Information Agency (Wilson) to President Johnson1

Washington, November 25, 1963.

SUBJECT

  • USIA Coverage of President Kennedy’s Death and Your Assumption of the Presidency

USIA is using all media to describe your accession to the Presidency and to document the orderly transfer of power following President Kennedy’s death.

Since 2:00 p.m. Friday, the Voice of America has been broadcasting a special program around the clock to all parts of the world. This coverage will continue through your address to a joint session of the Congress on Wednesday.

Our Wireless File, a teletype service to 108 posts in 101 countries, has carried full accounts, including biographies of you and the late President. News photos, including a 17-picture biography of you, were rushed out by air.

We are transmitting the text of a brief pamphlet on you to all posts for immediate translation and distribution.

Extensive newsreel coverage, for both theater and TV use, is being air-shipped daily.

A 15-minute TV biography of you is almost completed, and will be air-shipped to countries having TV by Tuesday.

A full half-hour TV documentary of your rise to the Presidency will be completed and shipped within 10 days.

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Two motion picture documentaries in color, one featuring the life work of President Kennedy and the other on your life and assumption of the Presidency, are to be completed within 30 days.

A six panel photographic exhibit an your career is in preparation for shipment to all posts by air on Friday.

Donald M. Wilson2
  1. Source: Johnson Library, Office Files of Bill D. Moyers, Box 55. No classification marking.↩
  2. Printed from a copy that bears this typed signature.↩