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AUSTRIA COUNTRY READER TABLE OF CONTENTS Walter Roberts 1943-1950 USIA, Austrian Service, New York 1950-1953 Austrian Desk Officer, Washington DC Halvor C. Ekern 1945-1955 Assistant to the High Commissioner, Office of the High Commissioner, Vienna Denise Abbey 1945-1947 Programmer, Radio Free Austria, USIS, Salzburg 1947-1952 Educator, Austro-American Institute of Education, USIS, Vienna Hugh G. Appling 1947-1950 Consular Officer, Vienna Frank E. Maestrone 1948-1949 Consular Officer, Vienna Clinton L. Olson 1948-1952 Economic Officer, Vienna Robert B. Houston 1949-1953 Consular Officer, Vienna Horace G. Torbert 1950-1954 Coordinator of Intelligence, Vienna William Lloyd Stearman 1950-1955 Political Officer, Vienna Arthur A. Bardos 1951-1955 Radio Austria, Vienna W. Tapley Bennett 1951-1955 Political Counselor, Vienna Mary Seymour Olmsted 1951-1955 Commercial Officer, Vienna Chester H. Opal 1952-1953 Public Affairs Officer, USIS, Vienna Hugh G. Appling 1953-1954 Austrian Desk Officer, Washington DC Robert J. Martens 1953-1954 Assistant Secretary, Allied High Commission, Vienna 1954-1955 Assistant Secretary, Allied High Commission, Salzburg Lloyd Jonnes 1953-1956 Economic Analyst, Economic Cooperation Administration, Vienna 1 Hendrik Van Oss 1953-1956 Economic Officer, Vienna Alfred Puhan 1953-1957 U.S Secretary in the Allied Commission for Austria, Vienna Morton A. Bach 1955-1960 Financial/Economic/Commercial Attaché, Vienna William J. Galloway 1956-1959 First Secretary, Vienna William M. Woessner 1956-1959 Consular Officer, Vienna Terrence Catherman 1956-1960 USIS, Monitor of East European and Soviet Media Output, Vienna Robert Gerald Livingston 1958 Consular Officer, Salzburg Douglas G. Hartley 1958-1959 Consular Officer, Salzburg Russell O. Prickett 1959-1961 Administration Officer, US Mission, IAEA, Vienna Dwight J. Porter 1959-1963 Economic Counselor and Deputy Representative to The International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna John Propst Blane 1960-1962 Consular Officer, Salzburg Gerald B. Helman 1960-1962 Political Officer, Vienna Yale Richmond 1961-1963 Special Projects Officer, Vienna Jack A. Sulser 1961-1962 Austria Desk Officer, Washington, DC 1962-1967 Political Officer, Vienna Raymond C. Ewing 1962-1964 International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna Ray E. Jones 1962-1964 Secretary to the Deputy Chief of Mission, Vienna William Bodde, Jr. 1962-1966 Rotation Officer/Staff Aide, Vienna Lawrence Norrie 1962-1966 Country Public Affairs Officer, USIS, Austria 2 Clinton L. Olson 1962-1966 Consul General, Vienna Sidney Friedland 1964-1967 International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna Kenneth P.T. Sullivan 1966-1970 Labor and Political Officer, Vienna Douglas MacArthur, II 1967-1969 Ambassador Anthony Geber 1967-1971 Economic Counselor, Vienna Alfred Joseph White 1969-1972 Italy, Austria, and Switzerland Desk Officer, Washington, DC Dwight J. Porter 1970 Representative to The International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna George F. Jones 1971-1974 Political Advisor, IAEA, Vienna Roger Kirk 1970's United States Representative to The International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna John C. Leary 197?-1980 U.S. Representative, U.N. Industrial Development Organization, Vienna Alfred Joseph White 1972-1975 Economic Officer, Vienna Jonathan Dean 1972-1981 Mutual Balance of Force Reduction Negotiations, Vienna William N. Harben 1973-1974 Mutual and Balanced Reduction Negotiations, Vienna S. Douglas Martin 1973-1976 Director, East-West Trade Center, Vienna Halvor C. Ekern 1974 Mutual and Balanced Reduction Negotiations, Vienna Jonathan B. Rickert 1974-1976 Staff Assistant, US Delegation to Mutual and Balanced Force Reductions, Vienna George A. Anderson 1974-1979 Political Officer/Labor Attaché, Vienna Clarke N. Ellis 1975-1977 Economic/Commercial Officer, Vienna 3 Susan M. Klingaman 1975-1977 Austria and Switzerland Desk Officer, Washington, DC Galen L. Stone 1976-1978 International Atomic Energy Association, Vienna Aurelius Fernandez 1976-1980 Mutual Balanced Force Reduction Talks, Vienna C. Arthur Borg 1977-1983 Deputy Chief of Mission, Vienna Woodward Romine 1978-1980 Chief of the Political Section, Vienna David G. Brown 1978-1981 U.S. Mission to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna Philip M. Kaiser 1979-1980 Ambassador Sol Polansky 1979-1983 Deputy Chief of Mission/Chargé d’Affaires, Vienna Harriet Curry 1980-1981 Secretary to Ambassador Kaiser, Vienna Ward Thompson 1980-1982 Austria and Switzerland Desk Officer, Washington, D.C. Gerald B. Helman 1982 Deputy Head of U.S. Delegation, U.N. International Conference on Outer Space, Vienna Morton I. Abramowitz 1983-1984 Head of U.S. Delegation, Mutual and Balanced Forces Reduction, Vienna Vladimir Lehovich 1983-1986 Mutual Balanced Force Reduction Talks, Vienna Maynard Wayne Glitman 1984-1985 Chief U.S. Representative, Mutual and Balanced Forces, Vienna Warren Zimmerman 1986-1989 U.S. Delegation, CSCE, Vienna David M. Evans 1987-1989 Committee on Security and Cooperation, Vienna Michael H. Newlin 1988-1991 Resident Representative to UN Agencies, 4 Vienna John A. Buche 1989-1992 Deputy Chief of Mission, U.S. Mission to the United Nations, Vienna Rudolf V. Perina 1989-1992 Deputy Head of US Delegation to CSCE, Vienna Roy A. Huffington 1990-1993 Ambassador Craig Dunkerley 1992-1995 Deputy Head, US Delegation to CSCE, Vienna Philip C. Brown 1994-1996 Regional Public Affairs Officer, USIS, Vienna WALTER ROBERTS USIA Austrian Service New York (1945-1950) Austrian Desk Officer Washington, DC (1950-1953) A naturalized American citizen of Austrian birth, Mr. Roberts in 1942 joined the US Coordinator of Information engaged in analyzing Nazi Germany’s internal propaganda. His subsequent career concerned primarily US Government information activities with the Voice of America, The United States Information Service (USIS) and the Department of State. His service abroad centered primarily on European Affairs, and particularly Yugoslavia. Mr. Roberts was interviewed by Cliff Groce in 1990. ROBERTS: The most important date in terms of establishing an Austrian service was the Moscow Declaration of October 31, 1943, in which the foreign ministers of the United States, Great Britain and the Soviet Union declared that Austria was an occupied country that deserved to be liberated after the end of the war--"provided," et cetera and so forth. I remember at that time there were about three or four of us who were doing Austrian material, but always under the guidance of the chief of the German section, Hans Meyer. I had the highest respect for Hans intellectually--a very good editor and writer. But Hans was an emotional person, and so were a number of other people, particularly Martin Fuchs, who was later to become the first head of the Austrian desk. He and Meyer often disagreed regarding the thrust of the broadcasts to Austria. I remember after the Moscow Declaration Martin Fuchs proposed that a separate Austrian desk be created, and indeed some time in 1944 the Austrian desk was established as a separate unit, but still within the German section. The people I remember who 5 worked on the Austrian desk were Martin Fuchs, Robert Bauer, myself, and, on a purchase order basis, General Julius Deutsch -- Q: A general on purchase order? ROBERTS: A general on purchase order. He had been a general of the Social Democratic para- military organization, the Schutzbund, and one of the leaders of the Social Democratic resistance in 1934 against the then authoritarian Austrian government. The Austrian government won out over the Social Democrats and he left Austria, went to Spain and became a member of the general staff of the Spanish Loyalists. After they were defeated in the Spanish Civil War, he came to the United States, I think via Paris. I have a little anecdote. It was late May 1944, and we were all certain that there would very soon be an invasion of Western Europe, the so-called Second Front. I was a youngster at that time, in my twenties, and I reverently asked Deutsch one day, with map in hand, where he thought the Allies would land in Western Europe. He replied that I was right to ask him that question, because, after all, he had been in charge of the coastal defenses in Spain. He solemnly then ruled out one area where he was absolutely sure the Allies would not land, and that was the Normandy coast. (Laughter) To the best of my knowledge, the original broadcast to Austrian workers was transformed in March 1943 to a broadcast aimed at all Austrian listeners. A second Austrian show was added at the time of the Moscow Declaration. We had one broadcast at 9 a.m., which was 3 o'clock in the afternoon in Austria--not a very good time--and I don't know when the other one was on the air. But I don't think we had more than 30 minutes to Austria until May 1944. I do not remember when the Austrian desk was completely separated from the German section. When Martin Fuchs left VOA and returned to Austria to join the Austrian foreign service at the behest of the then chancellor of Austria, Leopold Figl, Robert Bauer became the head of the Austrian desk and I moved up to number two. Q: Given the fact that there was this separate broadcast, and the fact that the Austrians were to be considered occupied rather than enemy listeners, clearly there had to be distinctive differences between the approaches of the two programs, to Germany and to Austria. Tell me about those differences. Tell me what the Austrian program consisted largely of. ROBERTS: I remember this: At the beginning, in 1942 and 1943, the Austrian broadcasts were hardly different in tone and theme from the German programs. Indeed, the news summary was always taken from the preceding German broadcasts. What distinction there was, was in terms of language; the Austrian announcers--Jens Friedrich, for instance--stressed the difference in terms of accent. But thematically, the thrust was similar to the German broadcasts--perhaps sometimes recalling the Austrian heritage, etc. What really changed the output was the Moscow Declaration.