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U.S.-Propaganda in World War I |
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Whereas the British propaganda institution, called the Wellington House (situated in the USA) was working secretly, the U.S.- version, the CPI ( Taylor, Munitions of the Mind, p. 183) was not hiding at all. Its most important issue was to explain its own people why the USA was fighting that war in Europe. The idea spread was that it was a just war, a war that had to be fought to rescue all people, even the Germans, from their political system. For this issue the Germans were divided into two groups, the emperor and the soldiers on the one side, being portrayed as beasts, and the German people, presented as the victims of the first ones.
Propaganda tends to be as effective as bombs in wartime. With words alone there is no way of winning a war but loosing by words or loosing because of a lack of propaganda-words is easy. See the German example in World War I.
Defamation is an important tool of disinformation, which is especially chosen for destroying the good reputation of a competitor or enemy. In this respect information can turn into a more destructive tool than ordinary weapons.
War needs propaganda for moral reasons (justification), too, for the soldiers in the battlefields (they need to feel that their nation is appreciating their sacrifice) and for nationalism.
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Boris Yeltsin
Boris Yeltsin was Russian President until the end of 1999. After many years of work for the Communist Party, he joined the Politburo in 1986. His sharp critique on Mikhail Gorbachev forced that one to resign. Yeltsin won the 1990 election into Russian presidency and quit the Communist Party. Quarrels with the Parliament could not destroy his popularity until the secession war with Chechnya. When the Russian economy collapsed in 1998, he dismissed his entire government. In the end the sick old man of Russian politics had lost all his popularity as a president and resigned for the benefit of his political son Vladimir Putin.
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