 The propaganda circulated by his Ministry (typically including references to "happy, smiling natives") was considered laughable. Visiting British journalist Peregrine Worsthorne, who knew Van der Byl socially, reported seeing a copy of Mein Kampf on his coffee table. His propaganda strategy became increasingly unsuccessful abroad, where Van der Byl alienated many of the foreign journalists and politicians that he came into contact with. Max Hastings, then reporting for the Evening Standard, described him as "appalling" and said that he and Smith "would have seemed ludicrous figures, had they not possessed the power of life and death over millions of people"; Van der Byl had him deported.
