Psychological Warfare

by Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger

War eases the motive-switching operation because the leaders and people on each side derive moral exhilaration from the common effort. Ostensibly, politicians become statesmen; all higher-ranking officers become strategists; ordinary men become heroes, martyrs, adventurers. The lofty process of war is one which psychologists will not explain in our time; it transposes ordinary persons and events to a frame of reference in which individuals are less self-conscious and also less critical. Among European and American peoples, particularly, there arises the assumption that because of war men should be brave and unselfish, women kind and chaste, yet alluring, officials self-sacrificing, and so on, even though the facts of the case in the particular country involved may be very much to the contrary. The cruel futility inherent in war is so plain to all civilized men that when war does come men overcompensate for it. They set up illusions.

This need not be taken as a criticism of war or of mankind. The world would be a more inspiring place in which to dwell if people generally lived up to the wartime standards they impose on themselves. That these standards are felt to be real is attested by the distinct drop of the suicide rate in wartime, and the increase in suicide, murder, and crimes of delinquency after every war; that the change of role is largely illusory is attested by the fact that no nation appears to have undergone permanent sociological change as a result of improvement during war. Many wartime changes carry on, of course; but they rarely comprise, by the standards of the people concerned, improvements. The upswing is genuine, when it occurs, but it is rarely permanent, and it seldom affects all levels of the entire population with the same degree of exhilaration.

The propagandist thus has an ideal situation. In the enemy country everyone is trying to be more noble, more unselfish, more hard-working. Everyone applies a higher standard of ethics and performance than in peacetime. Businessmen are not supposed to make too much money, politicians are supposed to work around the clock, officials are supposed to cooperate, housewives to save, children to scavenge, and so on. Yet a certain percentage of the enemy population is not taken into this. Sometimes minorities feel themselves emotionally excluded; at other times private temperamental differences make some persons skeptic while others remain believers. The ground is ready for rumor, for tearing down inflated personages, for breaking the illusion by the simple process of attributing normally selfish motives in wartime.

It is easier to attribute bad motives to civilian leaders than to military. The ceremonialized discipline of modern warfare makes the military figure a little mysterious; his normal peacetime obscurity shielded him and his family from exposure, cheap publicity, gossip. The civilian leader does not have this protection. The very process of becoming prominent has involved his seeking publicity, for the one part, and his pretense of avoiding it, for the other. Furthermore, the man who serves his nation serves himself. It is not possible for a man to lead a large country without benefiting himself, since the act of leadership is itself intensely pleasurable. Also, prominence possesses a characteristic of vice; even when it loses its value for positive enjoyment it retains withdrawal pains. The once-prominent individual hates to leave prominence though he may be genuinely weary of it. He is willing to be tired of the country, but not willing for the country to be tired of him. In wartime old leaders remain and new ones come in. Fame and obscurity shift with even greater rapidity than before. The personality-politics condition of the country is highly mobile. Personalities are tense with interpersonal conflict.

Then comes the propagandist.

First, he attributes normal human motives to the leaders who so obviously possess them. In this job, he is doing what the famous little boy in the Hans Christian Andersen story did when he said of the Emperor, "Mamma, he hasn't any clothes on!" The propagandist need only say what everyone knows: that this man is notoriously fond of money; that another one has been a poor sportsman; that a third has betrayed some old friends; that a fourth has sought power in a selfish, vindictive way. The response which the propagandist seeks is a simple "That's so."

The next step in propaganda is to show that these persons do not measure up to the tragic, heroic, historic roles war has imposed on them. That too is not difficult, especially if the war is not going decisively one way or the other. Defeat or victory serves equally well to make leaders into heroes; Churchill and MacArthur were never more splendid than when they were whipped, the one after Dunkirk, the other after Bataan.

The final approach is the total discrediting of leaders. If the internal politics of the country have been bitter enough, some of the leaders may even come over voluntarily to the enemy. Quisling in Norway; Wang in China; Doriot and Laval in France; Vlassov in the U.S.S.R.; Laurel from the Philippines—such men all possessed a certain amount of standing in their own countries but through capture, impatience, or seduction decided to continue their careers with enemy backing. The propagandist can now pretend to be tolerant. It is he who believes in peace, in reconciliation, in easygoing live-and-let-live attitudes. He describes his protegés, the quislings, in warm complimentary terms; he lightens the tenor of his attack on the non-quisling enemy leaders. He takes the attitude that war continues because of private stupidity, vengefulness, greed, unreasonableness on the other. For his part, he is willing to let the politicians, both quisling and patriot, "settle it between themselves." Let them form a coalition government.

Personal smearing is effective. If the war situation runs in the enemy's favor, the easing of the enemy position permits the population the privilege of backbiting, and even within the leader-group some leaders may feel more free to destroy the positions or reputations of the others. The impossible and foolishly heroic stances which the leaders have taken in time of strain now make most of them look a little silly. Conversely, in a downgrade situation, the leaders may gain stature in the first tragic weeks of defeat, but soon the ignobility of defeat sweeps over them all. The propagandist need only be a good reporter, and the leaders of the defeated country will provide him with good propaganda material.

In estimating the propaganda situation, the vulnerability of the leaders to personal attack is one of the major elements. Properly handled, it can be of real value. In the American Revolution, the personal character of George Washington was a very substantial asset. A. very rich man, he could scarcely be accused of a gutter revolution. A slave owner, he could not be accused of wanting the overthrow of the social order. An experienced soldier, he could not be attacked as a military amateur. A man of patience, correct manners, and genuine modesty, he was not easily described as a bloody empire-builder, an immoral sycophant, or a power-drunk madman. British propaganda accordingly went after the Continental Congress, of which there was a great deal to be said. On the other side, the Americans had duck soup when it came to George III and most of his Cabinet—personalities which included boors, fuddy-duddies, too-little-and-too-laters, and conspicuous nincompoops.