by Propaganda
great volume of propaganda asserting that the Allies were about to extend the war
to southeastern Europe. It appears that such a propaganda feint generally precedes
every German surprise move.”110 As Napoleon once noted, victory is very powerful
propaganda.
The second source is R.G. Nobécourt, who wrote a detailed account of German
propaganda in occupied France.111Among the many materials he studied was a propa-
ganda manual which appeared in 1943. The main points of the manual were:
1. In the pure state truth is difficult to handle. Truthful items may create a wrong
impression. Packaging is important.
2. An established opinion can only be modified progressively. Do not present a thesis
ready-made, but rather offer propositions that leave one reflecting and that suggest
a route leading unconsciously to the desired conclusion. (This is reminiscent of
the reference to the Chinese “stop short” poem in British World War I propa-
ganda. See above, page 82.)
3. Present the idea in accessible form. Typography, image, and figures with an
impartial air are often striking and prove things to people. (In more recent jargon,
“figures do not lie, but liars can figure.”)
4. Orchestration must be rigorous. Unity of propaganda plays the same role as naval
artillery.
5. The law of repetition applies. As Goebbels said, “Repetition ends by transforming
into faith a simple tendency without the individual being aware of this work.”112
Nobécourt remarked how seemingly insignificant facts, astutely chosen and edited,
cumulatively have an insidious, unstoppable effect on consciousness. “Facts bring their
own interpretation,” and not because they are false. The malice lies in their form, in
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the discretion with which they are handled. They suggest more than they articulate the desired conclusion. Multiplied, they soften the mind, which drinks in the content. As
stated in the propaganda manual, “the telegram of two lines is of more psychological
importance than the editorial signed by a powerful name.”
The perfidiousness of this kind of propaganda consisted in its lying while all
of the time not lying. One cannot fight against it. Examples of the proliferation of
minor details to underline a major message are numerous. Propaganda Abteilung, the
German propaganda detachment, reported on January 22, 1943 that since Roosevelt
became president of the United States, crimes committed by young people in that
country had risen 18 per cent for robberies, 23 per cent for sex crimes, and 30 per
cent for intemperance. These statistics were reinforced by a story from Inter-France
Confidentiel on March 6, 1944 that more than two million US recruits were sent home
for lack of military suitability as a result of illness, alcoholism, etc. Besides the prom-
ulgation of these small “facts,” there was suppression of minor news items that might
have a negative impact. So, the Propaganda Abteilung advised on February 26, 1943
that the press not give attention to agreements between the haute couture industry
and the authorities, since activities of this kind were not indispensable to war.
WoRLD WAR II To THE PRESEnT DAy, In BRIEF
The end of World War II brought with it the Cold War and the rivalry between the
Soviet Union and the United States for dominance, along with propaganda support-
ing self-determination of colonies under Western rule and propaganda designed to
impress on colonial regions that such rule was to their benefit.
Countries under Soviet domination suffered from severe censorship, where artists
unwilling to kowtow to official demands for works idealizing life under Stalin risked
being eliminated.113 The harshness of Stalin’s rule tended to be underestimated by left-
leaning Western intellectuals (Orwell being a conspicuous exception).
Western nations could proclaim a higher standard of living, with their obvious
material advantages over Soviet countries, but the idea of their technological superi-
ority suffered a blow with the launching of the Soviet Sputnik in 1957, the first earth-
orbiting artificial satellite. Nearly 12 years later, the United States regained prestige
when astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first person to set foot on the moon.
The struggle for superiority took place at a military level through proxy wars, such
as that in Vietnam in the later 1960s and early 1970s. Fear-mongering played a role on
both sides. The movie Red Nightmare, made under the personal supervision of Jack
Warner and supported by the US Department of Defense, portrayed a Communist
United States in which family and religious life and civil liberties all became subject
to Communist Party rule. For the Soviet Union, the fear of encirclement by capitalist
enemies of communism could be bolstered by history.
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The CIA played an important role in covertly supporting literary and artistic endeavours deemed favourable to the US image abroad. At the centre of this activity was the Congress for Cultural Freedom run by Michael Josselson for the CIA
from 1950 till 1967.114 For this purpose, even some counter-cultural activity could be
supported as evidence of the freedom of Americans from government domination.
Exposure of CIA involvement, beginning with reports in the magazine Ramparts in
1967, undercut the influence of this program.
A good way to summarize briefly an important set of the propaganda forces at work
from World War II to the present day is to look at the very prescient vision President
Dwight D. Eisenhower presented to the world in his farewell speech of January 17,
1961.115 What he said then overlaps with the messages of the Occupy Wall Street move-
ment that began in New York on September 17, 2011. After observing that the United
States spent annually on military security alone “more than the net income of all United
States corporations,” Eisenhower saw the need to “guard against the acquisition of
unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial com-
plex.” He saw a possible “disastrous rise of misplaced power.” He warned against the
“prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allo-
cations, and the power of money.” He warned against a scientific-technological elite
taking control over public policy. Of particular relevance to the financial crisis of today
is his observation that “We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren
without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage.” He did not want
democracy to become the “insolvent phantom of tomorrow.” His message was that the
United States should avoid becoming a “community of dreadful fear and hate” and be
instead “a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.” Against Eisenhower’s hope,
and in line with his fear, if we look at dominant influences in the United States today,
we see a strong tilt to the interests of what have been called the richest 1 per cent of the
population. We can see this in, among other things, the prominence given in t
he media
to industry-favouring protests like that of the Tea Party while ignoring (until it became
impossible to ignore) the Occupy Wall Street movement.
ConCLUSIon
This historical overview has covered numerous techniques of persuasion and the
principles behind their operation. The twentieth century brought more systematic
harnessing of an even greater array of communications media for purposes of national
power and prestige, war, and advancement of private corporate interests. From his-
tory we know that the aims of freedom and happiness, spread by propaganda, are
often accompanied by repression and abuse of power. This is good reason for viewing
with suspicion new political, economic, or technological systems that are presented by
those with the power to get their message across as saving humankind.
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The foregoing has provided a small but, I hope, salient and instructive selection of war and revolutionary propaganda from Grecian times to the twentieth century. In what
we have treated, we see over and over again how successful propaganda relies on the sur-
reptitious presentation of its message. We also find that totalitarian propaganda involves
not so much adding to the theory of rhetoric and propaganda as it does putting knowl-
edge of such principles into effect in al -encompassing ways, based on thorough control
over al the media of mass communication. The job of the propagandist is, as always,
that of knowing the audience and who and what the audience will find credible, then
adapting the message accordingly. Sometimes a message will not be acceptable without
the kind of pre-propaganda described by El ul in Chapter 1. I believe that the most pen-
etrating and lasting propaganda will touch on the most basic existential questions about
human existence and on a target audience’s deepest commitments and highest aspira-
tions. This point will be revisited when we consider commercially oriented propaganda
in the form of advertising, branding, and public relations in Chapter 5.
notes
1 Oliver Thomson, Easily Led: A History of Propaganda (Phoenix Mill, UK: Sutton, 1999).
2 See James Bamford, Body of Secrets (New York: Random House, Anchor, 2001, 2002) Chapter 4.
3 “Operation Infinite Justice” was the name given to the US attack on Afghanistan where there had been training camps preparing al-Qaeda members for the terrorist assault on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington in 2001, using hijacked planes as missiles. The name was changed to “Operation Enduring Freedom” when it was discovered that the other name would be provocative to Muslims for religious reasons.
4 Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, trans. Rex Warner (Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Books, 1954).
Usefully reprinted and analyzed in James A. Murphy and Richard A. Katula, et al. , A Synoptic History of Classical Rhetoric (Davis, CA: Hermagoras Press, 1994) 217–24.
5 Thucydides 147.
6 Thomson 328.
7 Jeffrey A. Keshen, Propaganda and Censorship During Canada’s Great War (Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 1996) 5, and passim.
8 Plato, Gorgias, trans. W.D. Woodhead, in The Collected Dialogues of Plato, ed. Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns (New York: Pantheon Books, 1961) 521e–522c.
9 Plato, Phaedrus, trans. R. Hackforth, in Hamilton and Cairns, The Collected Dialogues of Plato 261e–262a.
10 See further, on this point, Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria, Book XI, I, trans. H.E. Butler (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979) 8–13; and Marco Tul ius Cicero, De Oratore, I, LIV, trans. H. Rackham and E.W. Sutton (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988) 232–33.
11 Plato, Menexenus, trans. Benjamin Jowett, in Hamilton and Cairns, The Collected Dialogues of Plato 235a–c; 245d.
12 Aristotle,
Rhetoric, The Basic Works of Aristotle, ed. Richard McKeon, trans. W. Rhys Roberts (New York: Random House, 1941) 1356a; and 1377b 25–33 to 1378a 1–5.
13 See Philip Taubman, “Soviet Union’s Chief Spokesman on American TV,” The New York Times, December 30, 1985.
14 Aristotle,
Rhetoric 1380b 7–11.
15 Aristotle, Rhetoric 1357a 1–15; 1357a 16–23.
16 R.W. Johnson, “A Conspiracy Theory for the Downing of KAL 007,” Manchester Guardian Weekly,
December 25, 1983.
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17 Aristotle,
Rhetoric 1358a 35–1358b 20.
18 Aristotle,
Rhetoric 1356a 1–14; 1389a–1390b.
19 Aristotle,
Rhetoric 1380b 35–1381b 35; 1381a8ff and 1381b1.
20 Aristotle, Rhetoric 1419b 27–30.
21 “Choose therefore any point in the speech where such an appeal is needed, and then say ... ‘I will tell you that whose like you have never yet heard for terror, or for wonder.’ This is what Prodicus called ‘slipping in a bit of the fifty-drachma show-lecture for the audience whenever they begin to nod.’ It is plain that such introductions are addressed not to ideal hearers, but to hearers as we find them.” Aristotle, Rhetoric 1415b 13–17.
22 Aristotle,
Rhetoric 1419a 20–21.
23 Quintus Cicero, “Handbook of Electioneering,” Cicero XXVIII, trans. W. Glynn Williams, M. Cary, and Mary Henderson (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, The Loeb Classical Library, 1972) 739–91, 787. The paraphrases and direct quotes below are from this text.
24 For this phrasing, I thank Christine Marlin.
25 Max Weber, “Politics as a Vocation,” from Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, trans. and ed. H.H. Gerth and C.
Wright Mills (New York: Oxford University Press, 1946, 1958) 77–128.
26 Colin Wells, The Roman Empire (London: Fontana Books, 1984) 54.
27 Barbara Levick is one scholar who has cautioned against the assumption that Augustus deliberately set out to shape public opinion with the design of different coins. The mint-masters might have been concerned to present to him a design that he would find pleasing, not a design calculated to manipulate public opinion in his favour. She does, however, allow that the coins might be viewed as “publicity” for the emperor. See her
“Propaganda and the Imperial Coinage,” Antichthon 16 (1982): 104–16. For an account of the increase in por-trayals of Augustus on coinage, see F. Millar, “State and Subject: The Impact of Monarchy,” Caesar Augustus: Seven Aspects, ed. F. Millar and E. Segal (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1985) 44.
28 Matthew 22: 17–22; Mark 12: 14–18; Luke 20: 21–26. The image referred to in the Gospel would likely have been that of Augustus’s successor, Tiberius, but the point remains the same.
29 Here I am indebted to S. Harrison, “Augustus, the Poets and the Monuments,” a paper read to the Corpus Christi Classical Seminar, November 18, 1987, at Oxford, and to a personal communication.
30 See M. Hengel, Crucifixion (London: SCM Press; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977).
31 See A.K. McHardy, “Religious Ritual and Political Persuasion: The Case of England in the Hundred Years War,” International Journal of Moral and Social Studies 3, no. 1 (1988): 95–110.
32 Robin Lane Fox, Pagans and Christians (London: Penguin, 1988) 613–17.
33 P. Meyvaert, “Medieval Forgers and Modern Scholars: Tests of Ingenuity,” in The Role of the Book in Medieval Culture, Bibliologia 3, ed. P. Ganz (Turnhout: Brepols, 1983) 91–92. “Obviously many medieval forgeries are what we would call pious frauds, concocted for what seemed the best motives at the time. Viewed in this kindly and indulgent way, there is little or no har
m in them, and their authors can be absolved from criminal intent” (84).
34 Meyvaert 92.
35 Raymond J. Loenertz, in “Constitutum Constantini: Destination, Destinataires, Auteur, Date,” Aevum 48
(1974): 199–245, argues that the so-called Donation was not viewed by the forger as a juridical document, despite having some of that form, but rather as propaganda to encourage favourable relations between the Roman Church and its powerful eastern ally, with a view to enlisting the latter’s help to defend the emerging Christian state against internal and external enemies.
36 My source for these remarks is A.B. Cobban, The Medieval Universities: Their Development and Organization (London: Methuen, 1975) 8–9.
37 El ul,
Histoire de la propagande.
38 Edmund Spenser, A View of the Present State of Ireland, ed. Andrew Hadfield and Willy Maley (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997) 58.
39 “[I]t may be necessary to compel a man to be free ...” Jean-Jacques Rousseau, “The Social Contract or Principles of Political Right,” Social Contract, intro. Sir Ernest Barker, trans. Gerard Hopkins (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1947) 261.
40 El ul, Histoire de la propagande.
41 See on this and the following, Lynn Hunt, “Engraving the Republic: Prints and Propaganda in the French Revolution,” History Today, October 30, 1980: 11–17.
42 James A. Leith, Media and Revolution (Toronto: Hunter Rose Company for CBC Publications, 1968) 82.
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43 Robert B. Holtman, Napoleonic Propaganda (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1950) opening quotations; references below are taken from this work and will be indicated in the text by bracketed numbers.
44 See Robert Paine, “‘Presence’ and ‘Reality,’ and a Smal wood Speech,” Propaganda and the Ethics of Rhetoric, The Canadian Journal of Rhetorical Studies 3 (1993): 57–73.
45 Anatol Rapoport, ed., Clausewitz on War (Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Books, 1968) 119.
46 Rapoport 101.
47 Louis Ruchames, ed., Racial Thought in America, Vol. I of From the Puritan to Abraham Lincoln (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1969) 388–89.
48 Philip Knightley, The First Casualty (London: André Deutsch, 1975), 23, 23–24.