Books presented to Raffles National Library by USIS
3 pgs – File contains an exchange of letters between the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Culture (MC) and the American Counsel-General in Singapore regarding the presentation of a book “Peking Blues” by the USIS to Raffles National Library some time back. MC’s Perm Sec said that this book was found to contain passages that bordered on obscenity and had to be withdrawn. He asked that greater caution be exercised in its choice of books for presentation to the library in future. In his reply, the Counsel-General said “it is understood by all concerned that the decision regarding the acceptability of any publication lies with the recipient”. However, he pledged to try harder to ensure that books presented by USIS would not be offensive to the beneficiary in future.
Feb 1960
AR 22
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