84. Memorandum From President Nixon to the Director-Designate of the United States Information Agency (Keogh)1
I noted with interest and approval your statement to the press after I nominated you as the head of USIA that we wanted to maintain the credibility of our USIA programs and therefore would present to the people of the world a true picture of America—“warts and all”.2
This is exactly what you should say at this time in order to be sure that we establish a good basis for credibility. On the other hand, up until the time Shakespeare became the Director, and even after he became Director over his objections, people in USIA went overboard in letting the world see the warts without seeing the good face the warts sometimes obscures.
It is very difficult to maintain credibility without having some negatives as well as positives. But as you know better than anybody else the main job of USIA is to present America to people abroad in its best light and not in its worst. I want you to instill that philosophy in all the people you work with. This is particularly necessary because the kind of people who come from the media generally are people who either have given up on the U.S. or who because they are so enormously exposed to our media see the U.S. in a negative light. We frankly need to find some media people who want to build up America and not to tear it down. There are plenty of good subjects that can be developed along this line. Your greatest task will be to find individuals who share your [Page 295] own deep convictions about the goodness of this country and the rightness of its policies so that they will have their hearts in it when they are asked to prepare materials which are positive rather than negative.
- Source: National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, Box 295, Agency Files, USIA, Vol. IV, 1972 [1 of 2]. No classification marking. Printed from a copy that Nixon did not initial. A copy was sent to Kissinger.↩
- On December 13, Nixon nominated James Keogh, who had served as Special Assistant to the President from 1969 to 1971, to replace Frank Shakespeare as USIA Director. (Carroll Kilpatrick, “Nixon Speechwriter Named USIA Chief,” Washington Post, December 14, 1972, p. A1) Keogh’s statement to the press has not been identified but he had long been critical of press coverage of Nixon. A December 16 New York Times editorial opined that Shakespeare had “irritated foreigners, demoralized old agency hands and embarrassed American diplomacy with his stridently propagandistic hardline approach to the presentation of American policy abroad.” The newspaper’s editors concluded, “It is time the United States lowered its voice as well as its profile. Mr. Keogh will have to re-examine his own views as well as the policies of the agency he has been chosen to head if the multifaceted Voice of America is to regain respect in a turned-off world.” (“America’s New Voice,” New York Times, December 16, 1972, p. 30)↩