PUBLIC OPINION AS A WEAPON IN DEMOCRACY'S FIGHT FOR SURVIVAL

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80R01731R000400640010-1
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 19
• Document Creation Date: December 12, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 26, 2002
• Sequence Number: 10
• Publication Date: March 20, 1953
• Content Type: SPEECH

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PUBLIC OPINION AS A
WEAPON IN DEMOCRACY'S
FIGHT FOR SURVIVAL
ADDRESS BY
JULIUS OCHS ADLER
GENERAL MANAGER, THE NEW YORK TIMES
ARMED FORCES INFORMATION SCHOOL
MARCH 20, 1953 FORT SLOCUM, NEW YORK
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0 I
If there is any phrase we hear more frequently than any
other these days, it is "the American way of life." Certainly,
this is a noble phrase and it summons up our complete de-
votion and loyalty. Yet, at the risk of my reputation for
patriotism, I believe there is at least one minor aspect of
"the American way" which might be amended without seri-
ously damaging our democracy. Take the situation in
which you and I find ourselves right now. "The American
way of life" has involved us in one of its most durable and
inescapable institutions-speechmaking. At any given
movement, from dawn to midnight, you may be sure that
a torrent of words is pouring from hundreds of platforms
upon defenseless listeners like yourselves in all parts of our
land. Our most voluminous national product, although by
no means the most valuable, is oratory.
Now, I propose no sympathy for the speechmakers.
Many of them actually enjoy the privileges of the rostrum
and, as for those of us who do not, we have no one to blame
but ourselves for the predicament in which we find ourselves.
My compassion is reserved for the audiences, especially
for captive audiences. Our Founding Fathers could never
have anticipated the rise of the captive audience in our na-
tion when they incorporated freedom of speech and free-
dom of assembly in our original charter of government. If
they had, I am sure that Thomas Jefferson or James Madi-
son would have insisted on a fifth freedom-freedom from
attending any speech unless you wanted to hear it. If such
a practice prevailed as the accepted American way, only
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those of you who felt a burning desire to listen to a speech
today would be present now and I could shake hands with
the two or three attending, say a few words and be on my
way back to my office. Custom dictates otherwise, how-
ever, and so I will do my best to make your brief period of
captivity as agreeable as possible.
Actually, I am both pleased and honored to be here to-
day and I thank you, Admiral Binford, most sincerely for
your invitation. I firmly believe that the duty for which
this school prepares its students is fully as important in our
national defense as any duty the armed services afford. This
is not a mere politeness from a friendly guest. There is no
question in my mind that the responsibilities you will as-
sume on leaving here are as essential to the safeguarding
of democracy as is, for example, accurate gun fire and ade-
quate troop leadership in ground combat. Public opinion
is one of the major weapons in our fight for survival. It is
of the essence of democracy that each individual has a right
to independent thought and independent decision. There-
fore, we can hope for unity and the full marshaling of demo-
cratic strength only when all of us have a common access
to truth and are actuated by it to a common understanding
and a common purpose. To meet successfully the foe who
threatens us around the world, we all must have full knowl-
edge of the issues at stake and the objectives toward which
we are struggling. In a free society, information must be
the common denominator behind unified public opinion
and national policy.
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This is where you fit into our crucial battle in which the
free world now finds itself. We are engaged in a war of
ideas as fully as we are fighting a war of guns, tanks, planes
and ships. Without the kind of contribution you are pre-
paring to make, our task would be infinitely more difficult,
perhaps impossible.
In a way, I feel especially at home in discussing these
ideas with you because of my good fortune in having had
two great parallel interests during practically all my adult
life. I have been a newspaper man for over 35 years and
therefore have been close to the art and technique of com-
munication. At the same time, I have been active in mili-
tary affairs, having participated in both World Wars and
continue today as an active Reservist. So my views on the
relationship of information and education to national de-
fense arise from personal observation in two pertinent pro-
fessional fields.
As a starting point, I think we can postulate that democ-
racy will survive as a system of government only where the
individual citizen has adequate access to all information
necessary for sound judgment and decision. That is because
the will and judgment of the individual citizen are the
foundations upon which our democratic edifice is built.
Conversely, we can postulate that a totalitarian dicta-
torship such as Russia will collapse speedily when the mass
of its people penetrates the iron curtain of prescribed doc-
trine and can be exposed to fact and to truth.
In the crisis which confronts us, the actions and com-
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mitments which the United States makes to defend the free
world will be to an overwhelming degree, controlled by pub-
lic opinion. That opinion may be informed or uninformed,
but of this we may be sure-either way, it will guide the
course of history.- Now if we have an ignorant public, we
may expect it to be an apathetic public or, worse still, an
obstructive public, unable to react to emergencies which it
can only dimly comprehend. Citizens do not lose their
democratic right to have a voice in determining vital poli-
cies even though, through lack of information, they are in-
capable of weighing the issues involved. I should say that
anyone who subscribes to the old adage that "what you
don't know won't hurt you" is as far off the truth as it is
possible to get in this 20th Century world.
We are therefore at the heart of the matter when we
say that a primary responsibility of our government is to
maintain a full flow of information to the people from whom
it draws its ultimate authority. This should be done if only
on the practical theory that in the United States the people
are supreme.
Up to this point, I think we would find universal accept-
ance of our general thesis. The memory of World War II,
in which free men out-fought, out-produced and out-lasted
the totalitarian enemy, is too fresh for anyone to under-
value the importance of public opinion. As a matter of prin-
ciple the people should be informed. It would be hard to
find anywhere in this country a spokesman for censorship
or restriction of the freedom of the press. The channels of
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communication from the government and the defense es-
tablishment to the people, we say, are free and clear. The
only limitations are those made necessary by considerations
of national security.
"National security"-this is where the confusion and
the difficulty start. There are, of course, military and
diplomatic plans whose premature publication would not
only threaten our national security and that of our allies,
but also give aid and comfort to the enemy. However,
from the base of legitimate security has grown an im-
mense barrier of over-secrecy involving the classification
and restriction of material relating to the national
defense.
War and the preparations for it are so total today that
the excuse of "military security" can be, and often has
been, invoked to screen and hide all sorts of information.
The trend toward over-classification and ultra secrecy
has become more and more pronounced, and in many
ways these security restrictions have had an effect oppo-
site to that intended. They have been self-defeating and
instead of helping to preserve our strength they have
far too often merely cloaked weaknesses of which the
public should be aware.
Secrecy and security are by no means synonymous, no
matter how closely allied they may seem to some of
those in military or governmental authority. If secrecy
operates to deprive public opinion of facts which it needs
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for balanced judgment, if secrecy leads the citizens of
our country to feel smug and complacent, when they
should be aroused and alarmed, then secrecy really
damages our security. Representative government cannot
demand corrective action (that is, it cannot act in its
vital self-interest) if legitimate facts are withheld from it
by irresponsible over-censorship at the source.
Senator Stuart Symington of Missouri had something
to say on this subject only last week. As a former Sec-
retary of the Air Force, Senator Symington has sat in
the inner councils of the defense establishment and there-
fore is highly qualified to point out the boundaries of
justifiable secrecy. In the opinion of Mr. Symington the
safety of the nation has been endangered by the failure
to tell the people the whole truth about our military
might as compared with the strength of the Soviet Union
and its satellites. The people must receive all the facts,
he said, so that they can make an intelligent assessment
of the nation's rearmament program. "For years," said
the Senator, "a few of us have tried to get the truth
of our military position out to the people because we
believe our national security, far from preventing the
publication of this information, rather demands it."
Recently one of The New York Times correspondents
wrote a series of articles on shell production in which
it was revealed that for two months last fall the reserve
stocks of artillery shells were well below the point of
,safety. Indeed, a substantial portion of the press of the
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nation followed with stories along similar lines. Subse-
quently, it was authoritatively stated that enough shells
are now on hand to repel any probable Communist attack
but a considerably larger reserve than we have would
be required to support a broad United Nations offensive.
Production now is on the increase but is not yet close to
being satisfactory.
This information had been withheld from the Ameri-
can people, for what undoubtedly seemed to be good
reasons. But in view of those who believe that the public
is integral in our national defense, the incident was an
alarming example of the way in which secrecy can
actually weaken security. One metropolitan newspaper
commented editorially, "These admissions are made by
the Army after months of denial. It shows what can
happen when agencies of the government can hide their
shortcomings behind so-called security regulations of
their own making. It is what to expect when govern-
ment conceals the truth from the people. An outraged
public opinion would have forced an improvement in
this situation months ago-had the facts been known."
General Van Fleet, upon his return, reiterated the
charge of shortages, despite weak denials by the Penta-
gon, and a Congressional investigation is the consequence.
This is not good for morale of our own troops and is,
in turn, helpful to the enemy.
So, we have the results of secrecy-a bad situation
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and Congressional consciousness is sufficiently aroused
to legislate wisely our defense problems in the hydrogen
hydrogen bomb ... more facts are needed before public
with the frightful facts of such a new weapon as the
can penetrate the subconscious of American public opinion
"Only strong and enlightened Government leadership
make, has influenced American public opinion.
ment shoulders for decisions the individual citizen -should
defense problems of the atomic age the public is apathetic.
A type of fatalism, of shifting responsibility to govern-
have been guarded. Toward this and many other crucial
"Civilian defense," says Mr. Baldwin, "has failed to
receive adequate public support, in large measure because
of the ultra secrecy with which all atomic developments
to secrecy, which lies in the field of new weapons.
Hanson W. Baldwin, military editor of The New
York Times, not long ago referred to what he called
"the most dramatic and frightening example" of the trend
which persisted too long and serious criticism of the Army.
age.
The problem is a difficult one. No part of the public
business more desperately concerns the interest of the
people, individually and in the mass, than measures
intended to protect this country in time of physical
danger. Yet, paradoxically, no part of the public business
is so largely conducted without the peoples' knowledge.
What can safely be done to cope with this situation?
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No patriotic person, whether he be journalist or other-
wise, would want to jeopardize the national defense just
to score a scoop or satisfy idle curiosity. Still, the public
business, for the good reasons we have already enumer-
ated, ought to be public-and there are steps 'that can
be taken to accomplish this end.
It seems to me that the citizens and the press, to-
gether, should demand and require first of all that
security regulations and classifications be justified in the
light of the larger public good.
Second, we should insist that basic decisions on with-
holding information be made by competent authorities,
who must take the responsibility for their acts before the
electorate. Whatever restrictions may be imposed should
be made subject to review by competent persons not
directly concerned with the administration. On this very
subject, Arthur Krock, Chief of The Times Washington
Bureau, commented the other day that both the military
authorities and the permanent civilian members of the
administration have a tendency to see breaches of security
where, by sensible tests, they do not exist.
Further, it should be basic that any rules which
have for their purpose the withholding of information
from the press and public should be subject to periodic
review. The requirement should be established that these
rules be revised or at least reviewed from time to time
so that in seeking their renewal officials must justify
them both in principle and in practice.
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In other words, the people must always have reason-
able access to full knowledge of the state of their own
defenses, and no official or department has the right
to hide such information from them, even though frank-
ness may sometimes involve embarrassment and invite
criticism.
When you enter your various tours of duty as in-
formation officers, you will immediately develop a re-
lationship with the press, and when I say press, I have
in mind the broad definition which includes not only
newspapers, but also magazines, radio, television, news
reels and all other vehicles of mass communication. It
is needless to remind you that the press exists to convey
information to the public and that its right and re-
sponsibility to do so are an indispensable part of our demo-
cratic system. Without a free press the democratic way
of life collapses. Witness the fact that almost the very
first step of Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin and Peron, on the
long road to their respective dictatorships, was the same
-the dissolution of freedom of the press.
Our American press fortunately is free, but however
much you rejoice in theory 'over this solid bulwark for
our liberties, there may well be instances when the press
will be a source of great irritation. There will perhaps
be some story, some development which you or your
commanding officer would be quite happy not to share
with the outside world which a persistent reporter will
try to obtain from you. Before you decide that the
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reporter is your mortal enemy and that you must try
to thwart him at every turn, please recall some of the
ideas we have been reviewing here today. The people
have a basic "right to know." The allegiance of the press,
and therefore of that individual reporter, is not to you
but to the public to whose service he owes the highest
degree of alertness, persistence and loyalty. If he and
his fellows just sat around and waited for authorized
handouts, they would be guilty of misfeasance, mal-
feasance and gross neglect of duty. Their mission is
aggressively to unearth and report the news.
Please I urge you not to fall into the error of thinking
of the press or the reporter as an antagonist or that
there exists between you a conflict of interest which
requires a running battle of wits. Reporters are not
searching only for bad news. What they seek and must do
their best to obtain is all the news of the armed services
-the good news and, if there be any, the bad news, too.
In the long run, the defense establishment strengthens its
position if it helps rather than hinders the press in its
appointed duty, even if an occasional private skeleton comes
out of the closet for an airing.
This observation brings us back in a full circle to our
starting point-to the importance of public opinion. I am
sure that part of your indoctrination and training here is
devoted to an exposition of the specific need of the armed
services for a favorable public opinion. If that concept
were not fully appreciated and accepted in the Pentagon,
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this school would never have been instituted. Public opinion
in the last analysis either supports or retards the pro-
grams of the military planners. Appropriations are ex-
tracted from the public purse and must overcome a per-
fectly natural inclination to cut expenditures wherever
possible and thereby reduce taxes. There is a tendency
today in many quarters to view the services as fat, waste-
ful and inefficient. Whether this attitude is justified cer-
tainly is not the subject of our consideration this morning.
But we can agree that public opinion affects the morale
of all members of the standing forces, and certainly the
respect in which matters military are generally held has
a decisive bearing on the ratio of re-enlistments and the
desire of the more" competent to continue in military
careers. In these and many other ways, the state of public
opinion directly affects the progress of the armed services.
Thus there are at least two main purposes to whose
fulfillment your activities will make an indispensable
contribution.
First, the armed services, no less than the other
branches of the government, have the democratic obliga-
tion to the American people to keep them fully informed
of the defense operations for which they are paying so
much to support. Gordon Gray put this very well when, as
Secretary of the Army, he addressed the West Point
graduating class in 1949. Mr. Gray emphasized that the
responsibility for developing understanding between
civilians and the military rests squarely with the soldiers.
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He said:
"This process (of understanding) must be initiated by
you-the soldiers. You must always take the first
step, because you will always be just what you are
now-instruments of the civilian public of the United
States. You-not the civilian members of the public-
have the responsibility of creating public understand-
ing of your profession."
Second, the armed services in their own interest need
the climate of good public opinion, which in turn requires
the- functioning of an enlightened and far-seeing informa-
tion program.
There can exist no doubt that you gentlemen have an
assignment which ranks high among tasks of national
defense. Your duties will require intelligence, tact, under-
standing and imagination--and besides these qualities, a
thorough knowledge of news techniques and all the media
of news dissemination. I am sure I can give you no
advice on the execution of your future duties which will
not be a repetition of principles you have already mas-
tered in your courses at Fort Slocum. Yet, availing
myself of the hallowed privileges of the rostrum, I am
going to risk making briefly a few practical suggestions.
If they duplicate points covered in your training here,
they will at least, by repetition, serve the purpose of
emphasis:
(1) If I were an information officer I would make it
my first objective to establish a reputation for honesty
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and frankness with the members of the press with whom
I came into contact. I would give them freely all the
information I could, and if, for any reason, I were unable
to answer a question, I'd tell them candidly why. A
policy such as this will pay dividends. It will encourage
reporters automatically to check and verify facts with
you whenever they have a story that is within your
jurisdiction. You will then know what is brewing and
will often be able to supply material that will complete
a story with all essential f acts. If you are typed as
evasive and uncommunicative, the press will try to by-
pass you-and you may be a bigger loser than they.
(2) Corollary to the first point is this second piece of
counsel:-do not try to suppress news. I tell you this
as a military man with the welfare of the services at
heart, not in my capacity as newspaperman. In this con-
nection, I can do no better than quote Major General
Floyd V. Parks-Chief of Information of the Department
of the Army. In addressing a group of officers, General
Parks said, "Many people think the public information
job is to suppress unsavory stories and get out something
to offset or change bad stories-I say here today-it is
not possible to suppress news, whether it is good or bad,
and it is poor policy to try. What you generally wind up
with when you try to suppress news is a distorted story.
A reporter gets part of it; it is news and he is going
to print it-and the thing for you to do is to get the
facts out fast, so. the whole facts are available to the
reporters. If it is bad, it's to be regretted but if there
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is any good, get it in."
General Parks' advice is eminently sound. No matter
how much you or your commanding officer on rare
occasions might want to do so, you cannot take a news
story to the far end of the parade ground and bury it.
(3) The exclusive story is a problem every informa-
tion officer encounters sooner or later. Naturally you
should treat all of the press alike and when you send
out a release provide that everyone receives it simultane-
ously. But if a reporter develops a lead on a legitimate
story and should come to you for elaboration, his exclu-
sive angle should be protected. I say this because infor-
mation officers have been known in similar circumstances
to say, "I'll check up," and then file the story as a gen-
eral release available to everyone. When you deprive a
man of a rightful scoop which even his competitors
would recognize, neither he nor they are likely to check
with you hereafter.
(4) Nearly six years ago, Congress passed a bill to
unify and integrate the armed services, a constructive
step in behalf of national security. In an atomic age
when attacks and counter-attacks move with lightning
speed, when one major error may be the final error
which can never be retrieved, complete coordination is
absolutely essential. We cannot have the line of a foot-
ball team devising one play and the backfield planning
something entirely different. We must have a single
American team with which the various service com-
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ponents fit tactically and strategically according to an
integrated plan.
The very fact that this school, representing all serv-
ices, studies information doctrine together, is a most
encouraging sign. From your joint experience here will
emerge a greater understanding of your opposite num-
bers and a better disposition to strengthen unified effort.
This is highly important because, although integration
has made considerable progress, it still has a long way
to go. There are many evidences of inter-service rivalries,
even among the public information officers who, above all,
should know better. To see some of the releases that erupt
from the mimeograph machines, one would think the end
in view is discord rather than harmony.
Let me give you a small example. About a month
ago, the Navy announced that, at a cost of $250,000 and
after long experiment, it had produced a "space suit."
The Air Force information people greeted this announce-
ment with what sounded like jeers. They claimed that
the Air Force had made a similar announcement last
fall and that the Air Force had ten years ago aban-
doned as too cumbersome the same kind of suit now
displayed by the Navy.
This type of cross-fire causes the simple taxpayer to
wonder about both the definitely un-unified sentiment
displayed and the apparently unnecessary duplication of
effort-and cost.
I hope in your future duty you will avail yourself of
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every opportunity to support integration and thereby
augment public confidence in the entire military estab-
lishment. If the sarcastic expression that will embarrass
or irritate another service offers itself, manfully thrust
the temptation aside. Let's save our barbs and ridicule
for the real enemy, not our own teammates.
Before I bring this compendium of gratuitous advice
to a close there is one more thought I should like briefly
to outline-and that is the urgent need of information
by the public on the duties and obligations of the citizen
to our armed forces. Today, not information but misin-
formation is abroad throughout the nation, especially
among parents and teen-agers themselves. They do not
understand the Armed Forces Reserve Act nor the Selec-
tive Service Act, nor the purposes of the National Secur-
ity Training Commission; they fail to comprehend their
own relationship and obligations to the national defense
and, as a result, morale of the public is often far from
what it should be.
We urgently need a thoughtfully planned informa-
tion program that will answer the expressed and unex-
pressed questions in the public mind. I do not mean
thinly disguised recruiting propaganda but an objective
presentation that will help find the answers to such
questions as these : Should a youngster wait until called
by the draft?-or should he enlist? Should he seek by
deferment to delay military service to the latest. possible
minute?-or should he undertake now the patriotic obli-
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gations that fall on everyone?
Public thinking is muddy on these subjects and many
young men acquire doubt and uncertainty from the con-
fusion that prevails among their elders, in the home, in
the schools and in the colleges. Would it not, in such
circumstances, be a constructive project for the infor-
mation services to undertake jointly this phase of public
enlightenment? Could there not be assembled a compre-
hensive report or thesis which would answer questions
and dispel misconceptions? Out of such a document could
then be extracted a brief statement of fundamental
doctrine to be used for example by speakers on Armed
Forces Day and on numerous other occasions. With a well-
organized, well-balanced presentation as a source, these
ideas would flow to the public through a multitude of diverse
channels, helping hundreds of thousands to think in accord-
ance with the national good rather than along lines of mere
personal convenience.
To carry out and implement such an assignment is,
I think, a clear and present challenge to the highest
skills of our information facilities.
In conclusion, let me again congratulate you on the
opportunities which lie before you. The day is long past when
information and education can be considered an incon-
sequential assignment. No weapons in the democratic
arsenal are more important than information and educa-
tion. The information officer is a tremendous factor in our
total strength and you can justifiably go from here to your
new duty with a deep sense of pride and responsibility.
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