The Art of Psychological Warfare 1914 to 1945
A lot of the book, of course, is focused on propaganda from World War I, and that part I will leave out of this synopsis.
The part I will cover is that having to do with World War II. The author writes about Japanese radio broadcasts to the U.S., trying to discourage Americans and get them to end the war. The author points out that the Japanese had no clue at all about how strongly Americans had reacted to the attack on Pearl Harbor. The level of hatred and anger that attack evoked in Americans was something the Japanese did not anticipate or understand, so any Japanese propaganda that tried to get Americans to just give up was a miserable failure.
Some of the book section that deals with World War II deals with Nazi propaganda attempts. The book is quite comprehensive on what it does.
One of the really interesting things was the Four Freedoms that FDR enumerated. These were:
1.Freedom of Speech
2.Freedom to Worship God
3.Freedom from Want
4.Freedom from Fear
Think about those four things for a minute and you will realize just how fundamental and how important they are to people. Any country that denies one or more of those to its citizens is a country that has severe problems.
In June 1941 the OWI (Office of War Information) was established, and the OSS (Office of Strategic Services.) The OWI wanted to concentrate its efforts on the Japanese militarists, and not try to stir up any anger against the Emperor himself. There were even very specific directions that anyone form the agency broadcasting to Japan had to follow:
1.Broadcasters must sound calm and polite at all times.
2.There must be no shouting or screaming.
3.They must observe all normal Japanese courtesies.
4.Keep any news as simple as possible.
Propaganda directed towards German soldiers had some effect, but the best results was that aimed at Japanese soldiers. The thing is, the Japanese soldiers were trained to fight to the death, annihilate the enemy, die for the Emperor, etc. It was flatly assumed that none would surrender, and that they would all die. For any who did surrender, they were entering totally new territory. The author notes that the soldiers who did surrender felt that they were “dead” to all those they knew in Japan, so they had nothing to lose. They would respond to questions asked, and gave detailed information to the interrogators.
"Being outcasts of one society, they naturally tried to find a place in another." Those who surrendered sometimes even worked with the American forces to try and convince their comrades still fighting to go ahead and surrender. This could prove dangerous, of course, and, at times, fatal.
The book also discusses some very specific broadcasts made to Japan, and how they were aimed at the “peace faction” what was growing in Japan. The broadcasts tried to downplay the role the Emperor had played in the war, and gave the idea that nothing would happen to him if Japan surrendered.
The author then turns to Japanese propaganda, repeating that their concept of American reaction to Pearl Harbor was totally wrong. They also assumed that Americans were decadent and lazy. They claimed that the Japanese were spiritually stronger than Americans and, of course, none of this went over well with U.S. citizens.
Another problem with the Japanese radio broadcasts to the U.S. was that Americans had trouble understanding them. There was static, of course, but the speaking manner of the broadcasters was obviously not that of people who were good at English. The author then goes into one of the successful broadcasters, and that was Tokyo Rose. The author notes that her broadcasts did the opposite of what they were supposed to do; they actually raised morale for the American soldiers, not lowered it.
This is a book that has a good bit of information on WWII American and Japanese propaganda in addition to a wealth of information on U.S. and German propaganda, and World War I propaganda. It's a very interesting and complete book.
Main Index
Japan main page
Japanese-American Internment Camps index page
Japan and World War II index page
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