USIA files, lot 56 D 581, “Info Guide Bulletin 303”
Memorandum Prepared in the United States International Information Agency1
Overseas Book Removals
The records of the Union Catalogue of U.S. Information Center holdings compiled and maintained by the Library of Congress showed that as of February 1, 1953, prior to the issuance of directives on books by Communist authors, a total of thirty-nine (39) volumes, representing twenty-five (25) titles by eight (8) authors whose affiliations with the Communist cause is a matter of reasonably public knowledge, were in the collections of eighteen (18) of the U.S. Information Centers overseas. This was out of total holdings of over two million (2,000,000) volumes representing over a hundred thousand (100,000) titles by over eighty-five thousand (85,000) authors in the one hundred ninety-six (196) U.S. Information Centers functioning overseas on January 1, 1953. There is no record that any of these books was ever purchased by this Service. A full list of the authors, titles and posts involved is appended.2 It is assumed that all were immediately removed after issuance of the first directive to the field on non-use of materials by Communist authors on February 18, 1953.3
Subsequent to the decision of the Department that works of authors taking refuge behind the Fifth Amendment as to their political affiliations should be removed from Center collections, a list of sixteen (16) such authors was sent to the field with specific orders for removal of their works from U.S. Information Center shelves, if found there. Two (2) other authors whose recent public actions gave conclusive evidence of Communist affiliations were named in separate (but similar) cables to the field. These cables resulted in ordering removal of seventy-six (76) titles by the eighteen (18) authors involved.
Field reports to the Department from overseas posts indicate that the general directives from the Department have been variously interpreted at the different Embassies, Legations, Consulates and USIS posts. As of June 23, 1953 communications to the Department from the field indicated that 319 titles (thirty-eight (38) anthologies and two hundred eighty-one (281) individual titles by one [Page 1718] hundred forty-four (144) authors) had been removed from one or more of the U.S. Information Centers overseas. The Department has no information to indicate that the removals, in addition to those described in paragraphs one and two preceding, have any relation to the affiliations or loyalty of the authors.