The Waterbury Democrat., 1942-09-03

movies, post CTS, publications, propaganda and paper matches to drop from bonbers-- would run to about STB million, This divides roughly into S3,3 mil- lion for domestic operations and $4.5 million for overseas operations, The oWr hastens to warn you, however, not to start multiplying those figures by four to get tho cost of their operations for Q year, The costs might not run that high, On the other hand, they might run higher, A purely unofficial guess os to the maximum would be $l5 million a year for domestic opera tions, s2S million for overseas oper- ationS.
 owl was created, as you may re. call, by a June shotgun wedding of the fires, winds and waters of the old Office of Government Re- ports, the Office of Facts and Fig. ures, the foreign information dlvis- ion half of Col. William ]. Dono- vans old Office of the Co-ordinator of Information, and the information section of the Office of Emergency Management, which is the holding company for all defense organi- zatlons.
 For the last 10 weeks, oWr has been transferring personel ali over the place. ironing out overlapping functions of two or more bureaus, going through the typical Wash ington labor pains that new parent organization always experi- ences with it's first born.
 STAFF TOTALS S5OO- PLUS
 Office of War Information today admits that 1t has an active full- time personnel of around $500 people, of whom some 1850 are as- signed to handling government inc formation for domestic consumption, the remaining 1850 preparing the governments propaganda for con- sumption overseas. The payroll for the whole $500 has run about $700,- 900 a month.
 But that $500 does not include the approximately 100 Army officers and l 100 civilians in the Army's Wash- 1 ington Bureau of Public Relations, the 50 to 100 officers, sailors and civilians in the Navy Departments Office of Public Relations, the l60 people transferred from the old OEM information setup to Office of Price Administration, War Product ion Board and similar organizations which now have their own inde- pendent public relations staffs, clearing their releases through OWI.
 Il does not include the 120 people on the public relations staff of Nelson Rockefeller's Office of h. .ter- American Affairs, which was not consolidated with the other four organizations in the creation of OWI. Add all those in and you get total of more than 4,000 people working on this war information job.
 And that does not include the 2,500 people who work full time, nor the 30,co0 people who work part time-for a total of 5000 man. years. according to the last Budget Bureau survey for Congress.
 owl is making a start at getting all those non-war agency public relations activities whittled down to size.
 The domestic part of the show, which is of most interest to Amer ican readers and listeners, is un- der Gardner Cowles, Jr., of Des Moines. who is going to the Mid- dle East and the Orient with Wen dell Willkie. Tn Cowles' absence another smart young newspaper operator Paul c. Smith of San Francisco, has just taken over. HIRE PLENTY OF TALENT
 Under Smith there is an array of talent and personalities that is probably more diversified than any writing factory assembly line ever put together outside a major studio in Hollywood. There is a policy development branch under Archibald MacLeish, reporting di- rectly to Elmer Davis, keeping in touch with other department of the government through five liai- son men, and thinking up ideas for the rest of OWI to carry out.
 There is news bureau with 385 people to get things into the news papers. And the entire press gallery in Washington-the people who work for and get paid by newspapers and not by the government - numbers only 500!
 Also under Smith is a radio bureau to put things on the air, a motion picture bureau to see that the story gets told in flicker form. a publications and graphics bureau to write tracts, put out pamphlets and magazines, get up posters and cartoons.
 There is a new education bureau. still small, supposed to work with OCD in furnishing information to clubs. lodges. churches and organi- zations of all kinds that want to cooperate on war effort, and a sec tion that prepares material for foreign-language newspapers and foreign language radio programs originating in the U. S.
 There Is the Bureau of Public Inquiry which is simply the old U. S. Information Service retained from OGR to answer direct questions and letters from plain Joe Citizen. There is a campaign bureau to help puhllcize scrap collection and such. Finally, there is an Intelligence Bureau supposed to find out what people don't know but want to know about this war effort, and then see that the answers arc prepared to give the necessary tll-in.