Operation Swap

When Congress passed EGA, it also decided that American ideas should get wider circulation in Europe along with American food, machinery and construction materials. So it authorized $10 million to help the circulation of newspapers, magazines and films (TIME, June 14).

Their circulation had been restricted chiefly because U.S. companies had to take payment in European currencies, most of which they were unable to take out of the countries or, in some cases, even to use to pay their foreign expenses.

The congressional appropriation would mean no profit to publishers, most of whom lose money on European sales. It would merely permit them to exchange limited amounts (equal to actual dollar expenditures for distribution and production, etc.) of their blocked European currencies for U.S. dollars.

Fortnight ago, ECA announced the first of the currency agreements with the press. It agreed to trade the New York Herald Tribune $100,000 for marks obtained from sales through February of 40,000 copies of the Trib's European edition in the British and U.S. 20nes of Germany. Last week, TIME Inc. made a similar deal--$79,800 for 16,000 copies of TIME and 35,000 copies of LIFE. Other U.S. publications with foreign editions (e.g., Newsweek, Reader's Digest, American Journal of Medicine) are expected to follow suit.

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