92. Memorandum From the Special Assistant to the Deputy Director, United States Information Agency (Carter) to the Deputy Director for Policy and Plans (Sorensen)1
SUBJECT
- Youth
I. USIA has a unique ability to communicate with those people overseas who are not within the governing power structure of any country, a structure which, incidentally, includes more than just government.
On the other hand, State and AID must, for the most part, restrict their activities to that governing structure.
Youth, of course, lies without the power structure but is an audience of significant importance to the U.S. So it falls largely to our lot to program for this audience; largely but not exclusively as I shall point out later.
The problem is not agreeing on the audience—youth. The problem is: what segment of that particular audience do we want to reach; and with what purpose in mind?
It is here that I’ll have to get into the tricky business of generalizing; but that has its compensations. First of all, the Agency should generalize and let it be the burden of each post to demonstrate the exceptions to Agency generalizations. The generalizations will at least provide us with some broad guidelines against which to exercise a judgment on performance.
A. What segment of the youth audience do we want to reach?
1. I plump against the illiterate because I do not think that in and of himself he is or will become politically important. The illiterate, in [Page 243] fact, is the numerical strength and perhaps the motive power of the politically minded leader. But he follows; he is more apt to be a “true believer” than a political activist. Being illiterate he has little on which to base judgments; his responses tend to be emotional.
So even in those countries where the majority of youth are illiterate, I claim we ought to concentrate our fire on the literate youth. There is, after all, no harm in concentrating limited resources on the most meaningful target. Conversely, there is considerable danger in claiming “youth” as the audience and spreading ourselves so thin that our effect becomes invisible.
2. Literate youth does not mean “student” exclusively. But I’d like to discuss that segment of the audience briefly. First of all, the student is institutionalized, and therefore to a considerable extent he is a captive audience. We know where he is; in what numbers; and how to reach him.
But we still get to the question of how far down we want to reach in the educational structure. Below college? I doubt it. The deeper down you go, the greater the audience; the greater the audience, the more dispersed our effort and effect. Below college, I tend to believe that political orientation may have begun; but, in fact, political commitments have not yet been made.
It’s the college student we want. And the task of working on youth below the college level properly belongs to AID. I’ll come to that shortly.
3. Given the student, what about the rest of literate youth? They’re found in all occupations; but critically they’re in government, communications and the arts. Those in the professions generally have started to acquire a vested interest; they’re not as radical as those in government and the arts. Government workers may take on a vested interest; but at lower echelons they tend to be impatient, radical and frequently looking for quick access to power. In the arts he most frequently represents the Steinbacks, John Dos Passos, and Hemingways of our early thirties—vocal, indignant, oriented to the left. It should be borne in mind that he commands a following, whether writer (this includes journalists), painter or poet; and his importance to us is more than he himself—it is his command of a following.
4. Finally, there is that large group who are disenchanted because they are under or unemployed. They are harder to locate and, once located, harder to “reach”.
5. In essence, then I think we are after literate youth—in college, government, art—or under or unemployed.
We are after the social rebel; the social dissident who, politically, is most apt to be in leftist-oriented parties. And why not? It can be stated with some reasonable certainty that the more pressing the need [Page 244] for reform, the greater the drift to the left. It is from the left that reform is most likely to emanate.
Our classic problem is that the normal rebellion and political zeal of youth are captured by the promises of communism and channeled into communist organizations. I don’t think this is inescapable; in fact I think that the rebellion and dissension can be turned to our advantage—assuming our willingness to take political risks.
II. What Do We Do About Them?
It is not my purpose to spell out the precise mechanics and programs we should undertake to reach youth, but rather to suggest three major approaches which should be directed to those segments of the audience I have delineated above; and which, incidentally, will command through them an even wider audience.
According to your recent survey,2 the three major problems of youth that affect us are: economic, lack of career opportunities, and lack of information about the United States.
The economic problems we can approach directly only—first, by pointing out what the people and the country must do; second, we can indicate how we can support their efforts; and third, we can assume a more positive role in the planning stages of the AID programs.
The lack of information about the U.S. is not necessarily critical. A stepped-up program of information about the U.S. will dissuade youth from looking for drastic solutions only if we ourselves can provide meaningful solutions.
A. Our primary emphasis in the Alliance for Progress, for example, has been about what we are doing or propose to do. Our secondary emphasis has been on what the people and the country should do. I am reasonably convinced that the stick should precede the carrot if we are, through an information program, to ally ourselves with revolutionary aspirations. I grant this entails some political risks. Our claim to being the original revolutionaries has by now become redundant and because we have been unable to back it with substance, meaningless.
To state that we are for reform programs that will constitute an economic and political revolution is simply not enough because this statement does nothing to enlist the energies of youth. We should put more of the monkey on youth’s back; urging them to undertake civic actions which will bring about those very reforms essential to their own well being. We must emphasize the direct responsibility of youth [Page 245] to help create the pressures and the climate that will bring these reforms into existence. We should state that the success of their activities will determine the extent of our support.
True, we cannot provide organizational structures as do the Communists. We can urge youth into meaningful activity that leads to the formation of or participation in organizations which in turn will press for reform.
In essence, let us adopt their own slogans (when as is frequently the case, these slogans coincide with our purposes). This is a tactic which the Communists have often used with us—witness their usurpation of the word “democracy”. Let us embrace and urge for more education, for social reform, and for economic reform, and indicate that we are their allies in these revolutionary pursuits. But let’s keep the burden on them to engage in responsible activities in pursuit of these goals.
B. But we must also spur AID into concentrated programs that can produce results rather than diffused and tangential programs which disperse our resources and the resources of the host country. AID should concentrate on core problems and these frequently are concerned with economic problems directly affecting youth—e.g. increased educational opportunities and the need for industrialization to absorb the under or unemployed. Economic aid programs must produce political and psychological as well as economic results and we should urge programs intended in part to remove the very problems that frustrate youth and present us with political problems.
C. Let us then narrow down our program of economic aid information (while we undertake the first two activities) so that we concentrate on AID programs which will be directly in support of the revolutionary aspirations of youth.
Let us demonstrate to youth through this program that as they have succeeded in establishing programs of reform, they have also succeeded in enlisting our direct economic support.
This, I know, is a highly simplified outline of what I conceive of as an intensive information program directed to youth. It glosses over the admitted political problems which we would face in different countries. But the cloth can be cut appropriately for each country; and in any event, we shall at least begin to direct the discontent and the energy of youth into channels constructive to our own national purposes.
- Source: National Archives, RG 306, Director’s Subject Files, 1962–1963, Entry UD WW 173, Box 11, Policy and Plans—General (IOP) 1962. No classification marking. Carter sent the memorandum to Sorensen under an attached August 22 memorandum, noting: “The main thrust of the program which I envisage is an information program directed to youth which concentrates primarily on outlining to them their responsibilities in helping to achieve reform and social welfare. We point out to them what we are prepared to do when they—and the rest of their countrymen—have assumed their own civic responsibilities. Essentially we should try to force them to realize what their own sloganeering implies in terms of action and describe what related actions we are willing to take as a supporting step. In so allying ourselves with their own aspirations we can provide information about the U.S. directly related to their hopes. We can be precise in showing how the democratic process can and should function to achieve economic and social well being.”↩
- Presumable reference to a USIA report entitled “Youth and Students,” attached to an August 22 memorandum from Murrow to Robert Kennedy; see Foreign Relations, 1961–1963, vol. XXV, Organization of Foreign Policy; Information Policy; United Nations; Scientific Matters, Document 139.↩
- Printed from a copy that bears this typed signature.↩