The Faltering Voice

Anyone Familiar with the way Senator McCarthy selects and grills his witnesses will realize the Voice of America is much more than the babble of Communists, free-lovers, and homosexuals. But despite the distorted nature of this latest Inquisition, it has pointed up dramatically the fact that American propaganda efforts are still greatly inadequate for the job they must do. Looking behind soiled departmental linen, hung out by disgruntled employees, it is clear that U. S. psychological warfare must be exempt from both economic and ideological orthodoxy if it is to challenge the Soviets in the arena of the mind of man.

In a sense, McCarthy's investigation condemns his own branch of the Government. For when the Voice asked five hundred million dollars for its work, those Congressmen of vision who call themselves the economy bloc gave it seventy-five. With this piddle, the Voice was supposed to counter effectively the multi-billion dollar Russian propaganda machine. Starved for workers and pinched for funds, it is little wonder the Voice hired a number of incompetents and several questionables. Such are the fruits of economy. Now the economy bloe, with which McCarthy voted, castigates the Voice of its failure to match the Russians. Such are the fruits of politics.

As the Voice was formerly scapegoat of a blind penchant for economy, it is now target for the indiscriminate applicators of Americanism. Presumably, Congressional investigations suggest legislation, but the only concrete proposal to issue from McCarthy's committee is that all works by "subversives" or "sympathetic to the Communist cause's should not be considered as Voice material.

The Proper Attitude

If McCarthy was solely interested in developing the Voice he would not have suggested this. For if any part of our foreign policy needs to shuck the attitude that America Equals Perfection, it is psychological warfare. Aimed as it is at people who hate us for out autos and out skyscrapers, it can gain only envy if it pursues this tactic. In its attempts to spawn anti-Communism, psychological warfare tackles a most difficult enigma in human relations: conversion. and converters, from St. Paul onward, could testify that their job is hopeless unless they can tie their doctrine to ideas of those they influence. Catholic missionaries in China paint their cherubs with yellow skins, Communist propaganda plays on Asian love of independence.

Likewise, converting Communists, it is better to criticize Stalin using the works of Lenin than the speeches of Eisenhower. the book of starry-eyed Democrats like Howard Fast find countless more soft spots than the Free Enterprise catechisms of Clarence Randell. It is not just ironic, but downright dangerous to the success of the Voice, when a high priest of Orthodoxy like McCarthy makes political capital by denouncing the use of works by "subversives" when they are the most effective weapons.

If these things are understood, and the Voice comes out of its ordeal independent and financially strong, the investigation will have been a bad means to a good end. But unless its necessary unorthodoxy is understood, the voice might just as well be silent.