18
Popular Cullure Review
with Universal’s last issue shown in only 1,600 theaters and the company losing
$5,000 a week on the series (Fielding, 1972, 307-309).
USIA Propagandistic Tactics
In his study of the USIA’s use of propaganda, Leo Bogart (1995) held that the
political rhetoric of the Cold War was an outgrowth of the “ideological self-righ
teousness” of World War II. Terms such as “freedom” and “the Free World” could be
used without a trace of cynicism or self-consciousness, indeed with the expectation
that they would strike a responsive chord. As President Eisenhower said in an ad
dress to Agency staff members in November 1953: “It [the Cold War] is conducted
in the belief that, if there is no war, if two systems of government are allowed to live
side by side, that ours, because of its greater appeal to men everywhere ... in the
long run will win out” (1995, xvi-xvii). Meanwhile, former Assistant Secretary of
State Edward W. Barrett stated that in the contest to win people’s minds, “truth can
be particularly the American weapon” (1953, ix). Senator Homer W. Capehart char
acterized the USIA’s mission during the Cold War as selling the United States to the
world, “just as a sales manager’s job is to sell a Buick or a Cadillac or a radio or
television set” (Bogart, 1995, xvii). Such rhetoric assumed that public opinion could
be influenced and shaped throughout the world, and that those who ruled would
heed it, “no matter how evil and ruthless they might be” (xvii).
The USIA used a variety of media during the Cold War to disseminate its
propagandistic messages, ranging from films to radio broadcasts to leaflets and
books. Bogart (1995) noted that the USIA believed it was important to reach the
same audience through a number of media, but acknowledged that problems of
coordination loomed large for the Agency:
It’s like trying to put out a daily newspaper with the same basic format in
every country in the world” (157). Television overseas was utilized to a
lesser extent, especially in developing countries. Of the estimated 105
million television receivers outside the United States and Canada at the
end of 1965, “the bulk were in Western Europe (50,943,700), Eastern
Europe (23,581,400), and the Far East (23,842, 300). Lagging behind
were Latin America and the Caribbean (7,548,200), the Near East and
South Asia (1,039,200), and Africa (313,000). Of the 7,584,200 TV re
ceivers in Latin America, more than 5,215,000 were in only three na
tions: Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico. Despite hundreds of millions of
people in India and Pakistan, they were served by fewer than 3,000 TV
sets. As late as 1968, television remained a novelty in the Congo, and
there were only a few hundred sets when Ghana’s television system opened
in August 1965 (USIA, 1966b, 5-9).