sters, was reconstituted as the Council on Socialist
Culture and Education and was made directly subordinate to the Central
Committee of the PCR. Similar changes were made in the Committee of
Radio and Television, which became the Council of Romanian Radio and
Television.

Under the direct guidance of the press and propaganda sections of the
Central Committee, these two councils formulate policy guidelines and
supervise all publication and dissemination procedures throughout the
communications media. The policies and directives, in turn, are
implemented by other government-controlled operating agencies, such as
the General Directorate for the Press and Printing, the Romanian press
agency, and the individual publishing houses, printing establishments,
book distribution centers, motion picture studios, and radio and
television stations. To further assure a uniform collective effort
consistent with the party line, and two national councils are also
empowered to organize wherever necessary permanent commissions,
temporary working groups, and local committees to assist the councils in
"analyzing" the way decisions are applied and in "improving" local
activities.

THE PRESS

Newspapers

According to the latest official statistics, there were a total of
seventy-six "general information" newspapers published throughout the
country in 1969. Of these, fifty-one were dailies, twenty-three were
weeklies, and two appeared at infrequent intervals, from two to three
times per week. Daily circulation estimates were available for very few
newspapers. Together, these newspapers had a total annual circulation of
more than 1.1 billion copies, a substantial increase over the 1950 level
of 870 million copies that was achieved by the seventy-five newspapers
then being published. The acceptance of high circulation figures as an
indicator of reader appeal is of doubtful value, however, since many
readers were required to subscribe to newspapers because of their party
or work affiliation. Also, certain functionaries throughout the
governmental apparatus and many supervisory workers had subscription
costs automatically deducted from their salaries.

Newspapers traditionally have been published in the national minority
languages, but since the mid-1960s the government has published no
official statistics on them, apparently in keeping with its
integrationist policy (see ch. 7). In 1964 it was estimated by Western
observers that the ethnic