SPEAKING TRUTH TO POWER
Celebrating its 80th anniversary, America’s international broadcasting service, the Voice of America, serves as an important and reliable source of news and information for people around the world. During February 1942, the United States launched wartime overseas service with Stimmen aus America (Voices from America) for the people of the enemy German Reich. Moreover, speaking truth to power, journalist and author William Harlen Hale opened the first broadcast by saying, “We bring you Voices from America. Today and daily from now on, we shall speak to you about America and the war. The news may be good for us. The news may be bad. But we shall tell you the truth.” Hale’s welcoming words were preceded by The Battle Hymn of the Republic. During the course of the war, the Office of War Information Overseas Branch radio broadcasting services came to be identified as the Voice of America.
OFFICE OF WAR INFORMATION
Before 1942, the United States did not have a national foreign broadcasting service. The assertive and ambitious German and Japanese governments operated 110 shortwave transmitters blanketing the globe. Moreover, the Axis Powers aimed their 24/7 broadcasts that strategically targeted receptive audiences in India, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America. Previously, NBC and CBS primarily provided the private American overseas services. In 1941, Gen. William Donovan, Coordinator of Information and Nelson Rockefeller, Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs for the Roosevelt Administration, entered into agreements with NBC and CBS to provide news and commentary on their overseas networks. Following Pearl Harbor, the COI and CIAA took steps to nationalize NBC, CBS, and other commercial shortwave operations into a jointly operated government service. Consequently, President Roosevelt reorganized the COI into the Office of War Information in June 1942. He named renown CBS news commentator Elmer Davis as director.
THE CINCINNATI LIARS
Davis announced that the policy of the OWI was “to tell the truth.” However, wartime security rendered truth and accuracy subjective. But at the grim juncture of Bataan and Corregidor, Davis said that Americans and their allies “had the right to be truthfully informed.” And furthermore, that enemy citizens would not accept blatant propaganda. Therefore, OWI policy was to deal with defeats as honestly as victories. Meanwhile, the Crosley Broadcasting Company of Cincinnati, Ohio, owner of NBC affiliate WLW, ran the most powerful of the thirteen American commercial shortwave transmitters. Crosley upgraded its WLWO to an astonishing array of 200kw transmitters that broadcast six signals at once. None other than Adolf Hitler came to call them “the Cincinnati liars.” The stations joined WRCA, WNBI of NBC; KGEI, WGEA, WGEO of General Electric and WBOS, WCBA, WCNX, KCBA and KCBF of CBS in transmitting OWI broadcasts.
UNCLE SAM PRESENTS
Soon the OWI Overseas Branch recorded and broadcast a broad range of news and entertainment around the world. Davis appointed Pulitzer-Prize winning playwright Robert Sherwood as chief of the OWI Overseas Branch. Sherwood named actor John Houseman as director of international broadcast services, based in New York. Until the military was able to build up the Armed Forces Radio Service and American Forces Network, the OWI carried broadcasts that served the armed forces. But Americans perceived the Domestic Branch of the OWI as an unwelcome censor. Furthermore, many in Congress felt, with justification, that both OWI Branches were loaded with leftist intellectuals who too openly admired the Soviet Union. A rift erupted when many resigned or were forced out. Publisher and broadcaster Gardner Cowles took over the Domestic Branch. Lou Cowan succeeded Houseman in 1943 and Edward Barrett replaced Sherwood in 1944 when the latter transferred to London.
EUROPE AND THE PACIFIC
With the support of the BBC, the OWI created ABSIE, the American Broadcasting Station in Europe. The new European Division of the VOA relayed programs from New York and produced original content in seven languages. Moreover, ABSIE broadcast over medium wave (AM) transmitters in close coordination with the SHAEF (Supreme Allied HQ) Psychological Warfare Division. Among ABSIE’s popular German-language programs was “Music for the Wehrmacht” with Major Glenn Miller and his Army Air Forces Orchestra. Other voices from America included “Der Bingle” Bing Crosby, German-born Marlene Dietrich, announcer Gloria Wagner of the famous musical family and news commentator Sgt. Golo Mann, son of the fierce anti-Nazi German intellectual Thomas Mann. Meanwhile, the OWI built up a similar and important presence in the Pacific Theater that was instrumental in the defeat of Japan. At war’s end, President Truman disbanded the OWI and moved the fledgling VOA to the State Department.
THE COLD WAR
During World War II, the OWI forced out three dozen employees for suspected communist associations. Moreover, Congress cut VOA funding in 1946. Then, as described by Winston Churchill, an Iron Curtain built by the Soviet Union descended upon Europe, including the blockade of Berlin and famous airlift. Consequently, the VOA found a new purpose. Therefore, in 1948, the Smith-Mundt Act permanently established international broadcasting and cultural exchange programs to counter Soviet activities. Later, congressional hearings disclosed that former OWI Pacific Branch operations director Owen Lattimore had actually been a Soviet agent. By 1953, President Eisenhower realized that America had decisive advantages in asymmetrical and psychological competition with communism, including liberal democratic values, capitalism, individual freedoms, diversity and, importantly, popular culture. Consequently, he established the U. S. Information Agency, with expanded funding for the VOA. Moreover, Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty handled overt psychological operations behind the Iron Curtain.
JAZZ AMBASSADORS
Offering information and entertainment not available from state-controlled media, including Western music, religion, and banned literature, Eastern European audiences came to trust RFE/RL as well as the mainstream VOA. In 1956, the State Department created the Jazz Ambassadors program, sending American jazz musicians on musical tours to improve the image of America, in light of sarcastic criticism by the Soviet Union about American racial inequality. Firstly, Dizzy Gillespie famously toured the world. Benny Goodman performed in the Far East and Europe, including the Brussels World’s Fair. Likewise, he famously visited the Soviet Union in July 1962, playing to packed houses and enthusiastic audiences. But Duke Ellington made more grueling tours than anyone between 1963 and 1973. Moreover, his greatest achievement was the 1971 tour of the Soviet Union. However, the most famous and perhaps influential Jazz Ambassador was Louis Armstrong. Like Ellington, he had a profound impact in Africa.
TO THE 21ST CENTURY
Reaching thirty million people in eighty countries every week, Willis Conover was the popular voice of American jazz on the VOA Jazz Hour and Music USA. Eventually, his audience reached one hundred million. On the air until he passed in 1996, Conover broke through the Iron Curtain. Therefore, he was the American that the Soviet Union feared most. But history came full circle during the Kennedy Administration, when legendary CBS commentator Edward R. Murrow directed the USIA. Moreover, the VOA played a critical role in the containment of communism, liberation of the Warsaw Pact nations and demise of the Soviet Union. Consequently, as a new and present danger envelops Eastern Europe and possibly Asia, the VOA continues to have an important purpose. In conclusion, the history of the Voice of America and its parent agencies is detailed in America Ascendant, the Rise of American Exceptionalism and Glenn Miller Declassified.
Dennis M. Spragg is the author of America Ascendant, the Rise of American Exceptionalism and Glenn Miller Declassified. His forthcoming book is America and Britian, the Essential Alliance. Detailed references to the content of this article from the Records of the Office of War Information, Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs, Department of State and U. S. Information Agency, National Archives of the United States, are included in the Reference Notes of his books.