USIA Films That Failed in Africa.

• Author: Baker, Bob

While many films made by the US Information Agency (USIA) were very useful in Africa to tell about American society and policies, two were not. These two, one about President Kennedy and the other about American agriculture, had the opposite result from that intended. Local African culture distorted the films' messages.

The USIA film about Kennedy, "Years of Lightning, Day of Drums", was made after his assassination in 1963. It included clips from his speeches that supported major U.S. policies along with touching footage of his family life and his funeral procession. Directed by Hollywood's Bruce Herschensohn and narrated by the star Gregory Peck, it became the USIA's biggest ever film hit worldwide. It was immensely popular in Africa as well as elsewhere. Uganda's Prime Minister, like several others in Africa, even sponsored a special screening at a local cinema that raised money for charity.

Beside placing the film in Uganda's 35 mm commercial cinemas, I screened it in 16mm format several times at Makerere University for students. I had a strange feeling about the student audience reaction at the end of the first screening. They were subdued in some odd way.

To check out my feelings about their reactions, I wrote out a single page questionnaire and passed it out to students at the end of two more screenings. (Earlier in my career, I had worked for the USIA Research Service, which did public opinion and media impact studies, and written questionnaires for African public opinion surveys.) The questionnaire tried to find out what messages from the film had come across to the students. The unmistakable result in the 80 completed forms was Ugandan student anger that "America" had killed a great man who liked Africa and blacks. None of them took on board any of the many U.S. policy points made in his speeches.

I sent my report on student reaction to the documentary, and suggested a proper opinion survey to measure the impact of "Years of Lightning, Day of Drums". My telegram to USIA elicited no reply. So, I sent in another telegram reporting my findings and...