American Race Relations: Global Perspectives 1941-1996: From the Archives of the Central Intelligence Agency

In 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt allocated $150,000 to create the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) as a war measure under the Federal Communications Commission. Following the Second World War, the FBIS was transferred to the Central Intelligence Agency under the National Security Act of 1947. Integrating into the missions of its post-war overseers, the Service expanded to monitor all “enemy broadcasts”, looking for coded messaging, as well as general negative reports about the USA emanating from communist and contested countries. American domestic affairs provided plenty of fodder for foreign journalists, particularly in the area of race relations, and the...