THE DEVELOPMENT OF AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL OPERATIONS 1945 - 1951 BY EDWARD P. LILLY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP86B00269R000900020001-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 96
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 29, 2006
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: December 19, 1951
• Content Type: REPORT

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PSYCHOLOGICAL STRATEGY BOARD
WASHINGTON 25, D.C.
'HF DEVELOMENT
OF
ANFRICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL OPERATIONS
,JCS and O SD review(s)
194-].~51
by
Edward P. Lilly, Ph.D.
Preface ............i .............................. 2
Glossary ..........................................?4
Part I, War Experiences and Liquidations .........: 5
Part II, Beginning of the Psychological Effort .....29
25X1
Nam
e
Dat
e
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HISTORICAL PnCT1MENT
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of - L= i ,a1 Staff
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PRE1r CE
This report covers in sum4ary fashion the najor developments during
the past six years on that broad politico-military area of national
policy iliich has been variously identified as propaganda, psychological
tiarfare, or psychological operations. The subject matter has never been
officially defined and there are almost as many diverse definitions as there
are specialists and agencies in the field. The present study intention-
ally avoids any attempt at definition and uses these words in interchange-
able fashion without any subtle distinctions or nuances.
The time factor necessitated serious restrictions on this study.
Greater attention tight have boon given to the psychological elements
influencing economic decisions. There was not time, however, to pursue
this virgin research. Because the research could not be extensive and
penetrating, many statements in the text have been so generalized as to
be somewhat platitudinous.- The treatment of attitudinal developments in
State Departrr..ent particularly suffers from these generalizations Wich
must be made from lack of detailed evidence.
No conclusions are drawn in this study. The research is not suf-
ficiently complete to substantiate worthwhile judgments. Conclusions
also have an undue tendency to persuade and influence the rapid reader
or the operator who seeks the short road to a knowledge of psychological
activities. There is no such easy road to understand psychological
operations and the more one reads on this subject, the sooner its com-
plexities and intangibles will be appreciated. Perhaps then, progress
in the field will be expected,
Even this rapid survey would have been impossible had it not been for
the gracious and wholehearted assistance provided by the many who contri-
buted to this study. The author is deeply grateful to the Staff of the
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'Psychological Strategy Board for the many courtesies extended to him
and for the invaluable help and assistance received by him daily.
Gratitude is also expressed to those listed in the footnotes who con-
tributed so willingly of their time and memories. To all, the author
is r:iost grateful and indebted to them for information, viewpoints, en-
couragement and assistance. This report is not t1leir responsibility,
however, and whatever weaknesses exist in this study are solely the cul-
pability of the author.
Edward P. Lilly
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 AIRS - Armed Forces Radio Service .
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becember l9, '1951
G OSSAIIY
CIA - Central Intelligence Agency
CIAA. - Coordinator of Coiimereial and Cultural Relations Among
The Latin American Republics (after 194., Coordinator of
Inter-American Affairs)
CO1 - Coordinator of Information
DCI . -- 'Director of Central Intelligence
ECA
ERP
ICS
IFIO
IFIS
JCS
JSPG
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Economic Cooperation Administration
European Recovery Program
Interdepartmental Coordination Staff
Interdepartn;ei;tal Foreign In. ormation Organization
Interdepartmental Foreign Information Staff
Joint Chiefs of Staff
Joint strategic Plans Group
Hi;: E - National Military Establishment
NSRB National Security Resources Board
1\160 - National Security Council
OP-1614 -
Special l^ :arfare-Neotion
PaJ3 -
Psychological Strategy Board
SA ACC -
State, Army, Navy, Air Coordinating Committee
SWNCC
-
State, liar and Navy Coordinating Corcmittee
SIJPA
southwest Pacific Area
61P ,27
-
Sulreme Headquarters, ialied Expeditionary Forces
UN
-
United lations
USIS
?~
United States Information service
USSR
-
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
VOA
-
Voice of America
OPC - Office of Policy Coordination in CIA
OR - Office of Special Reprooentative in Paris (EOA)
OS~, - Office of strategic Services
OIWWI - Office of har Information
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 December 19, 1951
PART I. WAR r. PERIFNCES AND LI9?UIDAlIt.NS
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The Psychological Strategy Board did not, like Minerva, spring
unheralded into full-blown existence. The Psychological strategy Board
(l.lorE)in.c.ftor identified as PSB), established by the Presidential directive
of 4.lpril 1951, was one action in a long series of psychological activi-
ties and it takes on perspective only with a knowledge of the previous
efforts. The PLD may in one sense be a new development in American
policy and yet this newness may be more apparent than real. Nations have
always waged war, and tl.tey have also tried peaceful Leans to gain their
national objectives. Even as they fought, the belligerents undertook
non-military activity to influence and weaken the enemy's ti;ill so that
victory could be more rapidly attained. lhether it was the Romans, the
Saracens, Ghengis Khan, the Ara.crican Continental Congress of 1776, or the
plies of 1917--1918y threats, rmiors, enticing statements, bribery and
political strate en.s were intentially used to. confuse and hamper the
enemy's purposes, to weaken and lessen their resistance and to persuade
the enemy population that they should stop fighting. Appeals to entice
and '..oep one's allies were a pleasanter aspect of such psychological activi-
ty. A classical example during ?'orld 'far I of such a psychological maneu-
ver was President Wilson's announcement of his "Fourteen Points" (January,
1918). This declaration, momentarily united and idealized the tar effort
of the American and Allied governments and peoples, offered the enemy a
hope e'ul and desirable future as the alternative to the horrors of war
and appealed to neutral opinion on a high moral tone. During 1916,
American propagandists, in George Creel's Committee on Public Information,
in the Yy.'ar Department; s Psychologic Branch and in General Pershing's
Intelligence Division, exploited btilson's themes to enemy, ally and neutral
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December 19, 1951
through wireless bulletins, news and feature stories, leaflets,maps,
posters and pictures. Allied agencies, if not American, employed
covert methods to get those ideas circulated within Germany. In world
War I, such psychological activity contributed in i-..ajor fashion to the
disintegration of the Hapsburg Empire and accelerated, if it did not cause,
the veakening of the German government which made the armistice necessary.
America gained quite an extensive propaganda experience in i-Jorld.
War I. After the Armistice, however, America preferred to slough off its
responsibilities. The wartir?e propaganda agencies were rapidly licuidated.
Official reports enumerated accomplishments but did not attempt to evaluate
effectiveness or difficulties. Then all u s forgotten until 1941.
America desired to be left alone to amass wealth in the Twenties and to
concentrate on its domestic depression and recovery programs during the
Thirties. Mile domestic information facilities increased, especially
radio broadcasting, Lnd Americans bucaiae the most news-conscious people,
tl,.ey x ercained basic_ fly indifferent to world developments. The widespread
acceptance of the economic interpretation of history and of life, together
with the revisionist histories of World i/ar I, caused the average American
to view wars as profit and persuasion: bankers and munition makers reaped
the profit and plied their fellow citizens and world opinion with appealing
propaganda to increase their gains. Unaware that they were thereby being
propagandized, Americans became isolationist and concomitantly developed
a phobia against the very word "propaganda", as a horrid, sinister word,
a really un-American word and activity.
These attitudes solidified in the Thirties, but some few Americans
I/ George Creel, How We Advertised America (N.Y. 1919)j Committee on
Public Information, Official Q222rt (t.,- (Washington, 1919). It
was not until 1939 that the first and still inadequate historical
study on the Creel Committee was made. James B. hock & Cedric Larson,
Words That !-,Ton the hr (Princeton, 1939). d. ,P.Lilly interviews with
Elmer Davis, Robert Sherwood, et a].i.i.
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b coy o perturbed at Nazi Germany's use of psychological factors to control
the German people and to threaten European security. By 1939, the Austrian,
Czoch and. Polish incidents made clear that Hitler's regime was consciously
using cajolery, bribery, threats both physical and moral, publicized use of
force, diplomatic and economic measures, and a powerfully rernilitarized Wehr-
macztt in accordance trith a Nazi grand strategy. It was employing the psycho-
logical factor, overtly through its press service, its world covering
shortwave broadcasting, and other controlled informational media, covertly
through "fifth columnists", pan--Germanic groups, tourists and student groups
and secret agents. 4hen lj.orld h'ar 11 started and especially with the fall
of France (June 1940) and the aerial blitz and peace offensive against Eng-
land, psychological warfare techniques became evident even to Americans.
Some felt that only fire could fight fire; only American psychological war-
fare could counter and destroy Nazi psychological warfare. Such was .the
national hostility towards propaganda that official American action was
long delayed.
America was engaged in a psychological war with the Nazis long before
the nation became militarily involved. As early as 1939, Geri:cany was waging
psychological warfare in the United States, alternately cajoling or indirect-
ly threatening, to prevent Amrican aid to the Allies. Nazi economic and
propaganda penetration of Latin America was a serious threat to our national
security. Nazi conquest of France heightened the possibility that Latin
America might fall into the Nazi power orbit. The United States had to act.
Propaganda was still a horrid word, and the national administration in 1940
could not hope to establish an admitted propaganda agency. American psycho-
logical operations or opinion-influencing activities had to be cloaked in
the subterfuge of agency titles. Unfortunately, the situation was never
clarified and throughout the war, American propaganda was not officially
admitted. America .carried on informational activities. These serantica
contributed to the endless discussions defining the agencies;' functions
and areas of activity, to their numerous inter-agency jurisdictional conflicts,
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and to a suspiciously delimited and begrudged participation in the war effort.
The very term "psychological warfare" was intentionally dreamed-up to
conceal, and, although it has now been used in government circles for
a decade, no agreed definition of the phrase as yet exists. Forgetting
that America had used propaganda in every national emergency we confused
ourselves, and weakened our psychological efforts to avoid arousing
the national aversion to propaganda.
Because all Americans, Republicans and Democrats, agreed on hemis-
pheric defense and Pan-Americanism, the Roosevelt administration could
establish an agency to coordinate our defense activities in Latin America
and to foster Latin American attitudes favorable to our objectives. There
would not be partisan clamor if its propaganda aspects were properly con-
cealed. In August 1940, Nelson A. Rockefeller was appointed as "Coordina-
tor of Commercial and Cultural Relations Among the Latin American Republics"
(hereinafter identified as CIAA). 1 hile the Rockefeller agency had economic,
financial and commercial responsibilities in Latin America, its prinary
function was to employ all these instruments in conjunction with an exten-
sive American information program so that the Latin Americans would recognize
Axis success as a serious threat to their freedom. lUith such iiforn:ation
Latin Americans .could naturally join the United States in aiding the Western
Allies against the Axis aggressors. This prime purpose of Rockefeller's
CIA had to be concealed in verbiage, lest the American people and the
world suspect that the United States was engaging in that horrid activity -
propaganda. J
Similarly, in mid-1941, with Lend-Lease, American Aid to Russia
and American occupation of Icoland, it became necessary to establish
another organization which would make clear to the people of Europe, that
Rowland, History of the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American
(Washing ton, 191+oi .
Affairs
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is, to England and its Corranont?realth, to the peoples in occupied areas,
to the neutral nations, and even to the Axis powers, that the American
policy favored the Allies and vas opposed to the Axis... Because of the.
delicate domestic situation, the administration still could not openly
speak of a propaganda agency to influence the opinions and actions of
Europeans, although national policy required that all ,opeans should
clearly understand the basic American preference for an Allied victory.
Hence, a Coordinator of Inf or'mation, "?7illiam Donovan, teas appointed in
July 1941, ostensibly to centralize the government's foreign intelligence.
It was understood, however, by the President, the Bureau of the Ludget and
Donovan that COI would not only collect and evaluate intelligence, but that.
it would also operate an e..tensive foreign information service so that
Europeans would interpret American views and policies most favorably to the
tallied cause. Like Rockefeller's CIAA in Latin America, COI's developing
informational activities throughout the Eastern Hemisphere (Europe and Asia)
had to be cloaked in ande:finiteness, if not actual secrecy.
Prior to our entrunce_into World War II, these two agencies increased
the existing American information media in overseas areas. Being adequate-
ly serviced with American news, world opinion could not fail to cooperate
with the United States in aiding the Allies and opposing the Axis. The
agencies operated on the principle that American information programs were
based on truth. Lies, deceit, and misinterpretations should not be a
part of the American effort. This philosophy of truth continued throughout
the war. In one sense, all propaganda is based on the truth since false
propaganda is rapidly discovered and destroys the whole effort. The im-
portaat but undetermined element, however, is the proportion of truth and
the proportion of interpretation to be included in the information -program.
The information operators in COI and CL.A had to learn the distinction
between straight news and an opinion-influencing program which would support
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