Browning chief. [volume] (Browning, Mont.) 1941-1953, 1947-03-28
Crack Iron Curtain
With Short Wave

If there is much more evidence of
the cracking of the so-called "iron
curtain" the impression may get
about soon that 1t is a pretty porous
protection of the secrets of the So
viets.
Recently was walking the corri-
doris of the state department with
one of its officials. "How long," I
asked him, "do you expect the
Kremlin to permit you people and
the British, with your American and
British propaganda magazines and
pamphlets and your broadcasts, to
poison Ivan and his Tovarishes, with
this western poison?"
"Oh," he replied, "they won't stop
u.s."
why not?" I inquired. "They
can't" was his answer.
British Broadcasting company has
been beaming broadcasts on Russia
to Russia in the Russian language
for year or more. BIC reports
that the programs have been we'll
received and that the effort is worth
while. The state department began
its broadcasts last month. Some Of
its officials believe that it is worth
the millions it will cost to continue
them. The first program had few
listeners; 1t was criticized. It is
being tailored according to listener
comment. There is no way for the
Russians to know about the pro-
grams, since notice of them, except
by announcement over BIC, ap-
pears in no Russian paper.
How is it the Russians permit It
at all? And even If they don't put
obstacles in the way, will the Rus
slams listen? Are there enough ra-
dio sets with short-wave receivers to
make up worth while potential au-
dience?
These are the questions I asked.
I'll try to give some Of the answers.
AS to the Russian attitude, it
seems negative. When the British
first talked about broadcasting to
Russia, Russian official is reported
to have said: eve have tried to CO.
operate with you. You have your
kind of democracy. You believe in
freedom of speech. So we have CO.
operated with you by sending you
broadcasts in English from Russia.
We have our kind of democracy. We
do not believe in freedom of speech.
So we hope you will cooperate with
our kind of democracy by NOT
broadcasting to u.s."
If that wasn't actually said, it
ought to have been. 1t is too good
to be untrue.
The British did not cooperate.
Neither did II other countries, in
Guiding Ecuador, which, along with
the United States, are all now BEAM
ing their programs on Russia. I
don't know about the others, but the
British seem to have quite a follow
ing and since the Russian people are
more interested in America than in
any other country, see no reason
why the state departments effort
shouldn't be quite as successful.
What are the chances? In the first
place, radio listening has been de-
veloped in Russia. People are en-
couraged to have sets and they are
short-wave sets because short-wave
is the communication method used
by the Russian government. That's
because of the great distance.
How many have sets?
When Averill Hartman was there
he made an estimate of 5000 SETS.
A later estimate put the figure as
$4,000 to million. According to
the Russian five-year plan the goal
is $4,000 for the first year. We
know that the Russians seized all the
radio sets they could in territory thew
occupied; also the government re-
turned all sets seized from Russian
citizens during the war.