From the archives of The Memory Hole

Anti-war Propaganda: Getting US Into War

Porter Sargent was a close student of British pro-war and keep-China-British, etc., propaganda techniques in America as evidenced by his remarkable enquiry into the matter in his 1941 book, Getting US Into War. This particular article from the Nov. 1939 issue of Common Sense gives an inkling of what was to come.

British Propaganda In the United States

By Porter Sargent

The Effective Machine That Got Us Into the Last War Is Being Oiled for Noiseless Action Again

ENGLAND in the last war was able to marshal the nations and the resources of the world against the Germans. No such widespread cooperation can be counted on today. The aid of the United States, then, is even more vital. Not only must Germany be smashed, but the traditional enemy Russia and the menace of Communism must be eliminated if British empire and trade are not to vanish.

To bring us into the last war, Britain put her best brains into her propaganda efforts. Now for three years all improved technique under skilled and trained propagandists has been working on us. The most essential feature of the propaganda is to keep it concealed, to deny that it exists. Such denials come chiefly from the mouths of American stooges and Anglophiles. To detect, to uncover, and to attract the attention of Americans to this subtle undercover propaganda is a difficult and ungrateful task, but the most needed.

The clumsy Germans make no bones at all of claiming the unprepossessing Goebbels a propaganda genius–and in his noisy broadcasts it is perfectly apparent that he agrees with that view. As twenty-five years ago, with the coming of the new war the British set up a "Ministry of Information" whose improvised propaganda machinery under Lord Macmillan clanks so noisily it has become a matter of ridicule. But behind it the Foreign Office and its associated Intelligence Services with subtle political sense have perfected a miraculously smooth working organization under their number one propagandist, Sir Robert Vansittart.

The British Empire was the conception of Disraeli. Flattering Victoria as Empress of India, he managed her skillfully. But England’s politician statesmen continued to deride his imperialistic bombast. It wasn’t till the 80’s that the English were really sold on the Empire idea. Kipling was one of the most successful in building up the idea that the islanders carried the "white man’s burden." The vilified and "filthy Boers" gave them pause. But until long after Victoria’s Jubilee the Empire rode high, unchallenged, with a world-be-damned attitude, its only fear the Russian "bear that walked like a man,"

Not until Germany grew in strength so as to threaten British trade and necessitate her being set back, did it become necessary to establish propaganda agencies. Clumsily organized at first during the war, before the end they had developed a far reaching organization and a technique that changed the views and opinions of all the peoples it reached. Such measures as had been taken before the war to educate the British people, the people of the colonies, or the foreign neutrals, were still truthful. Nicolson in his "Diplomacy" tells us it wasn’t till the war was on that it became necessary to tell lies. And today the one lie most successfully put forth by the propagandists in England and America has been that there is no British propaganda organization.

The key men of England who behind the scenes are now playing an important part in Britain’s imperialistic adventures are referred to in England as "Lord Milner’s Kindergarten."

" Milner’s young men," the builders of empire, most of them Oxonians, were brought together and trained by Lord Milner, who was British High Commissioner in South Africa after the Boer War.

The core of the group were Fellows of All Souls, a non-teaching college, practically an exclusive imperialistic club of aristocrats. There were Geoffrey Dawson, then known as Robinson, now editor of the London Times, who was for a time one of Lord Milner’s private secretaries; and Robert Brand, who with Philip Kerr (now Lord Lothian) reorganized the South African railways, but later went into the ‘City’ and became a banker.

Lionel Curtis was regarded as the intellectual leader of this group. He acted as Town Clerk of Johannesburgh, and later was one of the founders of the Royal Institute of International Affairs at Chatham House, of which he was Honorary Secretary from its inception in 1921 until 1929, and in which he is still active. Chairman of its Council is Lord Astor of Cliveden.

Closely associated with Cecil Rhodes in the building of his South African empire, Lord Milner, founder in 1902 of the "kindergarten", acted as the government representative for Rhodes. Lord Lothian has been secretary of the Rhodes Trust since 1925. It is natural then that Rhodes Scholarship would eventually effect the union of the Anglo-Saxon nations and bring the erring colonies back under the crown.

Lothian, British Ambassador

"As ambassador, it will be Lord Lothian’s duty to win new friends for Great Britain in the United States, and to do all that he legitimately can under accepted diplomatic proprieties, to swing American public opinion to Britain’s cause," the Boston Transcript recognizes in an editorial, September 9, 1939. "There will be ever increasing pressure, as in 1914, to bring the United States into the European conflict. . . . The pressure will come from within and without–from Americans who believe that the United States should again send an army overseas ‘to make the world safe for democracy,’ and from propaganda agents of the British and French governments."

As early as May 7, 1939, before the date of Lothian’s arrival was announced, Henry Ehrlich, Washington Correspondent of the Boston Herald, anticipated: "He is coming here to identify American interest with the British, and there has been no secret about it."

Lothian comes to mop up after royalty and to ingratiate himself. "On the inside, Paul Mallon tells us, "they say the new British ambassador, Lord Lothian, was instructed only by his government to ‘do anything the Americans like.’"

After his immediate hour and a half conference with Roosevelt, the President’s policy became more ingratiating. For England’s No. 2 propagandist is a man of great adaptability, with "an unexcelled record of enthusiastic bandwagon-jumping," as Time, September 11, 1939, puts it. Sharer of Tory hatred of the Russian Reds, he recognized after his trip to Russia that "the existence of the Russian experiment has raised an issue which more and more will have to be faced by Western civilization . . . the divine right of property." After visiting Hitler in 1933 he reported "I believe he is sincere," and in 1938 addressing the Royal Institute during the Austrian crisis explained that Hitler "has at last realized the dream of the German people . . . to be a united people. . . . Up to the present Hitler’s object has been justifiable.

The Chamberlain appeasement policy, Wilson Woodside wrote in Harper’s, December, 1938, is perceptibly shaping itself in accordance with ideas enunciated by Lothian . . . who, as Lloyd George’s private secretary and alter ego, carried the Foreign Office round in his attaché case for two or three years after the War."

Lothian visited Germany immediately after Hitler’s accession to power and is said to have played an important part in arranging the British loan to Hitler, of �730,000 in the spring of 1934. He played his part in getting the Tories to accept Hitler as their best defense against the Reds. In an address before the Boston Chamber of Commerce he once remarked, "No country can exist half-capitalist and half-Communist. It is one or the other."

In the series of articles he wrote for the London Observer Lothian warned that, "if American sentiment became persuaded that the United States was being maneuvered into commitment to war by foreign intrigue or for reasons of politics or finance, it might equally swing back violently to the ultra-isolationism of the Ludllow amendment requiring a referendum before the United States entered a war."

He shows an intimate understanding of the American attitude and reveals a clear conception of what must be done to bend it to British ends.

After sixteen trips to this country Lothian found overwhelming sentiment that France and Britain should be assisted "to buy in the United States all the armaments they need." As for the President, "there is no doubt whatever where his own sympathies lie . . . that it is morally impossible for the United States to ignore the issue which is arising." He found even Hoover who opposes war admitting that "seven out of ten Americans" would say, that if there is a world war there is no possible means whereby the U. S. could keep out. This is told with all complacency, as evidence of the effectiveness of British propaganda.

It is not merely that "England Expects"—but that it subtly and effectively aids "Every American To Do His Duty." Quincy Howe, in his recent book by that title, explains just how the agencies of British propaganda have functioned in America during the past dozen years. The English Speaking Union is the "spearhead of England’s cultural drive on the United States." Interlocking with it is the League of Nations Association, and to some extent the Foreign Policy Association, on the board of whose quarterly organ Foreign Affairs sit many members of the Union. Howe follows the "British Network" into the House of Morgan which "found it impossible to lie neutral, into the duPont empire, associated with Lord McGowan’s 1. C. I., and into Pan-American Airways. Through common directors he sees our radio featuring, as indeed it is now doing, pro-British broadcasters. Publishers, and newspapers from the Anglophile New York Times down, begin to fall in line behind the pronouncement of Richard H. Waldo, head of the McClure Newspaper Syndicate, who with delightful frankness admitted that the American Revolution and the War between the States were merely growing pains. . . . The whites must stand together. . . . Only the Anglo-Saxon people can provide the leadership, and only the British have the knowledge to make that leadership effective."

The parade these past three years of the wooden soldiers of the British army of propaganda through American drawing rooms, clubs, newspaper offices, over speakers’ platforms, to the State Department and the White House, may have been wholly fortuitous. But to one who has closely watched the sequence, it would seem that some central intelligence must be at work. Pro-British speakers have been available without fee for every occasion. British authors, statesmen, and Anglophiles have been afforded opportunity to visit this country to address academic and civic bodies. We know from R. H. Bruce Lockhart ("Guns and Butter,") that such programs were planned for the Balkans by Sir Robert Vansittart.

If Vansittart did not play his part in this wave of advances upon us, then he certainly failed to do what was expected of him. He had been detached from other duties in order that he might coordinate all agencies and efforts and means of enlisting America in the next war. And he had been sedulously screened from public view that he might work unhampered by publicity.

It seemed innocent enough when John Buchan, Lord Tweedsmuir, was planted in Canada as Governor-General. Buchin, "kindergartner," official chronicler of the war, apologist for the Government and the Empire, was Director of Information under the Prime Minister, 1917-18. Skilled, tactful, propagandist, he knows his job. But did Roosevelt know what his job was, when they, exchanged visits and Roosevelt pledged allegiance and the blood and treasure of America to defend the Dominion? That was a safe and harmless boast. But it opened the way to more dangerous ventures.

Lothian was not here alone last fall. Lionel Curtis was here. Even Vansittart was here. Probably they met to compare notes and make further plans since carried out. Runciman, before he was sent to Czechoslavakia to prepare for Hitler, was sent to Washington to prepare our Administration for what was to come to us.

English newspaper correspondents planted in Washington or metropolitan centers, like Sir Willmot Lewis of the London Times, or casual visitors like Sir Arthur Willert, former Chief Press Officer of the British Foreign Office and former correspondent of the London Times, have skilfully presented views in their addresses or writings which have had their influence on public opinion.

Then Came Royalty

The more tactful approach of these men, skilled operators, has taken the place of the brusque bumptiousness of the majors and colonels who used to pop up in Town Halls and forums with their pro-British sentiments. All these prepared the ground for royalty’s advance agent, Anthony Eden, the white knight, who took innumerable pawns in the business world and the Administration, opening the way for the Queen--who saved the King from being checkmated. Of course, our gullible National Association of Manufacturers was led to invite and pay Eden, and the King and Queen condescended to make this side trip after their arduous conquest of Canada. England has always made us scramble for the opportunity to sacrifice ourselves and pay well for it.

Meantime Americans in England were being "given the works," and Kennedy, our ambassador had come to heel of British Tory influence and from half a dozen British and Scottish universities received honorary degrees. All this was on the highest social plane. C. S. Kent, business manager of the London Times, when he came for strictly business during February and March, 1939, announced that his visits to the chief newspaper offices were merely social. Immediately following, the headlines and lead paragraphs in our leading Anglophile newspapers became more strongly pro-British. In the next few weeks millions of Americans became convinced that war was inevitable, that we should have to go in. That was the purpose.

With the approach of war itself, the really heavy propaganda tanks began to rumble. But quietly, almost unnoticed, Lord Beaverbrook, Max Aiken, formerly of Nova Scotia, arrived September 30 on "personal business" and soon the result of his "personal" influence was apparent in our daily press, in new organizations.

Those directing the campaign proved again that Lord Northcliffe was right. When in 1917 Northcliffe visited American newspaper publishers to intensify Sir Gilbert Parker’s propaganda, he remarked, "They dress alike, they talk alike, they think alike . . . What sheep!" And he may well have added, "It’s an easy job we have here." It was in 1917-will it be in 1939?