The U.S. Communications Act of 1934, however, restricted the duration of broadcasting licenses to six months. Simultaneously, Roosevelt appointed one of his most faithful party stalwarts as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. Shortly thereafter, radio stations were required to submit transcripts of all programs “on public affairs” for FCC approval, and an FCC member let it be known that airing programs critical of the government could lead to broadcasting licenses being revoked.12 Thus it was not without some justification that a 1935 German Ph.D. dissertation on American
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