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PROPAGANDA
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s it un-American to wage propaganda
warfare against the terrorists, their
supporters, and other adversaries of
the United States? Does the use of
propaganda and psychological
operations by definition compromise America’s democratic principles?
These are legitimate questions as the nation
prepares to enter its fifth year of the war on terrorism. Even the White House agrees that the US
is not winning the international “war of ideas”
against Islamist extremism. And in wartime, not
winning is losing.
The troops in the field are doing their job,
and they’re doing it well. The diplomats, message-makers, spinmasters, bureaucrats, and political operatives—and the government lawyers
who needlessly restrict their options—are letting
down the troops. The nation’s political leaders
are denying the troops one of the most important
tools of all: effective propaganda and strategic
influence operations.
Covert action to influence those who shape
and make policy abroad has been taboo for two
Revolutionary Americans tar and feather
generations. Lawmakers and appointed officials
a British tax collector. This image is a
gladly wage political warfare—hard-nosed heartsdirect reference to the actual tarring
and-minds stuff that Democrats and Republicans
and feathering of a British customs
use to fight and destroy one another—at home, but
commissioner named John Malcomb in
don’t let themselves wage it against the terrorists.
1774, and a more general reference
At this point, almost no one is left at the CIA who
to colonial discontent over
is versed in political warfare or psychological opthe British imposition of the
erations (PSYOP) at the national strategic level, as
Stamp and Tea Acts. The
propaganda has become practically off-limits as a
Boston Tea Party rages
political policy tool abroad.
in
the
background.
“Strategic influence” operations have been
deemed un-American. The Pentagon’s Office of Strategic Influence (OSI), set up shortly after the 9/11 attacks, lasted a mere four months before bureaucratic saboteurs shut it down. And when the Special Operations Command was caught last December paying Iraqi journalists to run
articles in their newspapers—positive articles about the US military
that were designed to counter enemy propaganda and give the Iraqi
people some hope—official Washington suffered fits of bed-wetting.
So while the military does its best to fight the terrorists and their
supporters, how can the US fight and win the battle for the world’s hearts
and minds?
The answer is simple: propaganda is not un-American. In fact, propaganda,
political influence, and psychological warfare are American traditions, tied up in the
country’s birth. It’s time US foreign policy returns to its roots.
Hopelessly outmatched against the world’s most formidable military power, the founding
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fathers recognized that the opinions and perceptions of foreign governments, publics, and armies
*
mattered. Thus, they compensated
asymmetrically with public diplomacy, propaganda, counterpropaganda, and political warfare. They
never used those terms—all came
into vogue as we know them in the
20th century—but they employed
all the measures, integrating them
with domestic politics, secret diplomacy, intelligence, and warfare
with decisive strategic effect. Instruments of propaganda not only
bred, but helped win, the American
Revolution.
Massachusetts patriot Samuel Adams was the first to explore
what a biographer called a blend of
“philosophy and action in ongoing
political struggles”—modern political warfare. As one of the earliest
proponents of secession, Adams
consistently pursued a two-track
campaign: a relentless negative
political or ideological attack followed by a positive, morally and
philosophically sound alternative
solution that kept the enemy on
the defensive.
The negative approach:
“Keep the enemy in the
wrong”
*
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On March 5, 1770, a mob of men and boys began taunting
a British sentry. When other British soldiers joined
the scene, a riot broke out, shots were fired, and five
Bostonians were killed. Paul Revere’s engraving of this
event, the “Boston Massacre,” depicts a British firing
squad deliberately mowing down a crowd of colonists
in order to incite early Americans to revolution.
The first step, Adams argued, must be the negative attack, couched when possible in
comity and amity by allowing the
adversary’s misconduct speak for
itself. He counseled in 1775, “It is
a good Maxim in Politicks as well
as in War to put & keep the Enemy in the Wrong.”
Leading Bostonian opposition to the Stamp Act and other
laws Parliament imposed on the
colonies in the 1760s, Adams pioneered new methods of democratic political warfare, combining
scandal, outrage, and demands
for justice with public accountability and transparency, ridicule,
shame, and abuse.
Adams worked through the
English constitutional and legal
system, using the system as a
weapon against itself, exploiting
laws, procedures, and precedents
to his revolutionary advantage.
As he orchestrated political takeovers of British-controlled institutions from the inside, he attacked the system as politically
and morally illegitimate from the
outside to show that the crown
could do nothing to meet the people’s
fair demands against taxation without
representation.
He worded legislative resolutions
and other pronouncements in ways designed to put the local royal authorities, as
well as parliament and the king, in impossible situations. He placed the British authorities
in lose-lose positions that would
open them up to attack no matter
what decision they made. Taking
advantage of the crown’s own
missteps and the unpopular traits
of colonial authorities in Boston,
Adams built parallel political and
administrative structures that
mocked and negated British rule
while creating new, legitimate
democratic formations that demonstrated both the limits of the
crown’s power and the new powers of the people.
A weak speaker, Adams understood the integration of oratory with the written word and the
visual image. Recruiting a young,
wealthy merchant named John
Hancock, he ensured that protesters were outfitted with elaborate costumes, props, and musical
instruments to lead protest songs
in harbor-side demonstrations
and parades through Boston’s
streets. He filled broadsheets with
news of events that he created or
orchestrated. Crowds made effigies of royal officials and hanged
them from the branches of the
Liberty Tree before thousands of
enthralled Bostonians.
The positive approach:
Promote ideas, values, and an
image of victory
*
Benjamin Franklin first penned this
cartoon in 1754 for the Pennsylvania
Gazette to convey the necessity of
colonial unity. The image was later coopted by the revolutionary Culpepper
Minutemen, who used the symbol
of the snake in conjunction with
the threat: Don’t Tread on Me.
As Adams and Hancock waged
constant political and psychological
attacks on the crown and its agents
overseas and at home, they also created
American Revolution literally began as a British attempt to capture the anti-colonial
an idea for which Americans would fight.
propagandists.
The American struggle for self-determiAs volunteers massed around Boston to fight what would become the Battle of
nation spawned the creation of a country
Bunker Hill and the Continental Congress named 43-year-old George Washington as
based not on language, race, class, ancestry,
commander of the new Continental Army, Gage issued a proclamation to pardon
or geography, but a nation whose common
any and all American rebels—including Washington—who had opposed, fought,
bond was an idea.
or even killed the king’s forces. In capital letters he made only two exceptions:
The construction of an American national“SAMUEL ADAMS and JOHN HANCOCK, whose offences are of too flagitious a
ity was derived from the “self-evident” universal
nature to admit of any other consideration than condign punishment.” Neither
truths that “all men are created equal, that they
man would hang; both would be re-elected to the Continental Congress.
are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and
the pursuit of Happiness.” Indoctrinating Americans
The Declaration of Independence as propaganda
in those positive ideals comprised the second, positive
As the unanimous bedrock statement of principle of the United
approach of early American propaganda. Twice in the
Congress
al
of America, the Declaration of Independence illustrated, with a
Continent
States
the
nce,
Declaration of Independe
tactical switch of emphasis, the founding fathers’ dual approach to
appealed to both domestic and international public opinion
communicating their message.
in support of the cause and principles of freedom.
The document began with repeated positive statements of
The propaganda campaign, designed by Adams, was
the
viewed
often
ideals, and obligations, including the right to oust rewho
rights,
British,
the
to
downright subversive
pressive governments. Second, it resisted Britain’s divide-andpolitical warriors as more dangerous than the shockingly unconquer colonial strategy and aimed at attracting other large
conventional warriors on the battlefield. American propaganda
powers as allies by showing inter-colonial unity. Finally, it
and political action would tilt the balance in the asymmetrical war
vilified the enemy government. While sparing the British
it.
knew
ahead, and the British
people and even parliament, it laid all blame on the king:
General Thomas Gage, British military governor of Massachuof
men
dangerous
most
the
“The history of the present King of Great Britain is a hisas
Hancock
and
setts, considered Adams
tory of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in
the nascent rebellion. On receiving orders to arrest the entire elected po800
marching
pair,
the
on
direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny
focused
Gage
colony,
the
litical leadership of
over these States.”
troops to Lexington where his spies reported they were hiding. Lexington
The Declaration of Independence includes a
sat astride the road to Concord, where Gage intended to capture rebel a
litany of crimes that reads like a criminal indictpowder magazine. Paul Revere foiled the plan on his famous Midnight Ride,
ment of the king. It accused George III of everyhelping Adams and Hancock escape as the British approached the town. The
This false report—an act of covert propaganda—persuaded
thing from arbitrariness, illegality, abuse, and neglect
King Louis XVI and his divided court to aid the Americans, covertto hinting that His Majesty was not only a tyrant, but
ly at first, with the secret assistance of Spain. With France now
was unwholesome, criminal, and possibly even unmanly.
covertly aiding the Americans in the war, the Continental ConThe king, the framers said, started the hostilities “by declargress sent Franklin to Paris, where he attempted to negotiate
ing us out of his Protection and waging War on us.” “He
a formal military alliance against the British. The struggling
has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns,
United States had little to offer the cash-strapped French for
and destroyed the lives of the people.” By putting the enemy
such a high-risk venture, but the strategy was for the US to
unequivocally in the wrong, the authors of the declaration disalcheck British imperial expansion, in this case by Amerilowed any compromise.
can diplomacy and political action backed by French
But the authors of the declaration intended their words to go
wealth and military force.
far beyond the American colonies, the king, or even the parliament
London saw the septuagenarian Franklin, crossin London. They intended to take their message to the world. In the
ing the Atlantic with his two grandsons, as one of
founding document of its existence, the US government thus initiated
its greatest threats. British Ambassador Lord Storan international propaganda campaign designed not only to claim moral
mont, who also headed the king’s secret service
superiority, but to convince international leaders—those who controlled
station in France, wrote less than admiringly to
the cash, the material supplies, the munitions, and the military forces that
the British Foreign Secretary in London: “I canthe outmatched Americans desperately needed to win—of their moral supenot but suspect that he comes charged with
the
of
riority. The declaration set out to win not only the hearts and minds
a secret Commission from Congress...and
people, but also pocketbooks of the European powers.
as he is a subtle, artful Man, and void of
all Truth, he will, in that Case, use every
means to deceive...”
Targeting inside the empire: Canada, Bermuda, and Ireland
In the course of ingratiating
himself with Parisian society and
As a first front of attack, Samuel Adams directed US propaganda operations in
cultivating support in Spain, FrankCanada, via the Boston Committee of Correspondence. To appeal for a combined North
lin prepared plans to be implemented
American front against the British, Gen. Washington wrote a specific letter “[t]o the Inas soon as the opportunity presented
habitants of Canada” and another to the people of Bermuda, calling for their support.
itself. That moment came in December
The Continental Congress soon authorized a propaganda operation to urge Cana1777, when news reached Europe that
dians to join as a “sister colony” against the British. It created a Committee of Secret
British General Burgoyne had surrenCorrespondence, considered to be the United States’ first foreign intelligence agency—
dered to American troops at Saratoga
the forerunner of the CIA.
in October.
Under the supervision of Benjamin Franklin and a few others, the Committee
Franklin knew his next move. He
sent a French printer named Fleury Mesplet to Quebec as an American secret agent.
wrote a proposed Treaty of Amity and
His mission: “to establish a free press...for the frequent publication of such pieces as
Commerce with France, part of which
may be of service to the laws of the United States.” The Committee also recruited
included an American military alliance
French Catholic priests to promote Canadian secession to the rebel cause.
with France and Spain against the BritThough the Continental Congress failed to gain the Canadian provinces’ secesish. Less than two months later—lightning
sion from Britain, the British decried the effectiveness of American propaganda eftime in those days—he signed a Francoforts to undermine Canadian support for the crown. The British colonial secretary in
American military alliance. The army and
Canada complained that unrest was growing with “the minds of the people poisoned
navy of King Louis XVI formally engaged,
by the same hypocrisy and lies practised [sic] with so much success in the other
sealing ultimate defeat for the British.
provinces, and which their emissaries and friends here have spread abroad with
great art and diligence.” British General John Burgoyne blamed his recruitment
woes in Canada on “the poison which the emissaries of the rebels have thrown into
Influence operations across Europe
their mind.”
Thanks to intelligence documents that Franklin purloined in London while
In Europe, British retaliatory proparepresenting Pennsylvania and other colonies, the innate PSYOP instincts of
ganda against the Americans was relentGeorge Washington, and strategic political thinking within the Continental Conless. Sent as a US emissary to the Nethergress, the US devised and carried out a strategy to divide British-led forces.
lands, John Adams wrote to Franklin, “[i]t
In a German-language campaign begun under Washington’s direction on Long
is necessary for America to have agents in
Island, they splintered and demoralized Britain’s crack Hessian mercenaries. One
different parts of Europe, to give some inforin six deserted and began new lives as Americans. US propaganda also promation concerning our affairs, and to refute
moted defections of Irish and Scottish troops from the Redcoat forces.
the abominable lies that the hired emissaries
of Great Britain circulate in every corner of
Europe, by which they keep up their own credit
Secret and public diplomacy in France
and ruin ours.” Franklin recruited a Swiss journalist,
Months before the first shots at Lexington and Concord, French Foreign
Charles Dumas, as a Holland-based secret agent
Minister Charles Gravier, comte de Vergennes, noted the increasing friction befor the Committee of Secret Correspondence to
tween most of the 13 colonies and what he called the metropolis in London.
act as both a spy and propagandist in Europe.
In October 1775, Benjamin Franklin returned from London, whereupon
Among his activities, Dumas “planted stories in
the citizens of Pennsylvania elected him to the Continental Congress. As a
a Dutch newspaper, Gazette de Leide, intended to
member of the Committee of Secret Correspondence, Franklin was able to
give the United States a favorable rating in the
manipulate a young, covert French military officer named Bonvonloir, who
Dutch credit markets.” Soon, the US had secret
had been sent by the French Ambassador in London, the Comte de Guines,
agents in Spain, Portugal, Berlin, and Tuscany.
to collect intelligence on the revolutionary American government.
On December 28, Bonvonloir filed a hugely inflated report, claiming,
and
“[e]veryone here is a soldier, the troops are well clothed, well paid,
The American way of propaganda
well armed. They have more than 50,000 regular soldiers and an even
larger number of volunteers who do not wish to be paid. Judge how men
The French fleet sealed Britain’s final surrenof this caliber will fight.” In truth, only about 5,000 poorly paid, illder at Yorktown, a defeat that would have never
trained, hungry, cold men comprised Washington’s army.
been possible without the propaganda machines en40
gineered by Samuel Adams and
Benjamin Franklin.
The war for independence
showed that wars of ideas
and battles for democracy are
fought primarily as wars and
not as shows of diplomacy. And
where public diplomacy plays a
role, its tone is not necessarily
positive or gentle. The founders’
strategy was simple: relentlessly
tell the best about the American
cause and the worst about the
enemy. And it worked.
They provided us with not
only our founding principles
and our Constitution, but also
the diplomatic and political tools
to promote and defend our interests around the world. Those
tools, properly used, decided the
margin of victory for America’s
first strategic hearts-and-minds
campaign. Propaganda, political warfare, and psychological
warfare were life-saving ways
of achieving military objectives
by political means.
American propaganda in the
20th century
*
American covert operations
and propaganda campaigns eroded
the Iron Curtain for decades. They
The symbol of the rattlesnake—originally
prevented Stalin and his successors from
represented in Franklin’s Join or Die cartoon—
conquering Greece, Turkey, Iran, Italy, and
here depicts colonial unity and strength. The
possibly even France. They helped undermine
two armies surrounded by the snake are the
the Soviet Union from within and hastened its
defeated forces of Burgoyne and Cornwallis.
collapse. Strategic propaganda and political warThe inscription beneath advertises the
fare, waged by strong and principled leaders through
American alliance with France and warns
the CIA, US Information Agency, and other services,
that “the serpent in the Congress
won the Cold War for the cause of democracy. Even more
reigns.” British loyalists taunted
importantly, its net result did away with the threat of genothe American “sons of sedition” for
cidal nuclear war.
representing themselves as “a snakeToday, it’s almost as though none of that had ever hapin-the-grass,” but clever Americans
pened. While most of the world supported the United States in
responded by insisting that the
the aftermath of 9/11, that support and sympathy began to dissolve
rattlesnake does not strike
in 2002 with the US’s preparations to overthrow Saddam Hussein. A
until sufficiently provoked.
serious propaganda offensive could have prevented much of the damage. Across Europe, for example, centrist and center-right political leaders
wanted to support the US. But the Bush administration failed to provide the
position papers, talking points, and other information those European politicians needed to understand the American case and shape their own views.
At the same time, Saddam Hussein’s agents—including industrialists, journalists, members of parliament, antiwar activists, and others later revealed to be on
Baghdad’s payroll through proceeds from the United Nations’ Oil-for-Food campaign—
were at work across Europe, organizing opposition to the US.
As the totalitarian Wahhabi regime in Saudi Arabia spends billions on global propaganda campaigns to stir up supernatural hate against the US, our allies, Muslims who disagree
with the medieval and extremist Islamist cult, and our policymakers all wring their hands and
wonder what to do. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard has been waging a brilliant campaign in Iraq,
united Saddam Hussein loyalists, al Qaeda, and other disenfranchised demographics in grinding us
down psychologically, even as we win militarily. Captured al Qaeda documents reveal a sophisticated,
long-term media strategy to undermine world morale against the US-led war on terror.
Thus we see the repeat of the old game that Benjamin Franklin and John Adams waged in Europe
against British propagandists during the American Revolution. Only this time, we’ve chosen not to play.
J. Michael Waller is the Walter and Leonore Annenberg Professor of International Communication at the Institute of World Politics in Washington, D.C.
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