The beginning and end of standard-wave transmission is news. News (see page [135]) uses standard appeals. It should be factual but selectively factual. Repetition of basic themes is much more important than the constant invention of new ones. The propaganda chief has nothing to do, day in and day out, but to think of his own programs. He becomes familiar with them and bored by them. He visualizes his Propaganda Man as a person who hears all transmissions and is understandably bored by them, overlooking the interruptions that listeners face, the long gaps between the programs they hear, the weather interference, the static, the police measures.

Even with peacetime facilities tremendous simplicity and repetition are needed to convey advertising on the radio. In wartime repetition is even more necessary. It serves the double function of driving the theme home to listeners who have heard it before, while broadening the circle of listeners with each transmission. A point of diminishing returns is soon reached but even diminished returns are often rewarding. The hardest-to-reach people are sometimes the ones it is most important to reach with a simple, basic, persuasive item. Repetition thus ensures depth of response in the core audience, while adding to the marginal audience with each additional application. What is deadly monotonous to the propagandist himself may, on the thousandth repetition, merely have become pleasantly familiar to the Propaganda Man on the other end. The author has talked to any number of clandestine listeners to our propaganda who have almost wept with rage as they told of listening to jokes, novelties, political speeches and other funny stuff when they hoped to get a clean-cut announcement of the latest military news.

Communication Through the Mails.

Something was accomplished, however, by use of the Portuguese, Spanish, Swiss and Chinese press. Enemy officials and private persons were known to read these, and it was possible to do a great deal toward influencing editorial content.

Major mail-propaganda operations were conducted against us, however. The Nazis, as part of their prebelligerent planning and operations, sent enormous quantities of propaganda through the United States mail—sometimes postage-free under the frank of Congressmen. The Japanese, down to the time of Pearl Harbor, kept large public-relations staffs running at full speed in New York, Washington, and other American cities. They helped their American friends with money and by heavy purchase of copyright material friendly to Japan—thus making it unnecessary for any author to report himself as a Japanese paid agent, and they offered Japanese "cultural and educational" information to interested persons. It really was cultural and well done. By talking about Japanese poetry, religion and cherry blossoms, and omitting all war propaganda, the handsome little booklets kept alive the memory of a hospitable, quaint, charming Japan. Some of this material was mailed directly from Japan to the United States.

Since mail propaganda depends on the freedom of the mails, it is much more apt to be used by a dictatorship against us than by us against a dictatorship.

Leaflets.

Pamphlets.

The pamphlet shown in [figure 6] is an excellent example of the medium. Though it carries a complex message, it can be read by persons at the lowest educational level. It meets enemy propaganda over a whole range of themes. It is apt to be disseminated farther, whether initial distribution be by ground or by air.