episode 3

The transcription discusses the use of propaganda in the United States during World War II. It mentions how the American public had been skeptical of propaganda due to past experiences during World War I and the Great Depression. However, President Franklin D. Roosevelt was able to effectively communicate with the American people through his fireside chats, using plain language to explain complex topics. He also utilized propaganda techniques to reinforce the need for war and to paint the enemies as morally corrupt. Overall, FDR's radio broadcasts were successful in reaching a wide audience and shaping public opinion. No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, we will not be The American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory. I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7th, 1941, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire. A few days after this declaration of war against Japan on December 11th, Germany declares war against the U.S., to which the U.S. responded with their own declaration of war against Germany the same day. Like Great Britain, the United States would undertake a mission to broadcast propaganda on the airwaves, strengthening the country's position of turning away from an isolationist stance after the assault by the Japanese Navy at Pearl Harbor. Like the propaganda of the BBC and the Ministry of Information, this was intended to be white propaganda that avoided unsavory manufactured story of atrocities in favor of persuasive communication that reinforced the supremacy of the power of the United States and the absence of morality in the enemies of Japan and Germany. Unlike Great Britain, however, the American public had been heavily scarred by past attempts at the production of propaganda during the years of the First World War. The Committee on Public Information, known as the CPI, was the foremost propaganda agency for America during the First World War. What molded the public's mind against propaganda was less the propaganda itself, more so the admission of fabrication and the exaggeration by propagandists. In Radio Ghost of War, Horton writes, quote, The foremost in the minds of many Americans in the late 1930s was one lesson learned from World War I. Never again would they be drawn into war by propaganda, lured by a mixture of atrocity stories and high-sounding moral appeals. In part, this propaganda consciousness of America grew out of hearing all too many former propagandists confess to fabricating atrocity stories or boast of their success in whipping up the American public. In 1939, H.C. Peterson summed up the American public's consensus on World War I propaganda. Quote, The propaganda, both British and American, was not only responsible in a large degree for the American entrance into the war, but it was also responsible for the temper and irrationality of the peace treaty and the vindictiveness of the post-war years. End quote. These admissions of fabrication in the face of a broadly unpopular European war soured many attempts at future propaganda for American audiences. Part of the American consciousness would grow to directly oppose propaganda, not just because of the First World War, but additionally because of the, quote, national crusade against the Great Depression throughout the 1930s. In November 1933 alone, NBC sacrificed 17 hours of airtime to the National Recovery Administration, which aimed to stimulate the recovery of businesses during the Depression. The Federal Radio Commission, the precursor to what is now the Federal Communications Commission, was outed as forcing broadcasters to air NRA material through government overreach. Horton writes, quote, Indeed, an FRC commissioner had sent a letter to all radio stations in August 1933 demanding that broadcasters refuse their facilities to advertisers and sponsors who did not collaborate with NRA codes. Part of this letter reads as follows. Quote, It is hoped that radio stations, using valuable facilities loaned to them temporarily by the government, will not unwittingly be placed in an embarrassing position because of the greed or lack of patriotism on the part of a few unscrupulous advertisers. End quote. Throughout his countrywide campaign of the New Deal and into the years of the Second World War, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the face of the American radio effort. In 1932, he gave 51 speeches on the radio, only falling behind by one in 1933. In 1940, the year before the country's entry into the war, he delivered 72 speeches over the airwaves. Most notably of these were his fireside chats in which he spoke directly to the American people. Like Churchill, FDR commanded respect from his position as the President of the United States and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. Closer to a figure like J.B. Priestly, however, FDR delivered his chats about government-run banking programs and the later war effort in a tone that could be described as grandfatherly, often breaking down topics and concepts for the average viewers in a way that was not condescending and said as if the President wanted the American people to be clued in to the goings-on of the country. This next clip is FDR's first broadcast on March 12, 1933, about the banking crisis. Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States. My friends, I want to talk for a few minutes with the people of the United States about banking. To talk with the comparatively few who understand the mechanics of banking, but more particularly with the overwhelming majority of you who use banks for the making of deposits and the drawing of checks. I want to tell you what has been done in the last few days and why it was done and what the next steps are going to be. I recognize that the many proclamations from state capitals and from Washington, the legislation, the treasury regulations and so forth, couched for the most part in banking and legal terms, ought to be explained for the benefit of the average citizen. I owe this in particular because of the fortitude and the good temper with which everybody has accepted the inconvenience and the hardships of the banking holiday. FDR spoke exactly in a way that the American people needed to hear. He tossed aside the stilted writing of internal government memos as well as the verbose language of newspapers and delivered the information in plain English. Horton cites founder and chief of the CBS News Division, Paul W. White, which was founded the same year as his first fireside chat, writing, quote, radio news staff very deliberately created a new language for journalism. No longer was it mandatory to pack the five W's, who, what, where, when and why, and an H, how, into the lead sentence of the first paragraph, as was the practice in print journalism. Newspaper writing wasn't necessarily stilted and unintelligible, argued White. He cited a number of studies which demonstrated that most press agency reports and subsequent newspaper articles were written at a level well above the reading ability of many Americans, especially since the education of many Americans had ended after the freshman year in high school. In contrast, radio used more accessible language almost immediately and instinctively. It wasn't until radio really got going that news reached Americans in simple direct English. The response was variable and immediate. People were no longer baffled, end quote. What FDR managed to do through his fireside chat career was to shroud elaborate propaganda under the veil of speaking directly to audiences about the current events of the nation. According to Ralph Donald, author of Hollywood Enlists, Propaganda Films of World War II, FDR embraced three of the five categories of propaganda war appeals to reinforce the need to enter and maintain footing in the war as, quote, aggressive actions perpetrated by the enemy leave one's peace-loving nation with no honorable alternative besides armed conflict, end quote. The first three categories, guilt, which places blame on the enemy, Satanism, or polarizing speech, and the illusion of victory, which maintains the necessity of sacrifice to eventually win the war, were developed by Harold Laswell as an explanation of propaganda messages during the First World War. The fourth comes from scholar Ronald Reed in the 1980s, identifying apocalypticism as reinforcing the battle between good and evil, while territoriality appeals to protecting one's own people. FDR first addresses guilt by laying the blame of our entry into the war at the feet of Japan. I can say with utmost confidence that no Americans today or a thousand years hence need feel anything but pride in our patience and in our efforts through all the years toward achieving a peace in the Pacific which would be fair and honorable to every nation, large or small. And no honest person today or a thousand years hence will be able to suppress a sense of indignation and horror at the treachery committed by the military dictators of Japan under the very shadow of the flag of peace borne by their special envoys in our midst. Satanism is a terroristically inflamed speech directed against the enemies of the United States as morally corrupt barbarians, which FDR evokes in the same fireside chat in the sentence, quote, Powerful and resourceful gangsters have banded together to make war upon the whole human race, end quote. FDR promises the American people that the country will be victorious in its war against Germany, evoking the illusion of victory in a statement on December 8th, 1941, quote, With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounded determination of our people, we will gain the inimitable triumph to help us God, end quote. FDR directly paints the struggle against fascism as a biblical struggle of good and evil that will decide the fate of the American people as a Christian nation. On his May 27th, 1941 radio address, Roosevelt states, quote, Today the whole world is divided between human slavery and human freedom, between pagan brutality and the Christian ideal. We choose human freedom, which is the Christian ideal. We reassert our binding faith in the vitality of our constitutional republic as a perpetual home of freedom, of tolerance, and of devotion to the word of God, end quote. FDR found success in pioneering the radio voice as he reached into the homes of millions who did not access the news through papers. Horton writes, quote, Yet Lazerfeld and his researchers also made clear that radio news listeners were not necessarily converts from or apostates of the newspaper business. Many of these listeners were new to the news audience, period. As with the writer who confessed to Calvin Bourne, her confusion and bafflement when reading newspaper articles, many other Americans who had been out of the loop news-wise were now reached by radio. Lazerfeld's research, for example, demonstrated that lower and lower middle class Americans expressed a particularly strong preference for radio as a news source. Many of them had not read the political news covered by newspapers. Another broad audience that felt particularly attached to the new medium who no longer had to rely on local papers for coverage of national and international news. Very likely, two additional cultural attributes of radio appealed to Americans not given to solitary brooding over the written word. First of all, listening to the radio was a socialized activity, which one could enjoy with others. The other factor was the human voice, which made radio more interesting, real, and personal. Again and again, this latter aspect reverberated through the responses of Americans surveyed by Lazerfeld. Quote, it is more interesting when a person talks to you. I like the voice. It is nearer to you. A voice to me has always been more real than words to be read. .