 It's time for the Lawn Jean Chronoscope, a television journal of the important issues of the hour brought to you every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, a presentation of the Lawn Jean Wittner Watch Company, maker of Lawn Jean, the world's most honored watch, and Wittner, distinguished companion to the world-honored Lawn Jean. Good evening. This is Frank Knight. May I introduce our co-editors for this edition of the Lawn Jean Chronoscope? Edward B. Morgan and Daniel Shaw, both of the CBS television news staff. Our distinguished guest for this evening is the honorable Edward W. Barrett, former assistant secretary of state. Mr. Barrett, we want to ask you some questions tonight about propaganda and our information services abroad. We all know that as assistant secretary of state, you had that responsibility in running that show and I must warn you that Dan Shaw and I have read your book, Truth Is Our Weapon, not only for enlightenment, but to try to throw you if we can, a curve or two. Before we get into the to the body of the subject, this word propaganda seems to bother a lot of Americans. We dislike the word. Why is it necessary to spend a lot of money, millions of dollars, propagandizing ourselves abroad? First, let me say I'm delighted that you've read the book. I hope you bought the book, too, by the way. Even if you are going to throw some curve. Why is it necessary to carry on propaganda, you say? I recognize as you do that the American people have an inherent distaste for the idea of propaganda, partly because they don't realize that we're talking about truthful propaganda, international persuasion, as I call it. Why is it necessary, I think, for the reasons that both the President's Truman and Eisenhower recognize when they said we can't hope to win the minds of men. I mean, we can't hope to win the so-called Cold War unless we win the minds of men. Well, I happen to be one who believes that we can progressively win the minds of men, but that it it's extremely difficult. What we've got to do is what any intelligent large American corporation or other organization does. Carry on an intelligent and somewhat expensive public relations program around the world. Well, Ed, can I shoot this question at you? The title of your book is Truth is Our Weapon. Do you think that in our propaganda campaign we ought to tell the whole truth, including some of the unpleasant things that might make a bad impression abroad, the whole story of the book burning controversy, some of the anti-foreign statements made by celebrities in this country, should that all go abroad? In general and unfortunately in a way, I think all of the important developments in this country should be reported abroad. I think we can afford to do it because the truth is on our side. 85% of the actual facts, I think, make us look pretty good. As a matter of fact, one of the troubles today is that the Europeans have an exaggerated impression of our so-called hysteria. I mean, try truthful reporting of that sort of news and putting it in perspective and reporting the other important news fully, but we do more good than home. Well, tell me this, if truth indeed is our weapon, to point a phrase from the Barrett book, how do you explain the spanking fact that the Russians get so terribly far with falsehoods? Well Ed, let's stop and look at that for a minute. I'm not sure they are getting so terribly far with falsehoods. Well, I mean by that, that we seem so constantly to be on the defensive. We're always explaining something after they've done something and accused us of something. Well, we all have to answer misrepresentations in order to keep the record straight, but let's look for just a minute. The Russians have made short-term gains by falsehoods, along with a lot of intrigue and treachery and so on. They had their propaganda believed for a long period, but the surveys I've seen indicate that they are less and less believed around the world today. And they were never so overwhelmingly believed as we often give them credit for. Let's remember that I don't believe there's ever been a nation anywhere that has gone communist and a genuinely free national election. They have, by their lying propaganda, in the case of Korea, I think they've set themselves back. They've led millions of people who once tended to believe them. Now to say, well, the Russian propaganda machine is basically a lying machine. Do you think they've set themselves back by germ warfare propaganda? Over the short term, no. That is an exception. I think over the long term, though, even that is being less and less believed around the world. But you don't think that as a form of lying propaganda has been very effective? I think it was on the short term. Except in one country, my favorite country of Southeast Asia, which I better not name, where the Russian germ warfare propaganda was not believed because the natives do not believe in germs anyway. Well, let's move, if we may, for a minute to something more delicate, and that is the situation regarding the information program here at home. What I mean by that, what people think of it here at home. Just very recently, as we've seen, the government has released some 2,000 employees from the information program. That's nearly a 25% cut in personnel. There has been a great deal of charges by Senator McCarthy and others, that there's been inefficiency and a lot of dead wood, dangerous left leaning, and I'm afraid that the allegations, at least, go back as far as your administration and farther. Can you give us some of your reactions about that? Yes, there have been allegations of that sort all along. There has been some inefficiency in the program as there is in any program of this nature where that involves trial and error, but the charges that have got the greatest headlines have been the most exaggerated charges. The results of the really careful investigations have not got many headlines. Let me just cite two cases. The most responsible job and the most thorough job done in the current Congress and the last Congress was done by the Hickenlooper Committee of the Senate, formerly the Fulbright Committee. They studied the program very, very carefully, abroad and at home. They found on the whole that it was doing an effective job. They found some things that very definitely ought to be modified or changed in their opinion, but on balance, they said it was doing a good job and should be continued at at least the level it was going on at then. Another such case was the Distinguished Committee of Private Citizens set up by Congress itself. That included Phil Reed, the chairman of the Board of General Electric, if you remember, Spike Canham, the former president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors. They studied it for five years. They said it was steadily improving, that there were still faults in it. It should be corrected, but that on balance it was doing a good job and should be increased. Well Ed, whatever the fine statements made by some of the committees, there seems to be no doubt now from our observations both in Europe and since coming back to Washington that the morale of personnel in the information program is at the moment pretty seriously impaired. Do you think that any effective propaganda program can be carried out by personnel who at the moment feel, aside from the cuts in personnel, personnel who have lost a great deal of morale because they feel they don't have support from the top of the administration? No, I don't think an effective job can be done unless the employees feel that they are getting the support of their bosses and of their bosses' boss. Well, I hope for some steady improvement in that by the way. Do you have any specific ground for that hope? Only that I think the worst of the hysterical period is over. The worst of the Circus Act kind of investigation. I even have hopes that we'll ultimately get around where we have a continuing responsible system in Congress for handling this. You almost took the words out of my mouth in reverse, so to speak. I was going to ask you, putting you back in the driver's seat for a moment, what would you do to improve the situation? The new administration has made a great many changes. It's made the agency semi-independent and some other organizational changes. Have you got any further suggestions as to what you'd do? Well, first, I'm not going to let you put me back in the driver's seat right now. I had two years there and I'm enjoying being a backseat driver at this moment. Yes, we'll leave it in the backseat. There's one very important change that I would like to see made. If this field of international persuasion is as important as President Eisenhower indicates, he believes it is, then it's worth a very special setup in the Congress, I think. Therefore, I would set up a special joint single committee of Congress with a good staff to work on this program continually to cooperate with the administration with a minimum of fanfare and boister squabbling. Otherwise, one committee to do continually what we've had all sorts of hit-and-run committees doing. Senator McCarthy wouldn't be allowed to investigate the information program anymore. Whoever is the chairman of this committee should be the chairman of the only committee that isn't investigating in that field. Not that we'd want to spot too much. You think Senator McCarthy would make a good chairman with all his well-experience in the field? I personally definitely do not. A final question, Mr. Barrett. There is, obviously, a Communist menace. We're meeting it in one way or another. Do you think that the present administration is doing enough to meet the menace of Communist infiltration in government? I think the last administration did more than it had ever been done before in that field. That the present administration has gone a little further. But I think probably the efforts in that direction should be increased. I think there should be less noise and less name-calling in this field. And there should be systematic effort at tightening it up within the government, preferably by a high-level commission appointed by the president. Thank you, Mr. Barrett, very much indeed. The opinions that you've heard our speakers express tonight have been entirely their own. The editorial board for this edition of the Lone Gene Chronoscope was Edward P. Morgan and Daniel Chor, both from the CBS television news staff. Our distinguished guest for this evening was the honorable Edward W. Barrett, former Assistant Secretary of State. There are many, many watches with salad prices equal to or higher than Lone Gene. So if you wish to be sure of getting a watch of truly fine character, now what should you do? Well, just compare the facts you have about any other watch with the facts you have about Lone Gene. And the facts about Lone Gene prove it to be one of the finest of all the world's watches. For, in competition with the world's best watches, Lone Gene watches alone have won for excellence and elegance ten World's Fair Grand Prizes and twenty-eight gold medals for accuracy, highest honors from the leading government observatories, for dependability, a position of leadership in sports, aviation, and in science. 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