‘The man who invented truth’:The tenure of Edward R. Murrow as director of the United States Information Agency during the Kennedy years

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Notes

1. For introductions to the role of information in international relations see Philip M. Taylor, Global Communications, International Affairs and the Media since 1945 (London: Routledge, 1997); Jarol B. Manheim, Strategic Public Diplomacy and American Foreign Policy: The Evolution of Influence (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994).

2. For accounts by USIA staff see Thomas Sorrenson, The Word War: The Story of American Propaganda (New York: Harper & Row, 1968); Allen C. Hansen, USIA: Public Diplomacy in the Computer Age (New York: Praeger, 2nd edn. 1989); Hans N. Tuch, Communicating with the World: US Public Diplomacy Overseas (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1990); and Fitzhugh Green, American Propaganda Abroad: From Benjamin Franklin to Ronald Reagan (New York: Hippocrene Books, 1988).

3. For biographies, see Alexander Kendrick, Prime Time: The Life of Edward R. Murrow (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1969); A.M. Sperber, Murrow: His Life and Times (London: Michael Joseph, 1986); Joseph E. Persico, Edward R. Murrow: An American Original (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1988).

4. Ibid. Monographs dealing with this period include Gary D. Rawnsley, Radio Diplomacy and Propaganda: The BBC and VOA in International Politics, 1956–64 (London: Macmillan, 1996); and the accounts by USIA staff: Sorrenson, The Word War; Hansen, USIA; Tuch, Communicating with the World; and Green, American Propaganda Abroad. Interviews cited below include: from VOA: Cliff Groce and Bernie Kamenske; from USIA: Burnett Anderson, Alex Klieforth, Don Wilson, John Twitty and Frank Shakespeare.

5. This is particularly so in the Bay of Pigs and Vietnam material below.

6. Files consulted at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, Boston (hereafter JFKL) include. National Security Files (NSF), Oral History collection, Pre-presidential papers (PPP), President's Office Files (POF), Salinger papers, Schlesinger papers, USIA director files microfilm, Voice of America microfilm, White House Central Files (WHCF); the Edward R. Murrow papers at Tufts University, Boston; and records held at the United States Information Agency Historical Branch in Washington, now the State Department's Public Diplomacy Historical collection.

7. On US international information to 1945 see Frank A. Ninkovich, The Diplomacy of Ideas: US Foreign Policy and Cultural Relations, 1938–1950 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981); Allan M. Winkler, The Politics of Propaganda: The Office of War Information, 1942–1945 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978); Holly Cowan Shulman, The Voice of America: Propaganda and Democracy, 1941–1945 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1990).

8. Sidney Hyman, The Lives of William Benton (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969); David Krugler, The Voice of America and the Domestic Propaganda Battles, 1945–1953 (Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 2000); Scott Lucas, Freedom's War: The US Crusade Against the Soviet Union, 1945–1956 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999); Walter Hixson, Parting the Curtain: Propaganda, Culture and the Cold War, 1945–1961 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1997).

9. For overviews of the Eisenhower period see Lucas, Freedom's War, and Hixson, Parting the Curtain.

10. Theodore H. White, The Making of the President, 1960 (London: Jonathan Cape, 1961), p.304; Mark Haefele, ‘John F. Kennedy, USIA and World Opinion’, Diplomatic History 25/1 (2001), p.69.

11. JFKL Pre-presidential papers, box 1074, Summary of Recommendations, 31 Dec. 1960.

12. JFKL Salinger papers, box 132, 1961 file USIA, Robert Oshins (DNC) to Salinger, 21 Dec. 1960. Other candidates included Sig Mickelson and Fred Friendly of CBS and Phil Graham, publisher of the Washington Post; Sperber, Murrow, p.611; Persico, Murrow, p.465; Interview: Frank Stanton.

13. Sperber, Murrow, pp.614–19; JFKL NSF, Meetings and Memoranda, box 313, folder 2, NSC meeting 475, 1 Feb. 1961.

14. Kendrick, Prime Time; Sperber, Murrow, p.629; Interview: Clifford Groce, 30 Nov. 1995; also Frank Cummins and Bernie Kamenske; ‘TV: Defence for Murrow’, New York Times, 28 March 1961.

15. Interview (telephone) Tad Szulc, 30 Oct. 2000, and Donald Wilson, 2 July 1996; Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), 1961–1963, Vol.X, Cuba, 1961–1962, doc. 231, Memo 1; Cuba Study Group to President, 13 June 1961, items 39, 40; Peter Wyden, Bay of Pigs: The Untold Story (New York: Touchstone, 1979), pp.144–5. Wilson has on several occasions (including JFKL oral history interview) misdated these events to Saturday 15 April, only two days before the invasion, hence the error in Sperber, Murrow, pp.623–4, and Persico, Murrow, p.475. Szulc's story appeared in the New York Times in much eviscerated form on 7 April 1961.

16. FRUS, 1961–1963, Vol. X, doc. 231, Cuba Study Group to President, 13 June 1961, item 40; Sperber, Murrow, pp.623–4; JFKL USIA director files, reel 7, Loomis to Murrow, IBS Monthly Report, 5 May 1961.

17. JFKL USIA director files, reel 7, Loomis to Murrow, IBS Monthly Report, 5 May 1961.

18. Bernie Kamenske to author, 28 Nov. 2000; Wyden, Bay of pigs, pp.185–90.

19. JFKL VOA microfilm reel 1, News Analysis 1647; Ronald Dunlavey, ‘The Invasion of Cuba’, 17 April 1961.

20. Murrow was profoundly impressed by this, and stopped his practice of referring to Kennedy as ‘that boy in the White House’. Hereafter it was ‘the President’. Interview: Donald Wilson, 2 July 1996.

21. Interview: Kamenske, 6 Dec. 1995.

22. JFKL NSF, Meetings and Memoranda, box 330, NSAM 61, Rusk and Murrow to President, 8 June 1961.

23. JFKL NSF, Meetings and Memoranda, box 327, Staff memoranda, Schlesinger to McGeorge Bundy, 9 June 1961.

24. JFKL NSF, Meetings and Memoranda, box 330, NSAM 61: Minutes of lunch meeting, 29 June 1961, McGeorge Bundy; Murrow to McGeorge Bundy, 30 June 1961; McGeorge Bundy to Rusk/Murrow, 14 July 1961.

25. JFKL POF, Depts. and Agencies: USIA, box 290, General, Murrow to Sorenson, 19 July 1961.

26. JFKL Schlesinger papers, White House files, box WH-23, USIA. Schlesinger to Murrow, 1 Aug. 1961; the ‘hand-holder’ quote comes from NSF, Meetings and Memoranda, box 327, Staff Memoranda, Schlesinger, Memo to Salinger, 7 June 1961.

27. Sperber, Murrow, p.659.

28. JFKL USIA director files, reel 4, Wilson to Rusk, secret, ‘USIA Berlin Program’, 2 Aug. 1962.

29. Sperber, Murrow, p.644.

30. USIA HB, USIA 17th Review of Operations, 1 July-31 Dec. 1961, pp.5–7.

31. Ibid.; JFKL, NSF, CO Germany, Berlin, General, box 81, Murrow to Rusk, 10 July 1961: ‘USIA Planning and Action on Berlin’; Salinger papers, box 132, 1961 file, USIA, Murrow to President, Weekly Report, 22 Aug. 1961. The death of a refugee on the Berlin Wall was featured in the 1963 USIA film The American Commitment directed by Leo Seltzer and narrated by Howard K. Smith) (see National Archives sound and motion picture branch, Washington DC, RG 306 387). The film shows the USIA sending news of the death around the globe. Memorable images include scenes of a Public Affairs Officer in Central America driving past a wall decorated with the slogan: ‘Castro Si, Yankis Non!’

32. USIA HB, USIA 17th Review of Operations, 1 July-31 Dec. 1961, p.15; JFKL POF, Depts. and Agencies USIA, box 91, Murrow to President, 31 Aug. 1961. The Daily Express version, 2 Sept. 1961, showed only the site and relative location of Western Europe, but associated articles dealt with the risk of fall-out.

33. JFKL VOA, reel 1,News Analysis, 1847, Raymond Swing, ‘The Soviet People are not told’, 6 Sept. 1961.

34. JFKL USIA director file, reel 6, Murrow to Bowles, 24 June 1961, secret, ‘The Nuclear Test Ban Issue’.

35. FRUS 1961-1963, Vol.VI1, Arms Control and Disarmament, doc.59, Murrow to President, 31 Aug. 1961; Considerations regarding nuclear testing. SANE (the National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy) had been founded in 1957 by Norman Cousins and Clarence Pickett as a non-partisan pressure group for restraint in nuclear policy. Early objectives included a nuclear test ban treaty and the US disarmament administration. The organization's papers are held in the Swarthmore College Peace Collection.

36. JFKL USIA director file, reel 4, Murrow to President, Confidential, 1Sept. 1961.

37. JFKL POF, Depts. and Agencies: USIA, box 91, Murrow to President, 1Sept. 1961 and undated ‘reactions to nuclear tests’. For text of White House statement of 31 August see Public Papers of the Presidents: John E Kennedy, 1961, pp.584-5.

38. JFKL WHCF Subject file: FG296 USIA, box 184, Executive, Murrow to all posts, 27 Sept. 1961.

39. Richard Reeves, President Kennedy: Profile of power (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993) p. 251; Persico, Murrow, p.476.

40. Interviews: Len Reed, 12 Dec. 1995; Cliff Groce, 30 Nov. 1995; Alex Klieforth, 7 Jan. 1997.

41. USIA HB, USIA 17th Review of Operations, 1 July-31 Dec. 1961, pp.16-18; JFKL VOA microfilm, reel 5, Loomis to Murrow, IBS Monthly Report, 18 Dec. 1961; On extent of jamming see NA RG59, State CPF 1960-63; box 1064, Moscow 1455, 522.604/11-561, Thompson to USIA, 5 Nov. 1961.

42. Interview: Cliff Groce, 30 Nov. 1995; JFKL VOA microfilm, reel 5, Loomis to Murrow, IBS Monthly Report, 18 Dec. 1961.

43. JFKL POF, Depts. and Agencies USIA, box 91, USIA Research and Reference Service, ‘Reaction to the Presidential Announcement on Nuclear Testing’, R-21-62, 6 March 1962; Murrow to President, 3 Aug. 1962; Public Papers of the Presidents: John E Kennedy, 1962, pp.186-93.

44. JFKL Salinger papers, box 132, 1961 file, USIA, Wilson to President, Weekly Report, 17 Oct. 1961. The average split was 29 per cent for Russia winning, 14 per cent for the West, 22 per cent for neither and 35 per cent with no opinion. The other countries surveyed were US, UK, Ireland, Vietnam, West Germany, Holland, France, Finland and Uruguay.

45. JFKL NSF, Meetings and Memoranda, box 338, file on NSAM 181, Bundy to Kennedy, Top Secret and Sensitive, 31 Aug. 1962 (reproduced in FRUS 1961-1963, Vol. X, document 331 m).

46. JFKL Interview: Don Wilson, 2 Sept. 1964; Interview: Don Wilson, 2 July 1996; Persico, Murrow, p.484.

47. Interview: Don Wilson, 2 July 1996; Robert Smith Thompson, The Missiles of October: The Declassified Story of John E Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis. (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992), pp.298-9. USIA distributed some 50,000 prints around the world. As White House Press Secretary, Pierre Salinger later recalled, the distribution of these pictures ‘was the best thing that ever happened. Those pictures played a major role in persuading foreign opinion that the President was justified in taking action’. The photograph also featured on a leaflet, which USIA prepared to be dropped over Cuba. The US Army's psychological warfare team at Fort Bragg produced six million copies, which were ready for delivery at just 12 hours' notice from the White House by the middle of the crisis week. President Kennedy never gave the order for the drop. JFKL Interview: Donald Wilson, 2 Sept. 1964, pp.22-3.

48. Interview: Burnett Anderson, 14 Dec. 1995; ADST Oral History, Anderson; Interview: Bernie Kamenske, 6 Dec. 1995. Anderson and Loomis worked well together during the crisis and, in later years, Loomis invited Anderson to serve as his deputy at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

49. Rawnsley, Radio Diplomacy and Propaganda, p.119.

50. For Loomis' account of this see USIA Alumni Association, ‘The US -Warts and All’: Edward R. Murrow as Director of the USIA, Presenting the US to the World: A Commemorative Symposium (Washington DC: USIAAA/Public Diplomacy Foundation, 1992), pp.19-22.

51. JFKL Salinger papers, box 132, 1961 file, USIA, Murrow to President, 23 May 1961.

52. JFKL USIA director's papers, reel 6, Murrow to Adam Clayton Powell, 21 June 1961, with attached ‘report summary world-wide reaction to racial incidents in Alabama’.

53. Persico, Murrow, p.483, Sperber, Murrow, p.657.

54. JFKL WHCF subject file FG 296 USIA, box 184, Executive, Wilson to Frank D. Reeves, 9 May 1961.

55. LBJM, Panzer papers, box 469, USIA, summary memo: ‘United States Information Agency’, 1 Oct. 1963.

56. Interview: John Twitty, by telephone, 15 Nov. 2000.

57. Interview: Pistor; NA RG 59 State CPF 1960-63, box 1061, Prague-A-50, 511.492/1-8 63, Rusk to Prague (drafted by Squires, USIA, ICS), 8 Jan. 1963.

58. Interview: Frank Shakespeare, 11Jan. 1997.

59. NA RG 59 State CPF 1960-1963, box 3269, INF France, Embassy Paris to State Department, 8 May 1963.

60. JFKL POF, Depts. and Agencies: USIA, box 91, Sorenson to President, ‘Reactions to your Civil Rights Speech’, 14 June 1963; Salinger papers, box 132, USIA 1963, Wilson to President, 14 May 1963.

61. NA RG 59 State CPF 1960-1963, box 3271, INF 11PAK, Embassy Karachi to Dept. of State, 22 June 1963.

62. JFKL POF, Depts. and Agencies: USIA, box 91, Sorenson to President, ‘Reactions to your Civil Rights Speech’, 14 June 1963.

63. JFKL VOA reel 11, Loomis to Murrow, 24 Sept. 1963, IBS Monthly Report, Aug. 1963. For News Analyses of the march see reel 4.

64. Nicholas J. Cull, ‘Auteurs of Ideology: USIA Documentary Film Propaganda in the Kennedy Era as Seen in Bruce Herschensohn's The Five Cities of June (1963) and James Blue's The March (1964)’, Film History 10/13 (1998), pp.295-310.

65. Persico, Murrow, p.487; Reeves, President Kennedy: Profile of Power, p.597; Sperber, Murrow, p.681.

66. For context see David Kaiser, American Tragedy: Kennedy, Johnson and the Origins of the Vietnam War (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000), pp.226-31; JFKL, NSF, Meetings and Memoranda, box 316, Vietnam, Ball to Lodge, Top Secret, 24 Aug. 1963.

67. Roger Hilsman, To Move a Nation (New York: Doubleday, 1967), pp.484-90.

68. FRUS, 1961-1963, Vol.III, doc.287, Voice of America broadcast, Saigon, 26 Aug. 1963. Hilsman's notes record the broadcasts as 12:35 am: ‘The officials in Washington indicated there may be a sharp reduction in the US aid program for the Republic of Viet-Nam unless President Diem gets rid of Secret Police officials responsible for the attacks against the Buddhists’, and 8:30 am ‘The American officials indicated the US may sharply reduce its aid to Viet-Nam unless President Diem gets rid of Secret Police officials responsible for the attacks.’ JFKL Hilsman papers, box 3, Countries, Vietnam, ‘VOA Vietnamese Broadcasts re. US Aid’, 26 Aug. 1963.

69. FRUS, 1961-1963, Vol.111, doc.289, Minutes of Meeting at White House, 26 Aug. 1963.

70. JFKL NSF, Countries: Vietnam, box 198, State Cables, Rusk to Lodge, 26 Aug. 1963.

71. Hilsman, To Move a Nation, pp.489-90.

72. NYH'T, 27 Aug. 1963, ‘In Viet, we absolve, while we blunder: Our Voice’, pp.1, 10; Interview: Bernie Kamenske, 6 Dec. 1995; Alex Klieforth, 7 Jan. 1997; JFKL VOA, reel 11, Loomis to Murrow, 24 Sept. 1963, IBS Monthly Report, Aug. 1963; Maxwell Taylor, Swords into Plowshares (New York: Norton, 1972), pp.292-4. Klieforth visited Vietnam shortly after this incident and explained the VOA version of events first to Lodge (with whom he had worked in the 1950s) who accepted the VOA version and then, on the return journey, to Ambassador Edwin Reischauer in Tokyo, who had been alarmed by the story.

73. JFKL Hilsman papers, box 3, Countries, Vietnam, Murrow to Bundy, Secret, 28 Aug. 1963.

74. Persico, Murrow, p.485, Sperber, Murrow pp.659, 681.

75. Sperber, Murrow, p.685.

76. Prime movers in getting the VOA charter into law included the now head of News, Bernie Kamenske. For a narrative see Laurien Alexandre, The Voice of America: From Détente to the Reagan Doctrine (Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing Corp., 1988).

77. Murrow's equivalent in the George W. Bush administration is the Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, Charlotte Beers, a former advertising executive best known for her work selling ‘Uncle Ben's Rice’. Elizabeth Becker and James Dao, ‘Bush will keep wartime office promoting US’, New York Times, 20 Feb. 2002; Naomi Klein, ‘Brand USA’, Los Angeles Times, 10 March 2002.

78. For comment on this dispute see William Safire, ‘State out of Step’, New York Times, 1 July 2002.