A History of the Ministry of Information, 1939-46
OVERSEAS PUBLICITY
The Ministry of Information developed and maintained a very large organisation for overseas publicity, larger and more comprehensive, I think, than was generally realised in the Government machine. At least I got the impression that the official Sub-Committee of the Machinery of Government Committee who investigated the Ministry of Information work in this field were both surprised and impressed by the extent of our activities. Their report is interesting to read as an indication of our efforts. But it would be an error to suppose that there are any important secrets to be extracted from our experience and, in some cases, success and placed on record for the enlightenment of future workers. The conduct of overseas publicity involves activities in so many and such diverse territories that common principles are neither useful nor applicable and the great and important thing to remember is that each territory and each situation must be studied in its own terms and according to its own conditions. Few generalisations will hold good either in time or in space. For instance, the kinds of operations that are to be employed depend upon answers to such fundamental questions as:-
(a) whether one wishes to draw attention to one's activities or to escape attention - a decision that is conditioned by this country's political strength or weakness in the territory concerned, the local attitude or folk lore about British propaganda or propaganda generally, the nature of the subjects that are to be covered by our publicity etc.;
(b) whether it is desired to conduct operations to a large extent through or with the assistance of the local Government or independently or even in spite of that Government; and
(c) whether operations are to be conditioned by the volume and nature of the activities of other Governments in the same territory; sometimes enemy, sometimes friendly Governments.
But, allowing for all these individual variations, I think that it would be true to say that our general policy led us to endeavour, wherever possible, to mask our own publicity with the appearance of the genuine publicity of the foreign country, as indeed it often was, and to give our own local offices a very wide measure of independence in 82 - 81 -operation provided that we were satisfied that they were pursuing our general objectives. If the first line of policy is to be carried out successfully the second line of policy follows as a necessary consequence, since only free local working can achieve it.
The phrase that we used to describe our intentions was the rule that our propaganda should be “injected into the blood stream of the country”. This is an important point and it is not always understood. There is all the difference in the world between propaganda being noticed and propaganda being absorbed. It is quite possible by a generous employment of personnel and equipment to make a great splash of propaganda in another country and to attract a great deal of local attention to the instruments so employed. Such a policy will certainly produce some political result, a benevolent result in so far as the display of activity flatters the vanity of the population so ostentatiously pursued: a disadvantageous result in so far as suspicions may be aroused both in the local Government and in the inhabitants and what good content there is in the instruments of propaganda that are employed may well be discounted by the reflection that they are so obviously propaganda. This point should be obvious but it seems to be generally misunderstood in this country, especially among newspaper and advertising men to whom a violent and assertive activity is synonymous for persuasive advocacy. Myself I think this is a great mistake. The ideal of propaganda from one country to another country is that it should all be done by the native publicists of the country approached. If this happens naturally and sincerely there is no need for propaganda at all. In fact such a happy result only occurs for a short period of time and in special circumstances. The crudest way of achieving artificially what will not persist naturally is the old-fashioned practice of handing out bribes to selected local editors. Survivals of this practice could be found in this war as, for instance, in Egypt. In my judgment it is a fatal practice. Quite apart from the ethical objections, it defeats itself in that one necessarily buys only corrupt and insincere talent and merely postpones the day when, as progress advances, one will have to set to work in that country in earnest. There is no doubt, of course, that all foreign propaganda work involves a judicious distribution of benefits or facilities and, to go further, I see no inherent objection to 83 - 82 -the use of subsidies if they are intended to launch concrete projects that are later intended to support themselves.
Assuming that the principle objective remains that of getting one's work done by the native publicist and that bribes are rejected as a matter of policy, the problem presents itself of how to get this work done. It is obvious that the local inhabitant is going to be much more impressed by something to the credit or vindication of this country that he reads in his home newspaper or magazine or hears over his own radio than he would be if the same piece of information or comment came to him in a pamphlet handed round by us or a broadcast directed from this country. In the first case he takes the thing in without realising that it is being specially directed at him at all and it presents itself to him with all the acquired authority of a publication to which he has been accustomed, perhaps for years, to turn for his information or his opinions. In the other case he may indeed believe and be impressed by what he reads or hears but he is bound to approach the subject from a different mental background and the chances are that he will discount the force of a good deal of it by the reflection that it is the kind of thing that the authors would be expected to say anyway. Whether he accepts it at all or not depends not so much on the particular pamphlet or broadcast as the general reputation that he is ready to accord to our country and its publicity methods. From this point of view it is important that the B.B.C. and our Press Offices acquired and retained a general reputation for veracity and reliability.
(i) The least ostentatious method of getting into the blood stream of the foreign country is to have people in our local publicity department who are qualified by personality and experience to develop contact with the leading local figures in the Press and radio world. It is important to note that this does not mean merely knowing all about then and their families or keeping on amiable personal terms with them: it means a constant and productive contact accompanied by such an exchange of ideas and information as will find an outlet in the newspapers and radio on the spot. For this purpose men of professional experience in this field are, though not essential, of great value, since they have a natural perception 84 - 83 -of the kind of thing that can lead to practical results. Nor does this contact work necessitate the “putting over of a line” in the sense that diplomatic correspondents in this country are expected to praise the Foreign Office's policies or be cast into outer darkness. Such a rigid official conception would, of course, defeat its own purposes if one tried to apply it to a Press Department working in a foreign country.
Contact men, however brilliant, are like flowers - they need a stem upon which to grow and the plant must be watered. The concurrent necessity therefore is the provision of a first class service from London of material for the local Press Department to circulate among the local publicity offices with which it has established sympathetic contacts. This service must consist of the kind of material that a professional will welcome: it must therefore be absolutely up-to-date, deal with topical subjects in an acceptable way and have sufficient specialty and freshness to make it worth using. The provision of an official service of background news and photographs of this kind is an indispensable method of arming the people who are to do our work on the spot, if we aim at enabling them to reflect the British case in the Press and radio of the foreign country. Of course, if this work could be effectively covered by other non-official means, that would be all to the good, but it is not going to be done satisfactorily by the international news agencies, important as their services are, since they work essentially on the spot news line and their editing is too often uninformative and sensational. Nor is it going to be done by foreign correspondents stationed in this country, for how many countries in the world will keep individual correspondents here or, if they keep then, will give then a staff that can really cover the country's affairs?
(ii) There remains a whole range of other instruments that we used with varying intensity in different parts of the world. Generally speaking, they are of such a nature and form as to indicate that their origin lies outside the country in which they are intended to circulate. As such they present themselves as less part of the natural publicity system of the foreign country than something conceived and inspired from outside. In some cases they appear to be deliberately aimed at the country and imported into it for this purpose: in others they are merely alien in their own right.
These classifications, though useful for purposes of general approach, are not absolute. For instance, there is no logical reason why a film should not be made or an article written locally inspired by ideas and furnished with material supplied by ourselves. Occasionally such things do happen, but only occasionally, and I think that in practice the normal range of productive contact lies in the Press and radio field.
(a) British newspapers . The scarcity of newsprint and the poverty of fast communications during the war made it difficult for us to achieve much through the stimulation (which meant supplying paper and transport subsidy) of the import of British newspapers. We did more with magazines and periodicals. The chief recommendation of these instruments is that they do not present themselves as written especially for any overseas territory and have therefore the authenticity of unselfconscious writing, an element to which readers are quite alive. Everyone feels that he learns more truth from overhearing an intimate conversation than from listening to a set address. The drawback to them, on the other hand, is that their style and approach remain insular and they often say or imply things in exactly the opposite way to that which the propagandist would have wished. Also, being in English, they are of interest only to the already interested. War subsidy also involved us in occasional difficulties on questions of discrimination, since competing papers or periodicals would protest that the Government had no business to further the prestige and reputation of one organ because it suited its purposes to the exclusion of a competitor that did not. We never admitted the validity of this right to share in an expert subsidy as a matter of principle but we followed the line of distributing our patronage as impartially as we possibly could without frustrating our own efforts. In some countries, e.g. Spain, many individual papers were banned by the local Government. Sometimes, also, we stopped the export of particular issues of periodicals, because they contained something that was regarded as inimical to our purposes or policy. I think that this practice of stopping individual issues for anything but the most overwhelming reasons was a mistake and that one ought to 86 - 85 -work on the general principle that individual gaffes must be overlooked so long as one is satisfied that the general assistance to the export of the particular instrument is worthwhile.
(b) Feature articles were purchased or commissioned in England and circulated abroad on a large scale. The normal organ of distribution was the local Press Department but in one or more cases we supported a cover feature agency for the purpose of handling our distribution to the local Press. With or without the texts of such articles, we supplied feature sets of photographs commissioned and collected in England for the purpose.
(c) Books were dealt with in various ways. As part of their original English edition we purchased considerable numbers and distributed them to English-reading contacts through the Press Department. I think that we carried our patronage in this field too far and that this is the kind of generosity that confuses propaganda with a gift scheme. In other cases we provided the paper for a complete edition of a book intended for export. In others we arranged for the translation and printing of cheap editions of books that we thought valuable, but obviously under straitened circumstances it is not possible to go very far in this direction. Lastly we did a certain business in negotiating the sale of copyright of British war books for the production of native editions by local publishers. It seems to me that it most nearly accorded with our general policy and line of working for us to act as intermediary in this way rather than as direct exporter or producer of books.
(d) Films . As I have said elsewhere our film material consisted in general of news reels and official films. It is not easy for the local offices to develop much business in the distribution of films unless they equip themselves with a specialist branch of 87 - 86 -their office to work in this field. We did this in America where we had an extremely favourable distribution arrangement with the main exhibiting companies and where the considerable interest in and facilities for non-theatrical showings made it worth our while to go in for distribution in quite a big way. But normally the official short film is not an easy commodity to deal with in a market that is well supplied commercially. In Latin America we fixed up a distribution arrangement with the American companies who had something like a stranglehold on the main distribution circuits. This arrangement did not work with any great satisfaction to us and there were often suspicions that the Americans kept our films back deliberately and were not interested in their promotion. This was probably true but in the absence of any British distributing organisation we had no real alternative in such a closely controlled field.
(e) Exhibitions deserve separate mention. As our exhibition production at home increased in style and volume so the export of exhibitions and displays to foreign countries assumed greater importance in our schemes. They make an admirable instrument for objective visual information but there is no doubt that to get full exploitation out of them involves fairly elaborate organisation and a good deal of local help. The most satisfactory arrangement, therefore, is that they should be shown under the sponsorship of some local society or organisation which can take them over and arrange installation and circulation from place to place.
(f) We were great pamphleteers for a large part of the war but by deliberate policy reduced our pamphleteering drastically in the latter years. I have no doubt that there are countries in whose publicity habits the pamphlet has its place but all my war experience made me increasingly sceptical of its real value in the promotion of national propaganda. It is essentially an 88 - 87 -advertising medium and our producers never seemed to be able to rid themselves satisfactorily of a tendency to make their pamphlets, brochures or folders or whatnots look like a vehicle for selling soap. Such a vehicle invites critical suspicion when the attempt is made to enlist it to serve the grave issues of the projection of a nation. It starts therefore with an inherent handicap of form which only a brilliance of technique in make-up and text writing is likely to overcome. I do not think that the school of masters who are to succeed in this field has yet arisen; certainly it was not located in the Ministry.
(g) We produced all sorts of periodical literature in many parts of the world. Generally speaking the production was avowedly the British Government's own organ. It might take the simple form of an Embassy news bulletin or news letter such as attained great popularity in Switzerland where it was distributed in three language editions: or it might be a background paper of informed comment such as the successful Veritas War Commentary: or again it might be a fully fledged illustrated magazine. For this last purpose we had central organs entitled “War in Pictures” and “Neptune” for nearly the whole of the war period. These were translated into language editions and distributed free on a vast scale. They were recognised as a remarkable technical achievement but the public that they were addressed to was apparently conceived of as so simple minded that I doubt whether it could have been of any political significance. More valuable products than these were the excellent illustrated fortnightlies that were launched in the liberated countries of Europe to tide over the local scarcity period and the independent organs under various names that our Press Departments launched or supported in many different parts of the world. Some of these last named organs may well have been accepted as genuine local products, since it is quite possible by judicious arrangements for the free supply of photographs and feature material to get someone else to produce a magazine to one's own recipe.
2. The problem of organising production at home to serve all these overseas posts with their necessary material for distribution is a complicated one. I do not think that we really mastered it. There are two extremes of policy. One treats the headquarters as at best an ingenious and imaginative collector and supplier of basic material, and each post at the receiving end as the producer of the finished article with the appropriate local colour and “angle”. Obviously it would be impossibly uneconomical to carry this through completely and in some important ranges of production, such as films, it would be unfeasible. Nor, without fairly close “policy” control, is it a method of working that can be unreservedly adopted. Most overseas staffs are recruited largely from nationals who are resident locally and, in war-time, even a year or two of absence from the centre puts a man painfully out of touch with the currents of thought and feeling that he is supposed to interpret. Incidentally, the “cultivation” of overseas staff is an important interest for a temporary Department such as ourselves. Most of us were conscious of its importance, without doing very much to cope with it in an organised way.
The other extreme is to treat headquarters as the sole production centre for all practical purposes and to regard the overseas posts as essentially distributors. The arguments of economy are obvious. This is the “insensitive” policy. Some adaptations of a central instrument to suit it for individual territories is, of course, possible under the advice of regional specialists, but, by and large, it is a policy that relies on the native quality and character of its product and presents it as such to the four corners of the world. A Union Jack, as it is said, is the typical central instrument for this purpose. So it is. You do not have to prepare one version for the Middle East, another for the U.S.S.R. and a third for Latin America. Some propaganda does indeed consist of little more than a figurative waving of the Union Jack. Again, American films with all that they do (and do not) testify to the American “way of life” have not captured the screen markets of the world by any sensitive adaptation to the feelings of other countries, either about themselves or about those countries.
Indeed the arguments for and against these different lines of policy could be continued indefinitely. We were never in a position to come to a final decision, even if we had wanted to, since war-time difficulties and restrictions compelled us to adopt one or other method as circumstances allowed. The choice is often best determined in practice by the nature of the instrument to be employed. Some, such as films and books, are essentially general in content and it matters more that they should have a native character and savour than that they should be accurately trained on the target: others, such as pamphlets and exhibitions, seem to me by nature specialised products.
At any rate we had a big production job to handle at home for the nourishment of our overseas markets. Such production must somehow be achieved by a fusion of technical skill, accurate intelligence and specialised knowledge. Technical skill, when it has been acquired in the energetic world of advertising and publicity, tends to lead to self- sufficiency and the belief that only publicists can publicise. That was always one of our great difficulties: the technical side of production over-bore the regional specialists and some of our products, though showing technical efficiency, could only have appeared persuasive to people as limited as those who produced them. Propaganda intelligence was not difficult to acquire, given the necessary organisation, and the excellent Appreciation and Channels papers, which our Overseas Planning Committee used to produce for each country, were the repository of our working knowledge in that sphere. But, unless the regional specialists were good and were able to conduct at any rate an intelligent and critical discussion with the technical experts on their own ground, the material produced suffered inevitably from a certain dull provincialism. I would record therefore the strongest warning as to the importance of securing good practical talent in the regional specialists if any serious programme of overseas production is to be undertaken.
Our experience was various just as the quality of our regional specialists varied. It would not have mattered so much if we had been able to count on our production specialists creating brilliant central 91 - 90 -instruments on their own initiative, as in some cases the Films people can be said to have done. If, for instance, War in Pictures had been really an outstanding publication. But unfortunately we had not collected any brilliance of talent when we staffed this side of the Ministry at the beginning of the war and it is true that the art of producing for national propaganda was an unknown study at that time. It can be learnt gradually by persons with receptive minds. Difficulties of personnel prevented us making as much advance as pioneers in this new art as I should have expected from the Ministry's general adaptability and progress. The Soviet Relations Division showed for a time what could be done in the way of producing first rate material for a special destination: but I think that they got their way by knowing in practical detail what they wanted and insisting on getting it.
3. The Ministry of Information and the British Council existed and carried on their activities side by side during the war. I gather that, in the original plan of the Ministry of Information, it had been intended that the British Council should become in effect a branch of the organisation. Lord Lloyd, its then Chairman, walked into the Ministry and then walked out. An agreement was then come to which allowed for separate conduct of affairs: no doubt we were to “keep in touch”. On paper there was a distinction between our functions: the British Council were to be responsible for the dissemination of British culture abroad, the M.O.I. of British war propaganda. The British Council to distribute photographs of Hampton Court, the M.O.I. of tanks. The distinction was an unreal one. Overseas publicity during a fundamental war, if I may use the expression, could not conceivably confine itself to war news and war information. If those had been all the wares we had to offer, we could never have offered those wares. The questions which our overseas publicity had to meet were not only “How are you going to win the war?”, but “Why did your people think it worthwhile to fight it?” and “What are you going to do with yourselves (and others) when you have won it?” What sort of people do they think we are? the Prime Minister asked on a famous occasion. That was the real question to which our foreign propaganda had ultimately to address itself.
The phrase “projection of Britain” is a convenient one to describe this theme, which increased in importance as the war lasted and as it became evident that the inquiry was not to be the merely academic one as to what sort of people we had been. It could not be answered without taking into our province current manifestations of our national culture. By 1943 we had deliberately accepted this as a matter of policy. I think that it did mean trespassing on British Council territory in so far as all subjects that could be called “cultural” could be regarded as reserved for then. Such a distinction would have been an impossible one to maintain without stultifying our own efforts and some of the most effective things that we achieved in the projection of Britain were drawn from the study of contemporary culture.
The true distinction, as I see it, is not that between culture and propaganda. The British Council was launched in its peculiar form and style because at the time it began its promoters did not like to admit that the dissemination of national culture is propaganda. They therefore adopted those aspects of propaganda - cultural activities - that they thought would be least likely to give offence. Personally, I do not see anything to be ashamed or embarrassed about in admitting that the Government runs an organisation for the express aim of explaining the ways and purposes of its people (and their Government) to other countries to whose goodwill they attach some importance. Given freedom from such an inhibition, the maintenance of two organisations, one to “do culture”, the other to do publicity or “propaganda” is to maintain a distinction without a difference.
There is a difference, on the other hand, in the kind of activity that can appropriately be allotted to each organisation. It was because we did on the whole conduct different activities, not because we pursued different objectives, that the British Council and ourselves worked side by side in reasonable amity throughout the war. I do not think that there was any serious overlapping, and there were sufficient contact and exchange of information to keep us from treading on each other's toes. I cannot think that that would be equally true in peace-time, 93 - 92 -without some overriding authority to allot definite functions and insist on their being adhered to. Teaching and fostering of exchanges in the range of science and higher education were, in our view, peculiarly British Council concerns, just as the whole range of news and current information should be exclusively ours. In some fields of production, e.g. films, our subjects could certainly have overlapped but for exchange of programmes. In any event their production programmes were very small compared with ours. In some important areas, e.g. U.S.A. and for a long time the U.S.S.R., we operated by arrangement to the exclusion of the Council. The reason in one case was the inappropriateness of an official organisation for the promotion of British culture working in the U.S.A. (where such influential bodies as the Rockefeller Foundation, Pilgrim Trust, English Speaking Union are already in the field) and in the other the reason was the unwillingness of the U.S.S.R. to recognise two official British bodies with functions that were largely the same.