Quote Originally Posted by Hanna View Post
Talk about effective & successful (incorrect) propaganda! I don't think anyone in the the USSR had such idiotic notions about life the the USA, for instance. Or did you?
Reposting a YouTube video that someone linked here a couple years ago -- it's a short film produced by the CIA as a briefing for President Reagan before his visit to the USSR, and purports to show "What the Soviet Media Say About America." (Keep in mind as you watch that it was not originally produced for the general public or for use in school classrooms -- it was a briefing for the White House. In other words, it's supposed to be "objective, accurate, and balanced," and was not actually intended to be anti-Soviet propaganda -- even if it seems that way.)



Two key quotes:

1:50
CIA NARRATOR: "Since the average Soviet citizen has no alternative source of information about the United States, the Soviet version is probably accepted at face value. The Soviet people, however, seem to be curious about America and impressed by its material success."
8:20
CIA NARRATOR: "When it was suggested to a Moscow TV anchorman that Soviet media distorted information about America," he replied:
SOVIET TV NEWS READER: "I think that we are not distorting news. No, I would disagree with you, because we are showing not only the unemployed, we showed millionaires, we showed their private lives, we showed high society, we showed Miss America."
In fairness, I suppose that the "Miss America" pageant technically counts as a representation of America's middle class -- although this may or may not have been apparent to Soviet viewers.

PS. Don't miss the gibberish Cyrillic at 1:30 -- nice work there, CIA-tards!