76. Memorandum From the Assistant Director, Europe, United States Information Agency (Cody) to the Director (Murrow)1
SUBJECT
- Information Activities in the Soviet Union
You may be interested in two examples of gradual increase in our information activities in the USSR.
First, as you know we started a Cultural Bulletin one and one-half years ago without express permission of Soviet authorities. Circulation was two hundred for the first three months and then was upped to two thousand in one fell swoop. Soviet authorities did not object, partly because, we assume, they do considerable mailing from their Embassy here and know that they would not be permitted to continue their propaganda mailings if they stopped us in Moscow. Recently circulation was increased to three thousand five hundred. The Embassy informs us now that circulation will be increased by adding the names of five hundred writers to the mailing list, bringing the total to four thousand with further expansion contemplated. The addition of two [Page 199] local employees, recently authorized, will permit expansion of this program as well as the quick translation and timely mailing of Embassy press releases containing important Administration statements to upward of two thousand addressees. (The Cultural Bulletin, incidentally, is prepared by our Special Projects Office in Vienna from raw materials provided by IPS here. A copy of the Cultural Bulletin is attached.)2
Second, recent expansion of the physical facilities of the Embassy in Moscow has enabled us to construct a Consular Reception Room and a reading room both of which will contain displays of books and periodicals available to visitors for reading on the premises and, in some cases, for presentation. You may know that the Embassy has carried out a discreet presentation program of books and other publications for the last four years. These presentations, ranging in volume up to fifteen hundred books and many more related materials (periodicals, records, sheet music, pamphlets, etc.) per year, are normally distributed to Soviet citizens through tourists, exchange delegations and individuals, students and others on official or unofficial visits in the Soviet Union. Materials are, of course, non-political in content. We hope to be able to expand this program gradually.
In both of these cases I believe that continuation of the programs and their success depends partly on our keeping quiet about them and not publicizing in this country the efforts we are making to pierce the Iron Curtain.
- Source: National Archives, RG 306, Director’s Subject Files, 1962–1963, Entry UD WW 173, Box 9, FIELD—Europe—(IAE) 1962. No classification marking. Copies were sent to Mackland, Ewing, Harris, Smith, Plesent, Sorensen, Bennett, Barnes (EUR/SOV), Jones (EUR/SES) and the Embassy in Moscow. Harris initialed the top right-hand corner of the memorandum and wrote “4/10” next to his initials.↩
- Not attached.↩
- Cody initialed “MO” above his typed signature.↩