Congress harbored significant reservations about empowering the State Department. A key issue was oversight over State Department programs, including exchanges, which books were distributed abroad, art that was distributed as representing the United States, and the radio programming. When the Bloom Bill (HR 4982) went to the House Rules Committee in February 1946, committee Chairman Eugene Cox (D-GA) informed Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs William B. Benton that ten of the twelve committee members were against anything the State Department favored because of its "Communist infiltration and pro-Russian policy." That the House Foreign Affairs Committee unanimously reported the bill out was meaningless. Cox told Benton that the Foreign Affairs Committee was "a worthless committee consisting of worthless impotent Congressmen; it was a kind of ghetto of the House of Representatives."