Evening star., 1955-03-08
EDITORS NOTES.. BY Walter Leckrone
Billions Blown on BuIoney
A scRIPPs-HowARD NEWSPAPER

films on their screens than they are here, and
for the same reasons-their audiences would
walk out.
Radio, which apparently does the most sue
cessfu job of all, actually doesn't reach many,
either. 1t is thoroughly "jammed' out of Com
munist countries, to which three-fourths of it
now is "beamed," largely ignored in others, but
nevertheless aimed heavily at areas where not
one family in 500 has set to receive it or could
understand what it was hearing if it had
Few Americans get to see this output, so it
is hard for them to evaluate it. have, myself,
been fortunate enough to see some of the NOV
les, hear some of the radio programs and read
some OF the press releases and while | lay no
claim to expertness in foreign propaganda l
nevertheless must admit that none of them
would have influenced me favorably toward the
United States, prejudiced though already am
in that direction.
was, in fact, puerile drivel.
ONE OF THE BIG USIA features is the
information center" There now are 213 of
these in n countries, some of which include
Libraries, art shows movies and so on. Mr..
Castle found them largely in the swank "for-
eign sections" of the countries he visited, far
removed from any contact with the native pop
ulation-and generally closed at all hours when
the native population could use them anyway
He said they are mostly visited by Ameri-
can tourists, rarely by native inhabitants. In
general he found USIA overstaffed by incom-
petent or undirected employees, inefficient,
wasteful and actually creating ill-wil, rather
than goodwill by its activities.
ITS FAILURES abroad are attributed by
its sponsors to lack of enough money.
They tell us Russia spends s1.2 billion
year on propaganda-against our SIT million
loef hot IT,
son, though.
Russia's SIP billion includes all the oper
ating expense of all the newspapers, radio and
television broadcasts, industrial exhibits, the
theater and the whole motion picture industry
of Russia. 1t is all owned by the government,
and it is all more or less devoted to propaganda.
The total of all those industries in the
United States is many times as great and
quite lot Of its output does go abroad prob
ably more than goes abroad from Russia, in
private nongovernmental channels.
In fact, Russia spends almost nothing on
propaganda abroad. 1t succeeds in getting most
of its propaganda operation carried on in each
foreign country by native Communists of that
country-as it does in the United States. What
ever small flow of money there may be in this
operation is far more likely to be from those
countries into Russia, rather than out of Rus
Sla.
some of the countries of Europe which spend
sizable sums on foreign propaganda" Most
Of it is direct advertising of their railroads.
their steamship lines, their airlines and their
tourist resorts - many of them government
owned-and it pays for itself, like any other
advertising, from the business it brings in.
THERE is ONE AREA in which USIA has
made an unquestioned and outstanding sue
cess, though.
1t has been spending something over $500
900 year on propaganda to the American peo-
pie and the U. S. Congress, right here at home.
Mr.. Streibert's latest comment on this item
was that it wasn't nearly enough money. New
ertheless it has supported Is or more press
agents assigned solely to the "home front"
whose job is to tell the American people how
good USIA is and what great job it is doing
for-them-and, hence, how vital is its need for
another s100 million for next year.
Even Mr.. Castle has to admit USIA has
scored there.
1t still gets the money.
Reproduced, pith permission Of
The Indianosolis Times Scrpps- -Ho,odrd NepsrAper
by Eugene W. Castle. u