APRIL 6, 1960

MEMO TO: HENRY A. KISSINGER

FROM: ENNO HOBBING

SUBJECT: POSITION PAPER ON INFORMATION POLICY

The field of information policy is so nebulous and semantically disordered a one, and one where plenty of examples can be found to prove or disprove any argument, that it did not seem practical to draw up a precise, point-for-point position paper. Instead, I roughed out a new conceptual approach to information policy in the form of speech notes. Properly revised and refined, this draft might at some time give NAR a chance to talk about domestic politics at the same time that he is talking about U. S. I. A. -- as you will see when you read.

We can discuss this at your leisure and, of course, we can start all over again if we then think better of the matter.

EH:lr

Enclosure

[y]

POSITION PAPER J-4

(preliminary)

E. Hobbing

April 5, 1960

International Papers

U.S. Information Policy

A. **ISSUE:**

How can the US information program abroad be made more effective?

B. **SUGGESTED POSITION (preliminary)**

1. There is no consensus on what the US information program abroad should do. Some critics consider all propaganda innately wicked and anti-democratic. Some feel that propaganda cannot be any better than policy and can add little to policy. Others believe that at times massive propaganda can rectify a foreign situation in which the other arms of US policy have failed. Some want much more propaganda, others want the existing program sharply curtailed. The only thing that almost everybody can agree on is that there is something wrong with our propaganda. In the absence of clear and affirmative purpose, the US information program limps along from day to day, cautiously, uninspired and of sharply limited usefulness.

2. The only *concept* that will make the US information program work is a *political* concept. Let us conceive of the whole United States as a single democratic party, engaged in a global campaign

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a. USIA is supposed to _tell the truth_. That sounds fine, but actually it begs the whole question of a political information policy. In winning politics, it is never enough to _tell_ the truth -- you have to _sell_ the truth about yourself and your party. Truth can be told in ways that are irrelevant and boring. Selling the truth requires that the proper aspect of the truth be presented in the proper way at the proper time to the proper audience. The job of USIA in selling the truth is not simply to present it, but persuasively to _put the truth in its best light_.

b. USIA is supposed at all times to maintain a sober, factual, rational tone in its output. This too is an eminently non-political injunction. Any political speech or statement worthy of its salt must be responsive to its audience. If the audience is angry, a political utterance must share the anger or placate it or divert it. If the audience is disappointed, a political utterance must react to the disappointment. Where there is exultation, a good political statement dampens it when the exaltation is hostile and heightens it when the exultation is friendly. We cannot prescribe in advance what mood USIA should reflect at any given time, but we can confidently assert that the policy of being deliberately unemotional will be politically wrong most of the time. Our information output has to have feeling and drama if it is to be persuasive.

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that we have a comprehensive position on world issues that rebuts
the Communist position at almost every point.

e. U. S. propaganda must lead, not follow. At present, U. S. propaganda follows the events and follows Communist propaganda moves. When a riot occurs or a pact is signed or a Communist plan goes unfulfilled, U. S. propaganda comments on it but immediately ceases to do so once the event is no longer in the news. Similarly, if the Communist propaganda line on any subject veers in this or that direction, U. S. propaganda refutes the new ideological turn once or twice and then lets it go at that. U. S. propaganda almost never makes news of its own, and very seldom takes the initiative to compel the Communists to reply to it. No domestic politician would get very far if he made himself simply a news commentator or if he simply reacted to the statements of his rival. U. S. I. A. has to cut loose with campaigns of its own that spell out the American platform in such a way that it will embrace and shape events.

f. U. S. propaganda has got to learn more about the people it addresses. This should be elementary. And yet in broadcasting to the Soviet orbit, for example, U. S. propaganda basically assumes that it is talking to millions of people who are old Jeffersonian democrats at heart and who uniformly hate a tiny, fanatic clique that rules them. This is a gross oversimplification of the political situation in the Communist orbit, to say the least. It also completely neglects the individual human situation of people behind the Iron Curtain, who are beset by

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personal qualities like hope, fear, cynicism, jealousy and all
the other qualities of people everywhere. Any politically
effective broadcasting to the Communist-dominated or any other
people must be based on as detailed and discerning and non-dogmatic
a knowledge of the audience as an American candidate tries to
acquire before each whistle-stop.

g. U. S. propaganda has got to stop insulting people's intelligence. A major fault of present information output is that it talks down to the listener. In talking to people who live under censorship or who have limited access to news, U. S. output assumes that because they are ill-informed they are stupid. The fate that befalls patronizing politicians should warn us against this practice. We should always assume that the listener or reader is at least as intelligent as the propagandist. Moreover, U. S. propaganda must end its insulting emphasis on material things, such as, the American standard of living. Economics, like everything else, has a place in political propaganda, but it is no more important than justice, individual rights, culture and many other matters.

h. U. S. propaganda has to develop much better techniques for evaluating its results. Nobody agrees on what results are wanted today. But surely objective criteria such as, how many people read U. S. output or listen to it, foreign newspaper space deb

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devoted to U. S. output, public comments on U. S. propaganda, and others can be established. These criteria are as important to have as the criterion of the result at the ballot box is in politics. And as domestic politics uses depth interviews and sophisticated polls to determine trends, we must work out techniques to determine the successes and failures of our propaganda.

i. U. S. propaganda has to apportion its resources more intelligently. The U. S. I. A. budget has been running about $100 million a year. Future Congresses may raise or lower that amount. But in any case, the use of this political campaign fund should be re-examined so that it will be spent where the need is greatest. For example, too much is probably spent in Western Europe, which is a fairly safe constituency from the U. S. point of view, and not nearly enough is spent in some of the contested, underdeveloped areas. Also, a great deal is spent at Washington headquarters that might be more suitably used in the field.

The U. S. I. A. appropriation ought to be reparceled like an intelligently handled party budget.

j. U. S. propaganda has got to run scared. That is, we must stop thinking that Communist propaganda is ineffective. We talk about the "cunning" of Communist propaganda as though the cunning were self-defeating, and we refer to it as "a pack of lies" as though it always lied and as though nobody could possibly believe a lie. Yet we ourselves are every day affected by

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Communist propaganda, directly or indirectly. We have to take
Communist output as seriously as we take the claims of a rival
party at least at home, and either bury it in silence or refute
it or trump it as seems appropriate in each case.

5. These ten points have dealt with the practice of political propaganda in itself. A further observation must be made about the integration of propaganda with policy. Again, a good politician will generally seek advice on how he can most effectively present his major proposals. He may ignore the advice if he does not like it, or he may take it, but in any case, he will solicit it. This is not the situation with the U. S. information program. True, the director of U. S. I. A. sits on the National Security Council, but his advice and the advice of his staff is not nearly often enough solicited when the President, the State Department, the Defense Department or other agencies are about to declare policies with a pronounced impact abroad. This does not imply that the Director of U. S. I. A. should necessarily be upgraded. It simply means that he should be constantly consulted as an adviser on the most persuasive way to present major U. S. government decisions and programs to the world as a whole. Only when that is done will we be able to put the truth about the U. S. in its best light.

6. Beyond adopting new practices to govern printed or
spoken U. S. information output, U. S. I. A. also has to become
much more efficient in personal political liaison. U. S. I. A.

officers must concentrate their individual efforts of information
and persuasion on local editors, journalists and other prominent
opinion-makers in foreign countries. This process should not be
confused with the people-to-people approach of merely communicating
and winning friends. This should be a subtle, hard-headed job of
high-level press agentry, practiced with all the skills that have
been developed, in order to sell the U. S. political point of view
to foreigners who in turn can sell their own people.

7. In sum, what it will take to make the U. S. information program effective abroad will be the application to the program of the most enlightened and successful principles of American public relations, tailored to foreign situations.

### C. Discussion:

This is essentially included in B above. Other relevant considerations will be found under F below.

### D. Related Issues:

U. S. Foreign Policy in general..