Major mail-propaganda operations were conducted against us, however. The Nazis, as part of their prebelligerent planning and operations, sent enormous quantities of propaganda through the United States mail--sometimes postage-free under the frank of Congressmen. The Japanese, down to the time of Pearl Harbor, kept large public-relations staffs running at full speed in New York, Washington, and other American cities. They helped their American friends with money and by heavy purchase of copyright material friendly to Japan--thus making it unnecessary for any author to report himself as a Japanese paid agent, and they offered Japanese "cultural and educational" information to interested persons. It really was cultural and well done. By talking about Japanese poetry, religion and cherry blossoms, and omitting all war propaganda, the handsome little booklets kept alive the memory of a hospitable, quaint, charming Japan. Some of this material was mailed directly from Japan to the United States. Since mail propaganda depends on the freedom of the mails, it is much more apt to be used by a dictatorship against us than by us against a dictatorship. =Leaflets.= The types of leaflets are described in the next chapter (page 211), in the course of discussing leaflets addressed to troops. Each leaflet designed for a military group has its civilian equivalents. In addition to the military types, overt propaganda leaflets for civilians should include: (1) Communications from the legitimate authorities (whether government-in-exile, underground, or friendly quisling) of the civilians addressed. (2) Newspapers in air format, reduced in scale, but with a heavy proportion of the normal peacetime features of the audience's own press. (3) Novelty materials appealing to children, who are apt to be among the most industrious collectors of leaflets, disseminating them far and wide with less danger of reprisal from the occupying power or the police than adults might face. (Good adult leaflets are as interesting to children as are leaflets especially designed for them. The use of color printing, vivid illustrations, pictures of air battles, how-it-works diagrams of weapons, and so forth, may reach the teen-age audience best if it gives no indication of being aimed at them.) (4) Gifts--soap, salt, needles, matches, chocolate and similar articles dropped to civilian populations. (This demonstrates the wealth and benevolence of the giver. Countermeasures to enemy use of this type of propaganda consist of dropping a few duplicates of his gifts, containing poison-ivy soap, nauseating salt, infected-looking needles, explosive chocolate, etc. The Germans are reported to have followed this procedure against the American air gifts dropped to Italy and France. With the avoidance or the spoilage of gifts, the propaganda effect becomes so confused that both sides find it worth desisting for a while.)