Muted Voice of America

One unexpected result of detente is a change in tone at the Voice of America. Until recently, as a matter of course, the Government radio network heard round the world in 36 languages reported on opposition stirring within Communist countries. Now Voice executives are trying to avoid "provocative" stories. In the process, they have restricted VGA correspondents to the point where many of the newsmen feel that legitimate stories are being suppressed. Some editors and reporters in the radio's U.S.S.R. division have grumbled about interference from the glavlit--the Russian term for official censor.

As an official outlet for the United States Information Agency (USIA), Voice of America, with 2,303 employees and an annual budget of $55 million, operates under statutory authority. Its stated mission is to report on the U.S. and American foreign policy and to "combat Communism." In practice, it has wobbled between its dual roles as Government propagandist and conveyor of straight news. James Keogh, the former executive editor of TIME who became USIA director in 1973, discarded the old Cold War attitudes of his hard line predecessor, Frank Shakespeare. Under Keogh, a skilled, seasoned newsman, VGA began finally to accept detente as a reality and to report evenhandedly on the new warmth in U.S.-U.S.S.R. relations. However, Keogh also tightened the policy reins on VGA correspondents. During Watergate, he forbade any stories that were attributed to unnamed sources, thereby preventing VGA's broadcast of some important revelations.

Today, many experienced journalists at the VGA are bitterly disappointed. Keogh and his deputy for the Soviet bloc, John Shirley, they say, have allowed political considerations to mute the Voice. Among recent examples they cite:

> The program department planned a series often-minute excerpts and summaries from Alexander Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago, the nightmare account of Soviet repression, to counteract Moscow's propaganda against the book. USIA ordered the project canceled.

> VGA's Munich bureau suggested a series on young workers in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Washington turned the idea down, according to one VGA official, because "if it had been honest and accurate, it would have been offensive to the governments involved; it would have seemed gratuitous and ideologically polemical."

> A Voice correspondent, Lawrence Freund, preparing a story on the trial of a group of Croatians accused of separatism, noted that Yugoslav security was being stepped up around President Tito's residence in Belgrade. USIA killed the story as "too sensitive" because it fostered the impression of political instability. Instead, VGA broadcast a toned-down story from the wire services.

> Freund also reported, after Henry Kissinger's November visit to Belgrade, that the U.S. might resume arms sales to Yugoslavia. Though reporters aboard Kissinger's plane published the information, the U.S. embassy in Belgrade suppressed Freund's report on the ground that an official American network should not encourage provocative "speculation."

Last month Deputy Assistant Director Shirley sent out a written order stiffening a 1967 rule that Voice correspondents must get advance approval from local American embassies before they undertake a story. A number of correspondents feel that the Shirley letter has given the embassies new power to censor their stories in advance. Shirley has promised, but not yet issued, a clarification that would limit the embassies' ability to do so.

No Advocacy. Because the Voice has always been a lifeline for dissidents in Communist countries, many apparently now feel let down. A prominent Yugoslav writer recently said: "The VGA is jamming itself--apparently out of some misguided spirit of detente." Pavel Litvinov, a Soviet intellectual now in exile in the U.S., gave a speech to Voice employees in the U.S.S.R. division in which he said: "The quality of your broadcasts to my country has declined 500% in the last few years." Astonishingly, the audience burst into applause.

Last week Keogh, John Shirley and VGA Program Director Jack Shellenberger rejected the charges of censorship.

In interviews with TIME, they defended their policy of not offending Communist governments. Keogh said that VGA has devoted "hundreds of hours" of air time to reports on what the American press was saying about the Solzhenitsyn story. He vetoed broadcasts of excerpts or summaries of The Gulag Archipelago because that amounted to "advocacy journalism." Said Keogh: "The Voice of America is not an international NBC or CBS. Detente has changed what we do in USIA. Our program managers must be sensitive to U.S. policy as enunciated by the President and the Secretary of State. That policy is that we do not interfere in the internal affairs of other countries. We're not in the business of trying to provoke revolutions."

The tension between VGA journalists and their USIA superiors is one item on the agenda of a 20-member panel that will recommend to Congress some changes in the Government's information services. The group, appointed by two commissions that monitor Government information programs, is headed by Frank Stanton, former vice chairman of CBS Inc. It is expected to recommend next month that the Voice be given greater journalistic freedom. It remains to be seen whether this is possible, given the built-in limitations of any Government-run news operation.

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