First Installment of Proceeds From Record Sales : USA for Africa Given $6.5 Million

CBS Records President Walter Yetnikoff handed over a $6.5-million check to USA for Africa officials on Thursday in what Yetnikoff termed “the first installment” of many more millions forthcoming from the sales of “We Are the World” records.

To date, the single has sold 7.382 million copies worldwide and the album has sold 4.435 million worldwide, according to Yetnikoff.

USA for Africa Foundation President Ken Kragen told about 100 reporters and photographers who gathered at CBS Records headquarters in Manhattan for the charity check ritual that the $6.5 million will bring the African famine relief organization’s bank balance to exactly $10,830,134.

Kragen, who masterminded the now-familiar Jan. 28 overnight corral of 45 American pop stars, said the foundation’s cash assets should not be confused with his institution’s estimated earnings. Those earnings have been growing since the beginning of the year at a rate of better than $1 million per week, according to foundation officials.

“We estimate our earnings figure right now in excess of $45 million worldwide,” Kragen said. “And that is a conservative estimate,” he said.

In addition to record sales, the money has been pouring in from sweat shirt, T-shirt, button and poster sales, and, perhaps even more significantly, direct-mail contributions have actually increased as the Billboard Top 100 success of the records has slowly declined. The single dropped from the No. 1 spot two weeks ago, and the album dropped to No. 2 just last week.

Kragen also used the occasion to detail the foundation’s first major expenditure: a two-week “fact-finding” mission to Ethiopia, Sudan and Tanzania.

About a dozen foundation officials, including singer Harry Belafonte and Michael Jackson’s older brother, Marlon, will accompany Kragen on the expedition set to begin June 10.

Except for a hand-picked pool photographer and video cameraman who will feed film and tape to the media via a “USA for Africa News Bureau,” the press has been discouraged from accompanying the entourage.

Kragen said the action was not being taken because he and other foundation members did not want their serious fact-finding expedition to degenerate into a media “circus.”

The first stop on the trip will be Khartoum, in the Sudan, where food, medical supplies and other relief materials will be distributed. Kragen said about half of the supplies that they will be flying in aboard will be left in Sudan. The remainder will be taken to the second stop on their itinerary--Ethiopia.

The airlift will be symbolic, Kragen emphasized. He said air transport of goods normally makes poor economic sense, since the cost of flying supersedes the cost of the goods several times over.

The primary purpose of the expedition is to contact relief workers from organizations such as UNICEF and the Catholic Relief Agencies, which will be able to police the distribution of supplies on a regular basis and monitor longer-term farming or medical-care projects funded by the foundation. The entourage also hopes to make contact with African political leaders.