Statement About the Report of the Presidential Study Commission on International Radio Broadcasting

FOR MILLIONS of listeners on the European Continent, Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty are sources of reliable, comprehensive information. They make available a broad range of news and news analysis which we in the West take so much for granted that we sometimes forget that such information is denied to others.

Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty are not spokesmen for American official policy--a broadcasting job that belongs to the Voice of America. Rather, they are highly professional media of news and news analysis, functioning as a kind of substitute free press for a crucial part of the world.

Today I am making public the report of the Presidential Study Commission on International Radio Broadcasting. It is a thorough and thoughtful statement concerning the need to maintain and strengthen the free flow of information among nations and the unique role that Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty play in that process. It also contains constructive and detailed recommendations on ways that support for the radio stations should be organized and financed for the future.

I shall soon send to the Congress legislative proposals for continuing Federal financial support for the two stations.

I endorse wholeheartedly the conclusion of the Commission that these voices of free information and ideas serve our national interest and merit the full support of the Congress and the American people. As I have said before, the free flow of information and of ideas among nations is a vital element in normal relations between East and West and contributes to an enduring structure of peace.

To the Chairman of the Commission, Dr. Milton Eisenhower, and to the other members--Mr. Edward Ware Barrett, Ambassador John A. Gronouski, Ambassador Edmund A. Gullion, and Dr. John P. Roche--I express my deep appreciation for their report.