Evening star., 1947-02-18

heard, too, all over this hemisphere, in
Spanish, Portuguese and English, as
well as in the Far East where we make
sure we will be understood by talking
Korean, French, Dutch, English, Indo-
nesian. Malayan and several Chinese
dialects. There are as yet no broad
casts to Japan.
Altogether, we now aim at Is language
audiences. During the war, under owl,
we dealt in almost twice that many
languages. This was undoubtedly
the greatest international broadcasting
project ever attempted. We have
dropped back to about 80 per cent of
our peak wartime effort. Today the
British are doing good deal more than
we are to tell their story to the world
by radio
Ours, from top to bottom, is a shoe
string proposition. The Voice of America
operates this year on an appropriation
of less than $8,0O0,000 which, by COM
mercial standards, is strictly peanuts.
Radio professionals, for example, regard
it as a joke that the broadcast di-
visions budget calls for an annual out
lay of around $125,0 for advertising
its programs-all over the world. BY way
of comparison, they point out the Philco
Co. recently decided to spend 100000
for newspaper and magazine advertis-
ing designed to boost the popularity of
Bing Crosby's one weekly radio show.
The considerable success of the State
Departments venture, under these cir
cunlstances, seems to be directly owing
to the enthusiasm Of the less than 800
people who work in the broadcast divi-
sion. They have an esprit de corps not
often found in government agencies, and
a refreshing belief in the Importance of
their job. The hours are long and ir-
regular A Sunday visitor at New York
headquarters-a veritable, though eff
cient, Tower of Babel-will find many a
worker at his desk.
One of the men In the new Russian
section, which yesterday went on the
air with its first broadcast to the U. S.
S. r., made joke of it.
1--WE are paid for 40-hour week, and
there are no overtime provisions" he
said. Most of us get in at least IA
hours day. Every day. And here we
are, telling the Russians all about the
luxury of the 40-hour week.
In the Hands of Young People.
The broadcast division to remarkable
degree is young peoples organization,
which may account for much of the
earnestness and spirit with which its
work is approached. Kenneth D. Fry,
the division chief, and John r. Shee-
han, his associate chief in charge of the
New York set up, are both about 40.
Robert Ross and Mucio Delgado in
charge of programming, John G. Doud,
who handles the technical side of the
broadcasts, and most of the other key
officials, are in their early 30s.
A lot of effort goes into making sure
the people who work under them in the
division are good Americans" what
ever their national origin may actually
be- A Communist, or anyone else whose
political allegiance was open to sus-
picion, would have hard time getting
on the payroll. Care is taken, more
over, to assure that no subversive note
creeps into the broadcasts at any point.
This is not as easy as one might sup
pose. To make the foreign language
programs as smoothly literate as pos
sible, the division follows policy OF
having them written directly in the
language in which they are to be de-
livered, whenever such procedure is
feasible The policy information sec
ton, charged with seeing that no ma
terial clashes with the official State De-
partment view, cannot always check
these broadcasts before they go on
the air. But every word that goes out
is recorded. And everything said is
carefully studied for the subtle innuendo
of phrase, the ever-so-lightly sneering
infection, which might betray the pres
ence of an intellectual saboteur None
has yet been found.
It is impossible to estimate the total
audience commanded by the Voice of
America. The State Department be-
lieves an average of about six persons
listens to each radio set abroad. On
this basis, it is thought our potential
shortwave audience everywhere may be
in the neighborhood of 150,000,000 This,
however, is not the total potential audi
ence, for in many countries the broad
casts are picked by the government
radio and relayed to the people on
regular medium-wave bands, thus
greatly increasing the number of hear
ers. The British Broadcasting Corpora
ton, for example, sends out much OF
our material on both short and medium
wave lengths.
There is ample evidence that the
Voice of America is being heard with
respect in many places where the
truth, today, is a precious commodity.
A recent survey in a central European
country, supposed to be isolated behind
the Iron Curtain, showed more people
were listening to New York than to
Moscow. It is news like that which
puts heart into the young men at 224
West Fifty-seventh street.
(Tomorrow: Response to the Voice OF
America.)