Regulation of Propaganda Activities
The Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938, provided for public disclosure by persons engaging in propaganda activities and other activities for or on behalf of foreign governments, foreign political parties, and other foreign principals so that the government and the public could be informed of the identity of such persons and could thereby appraise their statements and actions in the light of their associations and activities.[479] By virtue of a 1942 amendment the necessity for foreign agents to register with the Attorney General was waived for agents of allied and friendly nations and thus propaganda efforts encouraged.[480] These agents could escape the registration requirement provided they engaged only in activities which were in furtherance of the policies, public interest, and national defense, of their own government and the American government, and were not intended to conflict with any of the domestic or foreign policies of the United States. However, the agent had to be convinced of the truth and accuracy of each communication or expression which he made in this country.
Under the same Act persons required to register as foreign agents also had to furnish the Library of Congress with two copies of any political propaganda intended for dissemination to two or more persons. This material had to be transmitted within forty-eight hours after dissemination had begun and it had to be accompanied by a statement, duly signed by or on behalf of the agent, setting forth full information as to the places, times, and extent of actual transmittal.[481] In addition, the Act made it unlawful to disseminate the matter unless the political propaganda was conspicuously marked at its beginning with, or prefaced or accompanied by, a true and accurate statement, in the language or languages used in the political propaganda. The Act further required that the person transmitting political propaganda be registered under the Act with the Department of Justice “as an agent of a foreign principal, together with the name and address of the agent and of each of his foreign principals.”[482]
The Internal Security Act of 1950 applied a similar requirement to any organization registered as a Communist organization, or ordered to register by the Subversive Activities Control Board.[483] Such an organization is guilty of a crime if it transmits through the United States mails or by any means or instrumentality of interstate or foreign commerce, any publication which is intended to be, or which it is reasonably believed will be, circulated or disseminated among at least two or more persons, unless the container in which the publication is mailed contains this statement: “Disseminated by ——, a Communist organization.” Programs sponsored by Communist organizations on radio or television, in order to comply with the Internal Security Act, must be preceded by the statement, “the following program is sponsored by ——, a Communist organization.”