In each of these instances, the propaganda operators are themselves members of an audience. Furthermore, propaganda leaks, as it were, out of the channels into which it is directed. Additionally, propaganda in all countries has to compete with the normal day-to-day preoccupations of the listener—his food, his health, his hour-by-hour activities, his tangible interpersonal relationships. Save for rare moments of intense crisis, propaganda can expect to occupy only a small fraction of the audience's attention. In dictatorships, the range of propaganda can be widened by polluting all news, all theater presentations, all churches, etc., with the "Party line," but visitors to totalitarian capitals—of both the Fascist and Communist varieties—report that most of the common people have become calloused with apathy, over-all disbelief, or skepticism as a result of overexposure to official indoctrination.

Hence a written estimate of the situation follows not from some special Psychological Warfare situation, but from the practical measures available. If desired, it can summarize the following points:

Such papers might be of use, gathering together in a single document all pertinent facts. In most tactical situations, the situation would have obsolesced before the author of the estimate had finished his document. In strategic situations, it could not normally be made specific enough to be practical—at the operational level—without becoming hopelessly unwieldy. Each skill represented in the estimate does prepare other reports, and the practice of most modern armies indicates that it is better to conduct routine propaganda planning, supervision, and appreciation through liaison than to prepare elaborate documents gathering together the multifarious factors which actually affect Psychological Warfare.

In most American Psychological Warfare facilities—especially in the theaters—the estimate of the situation consisted of a brief résumé of home propaganda by the enemy (taken directly from propaganda analysis), comment on the audience by appropriate representatives from the State Department or other Federal agencies, and discussion of the audience by some kind of Psychological Warfare operations-planning and intelligence board. Some of the most valuable suggestions came from persons not concerned with propaganda—such as target-intelligence people who could anticipate enemy civilian or military shortages, or economic-warfare people who suggested vexations which the enemy listener was probably experiencing.

The Question of Choice.

Therefore the psychological estimate should not be presented as a propaganda-versus-propaganda analysis; if it does, it will end as an unproductive and meaningless duel between the propagandists on the two sides. Nor should the estimate pretend to present choices with the pretense that these choices are definitely prescribed by the situation itself. In any field, an expert can hoax or befuddle a layman. A Psychological Warfare officer should present choices for what they really are—options open to him and his staff as creative writers. Policy issues, in specific cases, can be answered yes or no. This is not true of propaganda as a whole. The task of the propagandist is to create something which will arouse attention, will induce attitudes, and will eventually lead to action. It is a task of permanent offense. Its variations are as infinitely diverse as the imaginations of mankind can make them.

Choice is perpetually before the Psychological Warfare propagandist. But it is the wide choice of what he can think up, not the narrow choice dictated by fixed terrain, by specific enemy capabilities, by concrete physical necessities. Adolf Hitler himself, in the near-delirium of his last days of life, recognized this. He told his followers to hold out; German propaganda might still provoke the "inevitable" American-Soviet clash which would save Germany. He said he would choose one side or the other—he didn't much care which. Thus, at the end, the range of propaganda possibilities deceived even the arch propagandist, despite the bold shrewdness he had shown in the past. He knew, as his generals did not, that in the realm of the psychological, the "factor of the unexpected" is always a large one, and hoped to the last to turn it to his ends. His premises were right, even though his conclusion was fatal for him.

Allied Operations.

In a particular type of instance, estimates of the antagonist's propaganda capacity form a part of normal military operations. This occurs in the instance of allied operation: when the outside ally fears that the local ally may be subverted. Such was the state of France in relation to Britain in 1940, of Central China in relation to the Americans in 1944, of the Balkan states in relation to the Third Reich in 1945. In such instances, estimate of the enemy propaganda becomes a vital part of the total military estimate. The principles stated below can be applied by changing the direction of their application. Propaganda analysis can, in situations like this, provide cues for effective action and correct timing. In this type of situation, the outside ally cannot afford to sit by and hope for the best. By black operations he too must prepare to re-subvert the local ally if the local ally goes over to the enemy. In Rumania, Bulgaria and puppet Serbia the Germans were not successful; in Italy they created the Fascist Italian Social Republic and brought a large part of Northern Italy back into the war. In China, Allied pro-Communist sympathizers hoped that the Japanese would subvert the Generalissimo so badly that America would build up Yenan as a precautionary measure; but the Generalissimo stood firm, and the Yenan maneuver lingered on as an unpleasant memory between certain Americans and certain Nationalist Chinese. This type of situation mixes politics, economics, propaganda and warfare to such a degree that no sound estimate can appraise one factor without including the others.