Within this vacuum, each agency eagerly developed its own distinct form of propaganda. By contrast, the OWI was led by liberals, New Dealers, and those in the media and arts who adhered to Wilsonian ideals and believed that the truth about America, as they perceived it, would win out through the sheer power of its message. They detested the Nazi regime every bit as much as their OSS counterparts but refused to emulate Nazi tactics. Despite these conflicts, American propaganda did accelerate the drive toward victory, thanks to the emergence of the PWB and PWD, which after 1943 controlled the production of American propaganda against Germany, bending ideological agendas to serve the military's purely tactical objectives. But, as Laurie makes clear, all three agencies played a vital role in this crucial effort, even as their conflicts foreshadowed future ideological disputes during the Cold War.
Propaganda can be truthful, or it can lie to help win a war.
The debate Laurie unveils was not resolved during World War II, merely postponed, as the United States went into the Cold War and Vietnam. Donovan, Intrepid, and the Origins of CIA . A lively and revealing study of interagency rivalry in that most crucial of wartime arenas, propaganda warfare. There is much that is new and important in this book.