Evening star., 1941-11-28

of Information's work. 1t is part O.
that elaborate scheme, the once fol
Emergency Management. which owe
responsibility to the White House
The division supplies press agent!
to the defense bureaus, but they
work as contributors to the general
arrangement of major policy, no,
as employees of the bureaus they
publicize. They are far more than
simple enunciators of events and
accomplishments. They are work
ing advisers to the custodians OF
the defense effort.
In this war the Importance of in
formation has been acknowledged
universally. Germany has its Goeb-
bells, France had its Commission for
Information and Great Britain has
its Ministry of Information. Here
the Division of Information is the
only unified international outlet we
have, and it's scope is limited to the
defense agencies. Even in one OF
| those, the information men in the
Office of the Co-ordinator of Inter-
American Affairs are, for practical
| purposes, free of D. 0. I. control.
Important to Public Thought.
The Division of Information in
forms the people of the United
States. In that important way 1t
is different from the Office of Co.
| ordinator of Information, which in
| forms President Roosevelt and the
peoples of Europe. Africa, Asia and
Australia, and Inter-A American At
| fairs, which informs Latin America
about the progress of thought,
opinion and arms in the United
| States.
For the present, at least. the Di-
vision of Information is far more
| important factor in the develop
ment of public thought than the
intriguing Office of Facts and Fig
ures, which is hiddent away in
| few rooms of the Dupont Circle
Apartments.
Facts and Figures now has about
half a dozen employees. 1t is an
infant, with an initial budgetry al
lotment of 100000 taken from what
is known as the P. E. F.-the Pres
ident's Emergency Fund The Pres
ident gets 100000 900 year from
Congress to which no strings are
attached.
The o. F. F.. like the Office of
the Co-ordinator of Information,
demonstrates the administrations
faith in the capacity of the literary
artist for the role of public man.
Archibald MacLeish, the Pulitzer
Prize poet. librarian of the Library
of Congress, is the director of the
Office of Facts and Figures. Robert
E. Sherwood, the Pulitzer Prize
playwright, is second in command
at Col. William j. Donovan's Ofice
MacLeish's right-hand man is Capt.
of Co-ordinator of Information Mr..
Robert Kintner, the retired colum-
mist.
S27,770.0O0 for Publicity.
An executive order created o. F..
F. on october "a and directed it
ito formulate programs designed to
facilitate widespread and accurate
understanding of the national de-
fense effort and of the defense
policies and activities of the Gov.
ernment, and advise with the sew
eral departments and agencies of
the Government concerning the
dissemination of such defense in
formation"
o. F. F.. in other words, is the
co-ordinator and vitaliZer of ad-
ministration press agentry, an un-
seen but probably to-b -often-
heard-from bureau. The Budget
Bureau has determined that the
administration last fiscal year spent
s27, TIC, 900 for public informal tional
press, the movies, the radio and
visual arousers-like posters. The
full time experts numbered 1895.
The Department of Agriculture
spent s11 1887 300, or 42.9 per cent Of
the total.
o. F. F. would work through the
Offices and experts responsible for
this large outlay of cash. The great
publicity machine, despite its size,
or because of it, lacks some CO.
ordination. The Maritime Commits
sion, for instance, caused indigna-
ton in some other quarters of the
administration, especially the State
and Navy Departments, several
weeks ago when it announced that
thenceforth most of the war ship
ments to Russia would leave from
| Boston.
That statement soothed the Mas
sachusetts statesmen from the Cap
itol who had been protesting to the
Maritime Commission that Boston
was getting too little of the shipping
gravy of this emergency period
But it angered high naval officers
who saw in the announcement a
message of possible value to the
Nazi U-boat commanders in the
Atlantic.
Modern Creel Agency.
Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, the
director of civilian defense, sug-
gested the establishment Of an of
flee similar to o. F. F. in the in
terests of bolstering the national
morale and stimulating the juices
of patriotism. Co-ordinator Dono-
van hoped for a while last summer
that he would have control over
the field of domestic information
Neither Col. Donovan nor Mayor
La Guardia got it. The post went
to Mr.. MacLeish.
But Col. Donovan and Mayor
La Guardia did retain fringes o1
domestic international jurisdiction
which gives them some satisfaction
Col. Donovan manages organiza.
tional propaganda. His office, for in.
stance, originated the idea of the
Committee for Irish American De.
fense. an anti-isolationist Irish or.