They provide a basis for judgment of American and other western intentions and values. They provide relief from the cultural inbreeding which isolation causes. And repeatedly they have provided Soviet citizens with their first information about developments within their own country. "If we ever hear anything about events in this country." Solzhenitzin said. "it is through them." While direct evidence probably can never be obtained. there would seem to be little doubt that the window on the world such broadcasts provide is responsible to some degree for the popular pressures on Soviet authorities to provide more and better consumer goods. to allow greater intellectual freedom of expression. to permit even token emigration of Soviet Jews to Israel. to soften the formerly harsh police state controls. and perhaps even to seek detente through specific political negotiations and agreements with "the opposite social systems." Therefore. these broadcasts as well as the exhibits. the exchanges. the magazine Amerika. and the other activities which the U.S. Information Agency undertakes in regard to the people of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union are vitally important elements in the exercise of our foreign policy and cannot. with any regard to verity. be called "anachronisms" of no value today. I should like to make one final point.
Keywords matched
emigration