Evening star., 1947-02-18
Keeping the Record Straight
Voice Of America Aims at Potential Audience
of 15OOO0,OOO, Scattered Around the World
By Newbold Noyes, Jr.
(Second of q Series Of Three ArticIes)

Second Of a Serie
About month ago, small Chinese
hunched over his desk in a drafty office
building at 224 West Fifty-seventh street,
New York City, painting feverish ideo-
grams up and down large white sheet
Of paper. Behind him stood large man,
coatless and tieless, whose twitching'
hands and distraught eye marked him
Enthusiastically as an editor.
"Step. it up, Johnny" said the big
man. "Step it up! This thing is for
release in Is minutes, and in Is minutes
we're on the air!"
The small Chinese did not even look
up. Tirelessly, his hand flew between
the paint jar and the paper as the
complex characters took shape under
his brush.
twenty-five minutes later, he stood
before a microphone reading to the
people of China, in their own language.
the full text of Gen. George c. Mar
shalls parting statement to warning
political factions in their country. In
studios down the hall, the same message
was being flashed halfway around the
world in other Chinese dialects.
1t was important to us that the
Chinese hear what Gen. Marshall had
to say. For weeks they had been bonn
barded from both the nationalist and
Communist sides with misrepresenta-
ton of the part America was playing
in China's tragedy. In this broadcast,
and in subsequent programs, the State
Departments Voice of America" has
dealt in full and painstaking detail with
the facts of the Far Eastern situation
and our attitude toward it. 1t has been
a powerful corrective to the dismayed
bleatings of the Central Chinese gov
ernment and to Communist gloatings
about our bankrupt" policy in China.
Keeping the Record Straight.
Daily, around the clock, the interna-
tional broadcast division of O1C, the
State Departments Office OF 1nterna-
tional Information and Cultural Affairs,
has gone about this job Of keeping the
global record straight on the subject OF
America. 1t is not an easy job; there
is much to explain.
What are the thoughts Of man
who Is starving in India when he learns
the United States is destroying thou
sands Of tons of potatoes? He does
learn-Moscow makes sure OF that.
Nothing we can say will lessen his Bit
terness, but we must make him under
stand the potatoes are not being dumped
out of sheer malice; that combina-
ton of transportation-cost and spoilage
factors prevent us from getting them
to him.
And the business about Henry Wall
lace? Only patient, thorough explana-
ton could reasSure those who had been
resisting communism abroad about the
meaning of the former Secretary OF
Commences defection-could convince
them the United States was not chang
ing its foreign policy. not preparing to
abandon them. OIC's Voice Of America
gave them the assurance they needed.
The issues that must be dealt with are
not all general; the broadcast division
frequently reaches into specific parts
of the world to correct specific misap-
prehensions which are doing us harm.
A Hungarian magazine recently accused
us OF monopoliZing the manufacture
and use of the drug penicillin, to the
detriment of the rest Of the world. The
charge was false. Within few days,
some 100000 owners of short-wave
radios in Hungary were learning the
facts.
And when opinion samples revealed
that many Frenchmen thought the re-
cent American coal strike meant Com
munists were taking over, the Voice OF
America Strengthened them out by re-
citing the anti-C Communist record OF
John l.. Lewis.
The State Department, Of course,
gives its foreign audiences something
more than just political lectures. With
I'D - a. NJ o1Hif1, o1
material, for which there Is everywhere
an almost Unsuitable demand. The most
popular of all our programs is one called
Radio University, now sent out in IL
languages. The State Department
records many local commercial pro-
grams and rebroadcasts some OF them.
American jazz music, especially, Is ap-
preciated in all sections Of the globe.
Our Biggest Audience Is Europe.
Above all, and at all times, our listen
ers get news, as much news as we can
give them, as objective and complete
as we can make it. A day in the broad
cast divisions New York newsroom has
convinced the writer that, in some re-
spects at least, our fact-hungry foreign
audiences are better served with news
than we ourselves are when we listen
to the radio. The State Departments
broadcasts are long on background
material and layman's-language inter-
pretation, short on hokum and crystal
gazing. They are developing a re-
markable record of reliability-the finest
asset such project can have.
It is worldwide project. Europe, OF
course, is the biggest audience: It is
in Europe that 7S per cent of all foreign
radio sets, and IS per cent Of those
capable of receiving short-wave, are
located. But the Voice of America is