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. 35 Because people resent being toldwhat to think, a June 22, 1953, Memorandum on Radio in PsychologicalWarfare determined that U.S.propagandists needed to provide foreign au-diences with the kind of information they desired.The authors of the reportconcluded: The art of persuasion is to give him what he wants so truthfullyand so skillfully as to influence his thinking in the process. 36One of the most significant changes that the Jackson committee calledfor involved a decrease in the use of official propaganda channels.The com-mittee recommended that short-wave broadcasts be discontinued in someareas, that the wireless bulletin be continued only in areas that express[ed]a desire for its retention, and that fewer pamphlets, magazines, and filmscarry the official seal of the U.S.government.Such an organizationalchange stemmed from the belief that the sheer volume of material bearingthe American label [was] harmful. 37The committee also requested that the tone of propaganda be altered.Like the political officials of the Smith-Mundt debate, the Jackson commit-tee members maintained that the program under Eisenhower needed to dis-seminate truth. According to the committee members, To be effective,[propaganda] must be dependable, convincing, and truthful.[because]too much or too blatant propaganda can be harmful. 38 In order for the mate-rial to assume a more explicit aura of truth, the Jackson committee con-cluded that the official channels should disseminate more straight news, reflecting a return to a more journalistic paradigm for the overt propagandachannels.Committee members argued further that the VOA should broad-cast more objective, factual news that served as a source of truth and in-formation about world events. For the committee, the defining characteristicof these channels became the distribution of material for which the UnitedStates Government [was] prepared to accept responsibility, 39 a criterionthat relied on the ideological perception of a free and objective press.Along with broadcasting news, the Jackson committee called for amore positive tone in the propaganda officially identified with the U.S.gov- 138 The Period of Institutionalizationernment.Because the committee believed that the propaganda of Truman sCampaign of Truth had been too defensive, 40 committee members wantedthe program to accentuate the positive by emphasizing how the UnitedStates was creating conditions of freedom and happiness.forhuman be-ings. Yet the boastful propaganda of the Smith-Mundt era was likewise tobe avoided.Such a focus, C.D.Jackson maintained, would help the UnitedStates achieve its own interests and aspirations as well as the interests andaspirations of men and women everywhere. This process, though, did notpreclude the program from making dignified, forceful, and factual refuta-tions of Soviet accusations. 41 Such propaganda, which relied on a journal-istic paradigm, would become the front for the more secretive psychologicalwarfare operations.Even though the Jackson committee wanted the revised propaganda pro-gram to accentuate the positive aspects of democracy, committee membersbelieved the U.S.government should still combat communist lies force-fully.The Jackson committee, though, relegated the dissemination of morepolemical propaganda to the private agencies.Within its study, the Jack-son committee advocated that all material intended for purposes of politi-cal warfare against the Soviet regime.be diverted to Radio Liberation[Liberty] or other non-official stations. 42 Such a move required an increasein federal support to be diverted to the sponsors of Radio Free Europe (RFE)and Radio Liberty (RL).Such funds then would help hire Soviet nationals to disperse propaganda designed to weaken the Soviet regime, a practicethat reconstituted the use of defector propaganda discussed in chapter4.The committee recommended not destroying RFE s cover so that itcould continue taking positions for which the United States would not de-sire to accept responsibility. 43 Exploitation surfaced as the defining characteristic for the Jacksoncommittee s vision of psychological warfare.First, the committee stipu-lated that by helping to expose the true nature of communist activities, bypenetrating, undermining, dividing.[and] hampering its access to funds,the basic weakness of the apparatus [could] be exploited. The committeealso advised the nonofficial agencies to manipulate the gap between com-munist ideology and Soviet practice and to accentuate that the Soviet Un-ion represented an aggressive power seeking to dominate all countries.Beyond that, the committee wanted these private agencies to emphasize the failure of the communist regimes to live up to their promises. Such atactic reflected the Truman administration s use of defector propaganda toinspirit insurrections.Thus, the Jackson committee wanted the Eisenhoweradministration to force the Soviets into a course [of action] favorable to theUnited States. 44 Propaganda as a Presidential Tool 139Although the Jackson committee focused its energies on elevating thereputation of the U.S.propaganda program abroad, committee membersalso concerned themselves with the program s reputation at home.Mem-bers of the committee accentuated the constraints imposed on the practiceof propaganda in democratic societies.The committee reasoned that unlikethe Soviet government, which could conduct its affairs with a minimum re-gard for public opinion, free societies required wide understanding andsupport for [their] policies. 45 Committee members thus sought to institutean astute propaganda program that would attract the domestic political sup-port necessary for its implementation and success abroad.The need for such domestic support mounted especially in the wake ofMcCarthy s investigations.In an apparent reference to McCarthy s allega-tions, the Jackson committee claimed that the foreign information pro-gram had been harassed and assaulted by criticism.which [was]inaccurate, unfair and destructive. As a result, the Jackson committee main-tained that public understanding and support of the program was evenmore vital. The committee recommended the release of information tothe American public about the program a practice previously outlawed bythe Smith-Mundt Act.46 The committee justified such alterations on thegrounds that the security of the United States [could] not be achieved inisolation, and the propaganda program served as part of the government soverall international policy.47The Jackson committee also called for the president to institute greatercoordination and strategic planning of messages delivered to the Americanpeople in order to fulfill international propaganda aims.The committee be-lieved the presidential administration needed to consider the impact of its public statements upon other nations of the free world, particularly inEurope. The committee advised, for example, that a delicate balance be struck between providing the American people with information that[would] permit them to grasp.the basic realities of the world, [while]driving more vulnerable and therefore nervous allies into neutralism
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