LIFTING THE CURTAIN
By STEPHEN CLISSOLD
N a recent issue of The Spectator Commander King-Hall rightly I drew attention to the urgent importance of making the British way of life better known and valued abroad, and stressed " the very important tactical operation of getting our ideas to the other side of the Iron Curtain." After spending a year and a-half as Press Attache in the British Embassy at Belgrade, I feel that some account of the sort of opportunities and difficulties which attend this operation may perhaps be of interest. The following remarks are based primarily on experience of Yugoslavia, but are probably applicable with only slight variations to the other countries of Eastern Europe (with the probable exception of Czechoslovakia). The fundamental difficulty about projecting the British way of life beyond the Iron Curtain lies in the fact that the Governments of the curtain-countries are already busily projecting their picture of Britain. Taking its cue from the Soviet Press, their propaganda-machine is painting a lurid picture of Britain as a land dominated by crypto-Fascists, retrograde in its social and political structure, imperialist in its foreign policy. Only those items of news (strikes, unrest in India, etc.) calculated to leave an unfavourable impression on the mind of the reader are published. The Press sometimes goes to ludicrous extremes in its efforts to belittle and distort. One Belgrade weekly recently pub- lished an article on coastal erosion which left the impression that the British Isles would shortly be engulfed beneath the waves of an avenging anti-Fascist Nature.
With a Press run on these lines, a British Press Department can expect few results from its normal function of servicing the news- papers with feature and reference material, or making available to them a British news service such as Reuters or one of the special services run by the Central Office of Information. Technical and cultural articles are sometimes accepted, but (except in the case of the Bulgarian Press) other general material from British sources Is very rarely printed. Where an Opposition Press is permitted the case is naturally different. But this raises a fresh political problem. Is it desirable to risk too close an identification with the Opposition by supplying its Press so liberally with British reading matter? Where the Press is closed and hostile, an obvious expedient is to publish a special magazine frankly devoted to the projection of British life and thought. In Russia, the British Ally has now won for itself a well-deserved reputation. Its distribution is permitted under a reciprocal arrangement providing for parallel facilities for the Soviet News in Britain. Where no such reciprocal arrangement exists—as in Yugoslavia—the distribution of British periodicals is liable to be severely restricted. A State monopoly handles the sale of foreign publications throughout the country. Protests that English newspapers fail to reach the bookstalls in adequate quantity are met with the bland assurance that there is no public demand for them. Another possibility is for the Press Department to issue occasional bulletins, reprints of important official statements and so on. Such material is often apt to be too reminiscent of the war- time propaganda broadsheets, and may be resented by the Govern- ment as trespassing on the preserves of its official news agencies. If it contains criticism of the Governments concerned, the Press Department may be accused of spreading propaganda hostile to the State. This has happened more than once in the case of the British Embassy Press. Department in Warsaw.
Less controversial channels of publicity are to be found in the organisation of displays and exhibitions and the opening of English reading-rooms. In Yugoslavia experience has shown that the appetite for photographic displays, normally attractive to an unsophisticated public, has been surfeited during the war, but that there is a growing interest in the news and views which an English reading-room can offer. The reading-room in Belgrade can count on a daily average of over a thousand visitors, and that in Zagreb, the second city of Yugoslavia, on six or seven hundred. Visitors include soldiers, pro- fessional men, schoolchildren and peasants from the surrounding countryside. One vital lesson at least can be learnt without much knowledge of the English language. As he spells out the titles and headlines of the newspapers before him—The Daily Telegraph, The Manchester Guardian, The Daily Worker—the visitor is not slow to grasp one fundamental principle of the British way of life—the right to free discussion and criticism. If he should be well enough acquainted with the British Press to comment on the absence of certain papers—The Spectator is not yet among them—he would be right in inferring that it is his own Government, with its power to ban " undesirable " papers, which is responsible for this lack.
There remain two other powerful media, for the projection of Britain—films and broadcasting. Most countries of Eastern Europe are suffering from an acute shortage of films ; lack adequate produc- tion facilities of their own ; and find that the available Russian films are insufficient and often inferior. Where the import and distribu- tion of films are controlled by a State monopoly, British producers may be given the same answer that there is " no popular demand." But the demand is certainly there, and it is worth while making every effort to overcome official reluctance. The prospects for British newsreels, though also of great importance, are less bright. If they contain material likely to lead to unfavourable comparisons being drawn they are drastically censored, as was recently the case with a British newsreel in Yugoslavia showing the demobilised British soldier being fitted out with his new civilian suit. Broadcasting remains perhaps the most impertant medium of publicity, since the nature of radio-listening eludes official attempts to discourage it. During the German occupation the B.B.C. won immense prestige, which was impaired only when it attempted to offer ill-advised com- ment and advice on the internal affairs of the country concerned. Great bewilderment was caused, for example, when the B.B.C. ex- tolled first the Chetniks of General Mihailovitch and then the Partisans of Marshal Tito. So long as it confines itself to straight news and informative talks, and eschews comment on the country's domestic affairs, the B.B.C. can still count today on exercising an immense and constructive influence.
A final word must be said about relations between the work ot the British Press Department and the British Council. The British Council, which is concerned with the long-term policy of dis- seminating a knowledge of English language and culture, has un- fortunately been slow to start operating behind the Iron Curtain. The close co-ordination of the work of both organisations, and in some cases the pooling of resources, are called for if overlapping is to be avoided. In theory, the British Council avoids associating too closely with official British bodies for fear of culture being con- taminated with politics. In practice, inter-departmental niceties are lost in the rough-and-tumble of Eastern Europe. The foreigner regards every Briton abroad as an official representative, and is equally likely to approach him with a request for an English grammar, the text of a broadcast talk or a Government White Paper. Both organisations have one disadvantage in common—their names. The British Council is invariably confused with the British Consul in the popular mind, and thus acquires unmistakable official associations. The Press Attaché is still more unfortunate. He is now to be officially known as the First Secretary (Information). To the distrustful foreigner, the word " information " connotes " intelligence," and leads to the suspicion that, as was the practice of the Nazis, a Press department is the cloak for more sinister activities. Both Press Attaché and British Council representatives need at all costs to avoid giving the impression that they are out to peep and pry through holes in the curtain. Their task is the arduous but honourable one of helping to lift it bodily from the European stage.
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