The formula for the psychological war is not to be found in the books of the psychologists but in the writings of the constitutional lawyers. The totality of war is a result of dictatorship within government; total coordination results from total authority. The "secret weapon" of the Germans lay in the power which the Germans had openly given Hitler, and in his use of that power in a shrewd, ruthless, effective way. The Führer led the experts, not the experts the Führer. If the Germans surprised the world by the cold calculation of their timing, it was not because they had psychological braintrusters inventing a new warfare, but because they had a grim political freak commanding the total resources of the Reich. Even in wartime, no American President has ever exercised the authority which Hitler used in time of peace; American Cabinet members, military and naval figures, press commentators and all sorts of people are free to kibitz, to offer their own opinions, to bring policy into the light of day. That is as it should be. The same factors which made "psychological warfare" possible in the beginning of the war were the ones which led to Germany's futile and consummate ruin in 1944-45: excessive authority, an uninformed public, centralized propaganda, and secret political planning. That kind of "psychological warfare"--war tuned to the needs of fanatically sought lusts for power, war coordinated down to the nth degree, waged in the light of enemy opinion and aiming at the political and moral weaknesses of the enemy--is not possible within the framework of a democracy. Even from within Imperial Japan, Pearl Harbor had to be waged secretly as a _purely_ naval operation; those Japanese who would have told the Board of Field Marshals and Fleet Admirals that an unannounced attack was the best way to unify all American factions _against_ Japan were obviously not brought into the planning of the Pearl Harbor raid. The Japanese still had too much of their old parliamentary spirit left over, as Ambassador Grew's reports show; the military had to outsmart the home public, along with the foreigners. In the Western dictatorships, the home public is watched by élite troops, secret police, party cells, and is made the subject of psychological warfare along with the victim nations. Hitler could turn the war spirit on and off; the Japanese did not dare do so to any effective extent. "Psychological warfare" was too dictatorial a measure even for prewar Japan; it is therefore permanently out of reach of the authorities of the United States. After war starts, we are capable of surprising the enemy with such things as incendiary raids, long-range bombers, and nuclear fission; but we cannot startle with the start of war. The United States is not now capable and--under the spirit of the Constitution, can never be capable--of surprising an enemy by the _timing of aggression_. If the same were true of all other nations, peace would seem much nearer than it does.