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Popular Culture Review
tion of information provided on the few reports received are the frequent
errors in filling out the vague form the Agency has provided. (25)
Yet, in 1966, the USIA attempted to approximate the chances of reaching a
target audience in India, viewed at the time as “perhaps the highest priority coun
try” in the Kingfish program. Based on information supplied by “knowledgeable”
officers in the field, the Agency arrived at the following figures for India (USIA,
1966a, 31):
1. High-class theaters in a major city, one in five estimated target viewers
among patrons, 1,840,000 annual exposures;
2. “Ordinary” theaters in major cities, one in ten patrons, 1.3 million total
annual exposures;
3. “Ordinary” theaters in smaller cities, one in twenty estimated target
viewers among patrons, 805,000 annual exposures to target viewers out
of 16.1 million total annual exposures.
From a financial standpoint, Project Kingfish represented one of the USIA’s
major activities, despite its fifteen-year, inconspicuous role; a majority of Agency
employees at home and abroad did not know of its existence. In fact, the classified
nature of the project created an absence of detailed financial records, with only
vague printed references and off-the-record testimony before Congress available.
However, the Agency’s comprehensive report estimates the project’s annual cost at
about $699,000 (USIA, 1966a, 35-37).
Meanwhile, an additional $100,000 a year was spent on the USIA’s separate
contract with Associated Newsreels to produce news clips, or excerpts culled from
the ten-minute newsreels. In an effort to gain extra propagandists “mileage” from
Kingfish, stories containing the strongest themes of “Americana relevance” were
selected weekly by field officers and distributed to about thirty countries. Although
the list included India, Thailand, and the Philippines, Kingfish was not imple
mented in most of these countries. Agency officials acknowledged that actual us
age of the news clips was not easily ascertained because of monitoring difficulties.
Still, the Agency estimated that at least one hundred newsclip stories were shown
in Turkey, and it has been reported that the clips were seen on a regular basis in
Korea, Laos, the Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. In Mexico, Brazil,
and Argentina, local laws prevented entry of foreign reels, but Agency clips got
placed in several national reels that were encouraged by the governments of these
countries. News clips also made their way into film news magazines on a limited
basis in Latin America and Africa (USIA, 1966a, 43-45).