Will It Play in Peoria? The 1950 Campaign of Truth and the Reconstruction of Cold War Propaganda (endnotes omitted)

     The first half of 1950 was not a tranquil time for the State Department’s Office of Public Affairs, the branch responsible for both domestic public relations and the international information program that operated the short-wave radio station the Voice of America. On January 3rd, 1950, the United Press reported that the VOA had received policy guidance disclaiming American responsibility for the island of Taiwan. This revelation prompted a domestic political firestorm. Secretary of State Dean Acheson’s January 12th speech clarifying US policy in the Far East did not end the controversy; in fact, it made it worse. Then on February 9th, Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin announced that the State Department knowingly employed communists.

      The Office of Public Affairs also had another major, though much-less publicized problem on its hands: Soviet jamming of the VOA, the static curtain, if you will.  In early 1950 Public Affairs Officials resolved to develop an ambitious program of counter-jamming and facilities expansion for the VOA. This program came to be know as the Campaign of Truth, and President Truman unveiled it in a speech before the American Society of Newspaper Editors on April 20th, 1950. Truman accused the Soviets of vilifying the free nations of the world with lies and half-truths. The Soviets were jamming the VOA, Truman explained, because it was often the only source of reliable, honest news behind the Iron Curtain. The President called for a strengthening of the VOA and a more aggressive tone.

     Historians and mass communications scholars present the Campaign of Truth as a major reconstruction of American Cold War propaganda. Abandoning all attempts to present a “full and fair account” of the US and its policies,  the government began to confront head-on Soviet slander and stepped-up development of psychological warfare programs. I shall argue that the Campaign of Truth reconstructed American propaganda in another significant and so far, unrecognized, fashion: as a domestic public relations ploy. For President Truman and  Dean Acheson, revitalization of the VOA presented an irresistible opportunity to boldly reassert the anti-communist credentials and resolve of the administration. As I shall argue further, the Campaign of Truth also presented an irresistible opportunity to filter the ominous, top-secret conclusions of NSC 68 and present them in much diluted form to the American public. In Truman’s styling of the Campaign, the truth became a metaphor for not only the administration’s answer to Soviet lies, but also the administration’s answer to McCarthy’s lies. Anyone committed to and capable of telling the truth to foreigners was surely capable of telling the truth to their own citizens. Truman, Acheson, and Public Affairs officials wanted the Truth to play well in Peoria before playing well in Prague.

     The Soviet Union had begun blocking VOA broadcasts in early 1948. During the Summer of 1949, the jamming increased and listeners in Moscow reported that they could not clearly hear the VOA, if at all. By January 1950, the CIA estimated VOA effectiveness between 15 to 20%. An observer in the Soviet Union reported in November 1949 that "the VOA is being so heavily jammed at present that most listeners have given it up as a bad job." To make matters worse, in February 1950 the VOA's chief engineer reported that the Soviets had taken active steps to modify and improve their already powerful jamming.

     After taking office as Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs on February 12th, 1950, Edward W. Barrett resolved to make counter-jamming a top priority. In a March 6th memorandum entitled, "Taking the propaganda offensive," Barrett told Undersecretary James Webb that the Office of Public Affairs needed to "Speed up the present program to throw additional transmitting equipment into the war of ideas in order to overcome Soviet jamming, etc."  In a report given to Acheson three days later, Barrett outlined specific steps his office was taking, including the drafting of a staff paper proposing ways of coordinating counter-jamming research and intelligence efforts among various government agencies. Barrett also suggested that the President announce "that he has determined to step up every means of getting understanding of our peaceful purposes through the Iron Curtain."

     Truman was already interested in improving the VOA, though not necessarily through counter-jamming measures. In late February he asked Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson to broach the topic of the VOA with General David Sarnoff, President of the Radio Corporation of America.  Sarnoff proposed that a committee composed of himself, two Democratic Senators, Undersecretary of Defense Stephen Early, and Edward Barrett study ways to improve the Voice. On February 27th,  Johnson suggested to the President that he might make the committee's report the subject of a special address to the Congress, which "would assure the American people, as well as our allies and our friends abroad, that this country is doing everything possible in this important field."  Right after receiving Johnson's memorandum, Truman discussed "the exploitation of the Voice of America" with Sarnoff.

     As these discussions were taking place, the State Department confronted the accusations of Joe McCarthy. In a speech delivered in Wheeling, West Virginia on February 9th,  the first-term Republican Senator charged the State Department with knowingly employing 205 communists. Within a few days, McCarthy revised his numbers to 81, then 57. The ensuing publicity surprised even McCarthy, who had trouble explaining his evidence and sources. However inadequate his preparation, McCarthy’s timing was perfect. The controversy over American Far East policy still raged; the conviction of Alger Hiss for perjury was just weeks old.

     On March 6th, Acheson told the President that "arrangements were well in hand for dealing with the McCarthy charges before the sub-committee of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations." Acheson also briefed Truman on Barrett's memorandum "Taking the propaganda offensive." According to Acheson's notes, "The President was much pleased and asked us to follow it up vigorously."

     Truman and ranking Congressional Democrats were confident that the Senate subcommittee hearings, chaired by Millard Tydings, Democrat from Maryland, would demonstrate the flimsiness of McCarthy's charges and dispel the negative publicity.  However, the hearings failed to restore faith in the State Department. Beset by partisan bickering, the Tydings Committee was discredited by Truman’s initial refusal to turn over State Department employee files. While McCarthy’s evidence backing his charges was shaky, his forceful manner and shrewd public relations style played well to the press, which tended to gloss over evidential problems.

      One week after the Tydings hearings began, the Office of Public Affairs took aggressive measures to counter the effects of McCarthyism. On March 16th, Edward Barrett presented a public relations program to Undersecretary James Webb. Barrett first suggested that Acheson appear before the Tydings committee as the hearings drew to a close, "if the atmosphere is right." In front of the committee Acheson could point out the great harm done to the US abroad by such hearings, and assure the committee members that should the State Department find any communists or fellow travellers within its ranks, it would "clear them out pronto." Barrett proposed that in the next six weeks, the President should deliver a speech on American foreign policy and reassert his confidence in the State Department. Barrett also proposed that Acheson address the American Society of Newspaper Editors. It was at this meeting that Truman delivered the Campaign of Truth speech.

     The goal of containing the damage being done by McCarthy intertwined with plans for the Campaign of Truth in late March, when Senator William Benton, Democrat from Connecticut, consulted with Truman over Benton’s proposed Marshall Plan of Ideas. As former Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, Benton had been in charge of the VOA from 1945 through 1947, and he was one of the State Department's greatest allies in the Congress.  Benton defended Acheson and the State Department in his first speech on the Senate floor on March 22nd, 1950. His remarks served as an introduction for his main subject, the "Marshall Plan of Ideas" (SR 243). SR 243 recommended a six point program in the field of international information and exchange, including expansion of existing State Department activities and coordination with the noncommunist nations of the world. Delivered barely one month later, Truman's Campaign of Truth speech made these same two points.

     Indeed, Benton had consulted with Truman before making his speech, not knowing that Edward Barrett and the Office of Public Affairs were developing the Campaign of Truth.  On March 18th, Benton sent a copy of his Senate Resolution to Truman's staff in Key West, where the President was vacationing. The draft read, "Resolved, That the President is requested to cause to be initiated . . . an intensified program of information and exchange . . .." Truman asked Benton to substitute "the United States" for "the President," and Benton complied.  The change in phrasing is significant because it left open the opportunity for Truman to make his own speech on the subject.

     Two weeks after Benton unveiled the Marshall Plan of Ideas to the Senate, plans for Truman's speech took shape. On April 12th, White House speech writer George Elsey informed an NSC staff member that the President was giving a speech in a week on American propaganda. According to Deputy Undersecretary of State Max Bishop's account of the conversation, Elsey said that the speech had been decided on some time ago, and that "this subject is a `favorite theme' of the President's."  Was the President simply giving an address on "a favorite theme?" Evidence suggests that the domestic political problems incurred by McCarthyism motivated Truman. On April 12th, Millard Tydings sent a memorandum to the President suggesting strategies on "how to reestablish the White House and the Truman Administration as the foe of Communism at home as well as abroad." According to Tydings, although the people largely supported foreign policies such as the Marshall Plan and NATO, they were worried that the administration was overlooking the threat of communism within the US. Republicans in Congress exploited the issue of Communist infiltration of the State Department to weaken support for the administration's domestic program. Tydings proposed that Truman give a speech telling,

     the people you are the implacable foe of Communism, what you have done and are doing to
     eradicate it and hold it in check at home and abroad; that you are doing everything
     in your power to keep the government above any known Communistic influences."

It should be noted that Tydings had grown increasingly frantic as his subcommittee's hearings progressed, calling the White House several times a day.  Thus it is difficult to measure how seriously or carefully Truman considered his memorandum, which may have been filed by aides without ever reaching the President.

     Still, as previously explained, Tydings' advice echoed the concerns and suggestions that Edward Barrett, Louis Johnson, and the White House staff were giving the President during the Spring. And within Truman's inner circle, the idea of using the Campaign of Truth to contain McCarthyism was openly discussed. The subject of the VOA came up during a meeting between Truman, Acheson, and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Tom Connally, Democrat from Texas, a meeting that was held just one week after the Campaign of Truth was declared. The three men agreed that consultation with Senate Republicans such as Styles Bridges (NH), Alexander Wiley (WI), and Henry Cabot Lodge (MA) might help restore bipartisanship in foreign policy. Then Acheson asked Connally if he thought "it would be helpful in getting the McCarthy charges off the front page if a subcommittee, on which Senators Smith and Lodge might be present, would take up the Benton Resolution  and get outstanding figures to testify." Connally was pessimistic
 
      because he thought the McCarthy charges were so sensational that they would continue to
     occupy the front page, and that while he hoped that the Voice of America, strengthened and
      improved, would be useful he had doubts as to whether it would reach the right people.

     The link between McCarthyism and the Campaign of Truth is strengthened by comparing Truman's speech before the American Society of Newspaper Editors with NSC 68. Paul Nitze, head of the State Department's Policy Planning Staff, drafted NSC 68 from February to April 1950. Though NSC 68 and the Campaign of Truth speech were drafted independently, the language used in both is strikingly similar. In grave, foreboding terms, NSC-68 described the immediate need to challenge Soviet communism on all fronts, claiming that the "assault on free institutions is world-wide now."  NSC 68 also warned that "at the ideological or psychological level, in the struggle for men's minds, the conflict is worldwide." Nitze recommended that the US "organize and enlist the energies of the free world in a positive program for peace which will frustrate the Kremlin design for world domination . . .."  In his Campaign of Truth speech, Truman echoed these words, stating

     The cause of freedom is being challenged throughout the world today by the forces of
     imperialism communism. This is a struggle, above all else, for the minds of men.
     Propaganda is one of the most powerful weapons the Communists have in this struggle.

Truman concluded by calling on the State Department to coordinate its information activities with the other free nations of the world "in a sustained, intensified program to promote the cause of freedom against the propaganda of slavery."

     Both NSC 68 and the Campaign of Truth speech reflect the siege mentality that overtook the administration in late 1949-early 1950. Both the CIA and the Office of Public Affairs believed that Soviet jamming of the VOA showed the expansionistic tendencies of the Soviet Union.  In late 1949, Truman and senior officials in the State Department had grown increasingly dubious of George Kennan's contention that the US could safely concentrate on economic rather than military applications of containment. As a result, the author of the containment strategy and the strongest advocate of its flexible implementation found his influence dwindling.  Indeed, it was Nitze who had replaced Kennan as head of the Policy Planning Staff.

     Senior officials' commitment to all-out containment during early 1950 contrasts sharply with Republican charges that the Truman administration was soft on communism. Of course, the public and Congressional Republicans were not privy to top secret documents that showed the administration's concerns and plans. Perhaps ironically, Truman ordered NSC 68 kept secret because he worried that its dire predictions would frighten the American public. Truman directed "that this report be handled with special security precautions in accordance with the President's desire that no publicity be given this report or its contents without his approval" (italics in original).  NSC 68 thus presented the administration with a dilemma: it displayed unwavering resolve to fight communism, yet its existence could not be revealed. Whether or not Truman himself accepted NSC 68 in toto is almost irrelevant. As Ernest May has observed, "In face of a united bureaucracy warning that the world risked enslavement, a president already under attack from the right could not afford simply to do nothing."

     In this sense, the Campaign of Truth speech served as a filter through which the administration could safely articulate its concerns with Soviet expansionism and prove its resolve to stop it. By presenting the Soviet threat in terms of a world-wide ideological challenge, Truman and his advisers cleansed NSC 68 of its extreme tone without removing its imperatives. The battle for people's minds signified the real battle, but safely so: words were not warheads. Throughout his speech Truman suggested that if given "the plain, simple, unvarnished truth," oppressed peoples of the world would choose democracy over communism.

     At the same time the Campaign of Truth speech abridged and filtered NSC 68, it also provided an opportunity to counter-attack the right, though Truman was careful not to mention any names. In his opening remarks on April 20th, Truman lauded the editors present for objectively presenting the facts readers needed in order to form their own opinions. Then the President took a swipe at Republicans:
     Foreign policy is not a matter for partisan presentation. The facts about Europe or Asia should
     not be twisted to conform to one side or the other of a political dispute. Twisting the facts
     might change the course of an election at home, but it would certainly damage our country's
     program abroad.

After stressing the vital role a free press plays in determining what a nation should do, Truman added, "There is too much nonsense about striped trousers in foreign affairs. Far more influence is exerted by the baggy pants of the managing editor."

     Truman was not just speaking to the nation's newspaper editors; he was also talking directly to McCarthy himself, who delivered a lengthy speech at the convention defending his charges against the State Department. The next day, a Public Affairs official wrote to Undersecretary James Webb that McCarthy had made a "distinct impression,” and the State Department did not come out looking good.  Although the unveiling of the Campaign of Truth had also made a distinct impression, the attention and reception being given to McCarthy seemed unabated.

     Within two months, of course, the administration had bigger fish to fry than the junior Senator from Wisconsin. The North Korean attack on the South posed a much bigger test of the administration’s anti-communist resolve than either Soviet propaganda or Republican gain-saying. For the Voice of America, the war in Korea also posed its biggest challenge. I shall conclude by suggesting that this challenge was twofold: international and domestic. To show audiences abroad and at home just how fervently the administration was fighting the war against communism.