Evening star., 1947-02-17
Getting Russia On the Beam
Our Short.Wave Broadcasts Begin-An Effort to
Send Truth Through the Iron Curtain
By Ne,Obod Noyes, J.
First of a Series Of Three ArticIes.)

subject for Misrepresentation. The
ether crackles with lies about us, and
confused world listens. We need not
regard ourselves as hly-white to know
that, in general, the simple truth will
best serve our propaganda" interests.
The question is, how do We get people
to listen to it?
In broadcasting to Russia, We are
dealing with all the problems met in
other Voice of America projects, plus
some new ones.
Assembling the right people to do
such job is never easy. In the case OF
these new Russian broadcasts, 1t has
been a major stumbling block, ac-
counting for the long delay is getting
started.
When word first went out that the
State Department was getting ready
10 broadcast to the U. S. S. r., the
division was swamped with volunteer
applicants. Walters in Russian restau-
rants and bogus relatives of the Cars
Communists and Communist-ha
who could speak the language--an
leaped forward offering to put in their
respective oars.
How Staff Was Chosen.
The task of wedding them out fell to
Mr.. Thayer's chief assistant and right
hand man, Nicolas Nobakoff. He left
Russia in 1920. A noted composer, he
has recently returned from Germany
where he served as cultural adviser to
Ambassador Robert Murphy, specializing
on things Russian. Before that he had
been a professor at st. Johns College
and head Of the composition department
at the Peabody Conservatory OF Music.
Mr.. Nobakoff's job was to get rid of
applicants who obviously would not do
and to decide which ones, technically
speaking, were capable of handling the
broadcasts. All who betrayed they had
personal axes to grind were automatic
ally out. He ended up with about rs
possible candidates.
These were put through the most
rigid possible security check by the
FBI. Seventeen of them, including
Messrs. Thayer and Nobakoff, survived.
They are all American citizens.
Radio professionals have warned Mr..
Thayer it is impossible for II people to
write and produce a daily radio program
an hour long. They say he needs a
staff of about 80.
Perhaps it is as well for Mr.. Thayer-
State Department foreign service OH
rer who spent seven years in MOSCOW
that he has never tried radio work be-
fore and therefore does not know what
cannot be done. For even if he could
recruit 80 people, or half that number.
he would not be able to pay them. The
Russian broadcasting project, like all
other OIC operations, is to be con-
Quoted on shoestring appropriation.
We Need q Babe in the Woods.
Like his superiors in the broadcast di-
vision (who seem, incidentally, to have
plenty of the technical familiarity with
radio that he himself lacks) Mr.. Thayer
labors under no grandiose illusions as
TO the probable size, composition or
attitude Of the Voice Of Americas Rus
sian audience. There are an estimated
100000 radio sets in Russia. Most of
these are equipped to receive shortwave
and are therefore capable of picking up
our broadcasts, which will be powerfully
relayed by transmitters we control at
Munich. It is estimated an average of
eight persons listens to each receiver.
It seems certain that most of these
radios are in the hands of persons who,
in the Communist understatement, are
politically reliable" Nobody dealing
with this problem here thinks We shall
be able to appeal to the Russian people
over the head Of their government, or
anything like that.
What the State Department does
hope to do is to give influential Russians
who care to listen, or who can be cajoled
into listening, an object lesson in the
honest use of information.
We shall of course try to tell our side
Of the story. This may have some
limited effect on the thinking processes
of information-starved Russians who
hear us. But the main point is that
we shall try to tell our part of the
story only as part of the whole story.
Gradually, in this way, We may be able
to make even political reliables" in
Russia understand that the truth is
never an enemy to people of good will.
On that basis, even as gamble, this
experiment in ideas seems to be an
undertaking of unusual significance.
(Another article in this series will
appear tomorrow