Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, Volume XXV, Organization of Foreign Policy; Information Policy; United Nations; Scientific Matters

117. Memorandum From the Director of the Office of Research and Analysis, U.S. Information Agency (Stephens) to the Acting Director of the U.S. Information Agency (Washburn)¹

Washington, February 2, 1961.

SUBJECT

• Your Draft Memorandum on “Overseas Opinion Studies”

Yours was a noble and much appreciated effort to defend our public opinion studies.² Unfortunately, everybody in this office who has had to deal with these problems for several years feels that neither of your alternatives is the answer to our difficulties.

We have striven for several years to classify our reports as low as possible and have succeeded in producing more and more unclassified reports, particularly in connection with Communist propaganda. But it would be extremely difficult if not impossible to try to “sanitize” many of the most essential reports we produce. Trying to keep two sets of books creates more problems than it solves.

We have also carefully considered the possibility of releasing only the figures in public opinion polls. But this also creates more problems than it solves. The bare figures can lead to gross misinterpretation and if we try to produce even a few brief paragraphs of interpretation, we are still releasing an official governmental interpretation. I think we have to maintain the position that our public opinion estimates are in the same category as all of the other intelligence estimates of the intelligence community, and that the administration, to fulfill its commitment to fully and frankly inform the American people, should utilize the information it gets from all intelligence data—not just the necessarily fragmentary and ephemeral insights of a particular poll, useful as it may be—to inform the people through public preannouncements. I don’t think the administration can ever give in completely to the “right to know” crusade of the Fourth Estate which implies that all governmental documents should be subject to public scrutiny.

This IRI stand does not mean that this public opinion data can never be published. Following the precedent established by the State Department in its publication of the historic record of our foreign relations, we can make this material available after its sensitivity ends, and after the interest centers on the data itself rather than its relation to some other issue. We can also release certain data to certain research organizations for unattributed use, and it might also be used on appropriate occasions in testimony before Congressional committees.

For a fuller exposition of our views on the subject, I call to your attention the memorandum and the attachment, the “Prestige Polls” issue, which I sent to Mr. Murrow, Mr. Wilson and to you yesterday.

Also there are several inaccuracies in your memorandum. For example, the first sentence is an overstatement. Given funds we could in fact make surveys in almost all countries around the world, outside the Curtain, except in a few countries where the political situation is in turmoil. In the last paragraph the third survey that you mentioned is a 7-nation study in Latin America rather than a 16-nation study. However, the number was limited to 7 only because of the fund limitation.

1. Source: Washington National Records Center, RG 306, USIA Files: FRC 68 A 1415, FOIA/Classified Folder. Confidential. Drafted by Stephens. Copies were sent to Donald M. Wilson (I), James J. Halsema (IOP), G. Lewis Schmidt (IOA), and Henry Loomis (IBS).
2. Reference is to a January 31 draft memorandum to the Secretary of State, which analyzed the USIA’s opinion surveys. It recommended that either edited versions of the surveys or only the polling figures be made public. (Ibid.)