The Voice of America: What It Tells the World

Few listeners in the radio-haunted U.S. have ever heard America's most ambitious radio program. Yet it is a show that would probably get a higher Nielsen-rating than Amos 'n' Andy (if a rating could be taken), has the richest sponsor of them all, and sells the world's most priceless product. The sponsor is Uncle Sam and the product freedom. The program is the Voice of America.

From Bop to Apfelstrudel. A listener tuning in on Voice broadcasts in recent weeks might have heard the following program items:

P:A talk on new U.S. glassmaking techniques.

P:Arturo Toscanini conducting the NBC Symphony Orchestra.

P:The story of a neurotic dog called Nick (or, as the French broadcaster put it, un brave toutou qui dement neurasthenique).

P:Martin Block's Make-Believe Ballroom, on which Disc Jockey Block presents new records, plays request numbers. Typical recent request from "Alex," a listener in Switzerland: play some bop. Block's grave answer: "Alex, did you know that bop is on its way out? . . .Did you know that Dizzy Gillespie has given up bop?" Block then played one of Gillespie's post-bop numbers entitled You Stole My Wife--You Horse Thief.

P:A well-informed analysis of the staggering economic problems faced by Communism in China.

P:A talk about food in the U.S., by an Austrian woman who had married a G.I. She spoke lyrically of the cosmopolitan variety of the U.S. menu ("Goulash, Wiener Schnitzel, stuffed peppers, Linzer tart . . ."), and made an announcement that might start a major revolution in Vienna: "I frequently make Apfelstrudel, but I don't have to knead the dough myself--I buy it all ready. Or better still, I buy the whole Apfelstrudel ..."

With Flying Shirttails. The bulk of Voice of America news is handled in straight reporting fashion. Some critics believe it is too straight, but the Voice believes (probably with good reason) that people constantly exposed to Communist polemics welcome factual reporting.

The heavy-duty fighting against Red propaganda is done in political talks, dramatic features, and in what Voice men call "shirttails," i.e., short comments tacked on the end of news broadcasts. When the Voice rushes in, shirttails flying, to nail a Russia lie with clear facts & figures, it is often at its best, speaking with firmness, dignity and common sense.

The Voice on the last Russian peace offensive: "We must ask what sort of peace . . . After all, there is the peace of the graveyard, and we don't want that. There is the peace of subjection . . . There is a peace whose price is so high that life may no longer be worth living . . ."

On the Communist line that the U.S. bipartisan foreign policy had gone down the drain: "Sure, things are pretty lively in American politics every now & then, but we prefer the loudest noise of the political arena to the deathly silence of the one-party ticket."

What Makes a Hungarian. Most of the Voice propagandists are natives of the countries to which they broadcast. Generally, the various language desks have preserved their national temper. The Russian desk can be as heavily humorous as Andrei Vishinsky, and just as ready with an old Russian proverb. The Hungarians are sentimental and fiercely nationalist. When Hungary's Red regime abolished the old Hungarian coat of arms, the Hungarian Voice cried: "These emblems speak not only of old glory, but of defeats, of knights, heroes, tales of adventure and fairies--everything that makes a Hungarian a Hungarian."

Two notable exceptions to the rule that Voice programs follow the national temperaments of the receiving countries: the Yugoslav and Latin American services, which are deadly dull.

"Live & Let Live." One of the Voice's most effective programs has been a hardhitting series called Where Are They Now?, on men who thought they could collaborate with the Communists. Sample, on Jan Masaryk:

Masaryk's voice: I am convinced that if the Western democracies stick to the old rule, live and let live, no insurmountable difficulties will be encountered in this direction . . .

Narrator: Charles University--the faculty dismissed.

Masaryk: Live and let live.

Narrator: Czechoslovak students fired upon by Communist police.

Masaryk: Live and let live.

Narrator: All Czechoslovak newspapers put under the Communist Minister of Information.

Masaryk: Live and let live.

(A drum begins to roll.)

Narrator: Schools--Communist. Police --Communist. All Prague, all Czechoslovakia, dominated by a ruthless pressure.

Masaryk: I am convinced that if the Western democracies stick to the old rule, live and let live . . .

A voice: Where is he now? Where is Jan Masaryk?

Narrator: Dead. By his own hand.

The Land of Joe Smith. By far the most important job the Voice does is its reporting of U.S. life. This is aimed at breaking down Communist (and other) propaganda to the effect that the U.S. is a land of millionaires, gangsters and oppressed workers.

The foreign listener who bases his mental image of the U.S. on what the Voice tells him will get a picture of a vast land, incredibly resourceful and technically more advanced than any country on earth. It is also the freest country, and the richest--though the people he will meet (a remarkably large number of them called Smith and Brown) will rarely be obtrusively rich. Like the run of U.S. citizens, he will hardly ever meet a millionaire. The Smiths and the Browns own a one-family house (there is probably a mortgage on it, but at very low interest), and own a car. The women like careers, but they are good mothers and wives, too, and work fairly hard around the house, although they have all manner of gadgets, frozen foods, and husbands who help with the dishes. In the Voice's otherwise true picture of the U.S., few couples ever get divorced.

The Voice listener will learn a lot about scientific progress in the U.S. Voice officials have found that audiences are insatiably curious about U.S. technology and U.S. medicine. The Voice listener will also learn a lot about how U.S. workers really live, will know that in vast parts of U.S. industry, labor and management are harmonious. Typical is the dramatized story, not without a few naive soap-operatic touches, of Joe Smith, a worker in the American Lead Pencil Co. of Hoboken, N.J. ("There are more beautiful towns in America"). Twelve years ago, things did not go so well with Joe Smith. When the union started to organize the workers, there were strikes. One night Joe and his wife Nelly exchange the following stark bit of dialogue:

Nelly: Joe, are you asleep?

Joe: No, Nelly.

Nelly: The strike?

Joe: Yes, the strike . . . and you in your eighth month . . .

But things improve steadily to the point where the union actually helps management to cut costs by increasing efficiency. "Joe Smith is pretty satisfied," concludes the narrator, "and he knows why." One of the reasons becomes apparent one day when Joe comes home from work.

Nelly: You got it?

Joe: Yes--a raise--eight bucks a week.

Nelly: Hurrah, we'll buy a television set.

Proust on the Subway. The Voice listener is apt to hear a great many wide-eyed, breathless stories about New York. Arab listeners were recently offered (Allah only knows why) a broadcast on Central Park which furnished the following startling information: "If you drive in through one of the streets that cross the park from west to east, or vice versa, you will probably go down a number of circular roads, and as the roads wind, your car will follow, and in half an hour or so you are back at the same point from which you started . . ."

While the Middle Eastern desk thus managed to impart to New York traffic a touch of Middle Eastern inefficiency, a recent Czech broadcast made it sound superhumanly efficient. "We must not forget to mention the buses, as they are called here for short . . . They all have one strange quality in common . . . There is only one person, a single man, who not only drives the bus but also takes the fares, makes change, opens and closes the doors . . . And yet he certainly does not run down any more pedestrians than the driver in Paris, London or Prague, who only drives . . ."

More often the Voice really manages to convey the breadth and the vigor of the American land. A recent instance was the dramatized history of the Missouri Valley, including the Astor Fur Co. and Custer's Last Stand. The piece ended in this trite but nevertheless moving passage: "The great buffalo herds of yesterday live only in the songs of the West now, and where not long ago there were log cabins and small settlements, modern cities bloom--Kansas City, Omaha, Bismarck and all the others. Bridges cross the winding river, carry trains and automobiles from one bank to the other. The beaver has crept away, but men have built new dams--dams which tame the once treacherous river and produce power for the farmer's lamps. Peace--long-fought-for peace--has settled over the Missouri Valley, and this time it will last."

The listener can learn quite a hunk of truth about America and its hopes--and about the poetry of Kansas City--from this passage. He can also learn quite a lot of nonsense from some recent French broadcasts (generally, the French desk is one of the Voice's best) which tried to show that Americans are really very cultured. The French Voice recently remarked in dead earnest, upon the publication in the U.S. of a new book on Marcel Proust: "In the subway and on buses, you constantly meet workers and employees, men and women, on their way to and from work, devouring The Guermantes Way and The Past Recaptured."

The War in the Air. The Voice originates in three bustling, crowded office buildings on Manhattan's West 57th Street, in a peculiar atmosphere compounded of foreign accents, glue, bureaucracy and an enthusiasm not often found in government departments. Few men on the Voice staff are topnotch professionals; most work exceptionally hard, and have, on the whole, done a good job. Boss of the Voice is Foy D. Kohler, 42, an Ohioan and a veteran foreign service career man with years of duty which have given him a patient smile and a prematurely wrinkled face. Responsible for Voice policy is able ex-Newspaperman Edward Barrett, who as Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs heads the whole U.S. propaganda program.

Voice staffers often complain that "policy guidance" from Washington is slow, that they lack the funds to do a first-rate job (in 1950 the U.S. State Department spent less than a third of its meager propaganda budget of $34 million on broadcasting). Actually, what the Voice needs above all is not more money or more memoranda from Washington, but simply better writing, sharper thinking, and plenty of blue pencils to cut the dull stretches which still pervade too many of its programs.

Voice broadcasts in 24 languages are carried by 38 short-wave transmitters in the U.S. and 19 relay stations at Woofferton (England), Munich, Tangier, Salonika, Honolulu and Manila. Voice stations are located in some exotic places: the transmitter in Tangier stands on a sultan's former hunting domain, and the slender blue-and-white transmitters near Manila rise elegantly from damp rice paddies. In a twice-daily air assault against Russian jamming, the Voice teams up with some 30 BBC transmitters. Voice broadcasts are also carried by domestic stations in more than 50 countries, including the French government network. The Voice is now building several more transmitters whose location, is still secret.

The Voice's biggest technical problem: Moscow's furious attempts to jam the round-the-clock Voice broadcasts to Russia. U.S. monitors estimate that Russian jamming has been between 70% and 80% effective. Voice officials hope to do better when the new U.S. transmitters go into operation.

Who Listens? U.S. officials have estimated the audience at around 100 million, but this figure is little more than a wild guess. In Belgium, only an estimated 1,000 people tune in on the Voice regularly. Most Scandinavians, if they listen to foreign broadcasts at all, prefer the BBC, which built up an excellent reputation broadcasting to Europe in the days of the Nazi occupation. In Germany, however, together with U.S. libraries and newspapers, the Voice has a wide audience. According to recent polls, 41% of the U.S. Zone's population listen to the Voice regularly or occasionally; most seem to like it.

The Voice has its biggest impact in Iron Curtain countries, where, along with BBC, it is almost the only source of truthful news. Listening to the Voice is not technically illegal, but people caught listening are often fined or jailed under some pretext. In Hungary, where Voice listeners seem most ardent, newspapers constantly report cases of people who have been jailed for spreading Voice reports. Hungarian universities have inaugurated a "political hour" in which the instructor puts his students through a daily catechism on "why the Voice of America lied last night."

Rumania has devised a more effective way of fighting the Voice: the Communists are trying gradually to do away with radio receiving sets, instead distribute loudspeakers without dials, to which programs are piped from government controls known as "radiofication stations." Rumanians who still have pre-radiofication sets (about 300,000) listen to the Voice, usually in groups, with lookouts against police posted at doors and windows. A Rumanian refugee in Turkey estimates that even seven out of ten Communists listen to the Voice, not, as he carefully explained, "because they are bad Communists, but because they are apprehensive Communists."

Truth for Ursula. There is plenty of evidence that, despite the jamming, the Voice is heard and heeded in Russia. Best evidence: the tremendously expensive jamming 'operation itself, along with the frequent Russian press attacks on the Voice. When Mrs. Kasenkina jumped to freedom from the Russian consulate in New York City (TIME, Aug. 23, 1948), U.S. diplomats found that the news ran through Moscow like a brush fire although no Russian broadcast or newspaper had mentioned it; only the Voice had carried the story.

The Middle and Far East present special problems to the Voice. Few people in these areas own radio sets. U.S. officials estimate that, in all of China, there are only 850,000 sets, only 20,000 of them equipped for short-wave reception. U.S. newsmen report that since the Communists smothered all free sources of information, Chinese interest in the Voice has increased sharply.

The Voice does not beam broadcasts to Japan--where the occupation authorities are doing their own effective information job--or to Indo-China, Burma and India (Radio Moscow diligently broadcasts to these countries). Recently the Voice has started successful broadcasts to the young Indonesian republic, which has proved inexhaustibly curious about the U.S.

The clearest and often the most moving evidence that the Voice has a deep, influence all over the world is furnished by the letters which reach Voice headquarters in New York (about 15,000 a month). One of the most touching in recent mail came from a Munich girl named Ursula, who wrote: "I have a great need to talk to someone . . . Please listen, you who live in a country where everything is so well ordered and yet so free. Will you understand me? Or will you laugh at these thoughts of a 17-year-old girl? Tell me, why are we Germans never as free as other people? Are we so different from everyone else in the world . . . that again & again we must blindly run into the same abyss? . . . We young people, who have never learned to think for ourselves, will grow up like our parents . . . Does it have to be this way? Please help me . . ."

As long as the Voice could bring hope and truth to people like Ursula, who would otherwise be alone with their doubts and fears in a world threatened by the great Communist lie, the Voice of America was well worth the effort--and the taxpayers' money--that goes into it.

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