In the second category we will place semi-official organs, whose aim will be to attract the indifferent and little interested.
The third category will be our ostensible opposition, which at least in one of its publications will represent the opposition to us. Our real enemies will mistake this seeming opposition as belonging to their own group and will thus show us their cards.
All our newspapers will represent different tendencies, namely, aristocratic, republican, revolutionary, even anarchistic, so long of course as the constitution lasts. Like the Indian God Vishnu, these periodicals will have one hundred arms, each of which will reach the pulse of every group of public opinion. When the pulse beats faster, these arms will guide opinion toward our aims, since the excited person loses the power of reasoning and is easily led. Those fools who believe that they repeat the opinions expressed by the newspapers of their party will be repeating our opinions or those which we desire them to have. Imagining that they are following the press of their party, they will follow the flag which we will fly for them.
In order that our newspaper militia may carry out our program, we must organize the press with great care. Under the title of the Central Department of the press, we will organize literary meetings at which our agents unnoticed will give the passwords and countersigns. Discussing and contradicting our policies, although always superficially, without touching their essence, our press will conduct an empty fire against official newspapers so as to give us only an opportunity to express ourselves in greater detail than we were able to in our preliminary declarations. This, of course, will be done when it is useful to us.
These attacks against us will also seem to convince the people that complete liberty of the press still exists, and it will give our agents the opportunity to declare that the papers opposing us are mere wind-bags, since they are unable to find any real ground to refute our orders.
Such measures, which will escape the notice of public attention, will be the most successful means of guiding the public mind and of inspiring confidence in our government. Thanks to them, we will as the need arises excite or pacify the public mind on political questions. We will be able to persuade or confuse them, sometimes printing the truth, sometimes lies, referring to facts or contradicting them according to the way they are received by the public, always carefully sounding the ground before stepping on it. We will surely conquer our enemies, because they will not have the press at their disposal in which to express themselves in full. Moreover, with the above mentioned plans against the press, we will not even need to refute them seriously.
The trial balloons thrown out by us in the third category of our press, we will deny energetically, in case of need, in our semi-official organs.
In French journalism there already exists the Masonic solidarity of a password; all organs of the press are bound by professional secrecy; like the ancient augurs, not one member will disclose his secret if he is not ordered to do so. Not one journalist will dare to disclose this secret, for not one of them is admitted to literary headquarters unless he has a disgraceful action in his past record. The fact would immediately be made public. While these disgraceful actions are known only to a few, the prestige of the journalist attracts opinion throughout the country—he is admired.
Our plans must extend chiefly to the provincial districts. There we must excite hopes and ambitions opposed to those of the capitals, by means of which we may always attack them, presenting such ambitions to the capitals as the inspired views and aims of provincial districts. It is obvious that their source will be ours. It is necessary for us that while we are not yet in full power, the capital should be under the influence of provincial public opinion; that is under the influence of the majority prearranged by our agents. It is necessary for us that at the critical psychological moment the capitals should not discuss an accomplished fact, for the mere reason that it had been accepted by the provincial majority.
When we reach the phase of the new régime, which is transitory to our accession to power, we must not allow the press to expose social corruption. It must be thought that the new régime has satisfied everybody to such an extent that even criminality has stopped. Cases of criminal activity must only be known to their victims or their accidental witnesses, and to these alone.