The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2003

asked, if he had only $15 to spend for post operations for the year? McKnight replied that he would take the minister of education to lunch and lobby him on the need for more American studies programs in Italian universities. On the Air By the 1970s, the reconstituted Voice of America radio network was broadcasting in over 40 languages. It used communications satellites to link its stateside transmitters with a network of overseas relay bases in Europe, Asia and Africa. Perhaps the best-known of VOA’s hundreds of radio professionals was Willis Conover, host to the station’s jazz show, “Music USA.” A Wash- ington disk jockey, Conover was hired temporarily in 1954 to host the program, despite warnings from some VOA officials that the project was frivolous. The show was, in fact, an instant success and stood as the VOA’s most popular single offering for over 30 years. Conover, a knowl- edgeable jazz fan, built his program around his own large collection of records, interspersed with inter- views with leading musicians, from Duke Ellington to Frank Sinatra. His interviews and commentaries, delivered in a smooth, bottled-in- cream tone, made him arguably the most recognizable American voice abroad for decades. In addition to the Voice of America, USIA managed a wide variety of other media programs. The “Wireless File” was a daily news transmission of official U.S. govern- ment statements and other materials that kept American embassies and other missions informed on current policy. Translated into dozens of languages, the file was also a prima- ry channel for reaching local news- papers and other opinion outlets. The Wireless File tradition contin- ues today as a round-the-clock Internet service. Before long, USIA became the biggest international publisher of books, magazines, pamphlets and other printed materials. One of its most successful projects was to encourage a consortium of U.S. book companies to sponsor an over- seas project, Franklin Publications, which set up a string of affiliates throughout the Middle East and Asia to produce and market low- J U LY- A U G U S T 2 0 0 3 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 59 Despite attacks by Sen. Joseph McCarthy and a one-third cut in USIA’s first budget, the agency quickly thrived.