The Limitations of Psychological Warfare
Psychological warfare cannot be known simply in terms of what it is; it
must also be understood in relation to the limits which are imposed on
it. The limitations can be described under four headings:
political limitations;
security limitations;
limitations arising from media;
limitations of personnel.
Like all limitations, these are handicaps only to the person who lacks
the courage and resourcefulness to turn them into assets. Propaganda is
dependent on politics, even for such front-line requirements as
"definition of the enemy," yet intelligent exploitation of political
goals yields valuable results. Security is an asset to any army; its
price is rarely too high a price to pay for protection, but a selective
and flexible censorship can lead to positive advantages. _Media_--that
is, the actual instrumentalities by which propaganda is conveyed--are
the ordnance of psychological warfare. They limit the performable job
but they also make it possible in the first place. And as in any
military operation, success depends most of all on proper use of
personnel.
Each of these merits discussion. The experience drawn upon has, in
almost all instances, been that of World War II. As in most other
fields, common sense runs a close second to experience as a guide in new
methods of struggle.
=Political Limitations of Psychological Warfare.= Politics has great
influence on the content of psychological warfare. The relationship
between two warring states is not one of complete severance; on the
contrary, in wartime the relationship becomes abnormal, acute,
sensitive. Each belligerent takes a strong interest in the other, in its
affairs and weaknesses. During World War II the American armed services,
government, and people learned more about the Japanese than they would
have in twenty years of peacetime education. Japanese names made news.
The purposes and weaknesses of the Japanese became the objects of hatred
and--along with the hatred--intense scrutiny.
Each warring nation tries to turn the known enemy interest in itself
into favorable channels. The propagandists of each country try to give
the enemy the news which the enemy wants, while so arranging that news
as to create a drop in enemy morale, to develop uncertainty in enemy
policies, to set enemy cliques into action against each other. The
propagandist sometimes becomes very agitated because he recognizes as a
technician propaganda opportunities which national policy prohibits his
using. The propagandist who is so intent on his target that he forgets
his broader responsibilities can often spoil the entire operation.
German broadcasters who emphasized the anti-capitalist character of
National Socialism in the programs beamed to Eastern Europe found that
B.B.C. picked up the most tactless statements and repeated them to
Western Europe, where the Germans posed as anti-Bolshevik champions of
private property. American attacks on the Germans for associating with
Japanese monkey-men were passed along by the Japanese to the Chinese,
who did not like the slur either. The most notorious example of
backfiring propaganda was of course the famous "Rum, Romanism, and
Rebellion" phrase, which may have made James G. Blaine lose to Grover
Cleveland in the national election of 1884; the phrase was used by a
Republican clergyman in New York, referring to the Democrats, and
implied that the Wets (anti-prohibitionists), Catholics, and Southerners
were important components in the Democratic Party. (This may have been
true, but it pleased none of them to have the matter pointed out with
such epithets; the phrase succeeded in its short-range purpose, that of
rousing Republicans, but failed by rousing the enemy even more and
offending neutral-minded persons as well.)
The balance between home-front politics and field psychological warfare
is difficult to maintain. The closer the psychological warfare officer
is to the enemy, the more apt he is to think of the mission in terms of
getting the enemy to come on over. Why quibble about a few phrases if
the words will save lives, matériel, and time? 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: "Do your
utmost--save lard!" sounds silly to men in combat areas.
This can be illustrated by the propaganda problem of the Japanese
Emperor. It would have helped domestic American politics to call the
Japanese Emperor a monkey, a swine, a lunatic, a witch-doctor or
comparable names; some people did so. But if the American government had
done so at home for the purpose of rousing its own public, the Japanese
home public would have been roused even more with the net result that
the Americans would have lost by such attacks. If the Russians
promised--as in another instance they are reported to have done--good
food and warm clothes to the Germans on the winter fronts, the Nazis
passed that promise along to the Russian civilians, who would not think
well of Stalin's letting Fascist invaders be plump and snug while they
themselves nearly starved. For the enemy audience, it is good to
portray excellent care of enemy personnel; for the home audience, it is
poor. For the home audience it is sometimes good to present the enemy as
ruthless lunatics, beasts in human form, cruel degenerates, and so on;
but the same claims, falling into enemy hands, can be used to the
disadvantage of the originator by being relayed to the enemy home
audience.
Furthermore, sound psychological warfare must take account of the fact
that its ultimate aim is the successful ending of the war. For the end
to be successful it must occur--the fighting must stop and the nations
must enter into altered but renewedly peaceful relations. Propaganda
that promises the enemy too much will alienate both allies and home
public. But propaganda that promises bloody vengeance hurts possible
peace movements in the enemy camp. None of the great powers in World War
II went so far as to promise specific frontiers for the postwar period.
They kept their promises vague, knowing that a definite promise would
please somebody but alienate everyone else; furthermore, by not
promising, the expectations of the hopeful parties can be kept at a
higher pitch. If the French do not _know_ that they will get the Saar
they will fight so much the harder; but if they are promised the Saar
they come in a very short while to regard the promise as a settled
matter, and proceed to ask for something else. Meanwhile, other possible
claimants to the Saar either have a sense of grievance or lose interest
in the matter. For this reason, postwar political uncertainty can be a
propaganda asset.
President Roosevelt, in his conduct of the political world role of the
United States, promised Manchuria to the Chinese, Korea "in due course"
to the Koreans, and the integrity of the French Colonial Empire to the
French; outside of that he avoided specific promises. In another
instance (to put a complicated matter baldly), the British promised
Palestine to both the Arabs and to the Jews in World War I, and
consequently got themselves into a political mess which, thirty years
later, was still a mess.
=Definition of the Enemy.= Another significant connection between
politics and propaganda is found in definition of _the nature of the
enemy_. For combat operations, it is easy (most of the time) to tell who
the enemy is; he is the man with the other uniform, the foreign
language, the funny color or physique. For psychological operations, it
is not that easy. The sound psychological warfare operator will try to
get enemy troops to believing that the enemy is not themselves but
somebody else--the King, the Führer, the élite troops, the capitalists.
He creates a situation in which he can say, "We're not fighting _you_."
(This should not be said too soon after extensive use of bombs or
mortars.) "We are fighting the So-and-so's who are misleading you." Some
of the handsomest propaganda of World War II was produced by the Soviet
experts along this line. Before the War was over, Soviet propaganda
created a whole gallery of heel-clicking reactionary German generals _on
the Russian side_, and made out that the unprofessional guttersnipe
Hitler was ruining the wonderful German Army in amateurish campaigns.
Joseph Stalin's ringing words, "The German State and the German _Volk_
remain!" gave the Russians a propaganda loophole by which they implied
that Germany was not the enemy--no, not Germany! just the Nazis. This
was superb psychological warfare, since the Russians had already built
up the propaganda thesis that the common people (workers and peasants)
were automatically--by virtue of their class loyalty--on the side of the
workers' country, Russia. That left very few Germans on the other side.
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. It was fear of a peace move by the German generals,
plus the desire to maintain the precarious anti-German unity of the
occupied countries, which led the United States and Britain to adopt the
policy of defining the German Reich rather than Naziism as the enemy. In
the instance of Japan, we defined the enemy as the militarists and
"Fascists," with the capitalists a poor second, and left the Emperor and
people with whom to make peace.
If the psychological warfare campaign is operated for a definite
political purpose, it is possible for politics to be an aid rather than
a limitation. The operator can describe his own political system in its
most radiant light. He 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). He can promise his own brand
of Utopia.
If the politics are defensive, vague, well-meaning but essentially
non-committed, psychological warfare has to avoid making blunders. In
World War II we could not say that we were against one-party states,
because our largest ally (Russia) was a one-party state. We could not
attack the ruin of free enterprise by the Japanese and German
governments since socialism existed on the Allied side too. We could not
bring up the racial issue, because our own national composition rendered
us vulnerable to racial politics at home. There was a huge catalog of
_Don'ts_ (usually not written down but left to individual judgment) in
every propaganda office. Whenever we violated them, we paid the price in
adverse opinion.
=Promises.= Finally, psychological warfare must avoid promises that may
not be kept. The Americans during World War II never promised much as a
government, but individual American agents promised all sorts of things
which could not be delivered. We promised the Dutch their homeland and
empire by implication; we promised the Indonesians self-government, also
by implication; and we promised everybody, including the Japanese,
access to Indonesian raw materials. It is highly probable that
individual Americans, off-the-record, stated that they "expected,"
"hoped," or "thought" that their government would fulfill each of these
promises. The three are not compatible, especially the first and second.
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), and that it is going to take a generous, wise, and intelligent
foreign policy to fulfill--even in part--the promises which we made. The
promises of the loser are forgotten; he can write them off and start
international policies with a clean slate. But the promises of the
victor remain, and have to be carried out or else repudiated.
The psychological warfare officer should not make promises to persons in
occupied territory, to friendly guerrillas, to underground movements, or
to enemy troops when those promises are not backed up by word-for-word
quotations from the head of his government or someone of Cabinet rank.
The promises may not conform with promises which other psychological
warfare officers are making to other groups. (In China, some American
officers told the Chinese Communists that the Chinese Communists were
wonderful people, and would be sure to get American material aid and
political sympathy against Chiang Kai-shek. At the same time, other
American officers told the Chinese government people that the United
States did not propose to short-circuit recognition of the Chinese
government, or to interfere in internal Chinese affairs. The two sets of
Chinese heard about the American promises and, for a while, could not
decide whether Americans were fools or liars. Much the same sort of
thing happened in our dealings with French, Serbs, and Poles.) It is a
poor piece of work for a combat officer to promise elections,
liberties, labor rights, or even food to people in his path, unless the
rear echelon people will be able to deliver the goods when they come up.
And it is an irresponsible radio or leaflet man who makes promises
without finding out whether his government is in a position, in relation
to the political situation, to back up the promises one way or other.
His nation itself will be called a liar if he slips up.
=Security Limitations.= Another serious set of limitations arises from
security problems.
The very conduct of psychological warfare encroaches upon perfectionist
plans for security. Security is designed to keep useful information from
reaching the enemy; propaganda operations are designed to get
information to him. Security is designed to keep the enemy from knowing
true figures; but propaganda must have a lot of good, current, _true_
information if it is to be believed. Security demands that military and
naval news be withheld until the extent of the enemy's knowledge is
known; propaganda is designed to tell the enemy the news faster than his
own sources tell him, thus discrediting enemy news. Security demands
that dubious persons, intimately associated with the enemy, be kept away
from communications facilities; propaganda officers have to keep an eye
open for people who speak the enemy language well, who can address the
enemy sympathetically and get his attention, who have a keen
appreciation of the enemy culture.
Often, it is plain, psychological warfare and security officers get in
each other's way. This conflict was lessened by American censorship
organization during World War II. The United States Office of Censorship
under Byron Price achieved a distinguished record of smooth, reasonable,
and modest operation. It took an adult view of the intelligence of the
American public, and permitted bad news to reach the public except when
the Services or the White House intervened. Much of the story of this
office is told in Theodore Koop's exciting book, _Weapon of
Silence_,[20] which makes it plain that censorship sought to avoid
developing negative psychological warfare campaigns on its own
initiative.
The usual wartime security procedures apply with special force to
psychological warfare operations. Civilian employees who are qualified
as political experts, as writers, or as propaganda analysts are often
well-educated and artistic. They are apt to value classified information
highly for the pleasure which they can derive by violating
security--that is, by showing "people they can trust" how much they are
"in on" certain operations. The temptation to show off is almost
irresistible. (The vice is not unknown even in military echelons.) An
atmosphere of excessive security easily degenerates into melodrama,
bringing out in many individuals a silly zest for displaying to others
how much TOP SECRET information they possess. Where military and
civilian personnel work together, this human weakness is stimulated by
rivalry. Even among the Germans in World War II, propaganda groups were
easily infected by an atmosphere of gossip and intrigue.
=Security Procedures.= Security procedures for psychological warfare
involve the usual common-sense precautions which apply to all
operations, and which may be summarized in the following rules:
(1) Classification should be kept at an absolute minimum. No
information should be classified unless there are genuinely strong
reasons for supposing that it would benefit the enemy. Classification
and declassification should be the responsibility of designated
officers trained for the task. (In World War II, many American
civilians classified information recklessly, with the result that all
classification became a subject of disrespect. The author once found a
highly classified inter-Allied plan in the hands of an elderly woman
stenographer in Washington, who safeguarded the information by leaving
the papers in a desk drawer which had no pull. The drawer had to be
opened with a nail file and that fact comprised the "security.")
(2) Security should apply, generally speaking, to units as a whole,
taking working units up to the limit of face-to-face working
acquaintance as a base. It is unsound procedure to give certain
individuals a higher level of information than others, since the
privileged individuals will be tempted to display their inside
knowledge, and the underprivileged individuals will be goaded by
unwholesome, resentful, and acute curiosity. Either the entire unit
should be given the information, or denied it.
(3) Security should not be applied for editorial purposes. Censorship
is a separate function. Improper security procedures, vesting
arbitrary powers in stated officers, may tempt the security officer to
express his personal literary, artistic, or political preferences
under the guise of maintaining security. The inevitable consequence is
the breakdown of both security and of procedure. Censorship should be
applied in conformity with national or theater censorship policies.
Review and estimate of radio or leaflet output is another function.
(4) Security for printed materials is easy enough to maintain. The
leaflets can be sent to the G-2 to check, or wherever else security
functions may be vested. Radio security is another problem.
Experience in World War II indicates that spot news cannot wait for
routine security, but must be processed through. Two types of control,
supplementing one another, are desirable:
_Security liaison_ on a 24-hour basis should be available to the radio
operatives for the rapid processing of military news. The security
duty officer should be indoctrinated with an attitude of
cooperativeness, based on an understanding of the value of propaganda,
and should conceive it as his mission to explain the needs of radio
propaganda to his superiors, rather than taking the attitude of being
superior to the radio operatives. There is a sound psychological
reason for this. The presence of a sympathetic security officer will
increase cooperativeness on the part of the propaganda broadcaster. An
unsympathetic one will merely maintain the official dignity of his
office and position. High morale on the part of script writers is more
important than high morale of security officers.
_Security supervision_ can be exercised by monitoring facilities: that
is, the security officers can equip themselves with a good radio
receiver and listen to the broadcasts without ever meeting the
broadcasters. A critical frame of mind on the part of such security
personnel is desirable. Unlike liaison officers, they need not be
cooperative. Since their criticism applies after the operation, they
can afford to apply rigorous standards. (During most of 1942 and 1943,
no one in Washington had any idea of what actually _went out_ from San
Francisco. The civilians who broadcast to Japan received elaborate
orders to do this and to do that, but the Washington policy-makers did
not know what was going on the air. On one occasion, the civilian
propaganda broadcasters told the Army in Washington that the
information was too highly classified to be released or circulated.
The result was that Army and Navy found out what OWI was doing by
receiving reports from listeners in the Pacific.)
Security liaison can check propaganda output in the process of
transmission; security supervision can check the output after it goes on
the air, and can transmit through channels recommendations for punitive
or corrective action. The final military connection should exist (for an
all-military psychological warfare group) in the person of a responsible
commanding or executive officer. For a civilian group functioning under
military control the military connection should lie in the hands of an
officer capable of watching a great deal and of saying little. Attempts
by security to act as propagandists have been found to be as disastrous
as the efforts of operators to get along without security.
=Media Limitations.= Psychological warfare should not broadcast into
areas in which radio sets are unknown. Psychological warfare should not
drop books to illiterates. These rules seem obvious but they have often
been violated. Psychological warfare should not assume that an extensive
news or morale campaign is going to achieve the desired results unless
there is trustworthy intelligence to the effect that propaganda is
getting through.
It is ridiculous to broadcast to the masses of a country when the masses
are known not to have radio facilities. This was done in the
anti-Japanese broadcasts of OWI, at least in the early part of the war,
in which mass-audience soap operas and popular music were sent to Japan
on the short-wave--this despite reports that short-wave sets were almost
unknown outside governmental or plutocratic circles. What was known was
that the Japanese government itself had listening facilities, and that
the content of American broadcasts was relayed through Japanese military
and governmental groups. The propaganda (to fit the medium, radio)
should have been designed _to affect the persons actually reached_, and
not an audience known to be out of reach. The mere fact that enemy
counterpropaganda mentions one's own material is nothing more than a
professional exchange of compliments. Goading the enemy radio into a
reply may be fun, but unless non-propagandists are known to be
listening, the fun is expensive and unprofitable.
(It is really fun, though. The author suggested in the spring of 1942
that the San Francisco radio carry an item to the effect that "American
art lovers" hoped the Japanese would move their priceless books and
paintings away from the great cities. This was preparation for eventual
nagging on the topic, "the air raids will get you if you don't watch
out!" The radio civilians in San Francisco put the item on the air.
Nothing was heard from the Japanese on the subject. Four days later,
Radio Luxembourg [then under Nazi control, of course] broadcast in
German to Europe that a spokesman for the "beastly American Air
Ministry" had told the Japanese that the Americans planned to destroy
cultural monuments. The Nazi commentator added that this was
characteristic of the actions of uncivilized Americans. New York picked
up the German broadcast. The author enjoyed seeing his item go all the
way around the world, but in retrospect he wonders whether he did any
good other than to please himself. He did do the actual harm of giving
the Nazis another point to distort.)
_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.
The limitations consist simply of applying the right medium at the right
time. Radio broadcasts need be made only when receiving sets are known
to exist. Written material should be dropped only to areas in which at
least some people can read. (The OWI in China, at the request cf CBI
Forward Echelon Headquarters, made up the leaflet showing pictures only.
This was designed for the aboriginal hillmen between China and Tibet--to
tell them to rescue downed American pilots. Broadcasting to these people
would have been as profitable as spitting in the ocean. None of them
could read, much less understand radio.) The probable number of
listeners or readers should be calculated conservatively, taking enemy
policing, amount of enemy interest, customs of the people, tension among
enemy troops or civilians and other appropriate factors into account.
Occasionally propaganda media exceed the expected limitations. The
Americans and British dropped leaflets on Berlin. The leaflets had
little key numbers in the corners, showing to which series they
belonged, and could thus be arranged in series. The Germans prohibited
civilians from picking up the leaflets. The Nazi authorities followed up
the prohibition by sending the _Hitlerjugend_ and _Hitlermädel_ out to
pick up the leaflets and turn them in for destruction. The boys and
girls did their job with gusto. Vast quantities were turned in for
destruction. What the Nazis discovered--too late, too late--was that the
schoolchildren had begun collecting the leaflets, using the key numbers
to make up perfect sets. Some numbers were rarer than others, so that
the Hitlerite children swapped Allied leaflets all over Berlin, trying
to make up attractive albums. Mother and Father--who did not dare pick
the leaflets up off the street for fear the Gestapo might be
watching--found a convenient file, reasonably complete, in the room of
little Fritzl or Ermintrude! The most hopeful British or American
planner could not have counted on such a happy result.
=Maximum Performance of Personnel.= Another limitation, to be found in
any psychological warfare operation, is that imposed by the types of
personnel available. It would be a rash commander who assumed that he
had air support because he saw airplanes--without knowing whether air
crews were available. A microphone does not make a propagandist.
Personnel using the speaking voice have to be good speakers; merely
knowing the language is not enough. Writing personnel must be up to the
level of professional writers. On the other hand, the available
personnel must not be driven above its limits of performance: often an
attempt to do a too-professional job will defeat the propaganda. (When
the Japanese pretended to be perfectly American, and used the corny
obsolete slang of the 1920's, they aroused more contempt than they would
have done had they confined themselves to rather bookish, plain
English.)
The psychological warfare operation must be gauged to the personnel
facilities no less than to the material facilities. (In China, the
author sat in with an expert on medieval and modern Japanese art, who
was writing leaflets which were to be dropped on the Japanese garrisons
of the Yangtze cities. The expert wrote pure, dignified Japanese, but
the Chinese-Japanese language experts brought up the point, "Would the
Japanese common soldier understand this kind of talk?" For a while, we
had no plain-spoken Japanese at hand, and we had to send our Japanese
leaflets from Chungking up to Yenan, where the Japanese Communists read
the leaflets and wrote back long detailed criticisms.)
Whenever the politico-military situation permits, it is sound procedure
to check output with live enemies, either interned civilians or captured
military personnel. A shrewd interrogator can soon find out whether the
comments from the enemy jury are honest or not.
Intelligent psychological warfare procedures have often turned
liabilities into assets. Absence of a good orchestra has compelled
propagandists to make up current music schedules by recording enemy
musical programs, re-broadcasting them with new spoken commentary.
Failure to obtain native speakers (such as genuine home-grown Japanese,
or Chinese with the properly slurred Wu dialect) has led to the use of
substitutes that proved better than the original. 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.
In British broadcasts to Germany, for example, it was found to be
desirable for the radio announcers to have British accents in their
German, rather than the Viennese or Jewish lilt which many of them did
have. A Nazified audience was so infected with anti-Semitism that no
Jewish speaker could carry much weight, no matter how cogent his
arguments nor how eloquent his appeals. The British tone in the voices
of other speakers actually helped carry conviction. The Germans were
prepared to listen to a genuine Britisher, and might have been
disappointed if he had spoken letter-perfect _German_.[21]
Furthermore, with the perfect speaker of the enemy language there is
always the question, "What is that guy doing over there?" A traitor is
less appealing than an open enemy spokesman; a traitor has to be
sensationally good in order to get across at all. Lord Haw Haw was one
of a kind, but he seems to have had genuine theatrical talent along with
a crazy zeal which persuaded his hearers that though he was on the wrong
side, he did believe his own line. The perfect speaker, whether enemy
renegade or friendly linguist, has an inglorious role at the beginning
of war, when enemy morale is high and the enemy population has not had
time to think over the problem of changing sides. Only toward the end of
the war, or in any morale downgrade, the man who says, "Come on over!
See? I'm here. It's fine," has a chance of being believed.
The propaganda administrator must use his personnel thoughtfully. It is
a waste of talent and--in advance field units, of life as well--to
impose tasks which operatives cannot handle. An American _nisei_ from
California should not be asked to talk slangy _Edokko_ Japanese; a
soldier detailed to psychological warfare, because of some special
linguistic qualification, should not be considered a great journalist,
radio commentator, or actor just because he speaks the right language.
If he is given a microphone, and the feeling of having an audience (one
that cannot write adverse fan mail), it will be easy for the average man
to overestimate the effect of his own talk. The intelligent officer
tries to see his staff as the enemy would see them; he keeps their
limitations in mind. If they speak the enemy language perfectly, they
fall under suspicion as traitors; if they speak it poorly, they may
sound like bunglers or jackasses. Nevertheless, propaganda must come
from men and through words written by men, and the flavor must be
fitted to the situation. Advance planning should therefore consider the
available personnel as an actual factor in estimating the situation.
=Counterpropaganda.= Counterpropaganda could be listed as a limitation,
as the enemy combat strength is sized up in physical warfare. This,
however, is one of the points at which psychological warfare differs
from other forms. If the propaganda message is worth putting across, it
need not be geared to what the enemy is saying. Enemy propaganda should,
in well conducted operations, be taken into account only when it becomes
an asset. That is, the enemy need only be heeded when he tells a
whopping lie, or comes forth with a piece of hyprocrisy so offensive to
his own people that it needs little improvement to be adapted for
counterpropaganda. Most enemy themes are beyond reach, especially those
of inter-ideological warfare. The Nazis and Russians made the best
propaganda against each other when they got down to the basic
necessities of life, not when they were trying to weave finespun
theories about each other's way of thinking or of life. Refutation is a
joy; it is delightful to talk back. But the best propaganda is only
incidentally counterpropaganda. It uses enemy blunders and counteracts
enemy success by building up unrelated successes of its own.
This does not mean that propaganda analysis is not needed. Somewhere in
every psychological warfare unit there must be an intelligence group
servicing the operation. If, for example, the enemy has announced that
the candy your aviators are dropping is poisoned (and has proved it by
dropping some of "your" candy, made by his black-operations boys and
actually poisoned), there is no point in calling him a liar; you may not
know for some time whether poisoned candy has been dropped or not. If
the enemy commander has shown his troops photographs of prisoners whom
your side has taken and "murdered" (according to his well staged
photos), it is not a good idea to ask people to surrender without
sending along equally convincing pictures of well cared for prisoners.
If the enemy alleges that you and your allies are rioting in the streets
or stealing each other's womenfolk, or that one of you is doing all the
fighting while the other sits around in safe staging areas, it may be a
good idea to send along some leaflets showing inter-allied cooperation
on your side, or to run a few radio shows on the subject.
This consists merely of reckoning the enemy propaganda as part of the
psychological warfare situation, and of 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_. Make him drive his security officers crazy trying
to release figures that will please your G-2 in order to reassure his
home audience. Really good propaganda does not worry about
counterpropaganda. It never assumes that the enemy propagandist is a
gentleman: he is by definition a liar. Your listeners and you are the
only gentlemen left on earth.