September 24, 1964

Subsidized Books Remind Us: Big Brother Is Already Here

The Warren Commission Report on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy was released this week with no surprises. The conclusions had long ago leaked to the press, but formal confirmation is helpful in putting this national tragedy into focus.

Simultaneous release of the report by the government and certain private publishers, however, is cause for reflection. It brings to mind a highly unusual-and in many respects, frightening-development in the management of information by government.

It is a fact that the U.S. Information Agency secretly contracts for the writing of books supporting government policies and for their printing by selected publishers.

The book subsidy program was revealed reluctantly by the General Accounting Office last April -- during testimony before the House Appropriations subcommittee.

USIA was given $195,000 for its “book development” program for 1965. In asking for this sum of tax money, Reed Harris, a USIA official, testified:

“That is a program under which we can have books written to our own specifications, books that would not otherwise be put out. Under the book development program we control the thing from the very idea down to the final edited manuscript.”

An official of USIA outlined the workings of the program this way: USIA wants a book expressing a certain viewpoint on a certain subject. The agency goes to a publisher who commissions a writer to do the job outlined. USIA agrees to purchase a few thousand copies of the proposed book for overseas distribution.

The publisher is free to sell as many other copies as he can in the United States.

Harris testified that his “control” over the transaction is “that if the manuscript does not satisfy us we don’t buy the 2,000 copies.”

The books are not labeled in any way to reveal that they were published with public funds. Harris says the reason is

“that we do not wish to have these identified with us publicly. We have…an anti-Castro book…a book on Russia…a book that shows the issues that have divided international Communism.”

When asked if there aren’t existing books on these subjects, Harris replied,

“Yes, but not with what might be called the slant that would directly support the foreign policy of the United States. These tailorings permit the insertion of material that is particularly effective in getting support.”

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The similarity of this program to the thought control techniques of George Orwell’s Big Brother makes our hair stand on end. In the novel “1984,” the dictator who calls himself Big Brother obtains and retains his power by rigid control of the nation’s information media. Only his opinions are allowed to be broadcast, or printed. Citizens are caught in a hopeless oppression.

We question now, for example, if the government’s book on the Bay of Pigs fiasco is truthful or slanted. We are forced to doubt the veracity of every government-subsidized printing. Has the administration behind the venture told us everything? Or, worse yet, has it told us things that are more politically expedient than accurate?

In the case of the Warren Report, because of the caliber of men who put their names to the document, we feel confident everything is above board. But the seeds of suspicion are sown for future releases not backed by men of such well-known integrity.

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The subtle control of information is with us already -- in the field of broadcasting as well as in books.

During the recent Congressional debate over Medicare -- the American Medical Association tried to buy television time for a series of spot announcements against the proposal.

None of the three networks would sell the time to AMA. One refused on the grounds the subject was “too controversial.” Another would sell prohibitively expensive 15-minute segments, but not the one-minute periods so dear to tobacco and detergent manufacturers. The third network refused to sell the time without explanation.

One wonders if the networks’ dependence on government-allocated broadcasting frequencies influenced their strange decisions.

This, mind you, when tax money was spent last spring for television spots depicting business men as tax cheats when a politically inspired tax cut was being pushed.

This, mind you, when the Democrat Party is able to buy TV spots of the most vicious, dirty propaganda we have ever seen. We refer to the announcements depicting little girls eating ice cream cones poisoned by Goldwater nuclear fallout and picking daisies just before a Goldwater atom bomb wipes out mankind.

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Regardless of their political persuasions, thinking Americans demand fair opportunity for expression and reasonable presentation of view points.

With books and broadcasting now tainted, newspapers may be the last strongholds of free speech.

By Lindsey Wilger Williams, retired newspaper publisher and syndicated columnist