29. Memorandum From the Director of the United States Information Agency (Shakespeare) to President Nixon 1
The full impact of the Apollo 11 mission around the world will not be apparent until well after the splashdown.2 But it is already safe to say that no past event has been seen on television or followed by radio by so large a proportion of humanity. Partly, as a result of this, partly because of the magnitude of the event itself, no comparable number of human beings has ever had as deep a sense of participation in a news story or as deep a feeling of identification with two men as they did with Neil Armstrong and “Buzz” Aldrin.
Of the currently estimated total television audience of 650 million which watched the moon walk as it happened, 500 million were abroad, 320 million in Western and Eastern Europe, 75 million in Latin America, and most of the rest in Japan and elsewhere in Asia. The Japanese audience at the time of the moon walk was estimated at 70 to 80 million. In Italy, some 40 million watched the telecast. According to our present information, of the countries of Western or Eastern Europe, only the Soviet Union, East Germany, and Iceland failed to relay the Eurovision coverage of this event. Tape coverage was, however, included in regular Soviet TV newscasts. Elsewhere in the world, all countries which had the technical capability of telecasting Apollo 11 live did so. Thanks to last-minute arrangements by NASA and COMSAT, this included all Latin American countries, with the exception of Paraguay, Ecuador, and Cuba. (Venezuela and Colombia sought USIA help and went to great expense themselves to lease a portable ground station for live TV coverage of Apollo 11.) In Africa, Moroccan, Tunisian, and Libyan television were part of the worldwide circuit. Finally, television stations in Asia—Japan, Australia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Korea—covered the event simultaneously and as fully as it was covered anywhere. All other television stations around the world (outside Communist China, Russia, and East Germany) may be assumed to be carrying taped or filmed reports as fast as they can get them.
[Page 61]The Voice of America, relayed by both the domestic and external services of the BBC, as well as by All-India Radio and at least 22 other national networks around the world and by well over 1400 individual radio stations in Latin America, calculates its audience during the moon landing and walk to have been over 500 million. Jamming of Russian language broadcasts in the Soviet Union continued uninterrupted but English transmissions to the USSR and two channels in Mandarin beamed to Red China were clear.
Well over 800 foreign correspondents and media men covered the mission from Cape Kennedy and the Houston Manned Space Center in a total of 33 languages. The Japanese, 120 strong, represented the largest single national contingent. There were 200 media representatives from Latin America, and some 300 from Europe.
Perhaps more important than all these figures has been the depth and seriousness of coverage in many countries. Most radio and TV stations abroad prepared their audiences for the Apollo 11 mission for weeks, by broadcasting documentaries on past space exploits, interviews with experts, and detailed explanations of the mission plan. Newspapers in many countries have devoted a page a day to the preparations for the moon landing mission, and there have been impressive special space issues of mass publication periodicals in Italy and elsewhere. They have generally drawn the bulk of their source material from our own USIA output.
As for comment on the mission, the reactions flowing in indicate that the impact was great. Apart from the Communist Chinese press in Hong Kong (and presumably in Mainland China itself)—which speaks of this exploit as the last gasp of American imperialism—reporting has been positive and enthusiastic, with of course an occasional negative comment. The Arab world, the UAR included, joined in the general mood of euphoria. Communist papers in the West, like L’Humanite in France and Unita in Italy, echoed the chorus of approval resounding around them, only gently expressing their preference for the Soviet approach of unmanned space probes. Some papers in both the industrialised and underdeveloped world (e.g., the Times of London and Addis Reporter in Ethiopia) mentioned the contrast between the billions spent for space exploration and lack of success in dealing with urgent problems facing humanity here on Earth—but many (e.g., Rheinische Post in Germany and Ittefan in Pakistan) answered such criticism by noting that this great undertaking of man does not hinder human progress, but in the long run helps humanity marshal its talents and resources in solving age-old problems. Most papers were simply lost in awe on this “day in our history, the like of which none of us has ever seen or will live to see again” (Daily Mail). They saw “the feat of all time . . . accomplished” (Figaro). They commented that “the [Page 62] consequences of this first step are beyond imagining” (Die Welt). They noted that “Man knew he would conquer (space) not for the sake of conquest, not for self, but for freedom of spirit and humanity.” (Working People’s Daily, Burma)
Evidence of the profound impact of the moon landing from all corners of the world is copious and often moving. It ranges from the Pope’s hailing the astronauts as “conquerors of the moon” and Prime Minister Wilson’s stating his profound admiration for them, to the Pakistani newspaperman’s expressing gratitude that he belongs to the generation which has witnessed an event of this magnitude. Babies were named after Apollo in Lebanon and Scotland, a public bus in downtown Dar es Salaam. An estimated 150,000 watched the moon walk on a giant television screen in a public square in Seoul, and crowds trying to press into Apollo exhibits at the American Embassy in Warsaw, USIS Lome (Togo) and USIS Addis Ababa got temporarily out of control. People danced in the streets of Santiago (Chile), and the President of Venezuela,3 after watching the moon walk in the company of his cabinet through a good part of the night, made an impromptu address to his nation when the astronauts safely boarded the “Eagle”4 again. In spite of the modest coverage of the flight by Soviet media, Americans living there were congratulated by Russian friends and even by chance acquaintances. The Moscow Embassy received congratulatory telegrams, as well as a number of telephone calls inquiring about the progress of the mission. The President of Chile5 called on Ambassador Korry to say how pleased he was. He, as well as a number of other chiefs of state, declared July 21 a national holiday. School children in Bavaria and students in Mexico were excused from classes that day. Many world capitals were deserted at the time of the launch or during other daytime events, as people stayed near their television sets. Church bells rang out and fire sirens screamed to announce the moon landing in various Latin American cities. Laplanders followed the flight on their transistor radios while pasturing their reindeer.
This is, of course, a preliminary report. We are engaged in an attempt to judge the effect of the Apollo 11 story on foreign audiences in a more systematic way by a comparative opinion survey in selected countries before and after the mission. The results of this survey will be available in about four weeks.
[Page 63]Attached is a summary of foreign media reaction, dated July 21, relating to the moon landing.6 Our Media Reaction Unit will continue to follow and report on this subject.
- Source: National Archives, RG 306, Director’s Subject Files, 1968–1972, Entry A1–42, Box 1, INF–13 Foreign Media Reaction. No classification marking. An unknown hand wrote “7/22/69” in the top right-hand corner of the memorandum. Loomis also initialed the top right-hand corner of the memorandum.↩
- The Apollo 11 astronauts—Aldrin, Armstrong, and Collins—departed Earth aboard the Apollo spacecraft on July 16 at 9:32 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time. Armstrong became the first human to walk on the Moon on July 20 and was later joined by Aldrin; Collins remained in the command module. The crew splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on July 24.↩
- Caldera.↩
- Reference is to the lunar module.↩
- Frei.↩
- Not attached.↩
- Printed from a copy that bears this typed signature.↩