USIA BLACKLIST

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00901R000600420039-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 27, 2005
• Sequence Number: 39
• Publication Date: February 9, 1984
• Content Type: PREL

WASHINGTON
USIA
Approved For Release 2g0?t4VJZ yCVl WP91-00901R000~
The U.S. Information Agency kept a ''blacklist'' of people -- including
Walter Cronkite and David Brinkley not considered suitable for
government-sponsored speaking trips abroad, USIA Deputy Director Leslie
Lenkowsky said today.
Lenkowsky, who joined the USIA, the government's overseas information arm,
last September, said neither he nor USIA Director Charles Wick had been aware of
the list that apparently was started in 1981. Lenkowsky said he ordered it
destroyed immediately.
Many of the 84 persons on the list were prominent liberals or Democrats but
Lenkowsky said others were obscure academicians who apparently had displeased
someone in the agency.
"This list was kept down in the bowels of the bureaucracy by career people
who wanted to keep a record of those persons who for one reason or another were
not going to be programmed (considered for the speaking program)," Lenkowsky
said. ''In my view it was a terrible error. As soon as I heard about it I
ordered it destroyed. '$
He said most of those on the list had not sought to take part in the agency's
speaker program and were unaware they had been blacklisted.
Those on the list included former CBS News anchorman Walter Cronkite, ABC
News broadcaster David Brinkley, civil rights activist Coretta Scott King,
feminist Betty Friedan, economist John Kenneth Galbraith, consumer advocate
Ralph Nader, former CIA Director Stansfield Turner, Carter administration
Cabinet. members James c esinger an a rieia Roberts Harris, Sen. Gary Hart,
D-Colo., and Reps. Robert Garcia, D-N.Y., Thomas Downey, D-N.Y., and Jack
Brooks, D-Texas.
Among the journalists on the list were Washington Post Executive Editor
Benjamin Bradlee, Post diplomatic reporter John Goshko, New York Times columnist
Tom Wicker and writers Elizabeth Drew and James Fallows.
While the blacklist, reported in today's Washington Post, included Bradlee,
the agency had a list of ''approved'' speakers that included Post publisher
Donald Graham and Katharine Graham, chairman of the board of The Washington Post
Co., Lenkowsky said.
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Approved For Release 2006/01/17 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000600420039-7