The engineers at the Voice of America (VOA) loved to tell a story from later in the Truman years. It arose from the U.S. effort to establish a network of high-powered transmitters around the Soviet sphere. When the French gave the VOA the use of transmitters at Tangier, VOA managers decided to allow local farmers to graze their sheep in the antenna field. Sometimes animals rubbed against the supporting structure. One unfortunate animal's curiosity or itch coincided with a “hot spot” of accumulated power in the transmitter's guy wires. To the astonishment of watching shepherds, the sheep attracted a sudden arc of energy. It was neither the flash nor the speed of the animal's demise that impressed the audience but the fact that at the moment of its death the sheep was clearly heard to utter the words “Harry Truman.”

VOA engineers could easily explain the quirk of physics that could turn a Moroccan sheep momentarily into a radio receiver. It is harder to explain exactly how the United States, which had historically been so skeptical of the idea of peacetime propaganda, became so committed to overseas propaganda as to set high-powered propaganda signals coursing through cables in distant places. In August 1945 – given feeling in Congress – this would have been unthinkable.