![]() ![]() ![]() On this day, Jesse Owens would follow the soldiers out of a chopper, the latest in a long line of entertainers and athletes tapped to generate goodwill for his country. government had employed all sorts of tactics and tools in its Cold War fight against anti-American sentiment. Preparation for one big propaganda pushback. The men setting to work, unloading sheets of plywood to build a basketball court on the grass. A fleet of helicopters landing in the infield and spilling crews of American soldiers from their bellies. A crowd of 76,000 gathering in the stands of the Olympic Stadium, one of the few pre-War structures to survive Allied bombing. Nearly a quarter-million young minds bombarded with tales of the worst America had to offer, and a chief source of-justified but still unwelcome-criticism would focus on the U.S.’s horrifying treatment of African-Americans, both past and present.Īnother event that had been on the Agency’s radar for a while. Memos circulated in Washington had warned that the Festival was “financed by the Soviet Zone Government.” It would be one big propaganda push, a massive platform from which to drop rhetorical bombs on Western ideals. The World Youth Festival, a Communist Woodstock for teens set against the backdrop of post-War Germany. ![]() Two hundred thousand kids from cities and towns across the Soviet Union descending on East Berlin. The CIA had been aware of the event for months. ![]()
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