MIA > Archive > Draper > Militarization
From Labor Action, Vol. 14 No. 10, 6 March 1950, p. 7.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Marxists’ Internet Archive.
When General Bradley told a group of “high ranking officers” they must “work to sell the army to the public” [Cong. Record, July 28, 1948], he was simply promoting military policy, for the army has an elaborate program for getting the public ready to do what the army wants.
James Forrestal, when he was secretary of defense, also emphasized the importance of the army’s propaganda program when he told a group of 300 military publicity men, in the words of the newspaper reporter, “that it has become as imperative for military commanders to think in terms of the public as of the troops under them.” [N.Y. Times, Aug. 5, 1948]
During the fiscal year 1948 the army and air force employed 810 full-time and 431 part-time military men in public activities. In addition there were 557 full-time and 197 part-time publicity positions held by civilians in the employ of army public relations.
This personnel is engaged in the preparation of materials for newspapers and periodicals, the distribution of press releases, in interviewing the press, preparing material for broadcasting, producing motion pictures and other similar activity. None of the personnel is engaged in preparing material for internal use in the government, nor is any of the personnel engaged in recruiting activities or in answering correspondence from the public.
The total spent on salaries alone for army publicity was $3,959,580. When approximately four million dollars is spent for salaries, it is obvious that additional millions would be required for the equipment and materials like that involved in movie production and for travel and other expenses. Rep. Adolph Sabath on June 15, 1948, mentioned the sum of 15 millions as being spent by the military for propaganda. [Cong. Record, June 15, 1948]
It is interesting to note that most of the important army generals have public relations employees attached to their staffs. For example, the commander-in-chief for the Far East has, in addition to civilians, 135 full-time military personnel engaged in public relations work; the commanding general in the European theater has 107; the commander of the First Army Area in the United States has 28, the chief of staff has 44 military plus 113 civilians in publicity work. (These figures are supplied by the army.)
The navy has its own public relations staff and appropriations, in addition to the army-air force figures just cited ...
An Armed Forces Information School set up on August 4, 1948, as the successor to the Army Information School, plays an important role in training soldiers and officers to be effective publicity agents for the military. The military has already worked out a plan whereby soldiers selected for publicity work will be detailed to a newspaper or radio station for 90 days of experience. Each will be treated as a member of the newspaper staff working under the supervision of the editor, but being paid by the army.
Not only will this give the army an effective publicity agent on the staffs of newspaper® and radio stations, but they “will have had the advantage of working intimately with editors arid reporters” [Infantry Journal, Sept. 1948] whose friendship may be of later help to them in promoting the army.
The army has also called upon some leading members of the press to work as an integral part of the national military establishment’s publicity program. Since the persons thus invited to work with the military simply take a leave of absence, after which they expect to return to their newspapers. they also become effective interpreters of the military point of view.
Among those serving in this capacity are Robert Bruskin of the Washington Post, who was granted leave of absence to become chief of the news division in the army’s publicity setup; and Harold Hinton of the New York Times, who was asked to organize the military’s Public Information Office. In addition to such “leaves of absence” the army recruits “qualified men direct from civilian life for training in all phases of journalistic, radio and public information work.” [Ibid., July 1948.]
A part of the military propaganda program is what the army calls “prestige advertising” which “was directed to the general public as well as the possible enlistee.” This began to appear in “magazines of national circulation” shortly after the army hired “the services” of “one of the largest advertising agencies” in the country.
“To advance the public relations aspect of the campaign, stress was laid upon community relations. A series of luncheons, dinner meetings and similar affairs was arranged for influential representatives of the press and radio, civic, educational, religious and similar organizations throughout each service command. The purpose of this effort was to gain the wholehearted support of these civic-minded citizens and the large number of people whose thinking they influence.” [Army and Navy Journal, Aug. 14, 1948]
One of the most effective approaches to military publicity is the conducting of expensive radio shows. Beginning January 18, 1948, Mutual Broadcasting Company’s more than 400 stations offered a weekly Air Force Hour featuring the 65-piece U.S. Air Force Concert Orchestra, a 35-voice soldier glee club called the Singing Sergeants and talks by air force personnel, aviation experts, etc. A newspaper columnist described the military radio show as follows:
“The current Variety, adding up the score, finds that the military is now ‘radio’s No. 1 music sponsor,’ playing, as Variety puts it, ‘a £6,000,000 parlay at rut-rate.’ The $6,000,000 figure is Variety’s estimate of what the various military shows would cost on a radio time-and-talent basis.”
Another aspect of the army’s propaganda program is the use of the movies to enhance army prestige. The August 4, 1948, New York Times, in reviewing a new movie, stated: “The United States Military Academy needs recruits and Beyond Glory, which opened last night at the Paramount, is a manful effort to extol the martial virtues and to defend the Academy against its detractors.”
Earlier, the Times of July 29 in a news story from West Point, reported a statement of a group of cadets “that Beyond Glory was good publicity to give the people ‘on the outside.’” One cadet added, “I wish this place were like the institution in the picture.”
Still another illustration of military attempts to mold public opinion is the encouragement of newspapers and magazines to promote the military point of view. The New Yorker for August 21, 1948, stated: “We have a letter from Hoyt S. Vandenberg, chief of staff of the United States Air Force, telling us about Air Force Day on September 18. The theme of the day is Air Power Is Peace Power and the general wants this magazine to help publicize the theme.”
In the case of the New Yorker, a rare exception among periodicals, the army program boomeranged, for the editor added about the slogan:
“The trouble is we don’t believe a word about it. Air power, like any other sort of fighting power, is victory power or defeat power but not peace power.
“... the mere existence and growth of military power are a sort of provocation to other nations whose governments feel either the obligation or the desire to outstep it. Therefore, however, pacific the intentions of the nation wielding it, air power is a part of, the general ferment that results in war.”
Last updated on 9 March 2023