100. Memorandum From the Deputy Director for Policy and Plans, United States Information Agency (Sorensen) to the Director (Murrow)1
SUBJECT
- Voice of America—The Policy Issue
Putting aside the ad hominem arguments and other irrelevancies (e.g., “my judgment is better—or worse—than yours”), the issues are:
1. Should the tone, emphases and content of VOA news on foreign affairs reflect the policies and intentions of the United States Government?
2. Should VOA commentaries and analyses on foreign affairs reflect the nuances and special emphases, as well as the main thrust, of the policies and intentions of the U.S. Government?
3. If the answer to one or both of these questions is “yes,” would such broadcasting be compatible with the long-term mission of the Voice, with our desire for credibility, or with our policy of operating on the basis of truth?
I believe the answer to all three questions is “yes.” I believe further that our continued failure to operate on the basis of the first two [Page 260] propositions actually damages the credibility and effectiveness of VOA and, more important, exposes our country to risks.
“Credibility” is a word too often used and too little understood.
The U.S. Government carefully monitors and analyzes all foreign government broadcasting of news and comment. We do so because we believe such broadcasts are often important indicators of the intentions and policies of these governments. Our broadcasts are similarly monitored and analyzed, not only by the Soviets but by many lesser powers including such small nations as Egypt. (Yuri Zhukov told me in Moscow: “I know more about what your Voice of America is saying in Russian than you do.” I denied it—but of course he was right.)
We can assume, and there is much supporting evidence, that these foreign governments monitor VOA broadcasts for precisely the same reason we monitor theirs. They do not monitor CBS or WRC,2 except as part of their surveys of private American opinion. They do monitor VOA because it is the Voice of America, the only full-time radio station overtly controlled and operated by the U.S. Government, financed by Government funds, and directed exclusively to foreign audiences.
VOA credibility, therefore, must be considered in this context. It is not, and cannot be, the same context in which Howard K. Smith operates at ABC or Eric Sevareid at CBS. Thus if VOA says “the crisis has eased” when in fact the President is planning to take steps which—in Russian eyes, at least—will exacerbate the situation, then VOA is not being credible. This is too bad but not fatal. Much more dangerous to us as a nation is the likelihood that Khrushchev will misread the U.S. President’s intentions on the basis of what he hears on the U.S. Government’s radio.
Similarly, we are not being credible when we mislead or confuse the enemy—and our allies and others—with commentaries heavy on speculative interpretation and “on-the-other-hands” and light on facts. (Sometimes it is desirable to mask or obfuscate our intentions, but the decision to do so should be a calculated one made by the President or his responsible advisors, not by a USIA official or newsman or commentator.)
This is not a reflection on the wisdom or judgment or “policy sense” of USIA broadcasters and policy officers. No man can guess very accurately for very long on what goes on in the President’s mind or in his councils. My argument is that it is neither credible nor prudent to do so on a government radio station, whether you do it yourself or lean on a wire service or the New York Times.
[Page 261]Some argue that the Voice is not and should not be “tactical.” I argue that news is timely, and that people and governments react to news now, tonight, tomorrow—not just in five or ten years. They react to the tone, the nuances, the emphases. If this be true, then news itself is “tactical” and if we want to limit our radio to long-term “strategic” purposes (like a book or a film) perhaps we should not broadcast news and timely commentaries at all.
But I do not believe this to be necessary. The VOA has no patent on the truth; our government, with a few notorious slippages, has operated on the basis of certain “self-evident truths” since its birth. If we believe, as I do, that our government’s foreign policies are honest and enlightened, then making policy considerations pre-eminent in VOA output will enhance, not damage, the Voice’s credibility and effectiveness in both the short and long runs.
I believe our broadcasters and policy people have the ability to do this not crudely, not with an axe, but skillfully, subtly and—above all—deliberately.
I am sure none of us—“uptown” or at the VOA—thinks international broadcasting is a game or an end in itself. I feel very deeply that if it ever were, Cuba has demonstrated that it cannot ever be again. If there is a moral principle at stake here, it is the survival and triumph of our people and our institutions, indeed of free institutions and all men everywhere.
- Source: National Archives, RG 306, Director’s Subject Files, 1962–1963, Entry UD WW 173, Box 7, Broadcasting—General (IBS) 1962. No classification marking. Murrow, Wilson, and Harris initialed the top right-hand corner of the memorandum; Harris wrote “11/9” next to his initials. Murrow also wrote “Pass to D.W.” on the memorandum. Another copy of the memorandum is in the National Archives, RG 306, Office of Plans, General Subject Files, 1949–1970, Entry UD WW 382, Box 118, IBS 1962.↩
- Presumable reference to the Washington NBC affiliate.↩