Advertising America: Official Propaganda and the U.S. Promotional Industries,1946–1950

The Office of War Information

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, marking America’s official entry into World War II, intensified Washington’s need to communicate its goals and strategies domestically as well as internationally. To streamline operations, all existing information agencies were quickly centralized under the OWI. Created in June 1942, OWI was led by Elmer Davis, a journalist and radio commentator, who reported directly to the president. The Domestic and Foreign Branches of the new office became the clearinghouse for all government information, except for that aimed at Latin America. The latter task was left to the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs, an agency with close ties to the State Department and headed by Nelson Rockefeller. The OWI advised government agencies and departments on how to disseminate information to their individual publics, although the respective agencies were free to accept or reject the suggestions (Hart, 2013; Winkler, 1978).

Davis stressed that the OWI was “auxiliary to the armed forces” (Hart, 2013, p. 82) and emphasized the importance of disseminating “truth instead of falsehood,” both domestically and internationally. Unlike the CPI, which had celebrated the success of its propaganda, the OWI considered propaganda to be “a word in bad odor” (p. 83) and characterized its own informational activities as “education.” Initially, the OWI enjoyed strong congressional support, and $26 million was secured for its first year of operations. The Foreign Branch was fashioned out of the existing FIS, although a newly created Office of Strategic Services (OSS), with Bill Donovan in charge, was created for intelligence-gathering. In 1947, the OSS would become the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) (OWI, 1945).

Much like the CPI, the OWI relied heavily on commercial mass media. Although the government could not order private media what to produce, it worked with several industries to get its messages before the public. It collaborated closely with the movie industry’s War Activities Committee in making “non-binding recommendations” on film scripts. It also worked with industry executives on distribution of newsreels, shorts, documentaries, and feature films aimed at international audiences (Hart, 2013; Winkler, 1978). The overseas market for radio, in contrast, was undeveloped and commercially unprofitable. As the OWI considered radio news to be a particularly effective information vehicle, however, the Foreign Branch leased 14 shortwave transmitters from European commercial broadcasters to launch its Voice of America broadcasts. To deflect accusations that it was encroaching on private media outlets, the OWI let commercial radio companies broadcast its material, even if that meant sacrificing the best time slots and frequencies (Hart, 2013, p. 86).

International broadcasting was supplemented with pamphlets, booklets, and posters in several languages. An 80-page glossy illustrated magazine titled Victory explained what America was about and told overseas readers “an American story that had never before been as fully or directly told” (Winkler, 1978, p. 79). Still, the OWI made sure not to get in the way of private enterprise and focused on “the publication of informational pamphlets and graphics, which private companies could not have produced profitably” (Hart, 2013, p. 86). It also produced its own informational pamphlets for distribution and contracted with major publishers to provide the books for overseas distribution. In exchange for survey information from the OWI about “the kind of books most needed in various countries” (p. 87), publishers agreed to make their products as freely available as possible. The book program dovetailed nicely with the overseas libraries that the State Department was then developing; these continued after the war’s end.

From the outset, the Foreign Branch faced a great deal of suspicion and was under constant scrutiny. Its independence of the State Department was a major concern for some; the OWI was accused of using confidential material for inappropriate purposes and failing to take appropriate security precautions. Some questioned why foreigners, who performed valuable language tasks as OWI employees, could express their “passionate political convictions,” and accused the OWI’s “liberal propaganda wing” of using the office to further its own political ends. Winkler (1978) argues that these suspicions were strengthened by “American propagandists” in the overseas program, “who acknowledged that they made selective use of ‘the truth’ and shaped it to their own ends” (p. 76).

Although the Foreign Branch was by far the largest, U.S. citizens came in closest contact with the OWI’s Domestic Branch, led by Gardner Cowles Jr., a prominent Republican publisher. Much like its overseas counterpart, the Domestic Branch worked closely with commercial media to mold American thought and behavior into forms that would be useful for the war effort (e.g., Winkler, 1978). The radio industry developed a massive allocation plan for how networks and individual stations could most effectively incorporate the OWI’s calls for domestic action. Modeling an early version of what we today think of as product placement, wartime programs deftly incorporated calls for army nurses, blood donations, the need to salvage scrap metal, and the patriotic aspects of buying war bonds. The “themes” depended on what the Domestic Branch deemed important to the war effort. While networks and stations cooperated on a volunteer basis, they were keenly aware that radio was a regulated industry, mandated to operate in the public’s interest in exchange for free access to the publicly owned airwaves. Refusing to participate in the OWI’s information campaigns might raise red flags and jeopardize the radio industry’s lucrative deal with government regulators. While no evidence suggests that the government made direct threats, these issues were obviously in the back of broadcasters’ minds (Horten, 2002; McChesney, 1993).

Unlike radio, the magazine industry enjoyed full protection from government regulation under the First Amendment. Still, its members adhered closely to the Magazine War Guide, an OWI directive sent periodically to U.S. magazine publishers to inform them about specific themes to emphasize. Depending on the need or sense of urgency, magazines would be encouraged to incorporate pleas for blood donations, salvage of fats and scrap metal, purchases of war bonds, and food preservation into their story lines (Adkins Covert, 2011; McEuen, 2011). Hollywood similarly cooperated, stressing some themes and downplaying others, depending on the OWI’s assessment of what was most beneficial for the war effort (Koppes & Black, 1990).

When nudging and suggestions were considered inadequate, the government relied on the Office of Censorship to prevent magazine and newspaper editors from getting certain stories and images in the first place. To steer the American public’s sentiments and attitudes in desired directions, the Office of Censorship put battlefield images to strategic use. During the early years of the war, for example, when the Allied Powers were experiencing defeat on multiple fronts, the agency, as a matter of policy, censored photographs that portrayed the war effort in a grim light. Photos of dead GIs could not be published, although everyone understood that war involved fighting and dying. The fear was that overly realistic depictions would lessen support for the war and discourage potential soldiers from enlisting. The Office of Censorship changed its image-release policy in 1943 as the Allies turned the tide and began to win battles. To combat American “war weariness,” it permitted publication of photographs showing blood and carnage, sweat and suffering. In effect, civilians were asked to compare their home front sacrifices to the sacrifices of the soldiers (Roeder, 1993). Thus, as Koppes and Black (1990) point out, “the truth” became a malleable concept. Although the OWI did not engage in deliberate falsehoods and fabrications, its insistence on establishing contexts of interpretation did not adhere to what is commonly understood as “telling the truth.”

The (War) Advertising Council

Among the many industries aiding the OWI, advertising was particularly important. At the beginning of the war, the advertising industry had just survived a tumultuous decade. For the better part of the 1930s, consumer advocates, frequently supported by New Deal administrators, had pushed for federal regulation of advertising. Thanks to clever uses of public relations, the industry had reined in the challenge, effectively keeping the 1938 Wheeler-Lea Amendment to the Federal Trade Commission Act—which was presented as a pro-consumer reform—from posing a major threat to its modus operandi (Stole, 2006). Still, the industry was not entirely out of the woods. As the European war intensified and pressure for U.S. involvement mounted, advertisers, representing some of the largest corporations in America, eyed another crisis. An increasing amount of raw material was needed for war-related products, which left American producers with limited resources for domestic production of consumer goods such as cars, vacuum cleaners, and washing machines. Later, the shortage spread to the production of food, clothing, and other products. As a result, advertisers worried about their ability to keep their brand names alive. They were also concerned that the situation would put an end to advertising’s status as a tax-deductible business expense. If public demand exceeded available supply, an argument could be made that advertising was counterproductive to the war effort, as it would increase demand for necessarily scarce consumer goods and decrease much-needed tax revenues due to the deduction. At the very least, many people argued that producers should bear the expense of keeping brand names before the public and not pass the expense on to a government struggling with empty war coffers (Stole, 2012).

In November 1941, a joint committee of the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) and the Association of American Advertising Agencies (AAAA) brought to Hot Springs, Virginia, some 700 representatives from the advertising and media industries together with people from government and the business community to discuss national advertising and its role in the defense economy. Attendees were mostly concerned about Washington’s attitude toward advertising (“Advertising Mobilizes Forces to Preserve Free Enterprise,” 1941). Before any plans could be implemented, however, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.

A few days after America’s formal entry into the war, Donald M. Nelson, who was director of priorities for the Office of Price Management, contacted the organizers of the meeting, asking for advertisers’ assistance in fighting the war. Nelson stressed the government’s wish to be supported by the industry’s creative talents and to have access to its channels of communication (Bethune, 1968, p. 34). For industry leaders, this was a golden opportunity to improve their relations with the government while also promoting the free enterprise system and advancing advertising’s role within it. Publicly, however, they framed advertising’s contribution as supporting the overall OWI effort, claiming that it was intended to serve “primarily as a public information service” (“War Comes to America,” 1941). Moving at a breakneck pace, a handful of key figures, representing national advertisers, advertising agencies, and media, met on January 5, 1942, and unofficially formed the Advertising Council.

Upon establishing offices in Washington and New York, the Council issued an official announcement in March 1942, promising to “marshal the forces of advertising so that they may be of maximum aid in the successful prosecution of the war” (Advertising Council, 1942b). Careful consideration went into selecting representatives from small as well as large agencies, advertisers, mass media, and related groups. Of the Council’s 31 officers, 10 were national advertisers. Advertising agencies were represented by 10 members. Three representatives were from the newspaper industry and two from national magazines. The radio, outdoor advertising, and retail industries were each represented by one person. National advertisers, agencies, and major media industries contributed a total of $100,000 toward the first year’s operating budget (“Advertising Council Serves to Coordinate War Activities,” 1942). Except for the executive director and a few staff members, the Council depended on volunteer labor and donated services (Advertising Council, 1942a).

The job of coordinating the government’s publicity needs with the Council’s offer of labor, space, and time fell to Ken Dyke, a former advertising manager for the Colgate-Palmolive-Peet Company, a past head of the ANA, and then working for the National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC). As director of the OFF’s Advertising Division, Dyke (1942) realized that many government officials were skeptical about advertising and was ready to show how their cooperation with the Advertising Council could benefit the war effort.

The Domestic Branch of the OWI consisted of seven smaller bureaus, responsible for disseminating the government’s messages in various mass media, including news, radio, and motion pictures. Established in August 1942, its Bureau of Campaigns took charge of the central planning and control of all major governmental information programs. Until June 1942, when the OWI replaced the combined services of the OFF and the OGR and officially recognized the Ad Council as its major liaison with the advertising industry, the Council unofficially worked with the OFF’s Advertising Division. Now, having established the Bureau of Campaigns, the OWI put the Council in charge of its promotional needs rather than create a government advertising department.

In addition to planning and timing government campaigns, the Council was responsible for coordinating communication between government agencies in need of promotional help and advertisers, agencies, and media that could provide such assistance (Stole, 2012). After analyzing and approving a particular campaign, the Bureau of Campaigns contacted the Advertising Council, whose executive committee determined whether it merited advertising support. Upon approval, one or more of the over 400 advertising agencies that had volunteered their services to the Council took responsibility for developing campaign plans in cooperation with a project director from the Council’s paid staff and the government department that had requested the promotional help. Preliminary plans, usually copy suggestions, layouts, and miscellaneous material, were submitted to the Council’s board for approval. Individual advertisers were then asked to incorporate campaign themes into their product advertisements free of charge.

At the end of 1942, the Council was actively involved in several major government campaigns. One focused on food, using promotional material to explain the government’s agricultural goals and problems associated with the shortage of farm labor. Another provided information to the public about nutrition-related issues, including the importance of “victory gardens.” A conservation campaign aimed at automobile owners promoted the importance of carpooling, tire preservation, efficient driving, and conservation of gasoline (tires and gasoline, of course, were rationed). A U.S. Treasury Department campaign urged everyone to invest at least 10% of their earnings in war bonds and stamps (“Advertisers Mustered for War Campaign,” 1942). Much to the Council’s delight, in 1943, the Treasury Department, which had been among the first departments to seek its promotional assistance, was so appreciative that it officially declared all advertising a tax-deductible expense (Stole, 2012).

Initially, the OWI enjoyed strong congressional support, but the loss of 45 Democratic seats in the 1942 midterm elections left Democrats with a narrow majority in the House of Representatives. This emboldened a Republican critique of the OWI, including new accusations that it was a propaganda tool for the president’s Democratic agenda. In the spring and summer of 1943, Republican critics accused the Domestic Branch of being staffed by inexperienced and inept men, some of them draft dodgers. While vehemently denying the charges, Elmer Davis was unable to prevent the heated debate over the government’s information program that followed. When the dust finally settled a few months later, the OWI had undergone a major organizational shakeup. Many key officials resigned their positions, and drastic appropriations cuts forced a heavier reliance on assistance from private industry. Reflecting this change, the Advertising Council changed its name to the War Advertising Council, a name it kept until the war ended.

The close relationship between corporate America and Washington was made clear in the spring of 1944, when Roosevelt, in what would become a regular occurrence, invited 200 government officials and representatives from the advertising community to what the White House called “‘off-the-record’ indoctrination talks.” Officials from the War Department, the Navy Department, and other executive departments and agencies were eager to chat with the delegates, who also got to meet with the president (Stole, 2012). Still, during the transition from peace to war, few questioned the increasing role of private industry in matters of government operations and affairs. That relationship would only strengthen in the postwar era.

The Office of Information and Cultural Affairs

In August 1945, President Truman officially abolished the OWI and appointed William Benton as assistant secretary of state for public affairs. The latter wasted no time in refashioning the OWI’s Foreign Branch into the OIC. During its first months of operations, the OIC relied on staff and appropriations left over from the OWI and the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs (U.S. Department of State, 1947a). Benton approached his mandate of conveying “a full and fair picture of American life and of the aims and policies of the United States Government” (U.S. Department of State, 1945a, p. 5) with gusto. “We are one of the most powerful nations in the world today,” he boasted. “A good many people in other countries think of us as the nation with the atom bomb, the B-29 planes, the huge navy and air forces. This impression is liable to give rise to misunderstanding, fear and hatred if we don’t make our aims clear, and convince people that ours is a peaceful way of life” (p. 4). He argued that “America, to most peoples abroad, is a symbol of prosperity” (p. 18); by becoming “a symbol of the best democratic traditions,” America would help the world rid itself of “hatred, suspicion, and the germs of future wars.” Acknowledging that “the word propaganda has bad connotations to many Americans,” Benton promised to present “a well-rounded picture of America and American foreign policy . . . . We won’t select or distort the facts to give a completely favorable picture. The best propaganda in the world is the truth. We found that out during the war” (p. 9).

Despite the State Department’s assessment that the OWI’s Foreign Branch had done “a credible public relations job” (Benton, 1947c, p. 2) during the war, a great deal of suspicion lingered. Accusations of untrustworthy and disloyal personnel, extravagance, and ineffectuality carried over to the OIC. A large segment of the press believed that continuation was unnecessary because sound foreign policy and actions speak for themselves.

To provide international audiences with the needed “full and fair picture,” the OIC and related State Department groups developed eight programs (U.S. Department of State, 1947a, pp. 11–18). The Exchange of Persons Program continued a program created to facilitate international journalistic exchange, but with an added component. It was expanded to other exchange programs, including the Fulbright U.S. Student Program, established in 1946. The OIC served in a liaison capacity for private organizations engaged in international outreach, such as Kellogg, Ford, Guggenheim, and the Institute of International Education. It also aided foreign governments with programs that assisted foreign nationals with professional training in the United States and similar programs for Americans wanting to obtain such experiences abroad.

By 1946, the Library and Institutional Program had provided books, films, and periodicals to 85 libraries in 60 countries; it lent support to American-sponsored schools abroad and assisted with translations of American documents into foreign languages. The Mailed Information Service sent special material overseas, including newspaper clippings, while the Wireless Bulletin Service transmitted U.S. government news, including congressional hearings. The Photo and Filmstrip Service oversaw weekly shipments of photographs to be printed in overseas publications and provided educational films to educational institutions. Another program was responsible for collecting American newsreels and documentaries and translating them into foreign languages, and for publicizing Amerika, a bimonthly Russian-language magazine with a circulation of 50,000, which was distributed by the U.S. Embassy in Moscow and sold through commercial Russian channels and on the black market.

Countering accusations that it competed with private interests, the OIC did its utmost to assist American private enterprises; it vehemently denied that it was seeking to replace private press, radio, and motion picture organizations. It painted its task as filling in where “commercial or other limitations make it difficult for private concerns to carry on all necessary information work” (U.S. Department of State, 1947a, p. 7). To avoid accusations that it disseminated propaganda, the State Department stressed the importance of non-governmental cultural exchange. The government’s job, Benton said, was “facilitative and supplementary . . . to avoid the taint of special pleading, but to aim at better understanding of our democratic processes. We must support the free press and the radio in this objective” (pp. 8–9).

The OIC expressed strong faith in the role of commercial salesmen, advertisers, technicians, book publishers, play producers, universities, and even tourists in representing U.S. values abroad. It hoped that magazines like Newsweek, Time, and Reader’s Digest would support the mission and expand into international markets (U.S. Department of State, 1945b, p. 26, 1947a, pp. 5–6). As far as possible, private organizations and individuals should take the lead in “informing foreign peoples” (U.S. Department of State, 1947a, p. 7) about the United States.

The OWI’s Short-Wave Radio Program became an important aspect of the OIC’s responsibilities, given that radio was essential in “giving foreign peoples a better understanding of American aims, policies and institutions” (U.S. Department of State, 1947a, p. 17). Benton (1946b) was particularly eager to get shortwave broadcasting adequately financed by either the press associations or domestic radio interests, although he acknowledged that “the commercial loss involved seems to pose an insuperable financial hurdle” (p. 6). The problem, from a private interest perspective, was that some areas were off limits for political reasons; others lacked the appropriate infrastructure to make it commercially profitable or practicable for American private agencies to operate (p. 5). Also, as Benton pointed out (p. 6), the dissemination of information to international audiences demanded specific skills. Merely translating news intended for an American audience would not suffice: the information needed to be expertly adapted for international comprehension.

Much like commercial broadcasters, movie and newsreel producers found it difficult to make a profit in international markets. So the State Department assisted in getting films produced and distributed, such as “Swedes in America,” “Women in Medicine,” “National Gallery of Art,” “Home Life of an American Citizen,” “American Methods of Education,” “American Scientific Achievements,” and “American Methods of Public Health.” These were screened at U.S. embassies, schools, churches, clubs, and organizations across the globe and supplemented by comments and explanations by embassy employees (U.S. Department of State, 1945b). Benton thanked his personal friend Eric Johnston, the president of the Motion Picture Association of America, for convincing newsreel companies to donate “a very considerable sum of money” (p. 31) to help with the task. As the government yielded its role as soon as a private company was willing to take a chance on the international newsreel distribution, the newsreel industry had a financial stake in the development (p. 28).

Benton and the Mass Media

Unlike the media industries that willingly cooperated with the OIC, the two major U.S. newsgathering wire services, the Associated Press (AP) and United Press (UP), were not on board. While Benton (1946b) admitted that this was an “inconvenience” (p. 2), he took solace in knowing that Voice of America relied on AP and UP for only a fraction of its programming; their lack of cooperation were having less impact than initially anticipated. While supporting the State Department’s information goal, the president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, James L. Knight, worried about the OIC’s ability to deliver news objectively. With the war fresh in people’s memory, he pointed to state domination of press and other communication facilities in 1930s Germany and Italy as extreme examples of what might happen if the line between government and the fourth estate were to be compromised (Benton, 1946b).

Acknowledging that the OIC might be viewed in some quarters as an “orthodox and potentially controversial peacetime operation” (Benton, 1947a, p. 2), Benton utilized a gentle but persistent approach to win the press’s approval. This included extensive correspondence and a series of informal meetings with leading publishers and editors, including Arthur Sulzberger of the The New York Times, Helen Reid of the Herald Tribune, Eugene Mayer of the Washington Post, Harry Luce of Time and Life, Bruce Gould of Curtis Publishing, and Gardner and John Cowles, the owners of Look and several Des Moines and Minneapolis newspapers. Broadcasting presidents Niles Trammel of NBC and William Paley of the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) were likewise courted, as was Eric Johnston. These people were long-term acquaintances and in some cases close friends of Benton’s. He also reached out to the American Society of News Editors, the New York Society of Newspaper Women, the National Press Club, the Inland Daily Press Association, and the Foreign Press Association and held several meetings with the Association of Radio Analysts (p. 3). Leading commentators, reporters, and columnists were contacted, and Benton sought advice from a newly created Radio Advisory Committee, consisting of prominent radio executives. John Hay Whitney, a wealthy motion picture investor, was asked to serve as a motion picture consultant (p. 4).

Although the OIC worked closely with American businesses and media interests, some critics on Capitol Hill and in the news media saw the OIC as a competitor to private industry. Benton (1946g, p. 6) insisted that the opposite was true: the OIC encouraged cooperation with private industry in every possible way; its role was to fill in any gaps. Benton was determined to strengthen the OIC’s ties to business and to weaken remaining opposition in the press and the bureaucracy. Benton spent considerable time dealing with critics, including “a dozen exchanges” (p. 3) with Colonel McCormick, the conservative publisher of the Chicago Tribune, whom he never managed to convert into a supporter.

While visiting New York in the spring of 1946, Benton received enthusiastic support from members of over 100 organizations. Particularly valuable were endorsements from people with substantial international business and media experience, including C. D. Jackson, the managing director of Time-Life International, who had served as deputy chief of the OSS Psychological Warfare Division; and Time publisher Jim Linen, who had served as OWI chief in Italy. Senior Newsweek editor Ed Barrett also came out in support, as did Nelson Rockefeller, who offered to solicit members of Congress for endorsements. Many former members of the OWI and the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs who had moved on to high-level jobs in the publishing and broadcasting fields expressed a similar willingness to assist (Benton, 1946e). Key members of the Council of Foreign Relations, a group that counted Benton among its members, declared themselves “unanimously behind the proposal” (p. 2). Benton did not forget the movie industry. In March 1946, he attended the annual Academy Awards ceremony to drum up industry support for the OIC.

Even before the war officially ended, the State Department had collaborated with NBC on radio programs to explain U.S. foreign policy to American listeners (Dennis, 1945). Slightly worried that this agreement might suggest a network slant in the State Department’s favor, NBC decided to balance the government’s agenda with a range of political, legislative, and legal perspectives on U.S. foreign policy, while keeping a flexible format that allowed the State Department airtime access as needed. According to Sterling Fisher (1946), the assistant public service counselor at NBC, this would “create a balanced picture of our foreign policy and prevent the building up of a serious potential of criticism of us and the Department as doing a ‘propaganda job’” (p. 2). Benton (1946d) asked him not to worry. In the 1940s, many Americans assumed that, unlike mass media in totalitarian countries, the U.S. media were free of direct government interference due to their commercial nature and the First Amendment to the Constitution. While advertisers might influence what was written and reported (or not), the government would never even consider meddling with the nation’s press and broadcasting, if only out of fear of the outrage it would engender. Consequently, the State Department was able to disseminate its messages to the public quietly through the commercial mass media, without setting off a propaganda alarm.

After evaluating public opinion on international issues during the summer of 1946, and reasoning that private enterprise provided a safe harbor for accusations of state propaganda, Benton (1946d) stepped up the domestic radio campaigns by suggesting that the State Department approach all U.S. radio networks to request a “good evening time for a review of foreign affairs.” The goal was to create a new type of programming that would inform the large prime-time audience about international issues that the State Department deemed important (Benton, 1946c).

ABC doubted the program had much listener appeal. But, Edward Murrow, then vice president in charge of public service for CBS, thought it smacked of government propaganda and was unafraid to say so. Reluctant to “give any government department a continuing block of time” (Carter, 1946), the Mutual Broadcasting System agreed with CBS about the propaganda problem. NBC’s Francis Russell, who had opposed Benton’s initial proposal, changed his opinion after discussing the matter with John Howe from the State Department, Yale professor and propaganda expert Harold Lasswell, and fellow public liaison Margaret Carter. In place of a regular weekly broadcast, Russell (1947) suggested that Benton appear “with greater frequency on established programs” (p. 1). In the summer of 1946, as the State Department prepared itself for a congressional battle over the OIC’s funding and legal status, it needed all the help it could get.

Legislative Battle

Rep. Karl Mundt (R-SD) introduced legislation in the House Committee on Foreign Affairs to make the OIC a permanent part of the State Department already in January 1945. Previously known as “a vociferous pre-Pearl Harbor isolationist” (“The American Twang,” 1947), Mundt initially believed that “Americans [should] spend more time ‘minding our own business instead of . . . meddling in the governments of Europe.’” World War II changed his mind; the former schoolteacher turned congressman became a strong supporter of what was termed “internationalism” to build lasting world peace.

In addition to inheriting the OWI’s mission, personnel, and remaining appropriations, the OIC inherited its predecessor’s funding challenges. It immediately reduced the existing OWI payroll by more than one fourth (Benton, 1946f, p. 3). During the war, the Republican National Committee had actively attacked the OWI, and although some prominent Republicans, including Senator Wayne Morse (R-OR) and Rep. Everett Dirksen (R-IL), supported the government’s information agency, most Republicans, and a few powerful Democrats, were opposed. According to former OWI director Elmer Davis, this had prevented the OWI from doing the best possible job:

We were hired to fight Dr. Goebbels and his allies of the Japanese and Italian propaganda ministries, but for at least two or three months of every year, while our appropriations were going through the committees and the Houses of Congress, the head of the agency had to devote more time and energy to repelling the attack of our enemies at home than we were able to spend on Dr. Goebbels and our other enemies—who, of course, gleefully reproduced in their publications and broadcasts to the world the attacks made on OWI in Congress. (OWI, 1945, p. 95)

At the State Department’s request, Mundt’s bill was modified to include provisions for Voice of America. The revised bill (HR 4982) gave the State Department permission to operate globally (Shulman, 1990, p. 189). Introduced in the House Foreign Affairs Committee by the chairman, Rep. Sol Bloom (D-NY), the Bloom Bill elicited serious objections from conservative lawmakers concerned about the lack of oversight of the State Department’s foreign activities. Some considered the program an underhanded move to revitalize the OWI and entrench the government in areas where it should have no role (Krugler, 2000, p. 65).

The end of the war had resurrected a long-standing battle between “internationalists” and “isolationists” in Congress. Eastern Republicans and many moderate and liberal New Dealers associated free trade and international expansion with world peace and American prosperity. Midwestern Republicans and several powerful Democrats wanted America to retreat to its prewar spheres (Lykins, 2003, p. 32). The congressional battle over HR 4982 and subsequent bills to make information services a permanent feature under the State Department’s jurisdiction brought the geopolitical conflict to a head. In February 1946, the bill, which also proposed an expansion of the State Department’s activities into China and Asia, went to the House Rules Committee. A hostile chairman, Rep. Eugene Cox (D-GA), warned Benton that 10 of the committee’s 12 members opposed anything the State Department favored because of its “Communist infiltration and pro-Russian policy” (Ninkovich, 1981, p. 121). He accused the department of being “chock full of Reds.” Nor did Cox respect the House Foreign Affairs Committee, characterizing it as “a worthless committee consisting of worthless impotent Congressmen” (p. 122) and a “ghetto of the House of Representatives.”

Benton (1946g) was incensed, warning that “radio stations and newspapers in many countries of the world are issuing half-truths, untruths or no truths about the people and the Government of the United States” (p. 2). Only “patient efforts” along the lines outlined by the State Department would dispel the misinformation. “There was a time when we could afford—or thought we could afford—to be unconcerned about what other people thought of us,” he continued. “If the people of other nations misunderstood us it was regrettable. The passage of time would probably correct the error.” But that was no longer the case. American decisions “will have repercussions affecting the lives of ordinary people all over the globe. Our attitude and our actions—and rumors thereof—will be matters of concern everywhere” (p. 2).

Benton (1946f) explained that the information program was not intended to indiscriminately build goodwill or to sell America abroad; nor did it compete with other countries’ information programs. Rather, it helped other countries understand America and “join with us as willing friends and allies” (p. 5). This, he promised, would help U.S. trade and commerce, because “all our treaties, all our international organizations, all our material aid, [would] mean nothing without an accompanying knowledge, by other peoples, of the realities of the United States” (p. 6). Other nations needed facts to correct false impressions about the United States, and the OIC could supply them:

Sometimes it is possible for a specific distortion to be created, either accidentally or deliberately, which will gain acceptance by repetition unless it is corrected. More often, however—and in this process Dr. Goebbels excelled—existing stereotypes or clichés about America are deepened and confirmed. These myths about America, which sometimes appear to be fostered deliberately for internal or external political reasons, are based on inadequate knowledge of the facts about American history and American institutions. (p. 8)

Arguing that the United States was not engaging in “psychological warfare or ‘propaganda’ as it is usually defined” (Benton, 1946i, p. 7), Benton asserted that it was not trying to “invade” other counties with ideas or “bomb” them with broadcasts. In the interest of promoting international understanding of the United States, Americans needed to “know about other people as much as other people need to know about us” (p. 7). The OIC’s mission was to “explain the role of the United States in world affairs—its history, its national character and its faith in a free society” (p. 3). Benton (1946f) characterized the program as a “two-way project” between the United States and the participating foreign countries (p. 12) and a continuation of the cultural diplomacy program that Nelson Rockefeller had designed and implemented during the war as head of the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs in Latin America.

Benton (1946i) was adamant that the OIC would facilitate peace, friendship, and international collaboration. Other nations viewed Americans as gangsters and cowboys, and believed that “Congress [was] weltering in a whirl of filibusters and cocktail parties” (Benton, 1946f, p. 8). America could ill afford to “stand as a mute giant before the people of the world” (p. 13). Benton (1946a) quoted Jesus saying “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” but added:

But during the ages since Jesus spoke the words, they have acquired a new and additional meaning . . . . In this new meaning . . . free refers to the liberation of men from tyranny, political shackles, social supersessions, economic slavery, and all institutions which limit their beliefs, dim their aspirations, or curb their love for their fellow human beings. (p. 2, emphasis in original)

Benton (1946f) accurately pointed out that the sum requested for the OIC’s work was “about one-fifth of 1 percent of the budget proposed by the Army and Navy” (p. 2). Moreover, unlike the military, the State Department’s work was preventive, an inexpensive insurance policy against future armed battles: “something we dare not do without.” Desperate to keep the international information effort afloat, Benton was ready to fight. The OWI’s annual budget had topped $66 million at the height of the war, but Benton was asking for only $19 million to operate the OIC during the 1947 fiscal year. An unsympathetic House Appropriations Committee reduced the sum to $10 million. The assistant secretary of state asked the Senate Appropriations Committee to reinstate $9 million. He warned that unless full funding could be granted, the government’s international shortwave broadcasting might have to be discontinued, and several OIC programs would be cut.

Testifying before the Senate Appropriations Committee in May, Benton (1946g) acknowledged that $10 million was a lot of money. But he argued that $10 million was “hardly sufficient to operate a battleship for a year in wartime” (p. 3); it was a fraction of what many American corporations spent on advertising each year. Fortunately for Benton, the Senate committee was more appreciative of the OIC’s mission than the House committee. It overruled the latter’s decision, awarding the OIC the requested $19 million.

Closely related to the appropriations battle was the fight for official recognition of the OIC as outlined in the pending Bloom Bill. The State Department was excited when the House passed the bill in July 1946, but disappointment soon set in. The measure was blocked in the Senate by Senator Robert Taft (R-OH), a notorious isolationist. With no official authority, the State Department proceeded as best it could. The results, although often impressive, sometimes missed the mark. Failures supported the cause of critics who argued that government should stick to traditional foreign policy procedures and not engage in overseas propaganda. And while internationalism was a dominant force immediately after the Second World War ended, this changed after the 1946 midterm elections, when Republicans won both houses of Congress and several newly elected Republicans joined ranks with isolationist-leaning Midwest and Mountain members of Congress. The new coalition “increased its questioning of internationalism’s cost and motives and heightened the concerns of those who saw world activism as the wisest course for America” (Lykins, 2003, p. 32).

Worried about the fate of its international information programs, the State Department diligently tried to obtain endorsements from American business, hoping for their help in influencing “the average Congressman” (McKee, 1946) in ways that its own officials could not. As State officials knew well, large segments of the American business community viewed opposition to the OIC as an obstacle to their economic expansion and profits. The department’s solution was increased with reliance on private interests in furthering its internationalist agenda, at times seeking new and unorthodox solutions.

The Peace Campaign

As World War II was nearing an end, world leaders went to Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C., and Yalta to discuss the most ambitious of all postwar plans: preventing another world war. At these conferences, organizers assembled the framework for the United Nations, an international organization to succeed the League of Nations. Worried that isolationist conservative lawmakers might interfere, the State Department approached the Advertising Council in January 1945 with a request for a campaign to build support for “international cooperation” (Lykins, 2003, p. 33).

The department’s request put the Council in uncharted territory. As a nonprofit tax-exempt organization, its by-laws prohibited political work, including lobbying Congress. Similarly, while government agencies during the war could solicit the Council’s assistance in educating the public and disseminating information, it was understood that using the organization for propaganda purposes would evoke sharp criticism from political opponents, who had already accused the OWI of being a propaganda tool for Roosevelt. Advertisers who had cooperated with the Council’s campaigns had done so with little risk of political backlash. Appeals to Americans to buy war bonds, donate blood, and avoid wasteful practices were noncontroversial and had enjoyed bipartisan support (Stole, 2012). Now, only a few months later, the Council was faced with a controversial request. The problem was not that international cooperation lacked popular backing—polls showed strong public support for the United Nations—but that involvement in such a campaign, which undoubtedly was an effort to influence the public on a political level, might be poorly received by “a considerable portion” of large newspapers (Repplier, 1945, p. 4) and result in bad publicity for the advertisers.

In exchange for granting tax-deductible status to advertising in 1943, the Treasury Department had imposed a set of strict rules. While “coordinating the forces of advertising so that they may be of maximum aid in public service” (Larney, 1948, p. 1), the Council could not let any of its net earnings benefit private shareholders or individuals. In addition, “no substantial part” of its activities could be “engaged for carrying on propaganda, or otherwise attempting to influence legislation.” After careful soul-searching, however, the Council decided that a “proper campaign of information” (Repplier, 1945, p. 4) to secure peace and prosperity outweighed any possible concerns, and reassured itself that it was doing what any organization serving in the public interest ought to do. In an unprecedented move, it assured individual advertisers that no one would be expected to donate advertising space to the new campaign if they thought it might hurt their goodwill (p. 5).

In the spring of 1945, with the inaugural United Nations conference in San Francisco only a few months away, the stage was set for a campaign focused on “the need for an international organization to maintain the peace” (Lykins, 2003, p. 34). The idea originally came from former OFF director Archibald MacLeish. In his new capacity as assistant secretary of state for public affairs, MacLeish emphasized that the campaign was not intended to specifically promote the Dumbarton Oaks and Yalta plans, but rather to promote international cooperation. MacLeish found a strong supporter in James Webb Young, chairman of the Advertising Council’s Board of Directors, a senior executive at the J. Walter Thompson Advertising Agency who had served as director of the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce before joining Nelson Rockefeller in the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs (Ganly, 1945, p. 86). Council leaders assured themselves that “peace” was “a timely expansion of the far-flung home front information job” (Robinson, 1945) that American business had performed during the war. In addition to the political benefits for the advertising industry, the issue had wide ideological support among the Council’s executive leadership (War Advertising Council, 1945b).

The Council proceeded on the premise that international cooperation was a nonpartisan issue that, according to public opinion polls, was supported in principle by both major political parties, by both houses of Congress, and by more than 90% of the American people (“Council Will Aid Campaign on U.S. Role for Peace,” 1945, p. 86). Still, depending on the source, between 20 and 30 U.S. senators were planning to vote against the proposal, making its passage a potential problem (Repplier, 1945, p. 3). Campaign messages encouraged Americans to stay informed about international cooperation and to participate in group discussions on the topic and to contact the press and their congressional representatives to express their views. Council executives made careful use of experts in the field of foreign relations, including officials from the State Department and non-government organizations that studied international problems. They consulted journalists, economists, and business leaders (War Advertising Council, 1945a, 1946).

Fearing that a connection with the campaign might evoke unwanted suspicion, the State Department, which by now was facing its own set of attacks from said “isolationists,” requested that its role be kept hidden. The Council granted the request, which was yet another departure from established practice of publicly identifying any government agency that requested campaign assistance (Lykins, 2003, p. 35). In exchange for the advertising community’s cooperation, the State Department promised to “employ all available information facilities” so that advertising professionals could “turn the United States into one vast town meeting devoted to learning the facts on Dumbarton Oaks” (“West Explains Job War Council Can Do Postwar,” 1945, p. 13).

Great care was taken in writing and designing the actual advertisements. The Compton Advertising Company volunteered to be in charge. Compton’s instructions from the Advertising Council were to highlight international cooperation as a positive development. Ad copy should frame membership in the United Nations as “an opportunity” rather than “a frightening but necessary chore” (Advertising Council, 1945a, p. 2). Phrases such as “architects of the future” and “blueprinting the peace” were encouraged, as were mentions of “America’s obligation to help engineer the peace.” It was also important that the ads strike an appropriately “virile” tone to help counteract the “feminine,” even “sissy,” image of the peace dove, which some campaign advisors found problematic (pp. 1–2):

The Council’s internationalist campaign promoted America’s entry into the United Nations with warnings of the dire consequences of again rejecting world cooperation. Campaign copy . . . warned that victory would not end the possibility of another war and that the next conflict might destroy the nation . . . . [It] promoted American membership as a way to foster peace, freedom, and American prosperity while presenting withdrawal as increasing the dangers to the nation because of postwar economic, political, and military realities. (Lykins, 2003, p. 34)

Still, the Council insisted on referring to the “Peace” campaign as a project that “did not intend to assume the role of advocate . . . for any specific world organization plan” (War Advertising Council, 1945b, p. 2). International cooperation, it said, “was simply an extension of peaceful community living”; lasting peace required people across nations to make a “concerted effort” to trust and understand each other. Or as one campaign slogan stated, “Work Today for Peace So Your Children May Live Tomorrow” (“Advertising News and Notes,” 1945a).

Soon some of the larger newspapers started pushing back. Calling for postwar American retrenchment, they claimed that public support for the United Nations was in decline. Worried that controversy-adverse advertisers would be reluctant to sponsor the campaign, the Council altered the sponsorship procedure. Instead of asking advertisers to provide support through their own advertising, as before, it produced public service ads and material specifically for the campaign and invited groups and organizations to be supporters (OWI, n.d.).

Compared with the wartime campaigns, which had enjoyed massive advertiser support, the “Peace” campaign was not a great success. Nevertheless, it illustrates the shared interests and symbiotic relationship that had developed between business and government. It also illustrates the State Department’s willingness to use the Advertising Council as a smokescreen for its domestic propaganda and Council executives’ willingness to risk the organization’s nonprofit status, and maybe even its future. The United Nations Charter was approved by Congress on July 28, 1945.

Postwar Developments

In contrast to “obstructionist” elements in Congress, commercial interests immediately expressed appreciation for the State Department’s commitment to expanding free trade. One business association determined to work with government officials was the EAA, which had been established in 1938 and counted manufacturers, domestic and foreign publishers, advertising agencies, and radio representatives among its members. Its purpose was to “promote the ‘critical role and benefits of advertising’ and its role in indirectly financing affordable free press in an open society” (“International Advertising Association,” 2019). The EAA promoted itself as a “cross-section of the export of American ideas and products” (Powers, 1946), and claimed to base its overseas contacts on “mutual respect and understanding . . . regardless of color, creed, religion, or nationality.” In many ways, as the organization itself pointed out, its efforts were all but identical to the State Department’s information program. The EAA’s energy and enthusiasm were sorely needed because Americans were grossly uninformed on issues related to international trade. In 1944, for example, only 63% of poll respondents could correctly define “tariff”; only 10% were familiar with America’s trade agreements plan (Foster, 1983, p. 94). Grateful for the EAA’s offer of support, OIC Deputy Director Charles M. Hulten (1946) urged other business groups to follow suit and tell the story of American leadership abroad.

The CED had originally planned to dissolve after the war, but many members now worried that overseas matters would be ignored as the nation focused on postwar reconversion. Thus, the postwar edition of the Research Division set its sights on international economic problems, especially the expansion of trade. Still, due to internal debates over international engagement, only one of the 13 reports published by the CED between 1945 and 1948 dealt with this issue (Whitham, 2013, pp. 866–867).

Around the same time, the Council made the decision to continue operations permanently, the OWI was dissolved. While the Foreign Branch would become the basis of the OIC, there were no plans for continuing the Domestic Branch. Testifying before the Senate Appropriations Committee in June 1945, representatives from the Advertising Council (1945f) urged that the Domestic Branch be continued so that its relationship with the government could be extended into the reconversion period, keeping “a central information organization” afloat. It promised the government that an allocation of less than $1.3 million would be matched with $300 million from advertisers and the commercial mass media for “dramatizing and simplifying” messages to the “average citizen” after the war had ended. The problem with this proposal was that a government-subsidized information program during peacetime might well be construed as domestic propaganda. The government recognized a need to communicate with the American public, however; a reorganization of the Advertising Council presented itself as the perfect solution.

In October 1945, the Council pledged to spend at least $30 million annually “to help create public understanding of important national problems” (“War Ad Council Launches Peacetime Service Plan”). The reorganization included a plan to attract more sponsoring members and to create a new category for “contributing members” willing to donate $10,000 toward the Council’s operating expenses. Seven organizations—the ANA, the AAAA, the American Newspaper Publishers Association and its Bureau of Advertising, the National Association of Broadcasters, the National Publishers Association, the Outdoor Advertising Association of America, and the Point of Purchase Advertising Institute—immediately stepped forward as sponsors; 27 others signed on as contributing members (“Ad Council Maps $30,000,000 Public Service Program,” 1945; “Advertising News and Notes,” 1945c; Advertising Council, 1945e).

The Council was keenly aware that public issues tended to attract more controversy in times of peace. Thus, to come across as serving “truly in the public interest” (“War Ad Council Launches Peacetime Service Plan,” 1945) required checks and balances. The Council pledged to focus on issues “of general public interest and not solely in the interest of one group.” Future campaigns needed to be based on “an act of Congress requiring public understanding or action; or problems certified in the public interest by three-quarters of an advisory committee” consisting of “outstanding leaders in business, labor, farming, education, religion, Government and journalism” (“Advertising News and Notes,” 1945b). Chaired by Evans Clark, the executive director of the Twentieth Century Fund, the committee consisted of carefully selected “leaders of public opinion” drawn from diverse fields of American society, including Paul Hoffman, Studebaker’s president; George Gallup, director of the American Institute of Public Opinion; Alan Gregg, director of medical science at the Rockefeller Foundation; and several business, education, religion, and labor leaders (“Public Advisory Group Will Aid Ad Council,” 1946).

To serve as a “unifying force” between business and government, the Advertising Council also established an Industrial Advisory Committee chaired by GE president Charles E. Wilson. It would be difficult to exaggerate the influence of Wilson, a true heavyweight in the pantheon of American capitalism. In 1950, he left GE for 2 years to run the government’s newly created Office of Defense Mobilization, which oversaw the economy during the Korean War. The Council’s original Board of Directors, which was still in existence, could only approve short-term or emergency campaigns requested by the government. In contrast, the Industrial Advisory Committee helped define what served the “public interest,” and could influence the Council’s politically charged long-term campaigns.

The Ad Council was now taking on policy matters of special importance to those who would shape the course of the nation and the world over the coming decades. Its new status was underscored in September 1946 when, for the second time that year, the organization teamed up with the Office of War Management and Reconversion to co-sponsor a two-day conference at the White House devoted to a review of national and international problems that required “public understanding.” Some issues coincided with campaigns the Council was already working on; others were ideas for future efforts. Council members were able to interact with some 90 business executives, representing a wide range of industries and all advertising media, and to ask government officials any questions they wished (Stone, 1948, p. 1; also Conference—The White House, 1946; Small, 1946; Steelman, 1946). As director and president of the Mutual Broadcasting System Edgar Kobak (1949) later commented, “men in industry forget that the men in government are just ordinary folks—and vice versa. Rubbing elbows, exchanging ideas help to clear the air.”

In 1944, Hoffman had sought assistance from the Council’s Board of Directors in promoting the CED’s plans for postwar tax revisions to “stimulate enterprise and employment” (Advertising Council, 1944, p. 1). While many board members appreciated the CED’s importance, they also worried that a campaign along those lines was beyond the Council’s scope. Undaunted, the CED had returned a few months later with another request, asking for the Council’s assistance on a handbook for advertising and sales managers to “encourage advertising planning designed to create and expand demand for goods” (Advertising Council, 1945d, p. 1). While sympathetic to the CED’s objectives, the Council again turned down the request. America was still at war, and the Council was determined to focus on “war themes.” But now, the reorganized Council was not bound by the same considerations. With the Industrial Advisory Committee serving as a convenient buffer, the Council was able to accept campaigns to “educate” Americans on economic issues, including the importance of international trade and expansion, without attracting negative attention (“War Ad Council Launches Peacetime Service Plan,” 1945; also “Advertising News and Notes,” 1945b). Responding to concerns that the postwar Council might be accused of disseminating propaganda, LaRoche was quick to point out that “propaganda exists only when its source is unknown” (Advertising Council, 1945c, p. 1).

World Trade

While the administration and its supporters in the corporate community realized the OIC’s importance in the overall quest for international expansion, most citizens paid little attention. The task of educating the public on the importance of world trade, and trying to influence Congress’s vote on OIC appropriations, fell to the business community. One of the first groups to volunteer for this task was the Subcommittee on World Trade Education. Established by the Commerce Department’s Advisory Committee on International Economic Policy, the Subcommittee was dominated by business executives from companies with extensive international interests and foundation heads with global portfolios. In addition to the chair, Charles Symington, who was chairman of the board of the Symington-Gould Corporation, members included Alger Hiss, president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP); Shepard Morgan, also from CEIP; Blackwell Smith from the Far East–America Council of Commerce and Industry; Theodore Smith from the Motion Picture Association of America; CED leader Arthur W. Page, the vice president and director of AT&T, who was sometimes referred to as “the father of corporate public relations”; and C. D. Jackson, the managing editor at Time-Life International. The subcommittee took on the task of informing and exciting Americans about “World Trade and Travel,” as the campaign would be officially known. Clark assumed the administrative role and offered a set of “extensive studies of the foreign economic relations” (World Trade Foundation, 1947, pp. 2–3) conducted by the Twentieth Century Fund to assist the subcommittee.

The Twentieth Century Fund coordinated a series of educational films and newsreels produced in cooperation with The World Today, a newsreel company. A two-reel short titled Round Trip: The U.S.A. in World Trade explained the benefits of world trade and its effects on the country (Clark, 1947a). John Grierson, a well-known filmmaker and director of mass communications at UNESCO, added to the effort by creating a documentary film on two-way international trade (Symington, 1947e). Not one to miss a chance for publicity, Charles Symington wanted to use the film to dramatize events during the upcoming World Trade Week and pushed for its screening at the White House for the President and a “carefully selected group of government officials” to create media buzz. Not to be outdone, Encyclopedia Britannica Films, a company with close connections to Benton, produced two short films, Building America’s Houses and Distributing America’s Goods (Clark, 1947a).

Clark worked closely with Eric Johnston, in the latter’s capacity as president of the Motion Picture Association of America, to create a set of newsreels on “World Trade” and “World Travel,” to be screened before feature films in theaters across the country (World Trade Foundation, 1947, p. 5). Although movie attendance had declined from its wartime peak, documentary “shorts” were still regarded as an effective way to reach the large segment of the population who saw movies on a weekly basis. According to Symington (1947f), the “World Trade and Travel” project was “the only sound method of developing an orderly world,” “the most constructive and practical means of stabilizing and expanding our domestic economy,” and was vital for promoting and preserving conditions that were “essential for world peace.”

Newsreels could reach only so far, however. In the fall of 1946, the subcommittee reached out to the Advertising Council about a possible collaboration. In his role as Public Policy Committee chairman, Clark recommended that the campaign get top priority in 1947 (World Trade Foundation, 1947, p. 2). Once again Ted Compton of Compton Advertising agreed to develop advertising mats, suggestions, and slogans that individual advertisers could incorporate into their promotional material. Following the subcommittee’s recommendation, however, and taking some hard-earned lessons into consideration, Compton carefully avoided anything that might be interpreted as endorsing specific policies or legislation. He took a page from the OIC in insisting that such advertising materials follow a “purely educational” (C. D. Jackson, 1947, p. 1) approach as they invited the public to recognize the free flow of imports and exports as essential to “lasting peace and prosperity.” The difficult task of overseeing campaign policies and coordinating the relationship with the Advertising Council fell to Jackson (Symington, 1947c). The subject matter was complex and far more abstract than most of the issues the Council had featured during the war. Organizers also realized that individual advertisers, who now had plenty to sell, preferred to use their advertising space to promote products and services instead of sharing it with Council messages (Cloyes, 1947).

Part of the war bond and salvage campaigns’ success had been their appeal to tangible tasks that average Americans could comply with. The concern surrounding the “World Trade and Travel” campaign was that it would not evoke the same kind of emotional response (C. D. Jackson, 1947). General Motors CEO Alfred Sloan, on whom the Council was leaning for support, was increasingly dubious. While harboring no doubt about the effort’s educational value, he worried about its ability to attract the public’s interest at a time when a host of reconversion issues were competing for their attention (Sloan, 1947). This “non-controversial” campaign, according to the Advertising Council (1945b), “focused on perhaps the least understood economic fact of our time,” and as Council executives had reminded themselves a couple of years prior, the United States had “embarked on a new, significant, and far reaching course of internationalism” and needed a business liaison, a role that the Council was most suited, and very eager, to fill.

By June 1947, organizers had raised enough funds. The campaign, with copy suggestions intended to persuade individual advertisers to participate and appeal to the average consumer, was up and running (Cloyes, 1947; C. D. Jackson, 1947). The trade publication Tide (“What the Council Is Doing,” 1947) characterized Compton’s campaign guide as a “copiously illustrated” 20-page folder that demonstrated the importance of world trade to U.S. security and prosperity. It presented eight sample advertisements, all stressing one theme: “Part of Every Dollar You Get Comes from World Trade.” One newspaper ad depicted a druggist combining medication ingredients under the headline “The United Nations meet every time I mix a prescription!” (Cloyes, 1947, p. 3). The text explained that raw material from 102 countries was needed to fulfill Americans’ medicine needs. Payment for these products put money in the hands of workers and farmers in India, China, and Italy, letting them buy machines, food, radios, and cars from the United States. This resulted in more jobs for U.S. workers and increased American prosperity. “We’re trying ‘to win the peace,’” read the copy. “When you do business with folks you can’t afford to get mad at them and they can’t afford to be bad friends with you” (p. 30).

Ten thousand copies of the guide were distributed to advertising agencies and advertisers by organizations including the ANA, the AAAA, and the National Publishers Association to “inform the American public of a few facts concerning international commerce and its effects on the daily lives of the average citizen” (“News and Notes in the Advertising Field,” 1947). The Compton agency also offered copy suggestions to encourage international travel and tempted advertisers with copy and slogans for advertisements, billboards, window posters, car cards, and radio commercials (Cloyes, 1947). That aspect of the campaign was clearly directed at the relative few who could afford travel. Still, the campaign organizers, who probably were in that category, insisted that foreign travel be considered a form of foreign aid: it used the market and private spending to spread capital around a war-ravaged world. Dollars spent abroad by American tourists, the argument went, would in time trickle back into U.S. coffers through purchases of export products including Hollywood film rights (Popp, 2012, p. 2). “World trade is one of the most important and least understood problems that this country faces today,” asserted Undersecretary of State William Clayton (Cloyes, 1947, p. 31). Not only were Americans in need of a national awakening regarding the need for expanded, well-balanced world trade, they would “have to accept the interdependence of all nations just as they now accept the interdependence of all our States.”

Despite the organizers’ enthusiasm and insistence on the purely educational nature of the “World Trade and Travel” campaign, political opponents, especially the “isolationists” who had criticized the “Peace” campaign, began to ask questions. They claimed that the effort was just another push by the Truman administration for international treaties and foreign dependence, a thinly veiled propaganda effort by the Democratic administration to influence legislation. Not only did accusations like these put Washington in a bad light, they also discouraged potential sponsors, including the Carnegie Corporation, from getting involved. Clark (1947b) rebutted the accusations, stressing that the Council’s advertising material was strictly confined to “the diffusion of knowledge and understanding”; and its purpose was not to tell anybody “what to do or how to do it.”

Meanwhile, the subcommittee’s ongoing fundraising struggle was magnified by the futile attempts to obtain support from foundations and industries, including an unsuccessful effort to have Alfred Sloan approach the Automobile Manufacturers Association for a $100,000 “sponsoring member” contribution (Symington, 1947a, 1947b). This situation became even more pronounced after Secretary of State George Marshall presented his plans for a European Recovery Program (ERP). Commonly referred to as the Marshall Plan, it outlined an elaborate government strategy for American “investment” in the war-torn and economically devastated countries of Western Europe, so that they could become loyal U.S. trading partners.

The “World Trade and Travel” campaign was reaching a crossroad. In a July 1947 letter, the chairman of the board of Chase National Bank, Winthrop Aldrich (1947), told Secretary of the Treasury John W. Snyder that the Subcommittee on World Trade Education had outlived its usefulness. World trade should no longer be the focus, Aldrich argued. Instead, the emphasis should be on the Marshall Plan. Symington (1947d) agreed. Despite the organization’s best efforts, the quest to secure funding for newsreels and documentary films and to lend support to the Advertising Council had taken a toll. The subcommittee could no longer carry on. The Council, however, was battle-tested and ready for the Marshall Plan campaign.

Democracy = Free Enterprise

After spending several months in Western Europe, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. confirmed that “improbable and unsavory things about America are being widely circulated” (Schwabe, 1947) and that the United States was “losing the battle for men’s minds” to the Soviet Union. The Massachusetts Republican, who would later be appointed as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, suggested additional forms of persuasion, including the use of official funds to place American news, music, and entertainment in international media, to supplement the State Department’s effort. The EAA enthusiastically welcomed the idea. The association stressed the overlap between its work and the official U.S. agenda, saying that “in some instances, it may be difficult to determine where the interests of the State Department begin and ours end” (Powers, 1946).

As the State Department soon realized, providing “a full and fair picture of American life and of the aims and policies of the United States Government” (U.S. Department of State, 1945a, p. 5) was not easy, given how Americans held varying opinions on most matters and represented a wide range of ethnic groups and cultures. One core problem was Americans’ understanding of, and commitment to, “free enterprise” as defined by the CED and the American business community. A series of wartime polls had shown strong support for the social-democratic aspects of Roosevelt’s New Deal. A 1942 Fortune poll, for example, found high levels of support for full employment, unemployment insurance, and government regulation of banks. While 40% of the respondents opposed socialism, fully 25% declared themselves in favor of it; 34% were undecided. As the trade publication Advertising Age (“Stuart Chase Book Points Way to Postwar Goals,” 1942) remarked: “The American people do not want new ‘systems’ or new ideologies, but they want jobs, public works, medical care, and social security . . . . They want the deed, not the word.” In 1943, a Gallup poll found that only three in 10 Americans could define “free enterprise” (“What’s Free Enterprise?” 1943). The remaining 70% were either ignorant of the concept or had a “definite antagonism” toward it. Five years later, only 18% of the adult respondents to a Roper poll cited “the right to private ownership of business” as one of the two most important freedoms in America (Lettinger, 1948, pp. 6–7).

Educating America: The Freedom Train

While Americans’ enthusiasm for “free enterprise” was unclear when the war ended, the State Department and the large segment of corporate America that advocated an internationalist approach to information, trade, and commerce operated on the assumption that free enterprise was natural, proper, and beloved. This was the message to be sent to other nations. But selling this notion abroad would be undermined if the idea that capitalism was as American as apple pie faced vocal, active opposition on the home front.

In the spring of 1947, after more than a year’s preparation, the Advertising Council assisted the ANA and AAAA’s Joint Committee on Understanding Our Economic System with a massive campaign to foster understanding of “the American Economic System” among Americans. The campaign centered on “patriotism,” defined as the unconditional acceptance of free enterprise (“Ad Drive Set to Aid Free Enterprise,” 1947; Griffith, 1983 p. 399). The intent was to promote “the U.S. economy as a uniquely productive system of free enterprise, and of America as a dynamic, classless, and benignly consensual society” (Griffith, 1983, p. 388). Similar campaigns, including “People’s Capitalism” and “The Miracle of America,” were likewise designed to promote a capitalistic worldview to Americans and reflected the ideological overlap between the postwar agendas of business and government.

Perhaps, the most visible domestic public relations campaign in this regard came later in 1947, when the American Heritage Foundation (AHF), led by advertising executive Thomas D’Arcy Brophy, who was a prominent member of both the Advertising Council and the CED, launched the “Freedom Train.” During its 13-month journey, the train traveled to 322 towns and cities across the United States, bringing people aboard to view original drafts of the Constitution and other documents of national significance lent to the AHF by institutions like the National Archives and the Library of Congress. The documents reflected an idealized vision of American history, one that tried to merge and reconcile positive abstractions such as “individual freedoms and the democratic process” (Little, 1993, p. 37) and “the abundance and opportunity of capitalism” with broader social tensions and concerns as “the essence of Americanism” (p. 38).

As towns across America prepared for the train’s arrival, the AHF helped plan “Rededication Weeks,” inviting individual citizens to make a “Freedom Pledge”—a commitment to the view that

“the sanctity of the individual” represents “the essence of democracy” and that “freedom of enterprise, protection of minorities, rights of labor—and all the rights and liberties [Americans] enjoy under the Constitution and Bill of Rights—rest upon this doctrine.” (Spring, 2011, p. 34)

Guides with promotional ideas and practical suggestions for how to organize “School Days” and “Women’s Days” were supplied to organizers ahead of the train’s arrival, along with strategies for involving local media (p. 35).

More than 26,000 newspaper advertisements announced the effort, and 3,000 billboards were placed along the route. To encourage discussions about the train’s message, the Advertising Council distributed more than 1.5 million copies of a booklet on “the duties and privileges of citizenship” to schools and civic groups in preparation for the exhibit (Griffith, 1983, p. 399) and the Freedom Train’s effort to define what it meant to be an American. Printers’ Ink (Smith, 1947) reasoned that if American business could sell the country’s economic system to its own people, similar campaigns could be deployed to “stop the purveyors of foreign ideologies in their tracks!” Inspired by the exhibit’s success, well-known journalist and radio commentator Drew Pearson arranged for “Freedom Trains” to travel across Italy and France, the two European countries with the most active communist parties. Decorated with American flags, the trains carried privately donated food and medicine for distribution. Speeches by American and local officials reminding recipients “where the food came from” accompanied their frequent stops (Wall, 2008, p. 247).

Educating Europe About America: The Common Council for American Unity

In the fall of 1948, the Common Council for American Unity (formerly the Foreign Language Information Service), which had spent three decades “orienting foreign language groups to the American way” (Munson & Lewis, 1949, p. 3), sponsored an extensive survey of 1,702 “qualified observers of opinion” in European countries to “cover the principal assertions of Communist and other hostile propaganda.” Developed by Elmo Roper with the State Department’s assistance, the survey also mapped European attitudes on issues including the Marshall Plan, U.S. national and foreign policy, American news media, and American labor. Most respondents viewed the United States as a democracy that protected individuals’ rights and freedom. Yet, the organizers worried about the sizable minority who regarded America as “imperialistic,” particularly regarding economic policy Also very troubling was that one third of respondents said that American “Big Business” was driving U.S. foreign policy, and 25% said that America was “trying to force the American brand of capitalism on Europe” (p. 70). Respondents’ views on “the Negro question” was similarly disconcerting. One out of four respondents said that “Americans persecute the Negro”; some pointed to America’s hypocrisy in rejecting Nazi race theories while continuing to discriminate against and persecute its own citizens. To correct these impressions, the Common Council stressed the ongoing importance of “telling the American story” (Munson & Lewis, 1949, p. 10). And while the government clearly had a large role to play, everybody, including the motion picture industry, America’s labor unions, and America’s foreign language groups, needed to pitch in.

Henry Lee Munson (1949b), who had overseen the Common Council’s European survey, proposed a continuation of the Freedom Train project, with the AHF in charge. Munson’s goal was to build ongoing synergy between domestic sentiments and their international dissemination. Domestically, the goal was to cultivate an appreciation for America’s new responsibilities as a world leader. Internationally, it should utilize the resulting sentiments to “improve European opinion of the United States and Western democracy” (p. 1). The AHF would coordinate the 312 regional Freedom Train Committees that it had created to work on the project and to persuade “national leaders of labor unions, social, civic, fraternal, veteran, religious and other national groups to work vertically within their own organization” (Munson, 1949b, p. 2). While stressing the non-governmental nature of the effort, the AHF would work closely with the State Department in conveying to Europeans the growing domestic consensus created by the Freedom Committees. The project should encourage “all groups in the country” (p. 1) to think about “America’s good points” and their “joint responsibility as Americans.”

Munson (1949a, p. 7) suggested help from “outstanding authorities” to publish a series of articles to distribute in the U.S. and beyond. Each article should nail down what the Common Council deemed to be a misconception about America. Mentioned as potential contributors were composer, music critic, and promoter of classical music Joseph Deems Taylor; playwright and Nobel Laureate in Literature Eugene O’Neill; bestselling novelist Louis Bromfield; and museum director and curator Francis Taylor. Munson was delighted that Eleanor Roosevelt, one of the Common Council’s sponsors, had already committed to writing an article for the American foreign language press, since the European press would quite likely pick this up. The project also called for each of the 48 states to make films about the state. In addition to help from the Common Council, contributors could count on advice from the State Department’s film division; the department, which showed “American education and documentary films to more than 10 million persons each month outside the U.S.A.,” promised to help secure “broad distribution of such films throughout the world.”

Misfires included a highly criticized collaboration between the State Department, NBC, and CBS in 1948. Broadcast on Voice of America, Know North America took listeners on dramatized journeys through individual American states. Quakers in Pennsylvania were described as “a social problem” (Graham, 2015, p. 168) because of their pacifism; Wyoming’s Native Americans were said to live “naked and feathered”; and African Americans in Alabama were “free and happy and of the tragic times [of slavery] only songs remain.” Another broadcast focused on New York City mansions and “apartments of millionaires” to dispel the myth that “all blacks were poor in the United States” (Parry-Giles, 2002, p. 37); it characterized Harlem as “the Paradise of Negroes” where “colored millionaires live.” Congressional leaders across the aisle were unimpressed with the State Department’s work, fearing that instead of elevating foreigners’ impressions of the United States, the broadcasts might stoke their concerns (p. 39).

Munson (1949b) also had ideas for how American firms with business interests in Europe and the American tourist industry could develop programs that would improve the U.S. reputation in Europe. He proposed a set of private alternatives to the State Department’s program for inviting journalists and educators to “visit and tour the United States to see for themselves” (p. 6). The program, which still hinged on the AHF’s acceptance, read like a private counterpart to the IOC. In addition, it proposed keeping track of the number of American “gangster movies” sent abroad and seeking out news and articles to counter “sensational coverage of [American] fringe activities” and put them in “proper perspective” (p. 4).

In 1947, Toledo mayor Michael V. DiSalle had urged Americans to write letters to their European friends and relatives to correct distorted communist propaganda and tell them about the opportunities offered in America. Inspired by the effort, Secretary of State James Byrnes told his department to contact editors of Italian-language papers in the United States and ask them to have readers send stories about America’s unselfish goodwill toward Italy and how America was helping Italy toward postwar rehabilitation to friends and relatives in Italy (Wall, 2008).

In 1949, Munson (1949b) proposed an expansion of those letter-writing activities to include the 35 million Americans with relatives in European countries. Counting on support from major religious, civic, and veterans’ groups, the Common Council also told the letter writers to ask their relatives to join “Friends of America” organizations in their home countries (p. 5). The response from American foreign-language newspapers was positive. Munson was delighted when the State Department gave “top level and vigorous support” (p. 2) to the project. For example, the German-language newspaper New Yorker Staats-Zeitung und Herold was asked to explain the many misconceptions held by German citizens, particularly with reference to the Marshall Plan, because of communist propaganda, and to ask readers to write to their German relatives to set the record straight:

However doubtful individuals in Germany can be about official propaganda, they do believe what is written to them by their own relatives and friends, particularly when the information is backed up by the individual experience of the letter writer. For example, when the Russians tell the Germans that the people in the United States are starving, there probably is no better answer the Germans can receive than a letter from a relative on the other side saying that he recently purchased a new sofa for the living room, or plans to buy a new car. (Ridder, 1949, p. 1)

The letter-writing aspect of the Common Council’s project was well received, but the rest of the project, which hinged on the AHF’s assistance, continued to lag. Facing immense pressure from the State Department to take on the project, Brophy (1949) worried that it might be too much for his AHF to handle. Assistant Secretary Allen reminded Brophy that misconceptions about America were increasingly prevalent, stressing the “paramount importance” of having “groups of private citizens undertake programs of education to combat these falsehoods” (U.S. Department of State, 1950, p. 1). The State Department wrote, “the task of winning the peace lacks the drama of arms and men, but it is not less important” (p. 2). Despite heavy pressure, however, the AHF opted to devote its resources elsewhere.