Читать книгу Psychological Warfare - Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger - Страница 30

Politics has great influence on the content of psychological warfare. The relationship between two warring states is not one of complete severance; on the contrary, in wartime the relationship becomes abnormal, acute, sensitive. Each belligerent takes a strong interest in the other, in its affairs and weaknesses. During World War II the American armed services, government, and people learned more about the Japanese than they would have in twenty years of peacetime education. Japanese names made news. The purposes and weaknesses of the Japanese became the objects of hatred and—along with the hatred—intense scrutiny.

Each warring nation tries to turn the known enemy interest in itself into favorable channels. The propagandists of each country try to give the enemy the news which the enemy wants, while so arranging that news as to create a drop in enemy morale, to develop uncertainty in enemy policies, to set enemy cliques into action against each other. The propagandist sometimes becomes very agitated because he recognizes as a technician propaganda opportunities which national policy prohibits his using. The propagandist who is so intent on his target that he forgets his broader responsibilities can often spoil the entire operation.

German broadcasters who emphasized the anti-capitalist character of National Socialism in the programs beamed to Eastern Europe found that B.B.C. picked up the most tactless statements and repeated them to Western Europe, where the Germans posed as anti-Bolshevik champions of private property. American attacks on the Germans for associating with Japanese monkey-men were passed along by the Japanese to the Chinese, who did not like the slur either. The most notorious example of backfiring propaganda was of course the famous "Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion" phrase, which may have made James G. Blaine lose to Grover Cleveland in the national election of 1884; the phrase was used by a Republican clergyman in New York, referring to the Democrats, and implied that the Wets (anti-prohibitionists), Catholics, and Southerners were important components in the Democratic Party. (This may have been true, but it pleased none of them to have the matter pointed out with such epithets; the phrase succeeded in its short-range purpose, that of rousing Republicans, but failed by rousing the enemy even more and offending neutral-minded persons as well.)

The balance between home-front politics and field psychological warfare is difficult to maintain. The closer the psychological warfare officer is to the enemy, the more apt he is to think of the mission in terms of getting the enemy to come on over. Why quibble about a few phrases if the words will save lives, matériel, and time? Unfortunately the phrase that is successful against the enemy on the battle front may prove to be an irritant to the home public, with the sure consequence that the enemy will pick it up and send it back to do harm. Similarly, home-front propaganda can get out to do the theaters of operation harm: "Do your utmost—save lard!" sounds silly to men in combat areas.

This can be illustrated by the propaganda problem of the Japanese Emperor. It would have helped domestic American politics to call the Japanese Emperor a monkey, a swine, a lunatic, a witch-doctor or comparable names; some people did so. But if the American government had done so at home for the purpose of rousing its own public, the Japanese home public would have been roused even more with the net result that the Americans would have lost by such attacks. If the Russians promised—as in another instance they are reported to have done—good food and warm clothes to the Germans on the winter fronts, the Nazis passed that promise along to the Russian civilians, who would not think well of Stalin's letting Fascist invaders be plump and snug while they themselves nearly starved. For the enemy audience, it is good to portray excellent care of enemy personnel; for the home audience, it is poor. For the home audience it is sometimes good to present the enemy as ruthless lunatics, beasts in human form, cruel degenerates, and so on; but the same claims, falling into enemy hands, can be used to the disadvantage of the originator by being relayed to the enemy home audience.

Furthermore, sound psychological warfare must take account of the fact that its ultimate aim is the successful ending of the war. For the end to be successful it must occur—the fighting must stop and the nations must enter into altered but renewedly peaceful relations. Propaganda that promises the enemy too much will alienate both allies and home public. But propaganda that promises bloody vengeance hurts possible peace movements in the enemy camp. None of the great powers in World War II went so far as to promise specific frontiers for the postwar period. They kept their promises vague, knowing that a definite promise would please somebody but alienate everyone else; furthermore, by not promising, the expectations of the hopeful parties can be kept at a higher pitch. If the French do not know that they will get the Saar they will fight so much the harder; but if they are promised the Saar they come in a very short while to regard the promise as a settled matter, and proceed to ask for something else. Meanwhile, other possible claimants to the Saar either have a sense of grievance or lose interest in the matter. For this reason, postwar political uncertainty can be a propaganda asset.

President Roosevelt, in his conduct of the political world role of the United States, promised Manchuria to the Chinese, Korea "in due course" to the Koreans, and the integrity of the French Colonial Empire to the French; outside of that he avoided specific promises. In another instance (to put a complicated matter baldly), the British promised Palestine to both the Arabs and to the Jews in World War I, and consequently got themselves into a political mess which, thirty years later, was still a mess.