Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–1954, Eastern Europe; Soviet Union; Eastern Mediterranean, Volume VIII

PPS files, lot 64 D 563, “Regional Conferences”

No. 43
Memorandum Prepared in the Department of State¹

top secret

[Washington?, October 1, 1953.]

Concept and Ideas for Psychological Warfare in Europe Developed by the Chiefs of Mission Meeting at Luxembourg on September 18–19, 1953

i. basic considerations

A. Psychological or political warfare is the reflection of policy and political objectives. It can be a useful handmaiden to attain and support such objectives. Actions are the best propaganda, for Washington is under a world microscope and everything we do or say is subjected to close analysis and world press coverage. Our position in the world is therefore based on what we do rather than what we say about ourselves.

B. Western European countries have developed a high degree of immunity to propaganda from whatever source. United States information programs should be as quiet and subtle as possible and the United States label should generally not be allowed to appear.

C. Our psychological warfare effort should never be allowed to run ahead of carefully considered political objectives as there is always the danger if this is allowed to happen that psychological warfare can start to make policy rather than serve it.

D. Before any psychological warfare operation is undertaken it should be carefully examined to determine whether it is calculated to serve both short term and long term political objectives. Political warfare operations should be kept under day-to-day review with the view to assuring that they are in timing and purpose linked with political policy.

E. “Propaganda begins at home”, i.e. the American domestic scene and our actions on the world scene are the basis of our psychological warfare effort abroad. Our country is open for the world to observe. The best persons to present our case abroad to their respective countries are those who visit us and observe our institutions and our national character. The Cultural Exchange Program should be increased and visa procedures liberalised in order particularly to permit intellectuals and publicists to visit the United States and to return and inform their own people what they have observed.

F. President Eisenhower’s world prestige is enormous and his April 16 speech² as a basic statement of American policy was carried in all newspapers of any consequence throughout the world. His address has a reassuring and salutary effect. The President’s great prestige should be availed of in carefully considered pronouncements on American foreign policy objectives.

ii. western europe

A. Western European countries are generally distrustful of what they consider to be American policy objectives vis-à-vis Eastern Europe. Pronouncements by important American officials about the “liberation” of Eastern Europe causes fear and anxiety in Western European capitals. It is generally believed that American impatience and implacable hostility to Communism might result in hasty and ill-considered action and that American political warfare and covert operations directed against Eastern Europe might set up a chain reaction leading to military conflict, which Western Europe desires to avoid under almost any circumstances.

B. How hot should be the cold war? Western Europeans will go along with keeping the Eastern European pot lukewarm or even simmering but they fear that American political warfare is inclined to keep the pot at a constant boiling point.

C. The United States should coordinate its psychological warfare operations (i.e. its policies) more closely with its Western European allies both to reassure them and to insure their support and participation. American unilateralism in this field is dangerous and serves divisive forces within the Western Alliance, which in turn serves the Kremlin’s objective to break the Western Alliance. (The East Berlin riots of June 17 and American psychological warfare operations related thereto³ caused serious difficulties with our principal allies who also have responsibilities and vital interests involved. It would have been better to have consulted with them with a view to enlisting their support and cooperation.) Our psychological operations at times serve to increase fears on the part of our allies that we were prepared to break in the windows; to bring the pot to a boiling-over condition, the grave consequences of which we have perhaps not weighed and carefully considered.⁴

D. Considerable doubt was expressed as to the operations of American labor representatives in Europe, particularly in France and Italy. Certain American labor leaders have become deeply involved in complicated trade union politics in France and in Italy by giving support, perhaps for personal or ideological reasons, to particular groups. This American labor financial and other support had caused certain factions of French and Italian labor to strengthen their respective positions within the two labor movements sometimes to the disadvantage of non-Communist unification in the French and Italian labor movements. It would be well for Washington to examine the activities of these American labor representatives with a view to insuring that their activities are linked in to our political objective of increasing the strength of the non-Communist trade union movement in Europe.

iii. eastern europe

A. Our psychological warfare operations directed against Eastern Europe should never be allowed to run ahead of our political and military policies. One basic long term objective of American policy is to work toward the withdrawal of the Soviet Army from the eastern zone of Germany and from the Eastern European satellites. Our political warfare operations, both overt and covert, directed against Eastern Europe should be constantly reviewed with the view to assessing whether or not they are advancing or retarding the withdrawal of Russian military forces.

B. The Russians will probably eventually consider it in their interests to withdraw their military forces from Eastern Europe satellites. There is little we can do by political warfare operations to advance the date of such withdrawal. Stirring up resistance elements or incitements to revolt might have the long range effect of retarding a Soviet military withdrawal. Our operations in this field should be very carefully studied with the view to insuring that they forward rather than retard this objective.

C. The spirit of resistance in Eastern Europe will not die out. Our psychological warfare effort should be tailored to assist in keeping this spirit in existence but should never incite to rebellion or revolts which could only have the effect of destroying the healthiest and best resistance elements within the satellite countries. Psychological warfare plans and programs should be constantly checked for their efficacy and desirability by the American diplomatic missions within the target countries.

D. Psychological warfare and secret operations have definite limitations and we should never consider that Eastern Europe can be liberated by political warfare devices no matter how well planned and energetic they may be.

E. Considerable concern was expressed relating to the recent PSB paper setting forth plans to increase psychological warfare directed against Eastern Europe.⁵ The implications of this paper seem to be that we should keep the pot virtually at a boiling point in Eastern Europe. In addition, the paper contained the dangerous implication that we should encourage rebellion in Czechoslovakia presumably for the reason that the Soviet Army is not present in that satellite.

F. Our information and propaganda output should cease referring to the Russian “peace offensive”. Even if this phrase is used within quotation marks, those quotation marks have a tendency to disappear. The end result tends to be that the Kremlin is identified in many minds somehow with peace. The obverse of this coin is that the West not being identified with peace is somehow identified with war, an important Soviet objective.

G. We have apparently given the impression that we are afraid to sit down and meet with the Russians. Actually, the principal meetings between the Russians and the Western allies have resulted in propaganda victories for our side and we should abandon any general reluctance to confer and exploit our position where strong, as is the case regarding Germany. The view was expressed that the Kremlin does not want such a meeting which would certainly bring out further for the world to see Russia’s inflexibility and its disinclination to abate world tension, except on the Kremlin’s terms.

iv. “resistance”

Resistance elements, historically, have proved effective only on the eve of liberation by military force, i.e. the F.F.I. in France just before and after the Normandy landings. During the occupation of France thousands of persons who attempted active resistance were shot, deported or imprisoned. The resistance elements who survived were the quiet organizers and the pamphleteers.

Any secret operations in Eastern Europe should not be calculated to encourage resistance elements to activism, sabotage and rebellion, which will only result in their being killed off prematurely. Our psychological operations from without should refrain under existing circumstances from incitement to revolt. We should confine our effort to keeping the spirit of resistance alive.

1. The summary minutes of the Chiefs of Mission meeting were divided into three major sections: the morning session of Sept. 18, encompassing an introduction by Merchant and country reports by Bohlen, Conant, and Dillon; the afternoon session of Sept. 18, consisting of country reports by Luce, Chapin, Alger, and Aldrich, a report by Merchant on FY 1955 Foreign Aid estimates, a review by Hughes of developments in the NATO Council, and a telegram (Colux 3, Sept. 20, see vol. v, Part 1, p. 808), in which the participants in the conference summarized the discussions; and the morning session of Sept. 19, including only the memorandum on psychological warfare, presented here, and a telegram (Colux 4, Sept. 19, not printed) from Luxembourg concerning U.S. foreign trade policy. For the minutes of the first and second sessions (except for telegram Colux 3), see vol. vi, Part 1, pp. 666 ff. According to a memorandum by Secretary Dulles to President Eisenhower, Oct. 8, the psychological warfare memorandum printed here and the Principal Conclusions of the subsequent Vienna Chiefs of Mission meeting (see footnote 1, infra) were delivered to the White House on Oct. 8. (Secretary’s Letters, lot 56 D 459, “Memos for the President, June–December 1953”) For the responses of C. D. Jackson, Oct. 12, and President Eisenhower, Oct. 24, to the contents of these two papers, see Documents 45 and 49.
2. For text of President Eisenhower’s Apr. 16 speech, “The Chance for Peace,” see Document 585.
3. For documentation concerning the uprisings in the German Democratic Republic, see vol. vii, Part 2, pp. 1584 ff.
4. In the margin next to this sentence was written: “A hell of a kitchen.”
5. Reference is to PSB D–45, not printed. (PSB files, lot 62 D 333, PSB D–45 Series)