The first of these is simple. It became almost a litany with Colonel Oscar Solbert, when he sought to indoctrinate civilian geniuses with military proprieties: _Psychological warfare is a function of command._ If command chooses to exercise it, it will succeed. If command neglects it, or if it is operated independently of military command, it will either interfere with the conduct of war proper, or it will be wasted. It took us two bitter years to learn this lesson. Political warfare cannot be waged without direct access to the White House and the Department of State; field operations cannot be conducted unless they meet at some common staff point with field command. No one can succeed in improvising alleged policy and presenting that policy as United States policy, and get away with it. Sooner or later actual policy catches up with him. In the field, no civilian can write leaflets for air or ground distribution unless he has some idea of when, where, why, and how they will be used. The second lesson of World War II, set forth by Colonel Solbert and Dr. Edwin Guthrie was simply this: _Atrocity propaganda begets atrocity._ Everyone knows that war is cruel, sad, shameful to the soul of man; everyone knows that it hurts, degrades, injures the human body; everyone knows that it is not pleasant to undergo, nor even to look at. If any particular war is worth fighting, it is worth fighting for some reason other than the crazily obvious one--the fact that it is already war. It is a poor statesman or general who cannot give his troops and people an inspiring statement of their own side in war. Atrocity propaganda reacts against war in general; meanwhile, it goads the enemy into committing more atrocities. The anti-atrocity rule was not lifted in World War II (save for one or two notable exceptions, such as President Roosevelt's delayed announcement of the Japanese having executed the Doolittle flyers) except for the specific purpose of preventing some atrocity that seemed about to occur in a known situation from actually occurring. Atrocity propaganda heats up the imagination of troops, makes them more liable to nervous or psychoneurotic strain. It increases the chances of one's own side committing atrocities in revenge for the ones alleged or reported. Furthermore, atrocity propaganda scares the enemy out of surrendering, and gives the enemy command an easier responsibility in persuading their troops to fight with last-ditch desperation. The third lesson was equally simple: _America does not normally produce psychological warfare personnel in peacetime, and if such personnel are to be needed again, they will have to be trained especially and in advance._ =Qualifications for Psychological Warfare.= Effective psychological warfare requires the combination of four skills in a single individual: