U. S. Propaganda at the Crossroads

...As a result of both Genevas, this state of competitive coexistence has become a reality and may well remain a reality until, very many years from now, democratic forms of government may triumph in a bloodless battle over the entire globe...

...Such clearings of the atmosphere, where actual positions become clearly discernible, are always of benefit to the propagandist, whether or not he likes what he discerns...

...The extent of these sympathies is unmeasurable, but there is little doubt that there are fewer Communist sympathizers in the democratic camp than there are democratic sympathizers in the Communist camp...

...he also must make sense...

...To some extent, the Communists reach their false conclusions because of a rigid and unrealistic frame of reference...

...In a period of competitive coexistence, such approaches, conceived in World War II have no applicability...

...The advertiser who sells cars, cigarettes or beer must not only convey the idea that his wares are good...

...For a while in 1952-53, it seemed as though the propagandists had become the policy-makers, but the acid test of the East German uprising clearly distinguished our real policies from our still-resounding words...

...whom he speaks: their allegiance, or their admiration, or their efforts, at great risk, to frustrate their authorities...

...All this means that, while there is less food for empty propaganda slogans such as liberation, there is, for the first time since the war, reason for genuine political optimism...

...This mentality is reinforced by the fear of some propagandists to let the facts speak for themselves, and to let the listeners make up their own minds...

...In reality, he has more to say than ever, and he is more needed than ever...

...And, again like his confrere from the other side of the Iron Curtain, he wants it now...

...This propaganda, as opposed to the kind that anxiously schemes for some immediate effects, would be of the "open-end" type...

...In any event, a dynamic competitive coexistence, rather than a hodgepodge of rigidity and liberation, is the policy of the day...

...Ultimately, this feeling may be caused by some lack of faith in the compelling attraction of democratic reality, or a lack of faith in the listener...

...It is these old weaknesses that make the propagandist feel, after Geneva and the official end of "liberation," that he has "nothing to say" to the people behind the Iron Curtain...

...And competitive coexistence may well bring about the coalescence of these myriads of individual positive political impulses into one powerful, oriented and irresistible stream...

...The situation itself is characterized by the unfolding struggle of opposed beliefs, both of which are backed by a great deal of power...

...Fortunately, democracy no longer has to grapple with the Marxist Utopia, but only with the rather miserable reality which grew out of it...

...It is not certain that they have taken it willingly...

...This is especially true because Communism, during the last thirty years, has been transformed from a grandiose Utopia into a dismal reality...

...It is further characterized by the fact that in both camps there are sympathizers of the cause of the opponent...

...In this way he would supplement the Eisenhower approach of having the American democracy do what it believes to be right and useful in an open and peaceful contest with the Soviet world...

...It is difficult to contest a utopia...

...propaganda in which it was generally agreed that propaganda could not outrun policy: So long as the U.S...

...An assumption on the propaganda-making level was that one must, at all times, under all circumstances, present the listener with an account of progress of some kind...

...The advocate of democracy has no such problems...

...For if the Geneva Spirit prevails, the hostile stalemate has been replaced by a peaceful contest in which the democratic propagandist has most of the natural advantages...

...The listener gets nothing out of it-no practical knowledge, no spiritual or intellectual enrichment, no pleasure, no stimulation...

...We can, however, hope that this competition will not entail the same hostility and animosity that so defiled the relations in the past between us...

...practiced containment, propagandists could not in good conscience promise liberation...

...Still another underlying assumption was that promises and threats are the very stuff that propaganda is made of...

...There is no similarity between selling democracy and selling goods...

...This sounds like a truism, but our propaganda is a long way from recognizing it...

...This is so not only because the Communist propagandist is a monomaniac type addicted to repetitive vituperation and exhortation, but also because he does not want to give anything-he wants to take, to make people work harder, contribute more, think less, surrender whatever individuality they have left...

...Like his Communist confrere, he continually wants something from the people to...

...The extremely simple truth must not be forgotten: Democracy is better and more attractive than Communism, and most people are therefore likely to prefer it...

...all that the summit conference did in this respect was to clear the atmosphere of lingering fantasies...

...Nothing more...

...At the summit conference, those real policies were finally spelled out in all their embarrassing clarity...

...What, then, should the propagandist say to be as effective as possible...

...He must also convey the idea that they are substantially better than those of the competition, and this is where his agony begins...

...They are not "good," but "better," for under the old posture, with both sides barricaded behind the Iron Curtain, with no trade, no contacts, no rubbing of elbows, a regaining of freedom was not even conceivable, except by total war...

...The best that the propagandist can do under present conditions is to say frankly all that he knows and thinks and believes, all that he hopes and fears, and then let history take its course...

...In 1950, THE NEW LEADER ran a symposium on U.S...

...In my opinion, their chances for ultimate freedom are better now than ever before...

...it is hard to prove that some as yet untried system will not do away with slums, crime and ignorance...

...After it was made unmistakably clear that the U.S...

...In any event, while at the summit conference vituperation and rigidity gave way to flexibility and smiles, smiles and flexibility in turn gave way at the second Geneva meeting to cool politeness and a wary readiness to approach areas of mutual interest...

...What is needed now is for the propagandist to become more and more the frank but partisan interpreter of all of democracy's and Communism's actions and intentions, with confidence in the listeners and in the ultimate victory of his cause...

...This means that the listener should receive all information from every part of the globe, including his own country, which is likely to be of genuine interest and use for him, that he should be given the enjoyment of gifted and stimulating comments, and the inspiration that can spring from democratic convictions...

...The trouble is that, in our propaganda-infested century, even the dumbest peasant can identify a line when he is exposed to one...

...Such war was never intended, nor would it have been likely to bring agreeable results for anybody, including the peoples under Communist rule...

...But mostly they are the victims of their jealous suppression of free thought...

...The propagandist is dimly aware that he must "sell" democracy, but he veers into the wrong path as soon as he borrows from advertising and public relations techniques...

...To answer this, he should recognize that some people talk in order to obtain some advantage, others to get attention, some to mislead, others to enlighten, some to take something from their neighbor, others in order to give something to him...

...Government was never committed to a genuine liberation policy...

...Democratic propaganda is at the crossroads...

...Better, of course, is a comparative term and deliberately chosen, for it cannot be said that their chances are "good...

...In the second place, the amicable coexistence which the summit conference brought forth created a much more favorable situation for propaganda than may have appeared at first glance...

...The difference between democracy and Communism is real and multifarious, and can be conveyed without the gimmicks and artifices upon which the advertiser relies...

...In any event, in a free and peaceful contest, democracy may be expected to exert, eventually, an irresistible attraction for the people who are not now living in such a system, simply because of its basic aim of providing a political framework in which life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are possible...

...They simply cannot know what "really" goes on and they are further blinded by the antiquated propaganda cliches about the "disintegrating capitalist world" in which, mirabile dictu, they still really seem to believe...

...policy of liberation and the beginning of friendly coexistence-at the expense of the satellites...

...Yet, while the Communists in the democracies are organized, and function to the full extent of their potential, democratic inclinations in the Soviet world are only a vast, atomized, potential force...

...With any increased contact such as coexistence and competition with the West is bound to bring, this prop, and thus the whole structure, is endangered...

...Finally, it should be remembered that the Communist system so far has had to rely on artificial props to maintain itself in power, such as censorship, centralized propaganda, and terror...

...At present, Mr...

...As a result, the democratic propagandist finds himself occasionally in the throes of an ulterior-motive mentality which probably registers, at least unconsciously, upon the listeners...

...Actually, very little was accomplished...

...A look at Soviet and other totalitarian propaganda shows that the spokesmen of the system talk in order to conceal, to mislead, to take away things...

...It is hardly realized how terribly this censorship, with which they maintain themselves on the one hand, works against them on the other...

...The present competitive coexistence is a state of flux, and nothing but such a state of flux, in peacetime, can hold a promise for the people under Soviet domination to escape permanent enslavement...

...During this period, the propagandist must be simply the intelligent and persuasive spokesman for democracy, its aims, its nature, its methods, its hopes...

...It has taken recourse to such means on the assumption, no doubt correct, that it could not otherwise maintain itself...

...By stepping into the arena of competitive coexistence, with increased communications across the barrier, the Soviets have taken an infinitely greater chance than the Western world...

...This compulsion has led propaganda a million times to the brink of lies...

...A Communist paper or broadcast contains no useful information...

...The propagandist, in the past struggle with Communism, has tended toward some basic assumptions which were probably faulty even in the period of the armed and vociferous stalemate and which are unquestionably obsolete now...

...A case can be made that they had no choice- that after Stalin's death the people were simply rebelling against the isolation, behind universal bars of hatred, in which they had been kept...

...would make no attempt to liberate anybody by force, the propagandist, with this negative certainty available to him, could begin to do some realistic planning...

...But while the Communist propagandist finds it possible to veer in any direction at any moment, the propagandist in the West is less fortunate...

...Just as Eisenhower has the confidence that, in an open give-and-take, democracy somehow, some day, in an as yet undiscernible way, will come out on top, the propagandist should have the confidence that the promulgation of plain truth, and of honest convictions, will some day have results which he can neither predetermine nor foresee...

...His views are not necessarily those of RFE...

...The idea was that by "looking good" in the face of "enemy obstruction" something was accomplished...

...But the old weaknesses of propaganda-the fear of complete frankness, the one-sidedness, the desire to manipulate, the recourse to unenforceable threats and promises-are still with us...

...Instead of needling and attacking and blowing the trumpet of the avenging angel with little manifest effect, he can sing the siren song of democracy to really good advantage...

...The summit conference, it is argued, marked the end of a U.S...

...For the differences between Chrysler and Buick, or Pabst and Schlitz, are obviously minimal...

...For this state of flux permits all democratic forces-economic, cultural, political -to be brought to bear on the world situation...

...It would be like an investment of genuine effort in a good cause, without constant worry over the returns...

...In the first place, the U.S...

...This is not true...

...The only propaganda, then, which is geared to the new period of competitive coexistence and likely to lead, at some unknown day, to some unknown pro-democratic activity is the propaganda which concentrates on giving the listeners all that it has to give...

...In any event, such pessimism leads to a stilted posture, and to the search for the artificial support of a "line," according to which everything can be "played...

...On the diplomatic level, for example, one of these was that one should embarrass the enemy by making a suggestion or proposing a plan which the enemy must refuse but which made him "look bad," while we "look good" for having suggested it...

...It has striven valiantly, though often vainly, to transform itself from a negative into a positive force...

...Eisenhower seems to have outrun the propagandists in confidently accepting the calculated risk of contact, competition and communication...

...How our propaganda can respond is the theme of Konrad Kellen, intelligence chief of Radio Free Europe...

...In its short history, it has already come a long way...

...The compulsion to operate perpetually with direct or implied threats and promises is in turn predicated upon the idea that the listener must be "manipulated," and that his actions must and can be affected, more or less immediately, in a desired direction...

...It used to be said, with some justification, that the propagandist cannot outrun his government...

...What better fare can there be for the serious propagandist...

...In other words, the pendulum which had swung from the extreme positions of the cold war to the almost uncomfortable heat of amicable coexistence has begun to stabilize somewhere in between.In his report on the second Geneva meeting, Secretary Dulles said: "The 'cold war' in the sense of peaceful competition will inevitably go on...

...Challenge of the Geneva Spirit U. S. PROPAGANDA By Konrad Kellen THE TWO Geneva Conferences, the smiling one at the summit and the less smiling one of the foreign ministers, have been hard on propagandists everywhere...

...But even if the decision to engage in open contest was taken willingly by the Soviet leaders, it may turn out to have been a very unwise move on their part, based on the abundant misinformation so prevalent among leading Communists in the world...

...The democratic propagandist in the past has often come dangerously close to taking rather than giving...

...Thus, the "failure" of the second Geneva meeting does not mean a return to the pre-summit position of extreme rigidity and hostility...

...it means that after the somewhat hectic glow of the summit days the pendulum is coming to rest on a state of "competitive coexistence," a term coined by Averell Harriman before both Genevas (NL, September 13, 1954) to designate a state of affairs which he considered the most constructive possible between the two worlds, and the only alternative to nuclear war...

...To blow them up into something apparently significant, the advertiser must resort to exaggerations...

...From the early days of combat propaganda on the battlefield, it has gone through striking transformations...

...What does this mean for the peoples under Soviet domination...