Psychological WarfareLinebarger, Paul Myron Anthony
History
Psychological Warfare
Linebarger, Paul Myron Anthony
Psychological warfare
Under "Chiang the Chairman," the Chinese national government waged a
dignified, humane kind of psychological warfare against Japan. Few
people remember an odd chapter out of modern history, the Chinese
bombardment of Nagasaki, although it is possible that Asiatic historians
of the future will make a substantial contrast between the Chinese who
struck the first blow at that city and the Americans who struck the
last. Shortly after the outbreak of the full quasi-war between China and
Japan in 1937, the Generalissimo ordered his bombers to attack Japan.
American-built Chinese bombers appeared over Kyushu, the first invaders
to show up since the shoguns repelled Kublai Khan 656 years earlier. But
instead of dropping bombs, they dropped leaflets denouncing aggression
and inferentially pointing out that while the Japanese were uncivilized
enough to bomb their fellow-Asiatics, the Chinese were too civilized to
undertake reprisals in kind.
The Generalissimo's troops also had fraternization and front-line
propaganda, but not to the extent to which the Chinese Communists did.
The Generalissimo himself followed a very liberal (not in the Leftist
but the true sense) political line toward Japan. He uttered no threat
of vengeance. He was the first leader of a great nation to say that the
Japanese Emperor question was to be settled by letting the Japanese
themselves choose their own form of government after the war was all
over. He had Japanese on his political staffs--democratic persons whom
his officials encouraged--and regular Japanese broadcasts were kept up
throughout the war on the Chungking radio.
PART TWO
ANALYSIS, INTELLIGENCE, AND ESTIMATE OF THE SITUATION
CHAPTER 7
Propaganda Analysis
Opinion analysis pertains to what people think; propaganda analysis
deals with what somebody is trying to make them think. Each form of
analysis is a new and flourishing field in civilian social research; the
bibliographies of Smith, Lasswell and Casey, and the current reviews in
the _Public Opinion Quarterly_[29] demonstrate the existence of a large
and growing literature on the subject. Each year, new textbooks in the
field or current revisions of old ones can be counted on to bring
scholastic and scientific findings up to date.
Technical writings on visual education, religious conversion, labor
organization, practical politics, revolutionary agitation, and on
commercial advertising have frequent bearing on propaganda analysis.
Propaganda cannot be analyzed in a logical vacuum. Every step in the
operation is intensely practical. There is nothing timeless about it,
other than that common sense which is based on the nature of man. The
ancient Chinese three-character classic, from which several billion
Chinese have tried to learn to read, says:
_Jên chih ch'u
Hsing pên shan;
Hsing hsiang chin,
Hsi hsiang yüan._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account