Dear Foster: With respect to your memorandum of March twentieth, attaching some staff notes discussing problems involved in US - USSR student exchange:1
I did not propose an exchange of students. My idea is to propose an invitation to a large group of these people to enter undergraduate schools here for one year.
The arguments for doing something of this kind are not to be found exclusively in the propaganda field. They are more compelling when we consider the benefits to be derived by us and the free world if Iron Curtain people could get a clearer understanding of American life and intentions.
Only this morning you were pointing out the great disadvantages that we incur by reason of the fact that people in the Far East do not understand America and what is going on here.2 Even though a supposedly "free press" reaches those nations, that misunderstanding is not only very noticeable but its consequences are serious to us. The proposal I am considering would be aimed at clearing up such misunderstanding.
Now, with respect to some of the problems mentioned.
(a). I checked the security matter with Edgar Hoover, who said that the volume of the security problem would be slightly increased, but in reality it would be little more difficult.3 Personally, he was in favor of the idea, saying, in effect, "It is high time that we were doing something positive; we cannot always be merely negative."
(b). If the information provided to me is reasonably accurate, there is a period for the next two or three years during which our undergraduate bodies will not be filled; I am told that numbers of undergraduate institutions are anxiously striving to fill up their student bodies.
(c). Of course the program would not be cheap. I had been calculating a total of $3,000 per student for one year, and I was thinking of something on the order of 5,000 students. This would cost us $15,000,000 per year.4 As ever
