Victim of American propaganda?

At regular intervals, I’m asked why in the world did I leave my magic Alps to come to America. Most often than not, I mutter some inconsequential answer. 

The reality though, is when I was a small kid, we used to receive a pamphlet or magazine at home, touting the beauty and wonders of America and its society, and when I read that material, I must have instantly fallen under the spell. 

Our family’s material life wasn’t even close to that fairyland described herein and at the time, I was pretty much taking my marvelous surroundings for granted. That dreamland description must have made a permanent mark upon my young mind and from there, irrevocably driven my destiny.

Nothing anyone could do about that! Obviously pure propaganda, that literature was part of the “American Way of Life” indoctrination from the USIA, an anti-communist agency founded during the Cold War in 1953, by President Eisenhower, with the mission of “understanding, informing and influencing foreign audiences in order to promote interest national and deepen dialogue between Americans and US institutions with their counterparts abroad.” 

I was evidently part of that targeted audience and in my case, it did work to perfection!