Five Sentence Abstract:
After a whirlwind journey through some historical examples of propaganda as a military tool, the book moves toward a more pragmatic approach. Most propaganda should be suited for long term effects, a glacially slow example being education as propaganda, rather than pinpoint targeting as in more kinetic military engagements. The propagandist must also not let their ideology get in the way of delivering a truthful message that the enemy wants to hear. The second half of the book discusses analysis of both enemy propaganda to determine their position on various topics as well as polling enemy populations and prisoners to understand the effects of propaganda on them. Finally an operational dissection of propaganda covers such topics as format (radio, print), deployment (shelling, air-drop), and target populations (combatants, civilians).
Thoughts:
Education is an extremely effective, albeit slow, method of propaganda to
capture a population.
Money as propaganda. Captured notes can be printed on and redeployed.
Counterfeit notes can be employed similarly and to weaken enemy economies.
Propaganda must be true. If you outright lie the enemy will be able to tear you
apart with counter-propaganda. When you have no truth that can be used as a
weapon, remain silent.
Consider your target sympathetically. How can you appeal to them through their
beliefs? Telling them they are dogs would only steel their conviction while
methodically explaining how their livelihood is eroding under rations and
curfews will hit home.
Avoid "trash talking". While analyzing enemy propaganda it is easy to fall into
the habit of taking things personally. If you lash out at the enemy
propagandist you are missing you true target, the enemy population.
Remember that much of the population won't be tuning in to your broadcasts or
reading all of your pamphlets. While the message may seem tired to you, it will
often be the first time the enemy population is exposed to it. Repetition
drilling home one point is better than a plethora of points that never reach
critical mass in the enemy's camp.
Coordinate your propaganda with other events that may be taking place.
Piggy-back onto prominent topics.
Know who and where you are targeting. It would do no good to deliver a message
that would not reach an appropriate audience. Internet forums like 4chan should
be approached differently than a suburban neighborhood.
Books referenced that may be of interest
-
Subversive and clandestine pro-Confederate propaganda in the North is
outlined in George Port Milton's engrossing Abraham
Lincoln and the Fifth Column, New York and Washington, D. C., 1942. but
no comparable study covering all forms of propaganda on either side is yet
available.
-
The general history of psychology is described in readable terms in Gregory
Zilboorg and George W. Henry,A History of Medical
Psychology, New York, 1941, and in Lowell S. Selling, Men Against
Madness, New .York, 1940, cheap edition, 1942.)
Notes:
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Historic Examples of Psychological Warfare
Chapter 2: The Function of Psychological Warfare
Chapter 3: Definition of Psychological Warfare
Chapter 4: The Limitations of Psychological Warfare
Chapter 5: Psychological Warfare in World War I
Chapter 6: Psychological Warfare in World War II
Chapter 7: Propaganda Analysis
Chapter 8: Propaganda Intelligence
Chapter 9: Estimate of the Situation
Chapter 10: Organization for Psychological Warfare
Chapter 11: Plans and Planning
Chapter 12: Operations for Civilians
Chapter 13: Operations Against Troops
Chapter 14: Psychological Readiness and Disarmament
- // Page numbers listed are from the pdf. For actual page
numbers, subtract 22.
page 17:
-
This book is the product of experience rather than research, of consultation
rather than reading. It is based on my five years of work, both as civilian
expert and as Army officer, in American psychological war fare facilities — at
every level from the Joint and Combined Chiefs of Staff planning phase down to
the preparing of spot leaflets for the American forces in China.
-
There is no better way to learn the propaganda job than to be whipped
thoroughly by someone else's propaganda.
PART ONE: DEFINITION AND HISTORY
Chapter 1: Historic Examples of Psychological Warfare
page 23:
-
...it [psychological warfare] is not controlled by
the laws, usages, and customs of war...
-
Psychological warfare, by the nature of its instruments and its mission,
begins long before the declaration of war.
Psychological warfare continues after overt hostilities have stopped.
The enemy often avoids identifying himself in psychological warfare; much of
the time, he is disguised as the voice of home, of God,
of the church, of the friendly press.
page 24:
page 25:
-
Some of the sociologists and anthropologists,
such as Karl Mannheim, Max Weber, Talcott Parsons, Geoffrey Gorer, Ruth
Benedict (to mention a few at random) have presented approaches which would
justify re- evaluations of history in a way useful to propaganda students; but
they have not yet persuaded the historians to do the work.
-
A history of propaganda would provide not only a new light on many otherwise
odd or trivial historical events; it would throw genuine illumination on the
process of history itself.
page 26:
page 27:
page 28:
page 29:
-
...the propagandist tries to see things from the viewpoint of his audience.
-
Herodotus, the Greek historian:
| Themistocles, having selected the best sailing ships of the Athenians, went to
the place where there was water fit for drinking, and engraved upon the stones
inscriptions, which the Ionians, upon arriving the next day at Artemisium,
read. The inscriptions were to this effect, 'Men of Ionia, you do wrong in"
fighting against your fathers and helping to enslave Greece. Rather, therefore,
come over to us or if you cannot do that, withdraw your forces from the contest
and entreat the Carians to do the same. But if neither of these things is
possible, and you are bound by too strong a necessity, yet in action, when we
are engaged, behave ill on purpose, remembering that you are descended from us
and that the enmity of the barbarians against us originally sprang from you.'
|
-
by suggesting that the Ionians should behave badly in combat, he lays the
beginning of another line — the propaganda to the
Persians, "black" propaganda making the Persians think that any Ionian who was
less than perfect was a secret Athenian sympathizer.
-
1) naming the specific enemy; 2) appeal to the "better people"; 3) sympathy
for the common people; 4) claim of support for the legitimate government; 5)
affirmation of one's own strength and high morale; 6) invocation of unity; 7)
appeal to religion.
page 30:
page 32:
- ...an increasing emphasis on ideology or political faith (see definition,
below) as driving forces behind warfare, rather than the considerations of
coldly calculated diplomacy. Wars become more serious, and less gentlemanly;
the enemy must be taken into account not merely as a
man, but as a fanatic. To the normal group-loyalty of any good soldier
to his army, right or wrong, there is added the loyalty to the Ism or the
Leader. Warfare thus goes back to the Wars of
Faith.
page 33:
page 34:
page 35:
-
A people can be converted from one faith to the other
if given the' choice between conversion and extermination, stubborn
individuals being rooted out. To effect the initial conversion, participation
in the public ceremonies and formal language of the new faith must be
required". Sustained counterintelligence must remain on the alert against back
sliders, but formal acceptance will become genuine acceptance if_all public
media of expression are denied the vanquished faith.
-
If immediate wholesale conversion would require military operations that were
too extensive or severe, the same result can be
effected by toleration of the objectionable faith, combined with the issuance
of genuine privileges to the new, preferred faith. The conquered people
are left in the private, humble enjoyment of their old beliefs and folkways;
but all participation in public life, whether political, cultural or economic,
is conditioned on acceptance of the new faith. In this manner, all up-rising
members of the society will move in a few generations over to the new faith in
the process of becoming rich, powerful, or learned; what is left of the old
faith will be a gutter superstition, posses sing neither power nor majesty.
-
// Changing an ideology via introduction of material
rewards. This is discussed at length in Cultural Patterns and Technical Change
and mentioned as an effective way to combat decentralized organizations in The
Starfish and the Spider.
-
If Christians, or democrats, or progressives— whatever free men may be called
— are put in a position of underprivilege and shame for
their beliefs, and if the door is left open to voluntary conversion, so
that anyone who wants to can come over to the winning side, the winning side
will sooner or later convert almost everyone who is capable of making trouble.
page 36:
- (In the language of Vilfredo Pareto, this would probably be termed "capture of the rising elite"; in the language of
present-day Marxists, this would be described as "utilization of potential
leadership cadres from historically superseded classes"; in the language of practical politics, it means "cut in the
smart boys from the opposition, so that they can't set up a racket of their
own."
page 37:
-
H.G. Wells' simple but compelling description
of the Mongols in his Outline of History is worth re-reading in this
connection.
-
// Claims that the Mongols had fewer numbers than
originally thought and were much more intelligent in tactics and propaganda to
spread rumors of their heightened numbers and ferocity.
page 38:
-
Believers in monarchy could call the English murderous king-killers (a charge as serious in those times as the charge of
anarchism or free love in this); believers in order and liberty could
call the British slaves of a tyrant.
-
// Interesting that anarchism and free love, in the late
1940s was seen as equal to king-killing while today free love is widely
accepted.
page 40:
page 41:
page 42:
page 43:
-
The Americans made extensive use of the press.9 When the news paper
proprietors veered too far to the Loyalist side, they were warned , to keep to
a more Patriotic line.
-
9 Philip Davidson's Propaganda and the American Revolution, Chapel Hill,
1941, is a careful scholarly study of this period. Comparable studies have not
yet been written concerning other American wars. Military and civilian
historians have a fascinating piece of research awaiting them in the material
concerning Confederate and Federal psychological warfare. Each participant in
the Civil War was vulnerable to the propaganda of the other. Subversive and
clandestine pro-Confederate propaganda in the North is outlined in George Port
Milton's engrossing Abraham Lincoln and the Fifth
Column, New York and Washington, D. C., 1942. but no comparable study
covering all forms of propaganda on either side is yet available.
page 45:
- 10 Various new editions of [Thomas] Paine's chief
works are available in popular and inexpensive form They are worth study as
good propaganda.
Chapter 2: The Function of Psychological Warfare
page 47:
-
Psychological warfare, in the broad sense, consists
of the application of parts of the science called psychology to the conduct of
war; in the narrow sense, psychological warfare comprises the use of propaganda
against an enemy, together with such military operational measures as may
supplement the propaganda. Propaganda may be described, in turn, as organized
persuasion by non-violent means.
-
...much of what is now called psychology was formerly studied under the
heading of religion, ethics, literature, politics, or medicine.
page 48:
-
does so by going down to the unconscious mind
for his source materials.
-
...the psychologist can quiz a small cross section of enemy prisoners and from
the results estimate the mentality of an entire enemy...
-
// This reminds me of all those quizzes that would tell
you about yourself or "what color/animal/character are you?" in the earlier
days of the internet. It is also reminiscent of similar quizzes on
mTurk. Could those things been an early attempt to gather intel?
page 49:
-
The propagandist must tell the enemy those things which the enemy will heed;
he must keep his private emotionalism out of the operation.
-
Of all the sciences, psychology is the nearest [tp
propaganda], though anthropology, sociology,
political science, economics, area studies and other specialties all
have something to contribute; but it is psychology which indicates the need of
the others.
page 50:
-
The motives and weaknesses within war remain ancient and human, however novel
and dreadful the mechanical expedients adopted to express them.
-
// Not so much anymore with algorithms masquerading as
A.I.
-
[Psychological warfare] has become a pervasive
element in the military and security situation of every power on earth.
page 53:
-
Freedom cannot be accorded to persons outside the
ideological pale, if an antagonist is not going to respect your freedom
of speech, your property, and your personal safety, then you are not obliged to
respect his.
-
// So freedoms are only for people I agree with in "major"
terms?
page 54:
-
In the states which are ideologically self-conscious and anxious to promote a
fixed mentality, the process of education is combined
with agitation and regulation, so that the entire population lives under
conditions approximating the psychological side of war. Heretics are put
to death or are otherwise silenced.
-
Education and propaganda merge into ever lasting
indoctrination.
-
Education is to psychological warfare what a glacier
is to an avalanche. The mind is to be in both cases captured, but the speed and
techniques differ.
page 55:
- Before the political propagandist can get the public attention, he must edge
his media past the soap operas, the soft drink advertisements, the bathing
beauties advertising Pennsylvania crude or bright-leaf tobacco. The
consequence is that outside propaganda either fails to get much public
attention, or else camouflages itself to resemble and
to exploit existing media.
page 56:
- It is not possible to separate public relations form psychological warfare
when they use the same media.
page 57:
-
...conviction of the propagandist that he is not a propagandist can be a real
asset.
-
News becomes propaganda when the person issuing it
has some purpose in doing so. Even if the reporters, editors, writers
involved do not have propaganda aims, the original source of the news (the
person giving the interview; the friends of the correspondents, etc.) may give
the news to the press with definite purposes in mind.
page 58:
- psychological warfare output must be a part of the everyday living...
Chapter 3: Definition of Psychological Warfare
page 60:
-
Among Americans, Walter Lippmann, Harold Lasswell and
Leonard W. Doob have done some of the most valuable critical,
analytical, and historical writing, but a host of other scholars have also made
contributions, some of them works of very real importance.4
-
3 ... the smart propagandist attributes plenty of rich, ripe, silly quotations to
his opponent. How many people actually know what the
Communists have said on any given topic! Or bother to check on the actual
claims of the Zionist organization? Or the statements of the Arabs in
Palestine!
-
4 The literature in this field is carefully described in two volumes by a
three-man team consisting of Harold D. Lasswell, Ralph D. Casey and Bruce
Lannes Smith, the first being Propaganda and Promotional Activities, An
Annotated Bibliography, Minneapolis, 1935, and the sequel being Propaganda,
Communication and Public Opinion, A Comprehensive Reference Guide, Princeton,
- The booklists provide material in plenty for any academic-minded
inquirer. The essays in the two volumes are well worth reading, although the
authors have undergone the professorial delight of inventing a private language
of their own. Parts of the latter book, especially, read like proceedings out
of an unfamiliar lodge meeting; but there is sound sense and acute observation
behind the vocabulary. It must, however, be parenthetically noted that during
World War II the key propaganda jobs were held by a radio commentator, a
dramatist, a newspaperman, a New York banker, and an absolutely astonishing
number of men from commercial radio — along, of course, with a sprinkling of
Army and Navy officers in Washington, and a heavy majority of non-specialist
officers in the field. The propaganda experts were Hot, in most instances,
called in to do the actual chore of propaganda. Among the exceptions were Leonard W. Doob, author of Propaganda, Its Psychology and
Technique, New York, 1935, who served in the War Department's
Psychological Warfare Branch and in the Washington propaganda center at OWI;
C.A.H. Thomson, who served as a propaganda staff officer both in Washington and
overseas after being a collaborator with the Lasswell group; and Drs. Edwin
Guthrie and A. L. Edwards, whose chapter "Psychological Warfare" in (E. G.
Boring, editor) Psychology for the Fighting Man,
Washington, 1943, pp. 430-447, is a lucid epitome of the topic.
page 61:
- ...what this book is about, propaganda may be defined as follows: Propaganda consists of the planned use of any form of
communication designed to affect the minds, emotions, and action of a given
group for a specific purpose.
page 62:
-
...make the definition read: Propaganda consists of
the planned use of any form of public or mass- produced communication designed
to affect the minds and emotions of a given group for a specific public
purpose, whether military, economic, or political.
-
applying it strictly against the enemy and making it read: Military propaganda consists of the planned use of any form
of communication designed to affect the minds and emotions of a given enemy,
neutral or friendly foreign group for a specific strategic or tactical
purpose.
page 63:
- ...purposes of war, as in the following definition: Psychological warfare comprises the use of propaganda against
an enemy, together with such other operational measures of a military,
economic, or political nature as may be required to supplement
propaganda.
page 65:
-
propaganda can be distinguished by the consideration of five elements:7
-
Source (including Media)
- Time
- Audience
- Subject
-
Mission
-
7 See the bibliographies by Harold Lasswell and others, mentioned above, for
a wealth of literature giving more technical and scientific breakdowns than
this. The formula STASM represents what was
actually used in preparation of up-to-the-minute propaganda spot analysis for
the War Department General Staff by Propaganda Branch during World War II.
Some further aspects of this formula are presented in my article, "Stasm: Psychological Warfare and Literary Criticism" in The
South Atlantic Quarterly, Vol. 46, No. 3, July 1947, pp. 344-348.
page 66:
-
Source is the most important.
-
Overt propaganda (also called white propaganda) is
issued from an acknowledged source, usually a government or an agency of a
government, including military commands at various levels.
-
Covert propaganda (also called black propaganda) has
an ostensible source other than the real source and normally involves
utterances or acts which are unlawful under the domestic law of the attacked
area.
page 67:
-
In terms of the timing, propaganda can be subdivided into two further
categories, strategic and tactical. Strategic propaganda is conducted with no
immediate effect in view. Its purpose is to wear down the enemy by
psychological changes that may extend over months.
-
Tactical propaganda is operated to accomplish an immediate short-range
purpose,
page 68:
-
Defensive propaganda is designed to maintain
an accepted and operating form of social or other public action. (Soviet
propaganda for the Five Year Plans is a conspicuous instance.)
-
Offensive propaganda is designed to interrupt
social action not desired by the propagandist, or to predispose to social
action which he desires, either through revolutionary means (within the same
society) or international, either diplomatic or belligerent (between different
societies).
-
Conversionary propaganda is designed to change
the emotional or practical allegiance of individuals from one group to another.
-
Divisive propaganda is designed to split apart
the component subgroups of the enemy and thereby reduce the effectiveness of
the enemy group considered as a single unit. (An instance is provided by the
Allied effort to make German Catholics think first as Catholics, then as
Germans.)
-
Consolidation propaganda is directed toward
civil populations in areas occupied by a military force and is designed to
insure compliance with the commands or policies promulgated by the commander of
the occupying force.
-
Counterpropaganda is designed to refute a
specific point or theme of enemy propaganda. (Japanese charges of American
atrocities usually followed American charges of Japanese atrocities.)
page 69:
-
All six of the distinctions last mentioned can be
forgotten, except for the fact that in exercises or research the terms
will be found to crop up; the basic working distinctions are those determined
by the task involved.
-
Political warfare consists of the framing of national policy in such a way as
to assist propaganda or military operations, whether with respect to the direct
political relations of governments with one another or in relation to groups of
people possessing a political character.
-
8 See Harold Lasswell's Propaganda Technique in the World War, New York,
reissue 1938, Chapter II, "Propaganda
Organization," for a description of the attempts to coordinate policy
and propaganda in World War I.
Chapter 4: The Limitations of Psychological Warfare
page 70:
- Media - that is the actual instrumentalities by which
propaganda is conveyed - are the ordnance of psychological warfare.
page 71:
- Unfortunately the phrase that is successful against the enemy on the battle
front may prove to be an irritant to the home public, with the sure consequence
that the enemy will pick it up and send it back to do harm. Similarly, home-
front propaganda can get out to do the theaters of operation harm
page 73:
- For psychological warfare purposes, it is useful to define the enemy
as:
| (1) the ruler;
(2) or the ruling group;
(3) or unspecified manipulators;
(4) or any definite minority.
|
-
It is thoroughly unsound to define the enemy too widely. On the other hand,
too narrow a definition will leave the enemy the opening for a peace offensive
if the ruler dies, or if the ruling group changes part of its composition.
-
He[the propagandist] can say complimentary things
about the enemy leaders or groups who might come over (though he should avoid
giving them the kiss of death which the Nazis gave
certain prominent American isolationists, by praising them too much).
page 74:
- The New York banker, James Warburg, has
written a book, Unwritten Treaty, pointing out
that the United States promised just about everything to everybody during the
war (he was in OWI and he ought to know),
page 79:
- Media consist simply of the facilities possessed. These are, most commonly:
| (1) Standard-wave radio;
(2) Short-wave radio;
(3) Loudspeakers;
(4) Leaflets;
(5) Pamphlets;
(6) Books;
(7) Novelties.
|
page 80:
- There is no point in trying to establish rapport with
the enemy unless you talk his language with effortless perfection on the
one end of the scale — or else admit that you really are a foreigner, on the
other end of the scale. It is easier to build up the image of a trustworthy
enemy than it is to create trust in a traitor. Frequently the attempt to talk
the enemy's own language is less successful than a frank acceptance of
handicaps. In actual practice this means that either:
| (a) the speaker should be authentically perfect in use of the enemy language,
whether spoken or written as script; or
(b) the speaker should make no effort to conceal his foreign accent.
|
page 82:
- ...using the enemy as part of the background to your own advantage. The
moment you start letting him take the initiative, your propaganda wags along
behind his. Tell his people something he can't deny. Let him sit up nights
worrying about how he will counteract you.
page 83:
- ...never assumes that the enemy propagandist is a gentle man: he is by definition a liar. Your listeners and you are
the only gentlemen left on earth.
Chapter 5: Psychological Warfare in World War I
page 85:
- The American psychological warfare effort of 1917-1919 also drew heavily on
familiar skills: the American press, second only to that of the British at the
time; the church, Y.M.C.A., and Chautauqua
groups; and the wealth of private clubs which flourish under our liberal
system of laws and usages.
page 86:
- 1 On World War I, see Harold Lasswell's Propaganda,
Technique in the World War, previously cited; George Creel's How We Advertised America, New York and
London, 1920, the very title of which is an indication of its chief
shortcoming; Lt. Col. W. Nicolai, Nachrichtendiemt,
Presse und Volksstimmung im Weltkrieg, Berlin, 1920, by the German
general staff officer chiefly re sponsible for staff work on propaganda and
public opinion, a very thoughtful though prejudiced book; Heber Blankenhorn's
enjoyable little classic, Adventures in Propaganda,
Boston, 1919 (Blankenhorn was the only American officer to see field
service in propaganda in both wan, as a Captain in I and a Lieutenant Colonel
in II) ; and George G. Bruntz* scholarly monograph Allied Propaganda and the
Collapse of the German Empire in 1918, Stanford, 1938. Readers desiring farther
references should consult the bibliographies by Lasswell, Casey and Smith,
cited above.
page 89:
- The fabulous American propaganda, of which the Germans expressed such dread,
was the work of two agencies. The civilian agency was
the Committee on Public Information, universally known as the "Creel Committee"
after its chairman, Mr. George Creel. The military agency was the Propaganda
Section (or Psychologic Section) , G-2D, General Headquarters, American
Expeditionary Forces, under Captain Heber Blankenhorn.
page 90:
- In one instance Creel got the American producers to threaten Swiss exhibitors
with a boycott unless they showed American
propaganda film along with the features.
page 92:
page 94:
- The Bolshevik propaganda was probably the finest propaganda effort ever known
in history down to that time—down, perhaps, all the way to our own time.
page 95:
-
When the war ended, and conditions went back to normal, many people in the
world did not consider "normalcy" the fulfillment of that better world.
-
// I call bullshit. WW1 began the world changing and it
never "went back to normal". WW2 furthered these changes. The changes being
industrial expansionist, economic, and social in nature.
page 96:
-
The Communists invented an entirely new vocabulary, which the Soviet and
other Communist papers still use, with meanings that have the same emotional
value (plus-value, or, "that's good!"') as in America or Britain, but which
have entirely different meanings in concrete practice. "Democracy" means "free
elections"; "free elections" mean that the people elect "democratic leaders";
but "democratic leaders" are not the people who are elected in non-Communist
countries. Non- Communist leaders are usually dubbed "tools" or "stooges" of
some thing; they are "servile" or "reactionary." Real "democratic leaders" are
only those people approved by the international Communist movement. It knows. By science.
-
// Is this not exactly what the USA does today? Iran,
Guatemala, Ukraine, Libya, and Syria don't have real democratic elections so we
need to impose our superior scientific elections? Propaganda surrounding
terrorists to climate change is all framed as scientific. The modern
capitalistic model (read: give a few people control to manipulate currency) is
sold as THE way. LGBT's redefine words like gender and sex. Racism is now
anything you don't agree with. Freedom and (sexual) liberation leads to the
destruction of the family. The war on drugs leads to drug epidemics. No child
left behind leads to unheard of functional illiteracy. Again, I see our modern
world as no different than what the communists were doing. This is probably why
so many people are starting to "wake up" to the "cultural Marxism" facing the
world today.
-
...Communist propaganda is self-defeating. It can succeed only in situations
of desperation, anarchy, or terror.
-
...Communist propaganda sacrifices all other values to the propaganda.
-
// This strengthens my points. We have desperation,
anarchy ( there is no rule of law, there is the connected "elite" and the rest
of us. The "law" is only for one group and only when it runs counter to the
narrative.), terror, and the sacrifice of values today.
-
// The book keeps referencing "science" as justification
for communism. "Science" is the modern religion and used exactly the same way
today as it was 100 years ago.
-
...Communist psychological warfare is continuous.
-
// Like with 24/7 news and entertainment delivered via
a screen in every room and a "smart" phone in every hand?
-
Communist propaganda is therefore seasoned and professional, dependent on a
powerful police- state at home and on uneducated or emotionally ill fanatics
abroad...
page 97:
- Modern Communism is permanent psychological warfare in action.
page 98:
-
...Communist propaganda; it can keep control only
with heavy military pressure behind it. But in the far past, it has been
capable of winning — as in Russia and China —without outside military aid. With
a renovation of techniques, doctrines, and personnel, it may do so again.
-
// No connection to the USA military might backing
"democracy" though.
Chapter 6: Psychological Warfare in World War II
page 99:
- 1 For a pro-Hitler view of the world, see Wyndham
Lewis' Hitler, London, 1931, if & copy is to bo found. The author would
probably prefer for the book to disappear. It is an eloquent, very pro-Nazi
book, putting the Hitlerite terminology into the English language and — what is
more important— infusing into the clumsy German pattern of thinking-and-feeling
a lightness of touch which makes Naziism more palatable. The book converted no
one in its time, and is not apt to do harm at this late date; but it will make
the English-reading reader understand some of the novelty, the revolutionary
freshness, the bold unorthodoxy which made millions of people turn to Hitlerism
as an escape from the humdrum heartbreak of Weimar Germany. Much of the book is
devoted to the problem of power —street-fighting, mass demonstrations, slogans,
symbolisms — which so fascinated the Nazis.
page 100:
- The propaganda addict takes everything with a ton of salt; what he does
believe is lost in what he doesn't believe. The ordinary controls of civilized
life — regard for truth, regard for law, respect for neighbors, obedience to
good manners, love of God — cease to operate effectively, because the
propaganda-dizzy man sees in everything its propaganda content and nothing
else.
page 102:
-
Pre-belligerent operations required extensive use of
"black" propaganda.
-
Financial groups were contacted to preserve the
fiction of normal international relations. Cultural groups were employed to
preserve friendliness for their respective nationalities as such.
page 104:
- When the Germans wanted to build the British up for a let-down, they withheld
military news favorable to themselves. During the fight for Norway, they even
spread rumors of British successes, knowing that if British morale went up for
a day or two, it would come down all the harder when authentic bad news came
through the War Office.
- The Germans thus had the advantage of not needing to make much distinction
between news, publicity, and propaganda. All three
served the same purpose, the immediate needs of the Reich.
page 105:
page 106:
page 108:
page 112:
-
OWI at its most vigorous could scarcely have reached the audience that had
been built up by the Time- Life-Fortune group, not to
mention the Reader's Digest, both of which became truly global in
coverage during the war years. American movies already
had a world-wide audience. The propaganda turned out unwittingly by such
agencies may not have had the gloss and political smooth ness of Dr.
Paul Josef Gobbels' best productions but it had
something no government propaganda had — the possession of a readership all of
which was unmistakably voluntary, obtained by the appeal of authentic interest
and entertainment — and proved by an ability to charm money out of
people's pockets.
-
The American problem of propaganda was thus not a simple one. Total
psychological warfare was out of reach if we were to remain a free people.
Otherwise the simple-seeming thing to have done would have been to put a
government supervisor in every newspaper, radio station and magazine in the
country, and coordinate the whole bunch of them together in the national
interest. Simple-seeming. Actually, such an attempt would have been utter
madness, touching off a furious political fight within the country and meeting
legal obstacles which would have remained insurmountable as long as there was a
Constitution with courts to enforce it.
-
// So instead of doing it officially, said organizations
were infiltrated in Operation Mockingbird.
-
The then Mr. or Colonel, later General, William
Donovan had tasted the delights of political warfare when President
Roosevelt sent him to Belgrade to talk the Serbs into fighting instead of
surrendering. He was successful; the Serbs fought. He came back to the United
States with a practical knowledge of what political warfare could do if
qualified personnel operated on the spot.
-
On 11 July, 1941 President Roosevelt issued an order
appointing Colonel Donovan as Coordinator of Information. The agency became
known by the initials COI.4
-
The primary mission of COI was the collection of information and its
processing for immediate use. Large numbers of experts were brought into its
Research and Analysis Branch, designed to do for the United States in weeks
what the research facilities of the Germans and Japanese had done for them over
a matter of years.
-
4 This document establishing the COI, along with the other major documents
pertaining to American psychological warfare, may be found in J. P. Warburg's book cited above, Unwritten Treaty.
page 113:
-
Radio work was first done by an agency within COI called FIS — Foreign
Information Service.
-
Colonel Donovan had moved into this work with out
written and exclusive authorization from the White House; hence there
followed a lamentable interval of almost two years' internal struggle-between
American agencies ...
-
Military Intelligence Division had created an extremely secret psycho logical
warfare office at about the time that the COI was established; this had broad
intelligence and policy functions, but no operational facilities. It was headed
by Lieutenant Colonel Percy Black, who began
auspiciously by putting Dr. Edwin Guthrie in
office as his senior psycho logical adviser. This ultra-quiet office was called
Special Study Group ...
-
Meanwhile, the Rockefeller Office was conducting
independent broadcasts to Latin America;...
page 114:
page 115:
- On 13 June, 1942 the President created the Office of War Information. This
agency was given control directly or indirectly over all domestic propaganda,
and over white propaganda abroad, except for the Western Hemisphere, which
remained under the Rockefeller Committee in the State Department. The FIS was
taken from the COI, and the COI took on the new name of
OSS — Office of Strategic Services — under which it retained three major
functions:
| (1) continuation of scholastic and informal intelligence;
(2) BLACK PROPAGANDA OPERATIONS (given explicit authority only in March, ;
1943)
(3) subversive operations, in collaboration with regular military authority.
|
- The OWI was placed under Mr. Elmer Davis, a Rhodes
scholar and novelist who had become one of the nation's most popular
radio commentators. The FIS was perpetuated under the
control of Mr. Robert Sherwood,...
page 116:
- Highly classified plans for psychological warfare were being drafted for both
the Joint and Combined Chiefs of Staff. These were discussed at various
meetings and then classified a little higher, whereupon they were locked up,
lest the propaganda writers and broadcasters see them and break security on
them by obeying and applying them. Broadcasts — thousands of words in dozens
of languages — were transmitted to everyone on earth. They were written by
persons who had little if any contact with Federal policy, and none with the
military establishment, except for formal security. The plans at the top bore
no observable relation to the operations at the bottom.
page 117:
page 118:
page 119:
-
By 1945, this had all become transformed into a large, well run, well
integrated organization.
-
Under the command of Lieutenant Commander Alexander
Leighton, an M.D. who was also a psychiatrist and anthropologist,
careful techniques were devised for the analysis of Japanese and German morale.
Comparable though dissimilar work on Europe had been done by a staff associated
with Harold Lasswell. The propaganda expert
Leonard W. Doob had been appointed controlling and
certifying officer for every single order of importance.
page 121:
-
Qualifications for Psychological Warfare. Effective psychological warfare
requires the for combination of four skills in a single individual:
-
(1) An effective working knowledge of U.S. government administration and
policy, so that the purposes and plans of the government may be correctly
interpreted.
-
(2) An effective knowledge of correct military and naval procedure and of
staff operations, together with enough understanding of the arts of warfare,
whether naval or military, to adjust propaganda utterance to military
situations and to practical propaganda operations in forms which will dovetail.
-
(3) Professional knowledge of the media of information, or of at least one of
them (book-publishing, magazines, newspapers, radio, advertising in its various
branches) , or of some closely related field (practical political canvassing,
visual or adult education, etc.).
-
(4) Intimate, professional-level understanding of a given area (Italy, Japan,
New Guinea, Kwangtung, Algeria) , based on first-hand acquaintance, knowledge
of the language, traditions, history, practical politics, and customs.
-
(5) Professional scientific understanding of
psychology, anthropology, sociology, history, political science, or a
comparable field.
page 123:
- The psychological soldier deals with enemy troops in
their civilian capacity; he addresses them as men, he appeals to their
non-military characteristics in most instances, and he does not follow
sportsmanship,
page 125:
- James Mock and Cedric Larson's account of the Creel
Committee, Words That Won the War (Princeton, 1939)
page 126:
-
One operation alone probably repaid the entire cost of OWI through out the
war. The Japanese offered to surrender, but with conditions. We responded,
rejecting the conditions. The Japanese government pondered its reply, but while
it pondered, B-29s carried leaflets to all parts of Japan, giving the text of
the Japanese official offer to surrender. This act alone would have made it
almost impossibly difficult for the Japanese government to whip its people back
into frenzy for suicidal prolongation of war.
-
// If this is true, then why the nuclear bombs?
PART TWO: ANALYSIS, INTELLIGENCE, AND ESTIMATE OF THE SITUATION
Chapter 7: Propaganda Analysis
page 132:
- Opinion analysis pertains to what people think; propaganda analysis deals
with what somebody is trying to make them think.
page 133:
- Propaganda is directed to the subtle niceties of thought by which people
maintain their personal orientation in an unstable interpersonal world.
Propaganda must use the language of the mother, the school teacher, the lover,
the bully, the policeman, the actor, the ecclesiastic, the buddy, the
newspaperman, all of them in turn.
page 134:
page 139:
- Almost all good propaganda — no matter what kind — is
true. It uses truth selectively.
page 140:
page 141:
page 142:
page 143:
page 144:
page 145:
page 146:
page 147:
page 148:
- Propaganda has its inevitable mirror image which gradually becomes plain to
the analyst. If the analyst is careful, using shrewd
judgment in appraising specific missions, he will gradually see forming in his
files a record of the immediate and long-range aims of the propaganda
originators. This be comes possible only when enough material is
available,
page 152:
page 155:
page 156:
Chapter 8: Propaganda Intelligence
page 157:
- the first weapon of propaganda, the news.
page 158:
- What intelligence agency in Washington could compile a weekly report as
comprehensive, well edited and coldly planned as Time magazine?
page 159:
page 160:
page 161:
page 163:
page 164:
page 165:
- The poor propagandist tries to butt in on every fight, even when there is
none.
page 166:
page 168:
page 170:
page 182:
Chapter 9: Estimate of the Situation
page 184:
| c. Correlation of Psychological Warfare with
1. Public relations programming
2. Information and education plans
3. Medical plans and reporting
4. Countersubversive functions
|
- // Propaganda can be used in conjunction with whatever is
currently in the media. For example use a movie award show as a jumping off
point to introduce Hollywood's position in shaping culture.
PART THREE: PLANNING AND OPERATIONS
Chapter 10: Organization for Psychological Warfare
page 191:
page 192:
page 193:
page 194:
page 195:
page 196:
page 197:
page 198:
page 199:
page 202:
page 203:
page 205:
page 207:
page 211:
page 212:
Chapter 11: Plans and Planning
page 217:
- The person who has to be told day in and day out how to operate is no
operator at all.
page 219:
-
Where radio propaganda is in question, the script-writers and broadcasters
will read the enemy radio propaganda if they do not get enough fresh
non-propaganda material concerning their audience. Sooner or later this will
degenerate into alternate soliloquies of the radio men on each side, each
watching the other to see if he got a rise out of him last time. OWI people
frequently expressed idiot glee at having made Radio Tokyo frantic. The OWI men
were the first to admit that their glee was pointless, since it was the
Japanese broadcaster and not the Japanese audience who responded.
-
// Being attacked by trolls online shows only that they
are riled by your words and not that the audience has well received the
message.
page 221:
- [Propaganda planning] states the maximum goals
which psychological warfare can, with honest realism, be counted on to
accomplish if all goes well.
Chapter 12: Operations for Civilians
page 225:
- psychological warfare operates against
civilians with as much effect as it does against troops. Indeed, under
the rather high standards set for modern warfare by The Hague and Geneva
conventions, psycho logical warfare is left as one of the few completely
legitimate weapons which can on occasion be directed against an exclusively
civilian and noncombatant target.
page 227:
- [News] should be factual but selectively factual. Repetition of basic themes is
much more important than the constant invention of new ones.
page 228:
-
// Repetition broadens the audience. Most will not here
all, or even most, of the propaganda.
-
What is deadly monotonous to the propagandist himself may, on the thousandth
repetition, merely have become pleasantly familiar to the Propaganda Man on the
other end.
page 229:
-
// On leaflets:
-
Novelty materials appealing to children, who
are apt to be among the most industrious collectors of leaflets, disseminating
them far and wide with less danger of reprisal from the occupying power or the
police than adults might face. (Good adult leaflets are as interesting to
children as are leaflets especially designed for them. The use of color
printing, vivid illustrations, pictures of air battles, how-it-works diagrams
of weapons, and so forth, may reach the teen-age audience best if it gives no
indication of being aimed at them.)
-
Appeals to women. (Women, statistically, are around 50% of the population of
any country. With the diversion of men to fighting operations the percentage of
women in the home population rises and in wartime it may become 60% or 70%.
page 231:
- The dropping of a few hundred tons of well
counterfeited currency would tend to foul up any fiscal system. Peacetime
counterfeiters operate with poor materials, secretly, and in small shops. When
instructed, a government agency can do an astoundingly good job of
counterfeiting.
page 232:
-
motion pictures for civilians can be employed as a major propaganda
instrument. The combination of visual and auditory appeal ensures a
concentration of attention not commanded by other media.
-
Perhaps television may in course of time combine
attention-holding with transmissibility.
Chapter 13: Operations Against Troops
page 233:
-
// Propaganda aimed at troops should be timely and
demonstrate an understanding of the troops actual conditions. It should also
paint a picture that willing capture, when surrounded, should be the course of
action. Do not try to appeal directly to surrender.
-
"true loyalty requires survival and therefore surrender".
page 234:
page 235:
page 236:
page 237:
page 238:
- Congratulating imaginary agents in ostensible code over the voice radio for
the excellent work they have allegedly done in the enemy home country (all
theaters).
page 241:
page 242:
page 243:
page 244:
page 246:
page 247:
- [Psychological warfare] is directed at the mind of
the target audience, at creating attitudes of belief or
doubt which lead to the desired action.
page 253:
page 254:
page 255:
page 256:
page 257:
page 259:
- A bluff normally fails, and moreover discredits later operations of the same
kind, whereas a successful and fulfilled threat builds up cumulative
credibility among the enemy audience.
page 261:
Chapter 14: Psychological Readiness and Disarmament
page 264:
- In the hands of the wrong persons, systematic
psychological warfare is capable of being converted into a drastic
instrument of domestic confusion; certain
techniques of it could even be used for crime. On the broader, international
scale, "warfare psychologically waged" by a total state against a free one can
be an instrument both vile and effective, achieving its victories by exploiting
the peacefulness, indecision, and disunity of its victims. It is a shameful
thing to see a proud and brave people reduced to such a state of humiliation
that they can be easily enslaved. "Warfare psychologically waged" with a long,
sickening, uncertain pre-belligerent stage of intimidation and appeasement
could suck the vitality even out of America
before the next aggressor got ready to release real weapons against us.
page 265:
-
The most powerful countermeasure to hostile
pre-belligerent at tack is high national morale, and morale in turn depends on
the mental, emotional, and physical health of a people. (If it were not
impious, in so secular a book, one might say it depends on their spiritual
grace.) If the people themselves are well behaved; if
they live without strain; if they think hatred is silly and fury a waste of
time; if they trust one another's good will ; if capital does not expect a Red
purge from labor, nor labor a Fascist massacre from capital; if the high
officers of state and army use moderate language for everyday business, so that
when true crisis comes they can cry "Wolf!" and be believed — if such
conditions are fulfilled in part, the people will withstand psychological
attack.
-
It cannot be expected that the next enemy will oblige us by making a blunder
like Pearl Harbor, electrifying our people with fury and unity. A more artful aggressor will know how to force us into
untenable positions without taking responsibility for the showdown
himself or he may win by making his first blow so deadly that it can
safely be his last.
page 267:
- our overt propaganda should prepare to violate foreign municipal law.
page 268:
- Anybody can convert children to anything by removing the parents.
page 269:
- The important thing about psychological disarmament is the persistence of the
effort, the sustaining of pressures that really make for peace.
page 270:
page 272:
- 3 The wartime chief of the Psychological Branch of the Dutch War Ministry
warned, in a letter published in the New York Times on June 8, 1947, that the presence of ultra-destructive weapons provided the
impetus for an inadvertent war of nerves which was already undoing us. In the
first place, we might find that continued stress shocked us into passivity ;
secondly, it might rouse aggression as an escape from suspense; third, it might
stir up an unconscious craving for doomsday which — though consciously rejected
— would have the effect of driving us more and more toward war. The
letter is worth study in its entirety The author, whose name is given as A. M,
Meerloo, does not appear to have published these comments elsewhere.