There is no perfect psychological warrior.
However—and the qualification is important—each psychological warfare team represents a composite of these skills. Some members have two or three to start with, the others virtually none. But all of the personnel, except for men with peculiarly specialized jobs (ordnance experts; cryptographers; translators; calligraphers), end up with a professionalism that blends these together. They may not meet professional standards as officials-officers-journalists-Japanologists-psychoanalysts when they return from psychological warfare operations against the Japanese, but they have met men who are one or more of these, and have picked up the rudiments of each skill—enough, at least, to suspect what they do not know.
The advertising man or newspaperman (skill 3) who goes into psychological warfare must learn something of the enemy, neutral or friendly groups whom he addresses (skill 4), something of United States civilian government procedures (skill 1), something of military or naval organization and operations (skill 2) and ideally something of psychology or sociology or economics, depending on the topic of his work (skill 5).
Figure 19: Propaganda Against Propaganda. As an occasional stunt, propaganda is directed against propaganda. Hitler did so in his book, Mein Kampf. The leaflet, shown in the original and in facsimile, was used by the Allies on the Germans in the West. A German leaflet, addressed to their own troops ("defensive propaganda"), was picked up, X'd out, copied, and refuted.
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, as men did in other wars, by helping the enemy command maintain discipline. Furthermore, the soldier works with writers, illustrators, translators, script-writers, announcers and others whose skills are primarily civilian, and he takes his policy cues from the civilian authority at the top of the war effort. An infantry colonel does not have to worry about what the Secretary of State is saying, if the colonel is on the field of battle. But an officer detailed to psychological warfare must remain attuned to civilian life even if he has seen no one out of khaki for two months straight.
Personnel was probably the biggest field problem of the entire war. Should psychological warfare be needed again, it will take careful culling of personnel to obtain the necessary staff and operators. The continuation of psychological warfare techniques, in part at least, by both civilian and military agencies in time of peace will, it may be hoped, provide the U.S. with a cadre for the next time. Very little of the living experience of the Creel Committee was carried over into OWI. Walter Lippmann, who had worked with both Creel and Blankenhorn, was not a participant. Carl Crow, the advertising man and writer from Shanghai, worked on China for the Creel Committee in World War I and on China again for OWI in World War II. He was exceptional, and took no major part in setting up indoctrination. One of the OWI executives in 1946, shortly after his return to civilian life, read James Mock and Cedric Larson's account of the Creel Committee, Words That Won the War (Princeton, 1939); his interest was avid. When he finished, he said,
"Good Lord, those people made the same mistakes we made!"
He had forgotten that the Creel Committee record had been available all the way through.