The general history of these eight years was, by and large, a first phase in which the United States demobilized or destroyed propaganda facilities which had been built up with great skill and at great cost during World War II, and a second phase in which those facilities were partially rebuilt and the skills rediscovered. The low point in this development was probably the winter of 1947-48.
For a while, the rumor went around Washington that the Secretary of Defense, Louis Johnson, would not tolerate the utterance of the words propaganda or psychological warfare, and that the Secretary of the Army, Kenneth C. Royall, refused to have the topic mentioned to him. That may be the exaggeration characteristic of newspapermen, but it epitomized the spirit of that time.
While "psychological warfare" almost disappeared from the Department of Defense and the three services during this low point, the State Department never quite demobilized. For one thing, the State Department had inherited the OWI facilities and the Army facilities in the occupied countries—Austria, Germany, Korea, and Japan. As the heir to substantial informational facilities the State Department kept a certain minimum activity going. Facilities such as American Broadcasting Station in Europe (ABSIE), Radio in the American Sector—of Berlin—(RIAS), the Information Control Commands in the American Sector of Germany, Information and Education (I&E) Section of the General Headquarters of the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP) in Japan—these (though sometimes renamed) represented going propaganda concerns which required a Washington command post.
Meanwhile, it became standing operating procedure in the U.S. diplomatic establishment to attach some kind of an informational facility to every diplomatic establishment and to most of the major consulates.
Since there were always advocates of complete propaganda dismantlement, as well as enthusiasts for the maintenance of information programs, the issue of remaining in the propaganda business or getting out was always more or less in doubt. The economy and the demobilization phases of 1947 and 1948 were stimulated by evidence of Soviet bad faith in Europe during 1949 and brought into sharp focus by the outbreak of the Korean semi-war in 1950.
It is not possible to do justice to all these different systems in a single phrase. Even as late as the present, it is sometimes difficult to determine why the U.S. need have an information program operating in such entirely friendly countries as Cuba, Haiti, Ireland, or Australia. There is some point to the argument set forth by ultraconservatives that what was good enough for Theodore Roosevelt ought to be good enough today; that, in other words, the United States should be known for what it is and not by what a few hired promoters can say about it.
As in so many other fields of activities, however, the past is irrecoverable. The United States can no more return to the pre-atomic age in propaganda matters than it can in defense matters. The world we have built is with us and the only alternative to survival seems death. With respect to the specific field of propaganda, this leads to occasional curious political alliances. Sometimes the conservatives in U.S. politics are so conservative they want no propaganda at all; at other times these same conservatives are so anti-Communist that they want more propaganda. On occasions the Left within the USA has viewed U.S. propaganda with alarm and at other times has demanded that there be more of it and that more of the content be Left.
Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs.
Later, as will be described, the Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs was supplemented by a Psychological Strategy Board outside of the Department of State and still later by a White House assistant in charge of informational policies at the highest level.
What can be said of this first U.S. peacetime performance in the propaganda field?