America's Psychological Warfare - Projects Troy and Camelot

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

The science of communication, whose development has been controlled by the CIA since the 1950s, has been a key tool in the "psychological war" against pro-Soviet governments and countries that might have followed the socialist bloc. Texas A&M University, the army and intelligence agencies collected information about the "enemy", developed NATO propaganda, prevented the emergence of liberation movements against Washington, and even served as torture advisers.

From this "alliance of science and politics," a mechanism was created that is still used by the United States.

1945 Presidents Harry Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower established the campaign agencies created during World War II and gave them their new mission: to fight the Soviet Union and the socialist republics marked as satellites. "Containment," the general strategy devised by Truman and his advisers, was to block the expansion of communism by controlling national liberation movements that could have given power to pro-Soviet or pro-socialist leaders. This ambitious project required the collaboration of experts capable of providing geographic, economic, cultural, psychological and sociological data useful to the military and intelligence services. In this context, some behavioral "scientists", some of whom were already working against the Third Reich, were incorporated into the new propaganda services of the Cold War.

In November 1945, General John Magruder invited military intelligence to lead an ambitious peacetime propaganda project based on advances in the humanities. However, his initiative did not convince US President Truman, who decided to dismantle the OSS of Donovan (Wild Bill), Roosevelt's protégé. For its part, the Office of War Information (OWI) was also dismantled on the basis of approval for Roosevelt's re-election in 1944. In January 1946, Truman founded the Central Intelligence Group (CIG), which a few weeks later was renamed the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), whose operations were incomprehensible and inconceivable: “propaganda, economic war, direct preventive action, sabotage, counter-diversion, destruction, subversive activities against hostile states, assistance to underground liberation movements, partisans, assassinations, assistance to indigenous groups opposing the enemy countries of the "free world" … ". The OPC was the office responsible for carrying out all of these activities under the command of OSS veteran Franck Wisner.

In theory, the OPC was dependent on the CIA. But in real life, Wisner, backed by George Kennan, had tremendous leeway. The OPC was responsible for much of the psychological warfare operations. Wiesner hired scientists to ensure data retrieval, persuade "neutral" intellectuals, and apparently develop NATO propaganda.

What is psychological warfare?

Psychological warfare encompasses a range of activities, from radio propaganda to torture, and requiring comprehensive information about target populations. In a 1948 document, the US Army defined "psychological warfare" as follows: "It is based on moral and physical means other than those on which orthodox military techniques are based. Its purpose:

• destroy the will and morale of the enemy and avoid the support of his allies.
• To encourage the will of our troops and our allies to win.

Psychological warfare uses every possible weapon to influence the will of the enemy. The weapon is labeled psychological because of its effect, not because of its own nature. That is why overt propaganda (white), secret (black) or gray propaganda - subversion, sabotage, assassinations, special operations, guerrillas, espionage, political, economic and racial pressure - are considered useful weapons [in psychological warfare].” To implement this "psychological warfare" program, the intelligence services are hiring behavioral scientists capable of inventing "simple, understandable and repetitive" white propaganda and black propaganda aimed at provoking "confusion, confusion and … terror" within the enemy. strength.

Troy and Camelot projects

The Tory project was to mobilize scientists to identify available means of transmitting Pravda (American propaganda) to the other side of the Iron Curtain. Its goal was to strengthen the Voice of America (VOA), a broadcasting network founded by the International Information Service (IIS), which Truman established to replace OWI. Voice of America was a "white" propaganda operation aimed at promoting the United States ("democracy", "American way of life", "freedom" were obviously the leitmotif of the VOA discourse). One of the main leaders of Project Troy was James Webb, an adviser to Secretary of State Dean Acheson and a proponent of "psychological warfare," who invited university experts and government to work closer.

Project Troy scientists wrote a report claiming that the Voice of America would not be enough to penetrate the Iron Curtain. Therefore, they suggested other means. The Troy project was to first focus on broadcasting and propaganda. After analyzing the goals of their sponsors - the military, the navy and possibly the CIA - they decided to go further and suggested other channels for their "white" propaganda: university exchanges, book publishing … and confirmed this information. be conveyed by the simple use of mail, through professional journals and other commercial or industrial publications. The report contained very precise recommendations, such as centralizing propaganda operations, and hence Truman founded the Psychological Strategy Council.

Following this first important collaboration, the Air Force demanded a report on the population of Korea in 1950. Wilbur Schramm (considered the founding father of the mass communications paradigm), John Ridley and Fredericks Williams were tasked with interviewing anti-communist refugees. develop an advocacy strategy for Korea. The study produced two types of documents: publications in Public Opinion for the Quarter (POQ), the official journal of the followers of Psychological Warfare, a book called The Reds Capture the City, and a secret report for the Army.

Another expression of "psychological warfare" was the Camelot project in the 1960s. It was about identifying models of the processes that led to national revolutions in third world countries to facilitate operations against insurgents. Camelot was a real-life example of strengthening ties between behavior researchers and US intelligence agencies. This project, begun in 1963, aimed to facilitate interventions in Yemen, Cuba and the Congo and, in theory, predict and prevent the risk of revolution. In Chile, some left-wing newspapers denounced the involvement of the US government, which sent Camelot through the Special Operations Research Bureau (SORO). The Yankees' espionage plan fell through in part because of what seemed to be.

College participation

The understanding between several university graduates and the ground forces led to the emergence of a new science used by intelligence agencies. The science of communication and the paradigm of "mass communication" funded by the Air Force, Navy, CIA, State Department (…) led to effective propaganda that had to penetrate the Iron Curtain in a variety of ways: (flyers, radio broadcasts …). The field of study of the discipline was wide: methods of persuasion, opinion polls, interviews, military and political mobilization, dissemination of ideology … To meet the demand for scientific data, several institutions were funded:

• Paul Lazarsfeld's Bureau of Applied Social Research (BASR) located at Columbia University.

• Institute of International Social Research named after Hadley Country (IISR)

• Center for International Studies Itiel de Sola Poole (CENIS) (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), funded by the Ford Foundation but actually donated by the CIA.

• The Bureau of Social Science Research (BSSR), funded directly by the CIA, which wanted to improve its interrogation methods.

• Torture was considered an area of social science research. During the Korean War, the BSSR (the main "black" propaganda research center) was responsible for conducting research for the army. He had to define "the goals and factors of vulnerability of the population of Eastern Europe", while identifying various "aspects of psychological violence." To be precise, the BSSR has written reports on the impact of traditional interrogation methods - electric shocks, strikes, drugs … Funded by the CIA (50% of the center's social budget), these studies have collected information, especially about the population of Vietnam. and Africa to improve the effectiveness of torture.

Magazine: Public Opinion Quarterly

In 1937, DeWitt Poole of Princeton University founded Public Opinion Quarterly (POQ). It featured articles on "psychological warfare," mostly written by people working for OWI, studies on the morale of German civilians, essays on troop training, reflections on military propaganda … opinions in France and Italy …) The board of directors of the magazine included specialists working on the CIA psychological project: Paul Lazarsfeld, Hadley Country, Rensis Likert and De Witt Poole (who later became president). National Committee for a Free Europe).

The study of the communication systems of countries controlled by the Soviet Union, or countries that could be conquered by communist groups, made it possible to immediately use the collection of information for strategists of the ground forces, and the instructions - usually very accurate - regarding the ways of spreading "white" propaganda and "black" methods of terror. Therefore, the sciences of communication, viewed as a means of observation and coercion, were purely manipulative in nature.

The Sciences of Coerced Neutralism

The mass communications paradigm that emerged from the funding of the Cold War services was incorporated into a broader intellectual plan of dividing the world map based on the logic of American strategists. A thesis advocated by the patriarch of this discipline, Wilbur Schramm, offered a perspective on this reductionist dimension of the communications sciences.

Schramm's system (like Leo Strauss's) was based on the good guy / bad guy antagonism. This moral principle (communism symbolized evil and America symbolized good) was shared by most intellectuals and scholars loyal to the American government in the fight against Soviet expansion. In this struggle, neutralism was considered treason.

The intellectual struggle went beyond convincing the followers of communism to attract neutrals. At the Congress for Cultural Freedom, New York intellectuals, followed by a group of European NATO defenders such as Raymond Aron in France, pointed to neutrality as the main goal of “their” work. Communications scientists were working on a blueprint developed by the CIA and the OPC. In an article published in POQ by Daniel Lehmer, various aspects of neutralism were questioned and a “model” of people included in this category was developed. Lemaire's answer to the question: how to define neutral? was: "[For a neutral] to choose between the USA and the USSR is not the same as choosing between freedom and slavery," Lemaire identified several elements of neutralism: "Peace, security, detente in international relations."

In addition to the similarities between the ideological lines of "psychological warfare" and the ideas of the Congress for Cultural Freedom, which demonstrated the relative coherence of the plan developed by the leaders of Wiesner and the CIA, it can also be noted that specialists in "manipulating the masses" were usually reformed Marxists. An example of this is the career of Paul Lazarsfeld, who became one of the main ideologues of "mass communication" and was an active socialist in the late 1920s.

In France, he had relationships with SFIO and Leo Lagrange. In 1932, the Rockefeller Foundation offered him a scholarship to study in the United States. Based on the idea of "a methodological connection between the act of buying soap and socialist voting," he became famous for writing articles on marketing. The government and intelligence agencies quickly spotted him and asked him to collaborate on the Ford Foundation's Radio Research Program, funded by the BASR, and funded by the Army and the CIA.

In 1951 he was appointed social science advisor to the Ford Foundation. He then facilitated the founding of the Institute for Advanced Study in Social Sciences in Austria and the start of an exchange program with Yugoslavia and Poland. In the 60s, he was appointed to expert positions at UNESCO and OCDE. Therefore, Paul Lazarsfeld broke off relations with socialist groups to join the scientific groups of "psychological warfare". But he was not the only one to do this, which deserves the praise of New York intellectuals. Leo Lowenthal, one of the main contributors to POQ, was also actively involved in developing "psychological" methods of dealing with his former Marxist friends.

The scientific field of the "behavioral scientists" was the study of the communication systems of "risky" countries. Therefore, the connection between the history of this discipline and the conflicts that the US was involved in during the Cold War (Korea, Vietnam … and, secretly, Chile and Angola …) was not surprising.

The validity of "psychological warfare"

The mechanism founded by Wiesner was still in operation at the end of the Cold War. While "behavior researchers" were recruited, the CIA funded numerous international research centers or "training zones" to collect information on "risky" geographic areas. In 1947, the Carnegie Endowment provided the necessary funds for the creation of the Russian Science Center. Since 1953, one of the main focus of the CIA, the Ford Foundation, has provided funds to 34 universities for international research.

This project was implemented not only in the USA. The Rockefeller Foundation funded several Regional Studies in France after the political beliefs of the funded researchers were thoroughly tested. Section VI of the Practical School for Higher Studies, which later became the Graduate School of Social Sciences (EHESS), welcomed several research groups that have created work in China, Russia, and other regions of interest to US services. Even today, international research is still an important part of the EHESS problem.

For its part, Voice of America, the American broadcasting network - the favorite toy of the Troy Project behavioral scientists - is still active. A law passed by Congress in 1960 and passed by President Ford stated that “direct radio communication [white propaganda] with the peoples of the world is beneficial in the long term for American interests (…) VOA news will be accurate, objective, and complete (…) VOA will represent the American the policy is clear and effective! ". Today, VOA programs, broadcast through a transmitter in Greenville, North Carolina, target African countries and appear to counter French influence in the region (VOA founded its French broadcasting services in 1960).

After declaring its independence, the VOA ended as follows: “In the world, especially in Africa, radio is still the main medium of information. Today, as in the past (sic), our goal is to broadcast programs with reliable and objective information for our listeners. In general, communication sciences contributed to the emergence of a new form of war propaganda, adapted to the Cold War, which was conceived not for the classical confrontation, but for the ideological struggle between East and West and the low-intensity conflicts that took place in the Third World.

In 2001, the Bush administration revived the mechanisms of the Cold War not to fight the Soviet Union, but to impose a new world order. Since September 11, 2001, the justification for this reactivation has been the “war on terror”. In this context, the CIA is again turning to universities. Agency Research Director John Philips took over Rochester Institute of Technology; Michael Crawl, the CIA's vice director for the computer sector, was named rector of the University of Arizona, and Robert Gates (former CIA patron under Bush Sr.) became director of the University of Texas A&M.