The History of Psychological Warfare. Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger
in the books of the psychologists but in the writings of the constitutional lawyers. The totality of war is a result of dictatorship within government; total coordination results from total authority. The "secret weapon" of the Germans lay in the power which the Germans had openly given Hitler, and in his use of that power in a shrewd, ruthless, effective way. The Führer led the experts, not the experts the Führer. If the Germans surprised the world by the cold calculation of their timing, it was not because they had psychological braintrusters inventing a new warfare, but because they had a grim political freak commanding the total resources of the Reich. Even in wartime, no American President has ever exercised the authority which Hitler used in time of peace; American Cabinet members, military and naval figures, press commentators and all sorts of people are free to kibitz, to offer their own opinions, to bring policy into the light of day. That is as it should be. The same factors which made "psychological warfare" possible in the beginning of the war were the ones which led to Germany's futile and consummate ruin in 1944–45: excessive authority, an uninformed public, centralized propaganda, and secret political planning.
That kind of "psychological warfare"—war tuned to the needs of fanatically sought lusts for power, war coordinated down to the nth degree, waged in the light of enemy opinion and aiming at the political and moral weaknesses of the enemy—is not possible within the framework of a democracy. Even from within Imperial Japan, Pearl Harbor had to be waged secretly as a purely naval operation; those Japanese who would have told the Board of Field Marshals and Fleet Admirals that an unannounced attack was the best way to unify all American factions against Japan were obviously not brought into the planning of the Pearl Harbor raid. The Japanese still had too much of their old parliamentary spirit left over, as Ambassador Grew's reports show; the military had to outsmart the home public, along with the foreigners. In the Western dictatorships, the home public is watched by élite troops, secret police, party cells, and is made the subject of psychological warfare along with the victim nations. Hitler could turn the war spirit on and off; the Japanese did not dare do so to any effective extent. "Psychological warfare" was too dictatorial a measure even for prewar Japan; it is therefore permanently out of reach of the authorities of the United States. After war starts, we are capable of surprising the enemy with such things as incendiary raids, long-range bombers, and nuclear fission; but we cannot startle with the start of war. The United States is not now capable and—under the spirit of the Constitution, can never be capable—of surprising an enemy by the timing of aggression. If the same were true of all other nations, peace would seem much nearer than it does.
German psychological warfare, in the broad sense of warfare psychologically waged, depended more on political background than on psychological techniques. Disunity among the prospective victims, the complaisance of powers not immediately affected, demonstration of new weapons through frightful applications, use of a dread-of-war to harness pacifism to appeasement, the lucky geographic position of Germany at the hub of European communications—such factors made the German war of nerves seem new. Such psychological warfare is not apt to be successful elsewhere except for aggressions by dictatorships against democracies; where the democracies are irritable, tough, and alert, it will not work at all.
The psychological warfare which remains as a practical factor in war is therefore not the Hitlerian war of nerves, but the Anglo-American application of propaganda means to pre-decided strategy. Let him who will advocate American use of the war of nerves! He will not get far with commentators publishing his TOP SECRET schedule of timing, with legislators very properly catechizing him on international morality, with members of his own organization publishing their memoirs or airing their squabbles right in the middle of the operation. He would end up by amusing the enemy whom he started out to scare. Psychological warfare has its place in our military and political system, but its place is a modest one and its methods are limited by our usages, morality, and law.
Propaganda: Definitions.
Propaganda has been defined (above, page 39). It remains to distinguish some of the other technical and professional terms which apply in this field. In operational terms, propaganda can be distinguished by the consideration of five elements:18
1. Source (including Media)
2. Time
3. Audience
4. Subject
5. Mission
These factors are given in approximate order of importance to the analyst, and provide a good working breakdown for propaganda analysis when expert staffs are not available. The five factors can be remembered by memorizing the initial letters in order: S-T-A-S-M. The last factor, "Mission," covers the presumed effect which the enemy seeks by dissemination of the item.
Without going into the technique of field propaganda analysis (described below, page 115), it is useful to apply these analysis factors to the definition of some subordinate types of military propaganda.
Source is the most important. If the source is open and acknowledged,the government issuing it is putting the propaganda on the record before the world, and must therefore issue the propaganda with a certain amount of dignity and with an eye to the future. If the source is faked, then it is important for the government or army to make sure that the faking is a good job, and that the propaganda cannot readily be traced back. Two very different techniques are employed. Open sources require responsible public officials, preferably men with international reputations, who will get the best effect from use of the name and facilities of the government. Use of an open source usually (but not always) implies belief of the disseminator in the veracity of his materials. Fabricated sources require persons adept at illicit imaginativeness, impromptu forgery, and general devilment, combined with a strong sense of discipline and security. The United States was so chary of mixing the two kinds of propaganda during World War II that it operated them in different categories, giving rise to the three following types:
White propaganda is issued from an acknowledged source, usually a government or an agency of a government, including military commands at various levels. This type of propaganda is associated with overt psychological operations.
Grey propaganda does not clearly identify any source.
Black propaganda purports to emanate from a source other than the true one. This type of propaganda is associated with covert psychological warfare operations.
White propaganda is shown in figure 4 which does everything possible to make the message the official message of the British and American governments. The border is done up in handsome banknote fashion; the great seals of the nations are handsomely displayed; the signatures of the commanding generals are shown as further attestation of the openness and good faith of the issuer of the propaganda.
Figure 38 was also prepared by British-American authority; it too had the job of making Germans surrender. But in this case, nothing was done to make the British-American source evident; indeed, every effort was made to hide the source, so that the German who read it would think that it came from within his own territory. The two different kinds of propaganda were both of them needed; each supplemented the other but they had to be kept apart as far as possible.
In the field of radio, the difference between Covert and Overt was even more plain. During World War II, the ether over Europe was filled with appeals from radio stations both public and covert in character. The British spoke to the Germans over B.B.C., making no effort to conceal the fact that they were British. But they also spoke to the Germans over clandestine stations, which pretended to be free-lancing Nazis, German army stations, or freedom group operations. The Germans, comparably, beamed official German news to the United States in English; but they also pretended to be Americans broadcasting from an isolationist radio in the American mid-west. In some cases, the belligerent powers used the identical radio transmission facilities for overt and covert propaganda. Radio Saipan, under the Americans, was most of the time the relay for the acknowledged San Francisco programs; intermittently OSS