New York, June 16—The Senate, under the domination of Senator Fulbright’s Foreign Relations Committee, has voted to amputate a couple of limbs from the United States Information Agency and perhaps even the Agency’s heart. The $31-million cut means drastic reduction of USIA activities and means that the great transmitter in the South Pacific scheduled to disseminate a breath of news and truth to Mainland China is—canceled. Why? Because, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s report advises us, the USIA is a “cold war anachronism.”
We are to suppose then that it is an anachronism for the United States to make the effort to disseminate the news of the world in corners of the world that do not otherwise get such news. It is unclear how a cold war can end as the result of a unilateral resolution of one party to end it. The Soviet Union continues to jam the Voice of America, at a cost to the Soviet Union in excess of our cost in transmitting. We have the testimony of refugees from the tyranny of the Soviet Union that they get such news as they have of the outside world from the Voice of America (and its ancillary network), and from the BBC. Out of a combination of fatigue and funk it is now proposed that we withdraw the only hand of friendship one is in a position to extend to a captive people.
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