A Bold New Vision: The VOA Radio Ring Plan and Global Broadcasting in the Early Cold War

摘要

In February 1952, State Department official Reed Harris and Foy Kohler exchanged a revealing set of memoranda. In preparation for hearings before the Senate Appropriations Committee and following a suggestion from Army Chief of Staff General Robert McClure, Harris proposed changing the ring plan's name to avoid provoking the Soviet Union. Kohler concurred, alleging that the basic concept behind the global radio project had always been to construct "a 'ring' around the world rather than a 'ring' around the Soviet Union." As a result of the exchange, Harris instructed the State Department to henceforth refer to the radio ring as VOA's "world-wide (or global) radio network."