The Propaganda Sweepstakes

By WALTER ISAACSON

Moscow tries harder

During the day, Deepak Kumar, 10, goes to school in New Delhi. In the evenings he earns a few rupees brushing ticks off the dogs owned by a local American artist. In response to a question from his boss about his classwork, Deepak boasts: "It's all right. I'm best in my class in Russian. And look, I have a library card." The card he proudly displays admits him to the library at the Soviet embassy. There he can find children's books, as well as tracts on Soviet life. He has no comparable access to American literature. Children who want to borrow books from New Delhi's American center must have their parents get a card. Deepak's folks, both of whom work long days, are unable to make the trip.

Every day, around the globe, the hearts and minds of people like Deepak Kumar--as well as his parents and friends--are reached on a battlefield in the East-West struggle where words are the chief weapons. With their troops occupying Afghanistan and massed to pounce on Poland, the Soviets have a lot to explain these days. Through a propaganda effort perhaps seven times as large as that of the U.S., and with more sophistication than ever before, they are doing just that.

The Central Intelligence Agency estimates that the Soviet Union spends $3.3 billion annually on propaganda activities of one kind or another. That includes such overt efforts as Radio Moscow's foreign service ($700 million) and the Communist Party's international activities ($150 million). It also includes such indirect propaganda efforts as TASS, the Soviet news agency, which spends $550 million a year spreading Moscow's view of world events to foreign countries. By contrast, the U.S. International Communication Agency (ICA)--which coordinates the Voice of America, cultural exchanges, films, speakers, exhibits and other aspects of U.S. "public diplomacy"--has a budget of only $448 million. Even if the $87 million the U.S. spends separately for Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty are included, the total is still a small fraction of the Soviet propaganda budget.

In radio broadcasting, this disparity means that American stations broadcast for 1,818 hours a week in 45 languages, mostly to Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, while the Soviet Union broadcasts for a total of 2,022 hours a week in 82 languages to virtually every one of the world's 165 countries.

During his presidential campaign, Ronald Reagan spoke of increasing the American propaganda effort, but in this winter of budget cutting no additional money is foreseen. This week the President is expected to name a new head of the ICA. The leading candidate: California Businessman Charles Wick, a close friend who was co-chairman of the Reagan Inauguration Committee.

The Soviet counterpart is Leonid Zamyatin, chief of the Central Committee's International Information Department. He is a former director of TASS who operates under the guidance of the party's longtime chief ideologist, Mikhail Suslov. TASS serves as the backbone of Soviet propaganda. The bluntness of TASS's bias often works against it. For example, the Soviets in 1963 provided, free of charge, equipment for receiving TASS bulletins to the fledgling Kenyan news agency. The Kenyans, however, soon started using the equipment to receive Britain's Reuters wire service as well. A former Kenyan journalist says he was supposed to give equal play to both news services, but that the TASS material arrived days later than Reuters, and was too late to be usable. The CIA claims that the Soviets" often try to plant loyalists in local broadcasting stations so that TASS reports will get better play.

TASS provides most of the material for Radio Moscow, the Soviet version of the Voice of America. In the past two years the broadcasts have been enlivened by sprinkling Soviet-made jazz and rock music recordings among the turgid recitations of editorials. Radio Moscow propaganda is much less vitriolic than the printed press; a Soviet delegation returning from a visit to the U.S. might be quoted by Radio Moscow as saying that the Americans they met share with them an aim of world peace. The broadcasts in English are now particularly subtle, using announcers who try to sound indistinguishable from those on the VOA or England's BBC World service. This new sophistication, however, does not exclude an unfounded allegation here and there. Soviet media actively spread the word, for example, that the U.S. was responsible for the 1978 kidnaping and murder of former Italian Premier Aldo Moro. In addition, events often have to be filtered through an ideological bureaucracy before they are reported. For example, news of the death of former Prime Minister Alexei Kosygin was withheld for 36 hours by TASS and Radio Moscow. Even Soviet citizens heard the news first on Western broadcasts.

The Soviets also make use of "clandestine" radio broadcasts, transmissions that purport to originate from within a particular recipient country but actually come from the Soviet Union or an East bloc ally. The "National Voice of Iran," a source of inflammatory anti-U.S. propaganda, is actually located in the Soviet Union. Furthermore, other Moscow-aligned Communist countries deliver more than 5,000 additional hours a week of pro-Soviet (and anti-American) broadcasting, more than twice the output of Radio Moscow. Radio Havana broadcasts to Africa and Europe through transmitters in the U.S.S.R. In parts of the U.S., Radio Havana can be heard at 600 kHz on AM radio.

The Soviet propaganda effort is furthered by three types of groups in foreign countries. Foremost are the Moscow-aligned local Communist parties, such as the Tudeh Party in Iran and Communist parties active in Western European countries. In addition, in 126 countries there are Soviet "friendship societies" coordinating cultural exchanges, visits and exhibitions; in 1979 a total of 55,300 students from the Third World were studying in the Soviet Union. On a less direct level, Moscow has a phalanx of organizational allies with branches in many countries; the most notable is the Helsinki-based World Peace Council, which the CIA claims is designed to support Moscow's foreign policy through mass meetings and demonstrations in the 130 countries where it has affiliates. Such groups not only spread a pro-Soviet ideological line but provide TASS and Radio Moscow with sympathetic Western sources to quote.

The Voice of America, on the other hand, aims to build credibility mostly by presenting straight news, not propaganda. Radio Free Europe, which broadcasts to most Warsaw Pact nations, and Radio Liberty, which broadcasts to the Soviet Union, are organizationally and financially distinct from the VOA network. Unlike the VOA, they are engaged in more direct and blunt propaganda. Founded in the early '50s, they were originally funded secretly by the CIA. Since 1971 they have been independent, congressionally supported corporations with some private donations. Based in Munich, they are staffed largely by expatriates from the nations they broadcast to. There are no Nielsen ratings for international propaganda broadcasting, but U.S. officials insist that their programs--a variety of news and music--are more popular than those of Radio Moscow. Says acting VOA Director William Haratunian: "The Soviets do more, but in audience the VOA is No. 1." William Buell, senior vice president of Radio Free Europe, agrees, saying of the three American broadcast services: "We're winning the battle of listenership."

The recent rise of limited free expression in Poland has resulted in a few testimonials to the effectiveness of Radio Free Europe. Union Activist Waldemar Sobora was quoted as saying of the Gdansk strikes: "I learned what was happening on the coast from RFE and other Western stations." In a censored article that later appeared in the samizdat (the underground press), Writer Stefan Kisielewski charged: "The [Polish] media belong to the party elite and not to the people, who must learn about their own doings from RFE."

Such influence has produced frequent complaints from Moscow. Two weeks ago, Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko angrily wrote Secretary of State Alexander Haig that the VOA and other radio stations under U.S. control were making "provocative and instigatory" broadcasts that were "an open interference in Polish internal affairs." The Soviets are responsible for a little interference of their own. According to RFE's Buell, they spend as much as $200 million a year to jam Western broadcasts, more than twice RFE's entire budget. (The U.S. does not interfere with Radio Moscow transmissions.) The most effective Soviet jamming is of broadcasts to Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union.

A week ago, the Munich headquarters of RFE was bombed, causing $2 million worth of damage but no interruption in service. West German investigators are focusing, as one put it, on "the possibility of an attack by foreign agents."

The U.S. effort is supplemented by other Western broadcasts, particularly the highly regarded BBC World Service, which has 10 million listeners in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Funded by the British government at some $100 million a year, it has been praised by Soviet dissidents for its accuracy and professionalism--and savored by expatriate Britons, and not a few Americans as well, around the world. "People tune to us because we still have a reputation of credibility," says a BBC executive.

How effective are Soviet and American propaganda efforts in the crucial battlegrounds of the Third World and nonaligned states? Many State Department diplomats feel that the ICA is amateurish, underfunded, ineffective and occasionally counterproductive. India, reports TIME New Demi Bureau Chief Marcia Gauger, provides a clear, if somewhat dispiriting, example. Says one Indian: "The impact is that the great white father has come to dispense knowledge on his lowly children." The Soviet presence, on the other hand, is extensive, sensitive and effective. Says Indian Housewife Jayshree Ramanathan: "When Brezhnev was here, they sent a booklet on what a great guy he is, from his grandparents through his life to his grandchildren." The booklet, which describes the Soviet leader as a boy who rose from poverty, was printed in 14 Indian languages and distributed all over the country. The Soviets have the Communist Party of India to work through, its party newspaper called the Patriot to reflect their line, and considerable influence over other newspapers through propaganda advertisements, such as descriptions of visiting Moscow delegations.

When American aid to India was reduced in the early '70s, so was the U.S. propaganda effort there. The Soviets, meantime, have stepped up their efforts. There are 50% more Soviet radio broadcasts to India than American ones per week, and the monthly magazine Soviet Land, published in twelve languages, has a circulation almost eight times that of America's Span, which costs more than three times as much. The U.S. provides Indian editions of about 200 books and six academic texts; the Soviet catalogue is 144 pages long and lists some 2,200 titles. In addition to propaganda tracts, the Soviets offer such things as medical textbooks (nearly 50 titles) priced as low as $1.10 a copy.

The Soviets have also just reactivated their "Friends of the Soviet Union" program, while ICA-sponsored Indo-American Friendship Societies have languished. The American effort is based on reaching about 6,000 of the urban political and professional elite. Officials say this is the most effective way to use their limited resources, but critics say it is preaching to the converted. The Soviets, on the other hand, travel to the most remote regions to participate in local festivals, and their visiting academics join in seminars organized by Indian scholars.

The difference has caused, observers say, the American image to be capitalistic, imperial and elitist while the Soviets are perceived as "pro-people." Says one high Indian source: "The Soviets have not only established contacts among the urban elite, but they have gone to the smaller towns to form Indo-Soviet friendship societies and socialist study groups. The Indian is impressed that the average Soviet is interested in learning our languages. Their cultural officers stay here for years and years." Says another Indian observer: "The best impact ever made by the Americans was a group of high school students who gave a musical performance. They were open-faced, bright young people. They were fascinated by elephants. Such a group singing folk songs is worth more than 500 articles on American policy, which only puts people's backs up."

Former U.S. Ambassador Robert Goheen, who was born in India, says the ICA has done a respectable job with its limited money, but adds that the effect of Moscow's enormous effort is worrisome. Says he: "The Soviets have created an image of a country that is non-threatening and supportive of India. Because of a record of more than 30 years, Soviet ships in the Indian Ocean are perceived as benign, whereas American ships raise the threat of a superpower confrontation." One ray of hope is that Soviet actions, such as the invasion of Afghanistan, will undo that country's public relations prowess, and that the U.S. will not repeat policy shifts that angered the Indians, such as the Carter Administration's withholding of promised nuclear fuel. Says Goheen: "All the public diplomacy in the world cannot overcome the erratic or threatening actions of a country."

--By Walter Isaacson.

Reported by Hays Gorey/Washington and Bruce W. Nelan/Moscow

With reporting by Hays Gorey, Bruce W. Nelan

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