Psychological Warfare

It would be unwise of U.S. military and political leaders to overlook developing strengths within American every-day talk and thinking, whether academic or popular. Too specific a concentration on the problem of winning a war may cause a leader or his expert consultants to concentrate on solutions derived from past experience, therewith leading him to miss new and different solutions which might be offered by his own time. Changes need not always be thought of as weaknesses, which they are if past criteria are retained as absolute standards. Men born in the period 1910-20 may have endowments which are not commonly found among men born in the period 1930-40, yet it is entirely possible that the generation born during 1930-40 may have capacities and resistances which the older generation does not altogether appreciate.

Apply this concept to Communism. Communism loses strength every day that it exists: each day deprives it of novelty, each day makes it a littler more familiar, each day makes its leaders one day older. If Americans can learn how to be flexible and imaginative and to understand themselves as they really are, they might find that the real American appeal to the youth of the world would be much greater than the Communist appeal. It was unfortunately characteristic of the United States in the early 1950s of the Cold War that U.S. propaganda was based on ideals and standards older than the ideals and standards competitively presented by the Communists, and that therefore in many parts of the world the struggle between Americans and Communists appeared to be a struggle on our side of the old against the young. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The United States army in Korea in 1950-53 was one of the most revolutionary armies in history, an army dedicated to non-victory, pledging allegiance to a shadowy world government of the United Nations behind the practical reality of the government of the United States. Perhaps never before in many centuries have men fought so matter-of-factly, so calmly, so reasonably. They fought well and did not need to be jazzed up with the hashish of "making the world safe for Democracy" or "establishing the Four Freedoms."

The temper of the U.S. forces in Korea in 1951 was demonstrated by a Reserve sergeant who scarcely knew he was in the Reserves until he was on a boat bound for Pusan. He was a practical man, anxious to get home, but willing to do his share in this war as long as he had to. He was given the assignment of testing the voice plane of U.S. headquarters at Taegu. The loudspeaker was not working quite right, and he was instructed to test the plane at 500, 1,000 and 1,500 feet. The plane flew low over U.S. headquarters. The roar of the engines almost deafened everyone within the building, yet even above the roar of the engines there could be heard the bone-chilling hum of the silent loudspeaker—an immense magnification of the noise one hears from a radio set which is turned on without being tuned to a station. Everyone expected the sergeant to say, "This is the EUSAK voice plane testing; one-ah, two-ah, three-ah!" Instead the immense voice came through clearly, through brick, and plaster, and wood, through air and trees. It must have reached four miles. The gigantic voice of the sergeant seemed to roar over half of South Korea as he said, "Why—don't—you—imperialist—sons o' bitches—go—back—to—Wall-Street—where—you—belong?" It was said that fifty colonels grabbed for their phones simultaneously, but the purely American gimmick to the whole story lay in the fact that the sergeant was not punished. No damage was done. The Americans thought their enemies were funny or silly. We had shown that we were not afraid of Communist ideas.

The development of modern civilization is certain to have developments in war both as to the purpose of war and as to the modes of war. It seems likely that in the face of the supreme danger of atomic and thermonuclear weapons nations will resort more and more to small wars and semi-war operations which will offer the opportunity of strategic advantage without the cataclysmic danger of a world-wide showdown. In a very hush-hush way the U.S. Army is looking into the possibilities of small and irregular kinds of war; security regulations prohibit the author from discussing some of the interesting new developments in this field.