‘MINDS THEN HEARTS:’

U.S. POLITICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE

DURING THE KOREAN WAR

DISSERTATION

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for

The Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate

School of The Ohio State University

By

Mark R. Jacobson, B.A., M.A.

*****

The Ohio State University

2005

Dissertation Committee:
Approved By
Professor Allan R. Millett, Adviser

Professor David Stebenne

__________________________
Professor Daniel Kuehl Adviser
History Graduate Program
 ABSTRACT

Minds then Hearts examines the U.S. military’s resistance and hostility towards

psychological warfare and examines how this affected the weapon’s use during the

Korean War. The conventional military rejected psychological warfare as “paper

bullets” that had no place in a military focused on lethal means – blast, heat, and

fragmentation, to defeat its enemies. In particular this study will examine how the

inability to demonstrate conclusively the effects of psychological warfare operations

added to uncertainty and skepticism over the weapon’s potential and actual impact on

the battlefield. Additionally, the study explores how operational deficiencies such as a

lack of resources and poor integration with combat arms created obstacles hampering

the successful employment of psychological warfare against Chinese and North Korean

forces. The study will also compare the Army’s efforts to use the weapon with those of

the Air Force that, at times, considered strategic bombing as synonymous with

psychological warfare. Further, the Chinese and Russian use of atrocity propaganda,

especially the forced confessions of waging biological warfare by American prisoners,

will be examined in order to demonstrate how these efforts impacted on the American

military’s view of their own psychological warfare campaigns. The study

ii
acknowledges and describes the difficulties involved in evaluating the effectiveness of

psychological warfare operations in general and during the Korean War. Minds then

Hearts concludes that the most important obstacle to effective psywar operations was

the failure of Army officers in the field to understand the potential of psychological

warfare and thus, fail to integrate it properly into their combat operations. Many

combat commanders saw psywar solely as an instrument designed simply to induce

surrender. Psywar personnel, eager to demonstrate their worth did little to dispel this

limited view. The inability of the psywar proponents to consistently provide

demonstrable and tangible indicators of success meant that when forced to choose

between leaflets, loudspeakers and firepower, operational leaders chose firepower. The

result was that psywar proved successful only in a limited tactical sense but never

created the type of operational or strategic victories sought by the weapon’s proponents.

iii
Dedicated to my parents

iv
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A friend once told me that completing a dissertation simply requires “patience, time,

and discipline.” Finding myself lacking in all three of these areas has forced me to rely

on my colleagues, family, and friends during this long quest. I owe them all thanks as

well as apologies for the postponed events, missed activities, and, at times, a less than

optimal attitude. I am sad at all I missed over the years while keeping one eye on this

project at all times – it has been costly in many ways. That said there are some

individuals whom deserve specific recognition.

I can not overstate the thanks that I owe to my adviser and Dissertation Chair,

Allan R. Millett, for his patience, guidance, training, support, and faith in my abilities.

In addition, I want to thank my Committee Members, Daniel Kuehl and David Stebenne

for their timely and helpful comments and advice, as well as Al Paddock for his

mentorship and research / hiking companionship while exploring the previously

“hidden” papers of Major General Robert A. McClure. I am grateful to Joe Guilmartin,

Williamson Murray, and Mark Grimsley who each had their role in pushing me and

prodding me into increasingly more rigorous study and analysis. Sincere thanks are

also given to those graduates of The Ohio State University who gave me encouragement
v
and friendship and contributed to my intellectual growth during my years in Columbus:

Verb Washington, Ty Seidule, Alex Lassner, Jay Young, Steve Stein, Nick Steneck, and

especially Kelly Jordan. I would also like to extend my appreciation to Ms. Joby

Abernathy at the Department of History for helping me to deftly handle the range of

administrative hurdles I encountered on road to completion. Last, but by no means

least, of my Ohio State colleagues, I would like to thank Ms. Beth Russell, not just for

her unconditional assistance over many years in times of need but for her friendship as

well.

I am grateful to Jon Shy, Tom Collier and Gerald Linderman of the University

of Michigan for setting me on the path to graduate school and for providing the final

review panel for my dissertation prior to my defense. I wish to thank the McClure

family for their hospitality while reviewing the McClure papers in lovely Butte Creek

Canyon, California and the Truman Library, The Air Force Historical Research Agency,

and The Ohio State University’s Department of History for their travel grants in support

of my research. I am especially indebted to Dr. Jeffery Clarke and Dr. Andrew Birtle of

the U.S. Army Center of Military History for their generosity with a CMH Dissertation

Fellowship and owe a special thanks to Richard Herrmann, director of the Mershon

Center, for bringing me on board as a Visiting Scholar this past year so that I could

complete this dissertation.

Further I wish to express my appreciation to the various staff members at a

number of archives that helped me through the maze of government documents while at

the National Archives, the Center of Military History, and the U.S. Army Military
vi
History Institute. A special thanks to Tim Nenninger and Richard Stewart who

continued to help me on both my dissertation and various Pentagon issues when the

special expertise of trained historians was required.

My professional experiences shaped this dissertation as much as my work in the

classroom and archival discoveries. Thus my colleagues at the Pentagon deserve

special recognition for their professional tutelage and camaraderie. A special thanks to

those who pushed me to exceed expectations; Bob Andrews, Brigadier General (ret.)

David Armstrong, COL Bill Odom, COL Tony Fortune, my colleagues at the J-3

Special Operations Division, and COL Chris Perkins, Christine Wormuth, David

Radcliffe, Alisa Stack O’Connor, and Mike Johnson, who each taught me by example

what it means to be a professional in service of the nation.

My thanks as well to Mackenzie Eaglen for her continued friendship Julianne

Smith for her support; Javed Ali for 28 years of friendship and continued writing

instruction, and to Roger Cressey for his mentorship and showing me how to serve your

country. To Sarah Schafer, I thank you for both your friendship and your inspiration. I

also owe a very special thanks and debt to Jim Ludes, not only for helping to anchor the

“psywar dinner group” that devised the strategy to defeat Al Qaeda, but for his advice,

experience, friendship, and wise counsel that made the difference. Finally and most

importantly, I would like to thank my sister and parents for their own patience, time,

discipline, and flexibility while dealing with me these many years. I could not have

made it this far without them.

vii
 VITA

October 31, 1968………………………..Born – Chicago, Illinois

1990……………………………………..B.A. History, University of Michigan

1991……………………………………..M.A. Department of War Studies

King’s College, London, United Kingdom

1994-1998………………………………Graduate Associate, The Ohio State University

1998…………………………………….M.A. History, The Ohio State University

1998 – 2000…………………………….Presidential Management Intern

Office of the Secretary of Defense

2000 – 2003…………………………….Foreign Affairs Specialist

Office of the Secretary of Defense

2003 – 2004……………………………Visiting Scholar, The Mershon Center

The Ohio State University

PUBLICATIONS

1. Mark R. Jacobson, “War in the Information Age: International Law, Self-Defense,

and the Problem of ‘Non-Armed’ Attacks,” Journal of Strategic Studies, Volume 21,
Number 3 (September 1998), 1-23.

2. Mark R. Jacobson, "Tactical PSYOP Support to Task Force Eagle," in Lessons from
Bosnia: The IFOR Experience, ed. Larry Wentz (Washington: National Defense Univ.
Press, 1998), 189-224
viii
 FIELDS OF STUDY

Major Field: History

ix
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract……………………………………………………………………………….ii

Dedication……………………………………………………………………………..iv

Acknowledgments……………………………………………………………………..v

Vita…………………………………………………………………………………..viii

List of Figures…………………………………………………………………………xi

Chapters:

1. Introduction………………………………………………………………………….1

2. Psywar in the U.S. Military Prior to the Korean War……………………………...18

3. Organizing for Psywar and the Strategic Campaign……………………………….54

4. Tactical Psywar…………………………………………………………………….93

5. Accepting and Selling Psywar……………………………………………………..118

6. U.S. Air Force and Psywar in Korea……………………………………………….155

7. Communist Psywar: The Bacteriological Warfare Allegations…………………..187

8. Conclusions: The Effectiveness of Psywar During the Korean War……………..231

Appendix A: Summaries of Selected FEC Psywar Operations and Plans…………..257

Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………262

x
 LIST OF FIGURES

Figure

8.1 Percentage of the total number of prisoners taken as a function of time…256

xi
 CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

Hello my G.I. friends. Good Morning. This is your regular morning broadcast
courtesy of the Chinese Peoples Volunteer Army. G.I. friends, this is the dawn
of the ten-hundredth and twentieth day of the forgotten war; what your
politicians choose to call a police action, a minor affair, which has already
caused you more casualties than your war of independence. G.I. friends, you
want peace. We want peace. We too are young; we too have to leave our
homes to fight on foreign soil. Why? Show your stubborn generals haggling
at Panmunjom that you will no longer fight for a line on the map. Show them
that you want peace just as we want peace. Lay down your arms and we will
be glad to lay down ours.
- Chinese Loudspeaker Broadcast, Pork Chop Hill

War is purposeful and organized violence; a direct and brutal means of

persuasion, designed to “compel our enemy to do our will."1 Armed forces use an array

of weapons of persuasion to destroy the physical ability of the enemy to resist. While

killing the enemy is perhaps the most direct and obvious means to disarm an opposing

force, war can also be viewed as a non-lethal assault on the enemy mind rather than the

body. Kevlar or armored fighting vehicles can protect bodies. The mind has no such

protections, making soldiers particularly vulnerable to a variety of disturbing

psychological stimuli on the battlefield including fear, shock, and uncertainty.

1
Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. and trans. Sir Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1984), 75.

1
Throughout history, military theorists have pointed out that war is as much a battle to

destroy minds as well as bodies. Breaking an enemy’s will to resist involves shattering

his courage, or as Sun Tzu wrote: “One need not destroy one's enemy. One need only

destroy his willingness to engage.” 2 Though perhaps overstated, some have even

argued that attacking the mind was even more important than attacking the body.

Surrender after all, wrote one Army officer “is a state of mind,” or, in the vulgate,

“Capture their minds and their hearts and souls will follow.”3 While combat operations

certainly affect both the morale and body of the enemy, those military activities and

operations designed primarily or exclusively for their psychological effect, that is, for

their impact on attitudes and behaviors, are known today as psychological operations.

These operations, once known as “combat propaganda” or “psychological warfare,” are

in the most basic terms simply the use of propaganda in war. While a number of terms

have been used to describe these activities, they are all simply euphemisms or, as one

observer noted, a “recent name for an old idea about how to wage successful war,”4

Both psychological warfare and propaganda are as old as history itself. As one

historian put it, any history of propaganda should begin with a study of the snake in the

2
Sun Tzu, as quoted in Jonathan Gratch and Stacy Marsella, “Fight the Way You Train, The Role of
Emotions in Training for Combat,” Brown Journal of World Affairs, 10, no. 1, (2003): 11. There is
certainly room for debate in terms of whether physical or psychological stress and damage lead to the
destruction of cohesion and morale among fighting units.
3
Office of the Secretary of Defense, “Meet Psychological Warfare,” Armed Forces Talk 303 (1949), 1-
11; and Unknown. Indeed, another modern military aphorism is “grab them by the balls and their hearts
and minds will follow.”
4
Harold Lasswell, “Political and Psychological Warfare,” in Daniel Lerner, ed., Propaganda in War and
Crisis (New York: 1951), 261.

2
Garden of Eden as “…he was both the first propagandist and the first teacher of the

art.”5 Psychological warfare has always played important roles in battles. It was

evident in the first recorded engagement in military history, Megiddo, where an

Egyptian force outwitted their Canaanite foes. In the 12th Century B.C., Gideon used

lanterns to convince the Midianites that they were faced by an army of thirty thousand

rather than three hundred. Herodotus tells how Themistocles appealed to his Ionian

enemies to defect and purposefully left them in areas where Persian armies (allied with

the Ionians) would find them. In this way, even if the Ionians did not defect, the

Persians might become suspicious of their comrades. Sun-Tzu wrote that “to subdue

the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill;” John Milton went blind working on

Oliver Cromwell’s propaganda campaigns, and Cortez exploited Mexican superstitions

concerning Quetzalcoatl, (“The Fair God”) to cow the Aztecs.6 While propaganda

flourished from the earliest days of human interaction, psychological warfare did not

become a systematic and organized military activity until the 20th century. Organized

psychological warfare has focused on three basic objectives: supporting friendly

morale, breaking down enemy morale, and winning the support of neutral audiences to

deny their support of the enemy. Propaganda activities on the battlefield were known as

5
Barry Alan Marks, “The Idea of Propaganda in America (Ph.D. diss., University of Minnesota, 1957), v-
vi. The term propaganda actually dates back to the 17th century and referred to Pope Gregory XV’s
committee of Cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church, also known as the Congregatio de propaganda
fide, or, congregation for propagating the faith.
6
Sun-Tzu The Art of War, trans. Samuel B. Griffith, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1963), 77.
Hernan Cortez, and a small army of soldiers, sailors, and slaves, landed on the shores of Mexico in 1519.
The Aztecs, significantly outnumbering the Spanish, did not attack, probably because the Aztec emperor
Montezuma probably thought the invading Cortez was Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent god who was
to return one day as a fair-skinned bearded god.

3
“combat propaganda” during the First World War and “psychological warfare,” during

the Second World War and Korea.7 Largely caught up in the development of

“unconventional warfare” in the U.S. Army, propaganda and psychological warfare

more rapidly evolved in the U.S. military after their use in the world wars.8

By the end of the Second World War, the United States Army had developed the

basic psychological warfare tactics and techniques that are in use today, although the

military had yet to approve a standing peacetime psywar organization. At the same

time, the beginning of a Cold War with the Soviet Union prompted many in the U.S.

government to establish, for the first time, permanent civilian organizations to engage in

propaganda campaigns abroad. Civilian agencies soon adapted the term “psychological

warfare” to describe their own activities, and by 1953 the expression encompassed an

incredibly broad range of nonmilitary activities designed to influence or persuade

foreign audiences in order to further U.S. policy abroad. This not only included

traditional spoken or broadcast appeals, but also actions, called “propaganda of the

7
JFC Fuller first used the term “psychological warfare” shortly after the end of the First World War see
J.F.C. Fuller, Tanks in the Great War, 1914-1918 (London: J. Murray, 1920). During the Korean War
the term “psychological operations” began to take hold. Edward Lilly, “Summary of developments in
psychological operations 1946-1951,” Jul 29, 1952, document CK3100298522, WHITE HOUSE. TOP
SECRET, declassified: Mar 28, 1990, Reproduced in Declassified Documents Reference System. Stan
Sandler argues that the lexicon change was perhaps due to the recognition that U.S. military propaganda
activities might be directed toward friendly civilians and other operations that did not merit the suffix
“warfare.” Stanley Sandler, “Cease Resistance: It’s Good For You” A History of U.S. Army Combat
Psychological Operations. (United States Army Special Operations Command Directorate of History and
Museums: Fort Bragg, North Carolina, 1996), 233.
8
Unconventional Warfare, or, “UW,” is defined by the Department of Defense as, “A broad spectrum of
military and paramilitary operations, normally of long duration, predominantly conducted through, with,
or by indigenous or surrogate forces who are organized, trained, equipped, supported, and directed in
varying degrees by an external source. It includes, but is not limited to, guerrilla warfare, subversion,
sabotage, intelligence activities, and unconventional assisted recover.” Department of Defense, Joint
Publication 1-02, DOD Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms (December 17, 2003).

4
deed.” These actions focused on economic aid and sanctions, educational exchanges,

cultural interaction, and a range of diplomatic activity. In some circles, this “all

inclusive” concept of psychological warfare was known as “political warfare.”9

Psychological warfare during the Cold War came under severe scrutiny, as since at least

the end of the First World War, Americans had been suspicious of anything having to

do with propaganda, considering it synonymous with lies, deception, and

misinformation. Particularly after the Second World War, Americans, and perhaps the

world, identified the term “propaganda” with Nazism and Joseph Goebbels. Thus,

Americans considered propaganda, and its wartime cousin, psychological warfare

cynical, divisive, deceitful, and thus, particularly un-American.10

The U.S. post-Second World War military initially operated under a very narrow

definition of psychological warfare that only included those “non-lethal” means

9
Propaganda, psychological warfare, and political warfare are indeed all similar terms, each describing a
particular way to influence or persuade others to undertake certain behaviors or dismiss beliefs and
attitudes in favor of others. At the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950, the Department of the Army
considered propaganda to be “any organized effort or movement o spread a particular doctrine or
information.” Political warfare was defined as, “The employment of political (diplomatic and other
nonmilitary) means to defeat an enemy.” Political warfare was not a function of the armed forces but
could be planned in conjunction with military operations. Psychological warfare, as defined by the
Army, was the use of “activities, other than combat, which communicate ideas and information intended
to affect the minds, emotions, and actions of the enemy, and which are conducted by a military command
in conjunction with its combat operations, for the purpose of reducing the enemy morale and will to
fight.” See Department of the Army, FM 33-5, Psychological Warfare in Combat Operations
(Washington DC: 1949), 3-7.
10
Chester Bowles, the U.S. Ambassador to India wrote in 1955, “Psychological Warfare is a cynical
phrase borrowed from Goebbels and Stalin. If we insist on employing it to describe our activities we will
continue to lose the respect of millions of people throughout the world who were brought up to believe
that America is more than a clever gimmick or a cynical maneuver.” William E. Daugherty, “Changing
Concepts,” in William E. Daugherty and Morris Janowitz, eds., A Psychological Warfare Casebook
(Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press for the Operations Research Office, The Johns Hopkins
University, 1958), 15. After the Second World War, some observers felt that propaganda was so
dangerous that its use should be prohibited. See James P. Warburg, Unwritten Treaty, (New York:
Harcourt, Brace & Co, 1946).

5
designed to affect the morale and behavior of enemy forces.11 The Army actively

resisted the idea of expanding the definition to include combat and / or lethal activities,

dismissing the notion that psychological warfare could prove a battlefield weapon on a

par with artillery, tanks, or infantry.12 In fact, while concerned about the effect of

Communist propaganda directed at subverting civilians and military forces at home, the

United States military remained disinclined, if not openly hostile, towards psychological

warfare as a military weapon, viewing the field as a province for civilian agencies. The

conventional military, especially the combat arms, rejected the idea of psychological

warfare as its non-lethal methods, e.g. radio equipment and “paper bullets,” did not fit

well into a regimented military that focused on using lethal, high-explosive force to

defeat its enemies.

During the Korean War, the U.S. military, almost exclusively the Army, waged

psychological warfare as part of its overall combat efforts on the Korean peninsula. On

the battlefield, the Army waged a “tactical” psychological warfare campaign with

leaflets dispersed from special artillery shells, reminding the enemy of the superiority of

the United Nations military forces, the futility of resistance, and the preferable option of

11
Department of the Army, Army Regulation 320-1, Dictionary of U.S. Military Terms for Joint Usage,
June, 1948. c.f., Department of the Army, FM 33-5, Psychological Warfare in Combat Operations
(Washington DC: 1949), 3-7.
12
The Army Ground General School defined psychological warfare as including the “use of propaganda
against an enemy, together with military operational and/or other measures which may be required to
supplement such propaganda,” but the 1950 and 1953 definitions went back to simply emphasizing
“propaganda” or “informational” measures. Department of the Army, Ground General School,
“Psychological Warfare General,” Special Text , January, 1949; Department of the Army, SR 320-5-1,
Dictionary of U.S. Army Terms, August, 1950; Department of the Army, SR 320-5-1, Dictionary of U.S.
Army Terms, November, 1953.

6
surrender. Loudspeaker broadcasts from aircraft, tanks, and jeeps reinforced these

messages on the front lines. Republic of Korea forces and U.S. military advisors

developed similar approaches to help eliminate support for the communist guerilla

struggle against the Republic of Korea from below the 38th parallel. American radio

broadcasts constituted a “strategic campaign” designed not only to lower morale and

encourage defections among enemy troops, but also to bring the “truth” of the war to

the North Korean people and bolster the morale of the South Korean population. On the

front-lines, Chinese forces also used leaflets and loudspeaker broadcasts in attempts to

break American, U.N. and Korean troops’ morale. More importantly, Chinese and

Russian radio broadcasts and pamphlets put forth “atrocity stories” attempting to

discredit the UN intervention in the eyes of the world. In particular, the Chinese made

great use of arranged or extorted “confessions” by U.S. prisoners of war to a variety of

war crimes and atrocities.

Due in part to the hysteria of the Cold War and several Hollywood films,

psychological warfare remains one of the most misunderstood dimensions of the

Korean War. Indeed, the first thing that comes to mind when people think of

psychological warfare during the Korean War is undoubtedly “brainwashing,” a

reference to the Communist techniques for controlling the minds of nonbelievers. The

1962 film The Manchurian Candidate and the continuing search for an explanation as

to why twenty-one U.S. soldiers held as prisoners of war decided to stay in North Korea

at the end of the war shaped myths about psychological warfare and its use during the

7
Korean War.13 The lack of true understanding reflects broader American suspicions of

propaganda and the distrust and skepticism of psychological warfare within the U.S.

military. Now that the Korean War is no longer a “forgotten war,” the task for

historians is to make sure that the myths of the war give way to historical realities.

Mirroring the subject’s multidisciplinary nature, writers on the history of

propaganda and psychological warfare have come from a variety of academic

professions including public relations counselors, advertising specialists, sociologists,

political scientists, journalists, military professionals, and even a few historians.

Though these writers have produced a number of works on the nature of propaganda

and persuasion, there have been fewer pieces on the role of psychological warfare as a

diplomatic tool and military weapon.14 There are no comprehensive studies of

psychological warfare during the Korean War. Stephen Pease attempts to lightly

address the subject with his short, popular history Psywar, and Stanley Sandler devotes

13
Hearings before the House Committee on Un-American Activities on “Brainwashing,” particularly
helped to perpetuate the belief that these techniques had been the primary Communist psychological
warfare technique. During hearings in March 1958, Edward Hunter, a foreign correspondent and author
of Brainwashing in Red-China (1953) testified that brainwashing explained why “roughly 1 of every 3
American prisoners collaborated with the Communists,” and, “for the first time in history Americans – 21
of them – swallowed the enemy’s propaganda line” and failed to return home. While Hunter did not
specifically state that brainwashing was synonymous with “psychological warfare,” his use of the term
“mind attack,” as dimension of war designed to soften up the enemy was close enough so that those
outside of the military would have made no distinction between the two terms. House Committee on Un-
American Activities, Communist Psychological Warfare (Brainwashing), 85th Cong., 2nd sess., 13 March
1958, 1, 3, 15.
14
For general works on the nature of persuasion and propaganda see Leonard Doob, Propaganda, Its
Psychology and Technique (New York: Henry Holt, 1948); Jaques Ellul, Propaganda: The Formation of
Men’s Attitudes, trans. Konrad Kellen and Jean Lerner (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1965); Robert Jackall,
ed., Propaganda (New York: New York University Press 1995); Harold Lasswell, Daniel Lerner, and
Hans Speier, eds., Propaganda and Communication in World History 3 vols. (Honolulu: University of
Hawaii Press, 1979); and David Welch and Nicholas Cull, eds., Propaganda and Mass Persuasion: A
Historical Encyclopedia, 1500 to the Present, (ABC Clio Books, 2003).

8
a chapter to the Korean War in his official history of U.S. Army tactical psychological

operations, Cease Resistance, It’s Good For You.15 Pease’s work, while well written,

provides only a cursory operational overview with little analysis. Sandler’s work, while

exploiting the vast majority of primary sources available on the Korean War, is

unedited, too dense, and has limited value as an interpretive piece. Both the American

and South Korean official histories of the Korean War make only brief mentions of

propaganda and psychological warfare, as do most of the recent popular and academic

works on the conflict. The official histories of the Eighth U.S. Army provide only brief

mentions of psychological warfare and even the most recent “Encyclopedia” of the war

fails to mention any of the psychological warfare units in its “order of battle” listing.16

Most works on the political and geo-strategic aspects of the Korean Conflict, as well as

those on operational military issues, contain few references to the use of psychological

15
Stephen Pease, Psywar: Psychological warfare in Korea, 1950-1953 (Harrisburg: Stackpole Books,
1992) and Stanley Sandler, “Cease Resistance: It’s Good For You” A History of U.S. Army Combat
Psychological Operations. (Fort Bragg, North Carolina: United States Army Special Operations
Command Directorate of History and Museums, 1996). Paul Linebarger also addresses psychological
warfare in Korea in the appendix to the second edition of his classic work. The cursory overview,
however, provides no more information than is available in standard reference works. Paul Linebarger,
Psychological Warfare, 2d ed. (Washington DC: Combat Forces Press, 1954). Note: all future citations
to Linebarger’s, Psychological Warfare, refer to the 2d edition unless specifically stated.

16
See James Schnabel, Policy and Direction, The First Year, The United States Army in the Korean
War Series (Washington DC: Office of the Chief of Military History, U.S. Army, 1972, reprinted, 1992);
Roy E. Appleman, South to the Naktong, North to the Yalu, The United States Army in the Korean War
Series (Washington DC: Office of the Chief of Military History, U.S. Army, 1961, reprinted, 1986);
Billy Mossman, Ebb and Flow, November 1950-July 1951, The United States Army in the Korean War
Series, (Washington DC: Office of the Chief of Military History, U.S. Army, 1990); Walter G. Hermes,
Truce Tent and Fighting Front, The United States Army in the Korean War Series, (Washington DC:
Office of the Chief of Military History, U.S. Army, 1966). While the absence of references to
psychological warfare may be due to its operational insignificance it is also possible that the planning
documents and unit historical information for psychological warfare units remained classified SECRET
until the 1980’s and 1990’s, well after all but Mossman’s book was published.

9
warfare.17 A few books include some limited discussion of psychological warfare and,

notably, their impressions are generally favorable.18 Several recent works on special

operations during the Korean War, however, do contain extensive references to

psychological warfare. Although none of these proves particularly useful in terms of a

comprehensive or interpretive assessment of psychological warfare, they are useful

studies in that they attempt to explain the myriad of organizations responsible for covert

and clandestine activities in Korea. Best among these are Michael E. Haas, In the

Devil’s Shadow: UN Special Operations During the Korea War and Ed Evanhoe, Dark

Moon: Eighth Army Special Operations in the Korean War. While not a work on the

Korean War, per se, Alfred H. Paddock, U.S. Army Special Warfare Its Origins, is

perhaps the most important book on the institutional development of unconventional

17
For works focusing largely on American participation in the war see David Rees, Korea: The Limited
War (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1964); William Stueck, The Korean War, an International History
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995); Burton I. Kaufman, The Korean War: Challenges in
Crisis, Credibility and Command (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1986); Clay Blair, The
Forgotten War: America In Korea, 1950-1953, (New York: Times Books, 1987); Max Hastings, The
Korean War (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987). In addition, for good reviews of published
materials on the Korean War see Allan R. Millett, “The Korean War: A 50-Year Critical
Historiography,” Journal of Strategic Studies, 24, no. 1 (2001) and Glenn S. Cook, “Korea: No Longer
the Forgotten War,” The Journal of Military History 56, no. 3 (1992): 480-494. For recent works on
Chinese participation in the Korean War see most importantly, Chen Jian, China’s Road to the Korean
War: The Making of the Sino-American Confrontation (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994)
and Mao’s Generals Remember Korea, Xiaobing Li, Allan R. Millett and Bin Yu, trans. and eds.
(Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2001).
18
See in particular, Joseph J. Goulden, Korea, The Untold Story of the War, (New York: McGraw Hill,
1982); General Paik Sun Yup, From Pusan to Panmunjom, (New York: Brassey’s, 1992); and Rees,
Limited War.

10
warfare and thus, psychological warfare in the United States military. Haas and

Paddock’s works are excellent starting points to find primary source material.19

General works on psychological warfare and propaganda include, most

importantly, Philip Taylor, Munitions of the Mind, and Gorham Munson, 12 Decisive

Battles of the Mind; The Story of Propaganda During the Christian Era. Several edited

volumes and case-study type works such as Daniel Lerner, Propaganda in War and

Crisis, William Daugherty and Morris Janowitz, A Psychological Warfare Casebook,

and Daniel C. Pollack’s The Art and Science of Psychological Operations: Case

Studies of Military Application. The latter have scores of case studies of psychological

warfare operations in the majority of American wars as well as more lengthy

assessments of psychological warfare tactics, techniques, and doctrine.

A number of authors have focused on the American experience with propaganda

and psychological warfare, providing some useful studies with which to compare and

contrast the U.S. experience in Korea. The first significant literature on military

psychological warfare, Harold Lasswell, Propaganda Technique in the World War, was

published in 1927. It included an assessment of American and Allied efforts during the

Great War. Lasswell, a social scientist by training, set the pattern for future authors by

chronicling psychological warfare exploits and by actively participating throughout his

19
The revised edition of Paddock’s book is recommended over the first edition as it used many
previously unavailable sources, particularly the recently discovered personal papers of General Robert
McClure, the “father of special warfare,” the first director of the Office of the Chief of Psychological
warfare and driving force behind the development of the Psychological Warfare School, later Special
Warfare School, at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina. These papers were tracked down by this author and
inventoried in 1995 with the assistance of Dr. Alfred Paddock. See Alfred H. Paddock, Jr., U.S. Army
Special Warfare, Its Origins, Rev. ed. (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002).

11
career as a propagandist. The American experience with psychological warfare during

the Second World War naturally generated a number of works. Indeed, a number of

authors writing during the period 1946-1951 outlined their analysis of the growing “war

of ideas” between the Soviet Union and the United States.20 Paul Linebarger,

Psychological Warfare (1948), remains one of the most important works not only on the

general development of psychological warfare within the U.S. military, but also on the

general practice of propaganda. Unfortunately, his chapter on the American experience

in Korea, available in the second edition to the work is superficial and simply an

afterthought.21 Daniel Lerner, a psychological warfare veteran of the Second World

War, wrote the first significant analysis of U.S. psychological warfare in Europe during

that war, Sykewar: Psychological Warfare Against Germany from D-Day to VE Day,

published in 1949. Two recent, more objective assessments include Alison Gilmore,

You Can’t Fight Tanks with Bayonets: Psychological Warfare Against the Japanese

Army in the Southwest Pacific and Clayton Laurie, Propaganda Warriors: America’s

Crusade Against Nazi Germany. Worthwhile works on the birth of American

propaganda efforts at the national level during the Cold War include Edward Barrett,

Truth is our Weapon, Wallace Carroll, Persuade or Perish, and Murray Dyer, Weapon

20
In addition to Lerner, Propaganda in War and Crisis, and Doob, Propaganda, see Leo J. Margolin,
Paper Bullets, A Brief Story of Psychological Warfare in World War II (New York: Froben Press, 1946);
Saul Padover, Experiment in Germany; the story of an American Intelligence Officer (New York: Duell,
Sloan and Pearce, 1946); Robert E. Summers, America’s Weapons of Psychological Warfare (New York:
Wilson, 1951); Daniel Lerner, Sykewar; Psychological Warfare Against Germany, D-Day to VE-Day
(New York: G.W. Stewart, 1949); Wallace Carroll, Persuade or Perish (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co.,
1948); Bonner Fellers, “Thought War” Against the Kremlin (Chicago: Regnery, 1949); and Paul
Linebarger, Psychological Warfare (Washington DC: Infantry Journal Press, 1948).
21
Paul Linebarger, Psychological Warfare, 2d ed. (Combat Forces Press: Washington DC, 1954).

12
on the Wall; all published during the early years of the Cold War. Finally, several more

recent works have taken advantage of the wealth of materials declassified after the end

of the Cold War such as Scott Lucas, Freedom’s War: The American Crusade Against

the Soviet Union, Peter Grose, Operation Rollback: America’s Secret War Behind the

Iron Curtain, and Frances Saunders, The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of

Arts and Letters, and Evan Thomas, The Very Best Men, a study of covert operations,

including “black” psychological operations.

The purpose of this study is to examine the U.S. military’s, primarily the U.S.

Army’s, resistance and hostility towards psychological warfare and to examine how this

affected the weapon’s use during the Korean War. In particular this study will examine

how the inability to demonstrate conclusively the effects of psychological warfare

operations added to uncertainty and skepticism over the weapon’s potential and actual

impact on the battlefield. Additionally, the study will explore how operational

deficiencies such as a lack of resources and poor integration with combat arms created

obstacles to the successful employment of psychological warfare against Chinese and

North Korean forces. The study will also compare the Army’s efforts to use the weapon

with those of the Air Force, which considered physical acts and combat activities with

psychological effects such as strategic bombing part of their psychological warfare

efforts. The study will also address how inter-service rivalries hampered the

development and execution of a comprehensive psywar campaign in Korea. Further,

the Chinese and Russian use of atrocity propaganda, especially the forced confessions

of waging biological warfare by American prisoners, will be examined in order to

13
demonstrate how these efforts impact on the American military’s view of their own

psychological warfare campaigns. Finally, this study will address the fundamental

question of what effect psychological warfare had during the Korean War – did it make

a difference on the battlefield?

While some writers on the Korean War have spoken well of psychological

warfare in specific tactical situations, both Stephen Pease and Stanley, specifically,

criticize overall tactics and techniques and conclude that U.S. psychological warfare

efforts during the Korean War were flawed. Neither is, however, particularly adamant

about their conclusions, nor adequately addresses apparent contradictions in how the

Army dealt with psychological warfare. Both works neglect an assessment of the

overall impact of psychological warfare in the war. The authors also fail to address why,

during the same period of time the Army thought enough of psychological warfare to

create a permanent Army Staff level organization as well as the Psychological Warfare

School at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina.

In contrast to the views of these authors, General Matthew Ridgway, who took

over as the Commanding General, U.S. Eighth Army, Korea, in December1950 and

replaced General Douglas MacArthur as UN Commander in April 1951, spoke

appreciatively of psychological warfare. On a few occasions, Ridgway even wrote to

Secretary of the Army Frank Pace and General Robert McClure, who headed the Office

of the Chief of Psychological Warfare at the Army Staff, to personally commend the

14
efforts and results of psychological warfare in the field.22 When asked his impressions

on the value of psychological warfare in the years after the war, ironically, General

Ridgway indicated that he didn’t have much faith in psychological warfare as a weapon

and did not think it had accomplished much. Ridgway stated, “We certainly didn’t get

any substantial number of prisoners turned in as a result of our operations in Korea and

I hadn't had much experience with it in Europe. I never felt they accomplished

anything. Maybe they did; it was pretty hard to judge.” 23 While this may appear to be a

simple case of reflecting after the fact, it is indicative of the key issue regarding why the

military dealt with psywar in a peculiar and sometimes contradictory manner.

Ridgway’s most telling comment about psychological warfare remains: “it was

pretty hard to judge.” More than any other factor, the inability of proponents to assess

the impact of psychological warfare appears to have led to skepticism about its utility.

Psychological warfare personnel were able to demonstrate without much difficulty that

their efforts clearly made a difference in specific tactical situations, but could rarely

clearly quantify or conclusively demonstrate the operational or strategic results of their

activities on a larger scale. While all intelligence analysis brings with it some

subjectivity, assessing the physical damage done by artillery or a bomb was relatively

22
Memorandum for Record, “Cable from General Ridgway to Mr. Pace and Draft of Reply,” (23 August
1951), RG 319, Office of the Chief of Special Warfare, 1951-1954 Top Secret Correspondence,
Propaganda, 091.412, NACP.
23
General Matthew B. Ridgway, interview for the U.S. Army Senior Officer Debriefing Program
(Carlisle Barracks, PA: The U.S. Army Military History Institute), Vol. 2, interview 3, pp.61. In
particular, Ridgway felt that the lack of prisoners secured as a result of psywar operations conclusively
indicated that psywar had very little effect on the Chinese and North Korean forces that had been
thoroughly indoctrinated and were constantly under the eye of political officers.

15
easy – you could see it. The breakdown of enemy morale could not be easily explained

by photographs or scouting reports and most evidence had to be gathered through less

tangible means such as interviews of enemy prisoners of war, statistical analysis, or

consideration of enemy counter-measures against propaganda efforts. About the only

quantitative measure was the number of enemy troops who had surrendered and this

was only a relevant metric if the purpose of the operation had been to encourage enemy

surrenders. Even then, surrenders were not always the result of a just a leaflet drop or

loudspeaker broadcast but more likely the cumulative result of physical actions and the

psychological warfare efforts.

It would only seem natural that during the years of the Cold War, at its heart a

“war of ideas,” psychological warfare and propaganda would also play a great a role on

the “hot” battlefields of that era. This certainly proved the case during

counterinsurgency efforts in Malaya, Kenya, Vietnam, and the Philippines.24 Although

historians have mainly viewed the Korean War as a conventional conflict, this conflict

is now understood as a people’s war, albeit one fought at times on a conventional

battlefield with conventional tactics.25 Both the communist guerilla campaigns in the

South and the conventional struggle between the UN and North Korean / Chinese (and

24
See Susan L. Carruthers, Winning Hearts and Minds: British Governments, the Media and Colonial
Counter-Insurgency 1944-1960 (London: Leicester University Press, 1995); Archie Derry, Emergency In
Malaya: The Psychological Dimension (Psychological Operations Section, Joint Warfare Wing, National
Defense College, Latimer, United Kingdom, 1982); and Robert W. Chandler, War of Ideas: The U.S.
Propaganda Campaign in Vietnam (Boulder: Westview Press, 1981).
25
Allan Millett, "Understanding Is Better Than Remembering: The Korean War, 1945-1954,” The
Dwight D. Eisenhower Lectures in War & Peace, no. 7 (Manhattan: Department of History, Kansas State
University, 1995).

16
Russian) forces across the 38th parallel contained significant ideological components

that should have easily been exploited by propagandists. It appears from the literature

and documentary evidence, however, that psychological warfare played a limited

tactical and strategic role on the battlefield in Korea due largely to the way the U.S.

military integrated the weapon into its arsenal. In the end, long held suspicions about

propaganda coupled with unfamiliarity with, and uncertainty over the actual value of

the weapon, colored the way in the U.S. military incorporated and used psychological

warfare as a weapon.

17
 CHAPTER 2

PSYWAR IN THE U.S. MILITARY PRIOR TO THE KOREAN WAR

Psywar in the US Military in the 18th and 19th Century

Despite producing some of the best marketing and advertising professionals in the

world, the American people have always harbored a dislike for similar types of

persuasive communicators known as propagandists. Americans have long considered

propaganda as a “dirty word,” “what the other guys do,” and synonymous with “lies”

and “deception.” The association of the term “propaganda” with Joseph Goebbels and

Nazi ideology during the Second World War further disassociated the term with the

concept of “truth.” Indeed, at the beginning of the Cold War many Americans viewed

the use of propaganda and its battlefield companion, psychological warfare, not only as

ungentlemanly, but, as one U.S. newspaper once put it, “antithetical to the American

way of Life.”1 Certainly some in the United States military agreed that psychological

warfare had no place in an “American” way of war. Accordingly, the development of

1
William E. Daugherty and Morris Janowitz, eds., A Psychological Warfare Casebook (Baltimore: The
Johns Hopkins University Press for the Operations Research Office, The Johns Hopkins University,
1958), 59.

18
psychological warfare as a weapon in the U.S. military may best be characterized as a

long-term struggle for acceptance.

It would seem that American wars, often fraught with emotion, ideology, and

horrific battlefield conditions would have been ideal places for propagandists to wage a

war for hearts and minds. The lack of communications technologies and research

methodologies in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries kept psychological warfare a

crude and unreliable weapon for some time. In addition, prejudices in the military

against the use of propaganda as a weapon continued well into the twentieth century.

The US military’s prejudice against the use of propaganda as a battlefield weapon

explains a great deal about why the psychological warfare remained largely an “ad-hoc”

operation until after the Second World War. Military organizations frequently resist

change, especially in terms of integrating “new” or unfamiliar weapons. The British

military once regarded such commonplace weapons as machine-guns as “gimmicks of

no real value on the conventional battlefield.”2 Likewise, American military officers

long considered anything unconventional such as the use of propaganda and

psychological warfare as anathema to civilized culture, “undefined in the gentleman’s

lexicon,” “un-American,” and outright “deviant.”3

2
John Ellis, The Social History of the Machine Gun (New York: Pantheon Press, 1975), 10.
3
This reluctance and resistance has not been limited to the American military experience, during the War
of American Independence a British officer who was being hounded by the American partisan Marion,
known as the “Swamp-Fox,” summed up conventional sentiments -- The British officer, unsuccessful in
pursuing Marion’s forces, noted in exasperation, “Marion would not come out and fight like a gentleman
and a Christian.” See John O. Marsh, Jr., “Keynote Address,” in Frank R. Barnett, B. Hugh Tovar, and
Richard H. Shultz, eds., Special Operations in U.S. Strategy (Washington DC: National Defense
University Press, 1984), 17-25.

19
 Throughout its history, the United States has deliberately sought to influence the

emotions, attitudes, and behaviors of domestic and foreign audiences and has, at times,

proven particularly adept at the art of political persuasion. The specific use of

propaganda as a diplomatic tool, however, evolved more quickly than did psychological

warfare as a military weapon. During the War of American Independence, the

American political leadership took significant steps toward winning domestic and

international support for the American cause. Likewise, the Declaration of

Independence was not only “heard round the world” but across centuries due largely to

Benjamin Franklin, who quickly proved himself not only America’s first diplomat

abroad but also our first overseas propagandist. As Franklin wrote in 1760 in a treatise

entitled, “On the Means of Disposing the Enemies to Peace,” Franklin explained a

concept that would resonate well even today, “if the minds of enemies can be changed

they may be brought to grant willingly and for nothing what much gold scarcely have

otherwise prevailed to obtain.”4 The American use of propaganda as a tactical military

weapon also began with the American struggle for Independence. While Thomas Paine

and the various Committees of Correspondence rallied domestic support for

independence, the predecessors to military psychological warfare specialists produced

leaflets and speeches promising a British foot-soldiers a better life if they would simply

desert and join the American cause. In particular the Americans tried to exploit distrust

between the British troops and Irish, French Canadian, and Hessian soldiers as well as

4
Benjamin Franklin, “On the Means of Disposing the Enemies to Peace,”
http://www.historycarper.com/resources/twobf3/jesuit.htm, accessed on May 22, 2004.

20
between officers and the enlisted. In an appeal as valid in the twenty-first century as in

the eighteenth, leaflets, tied around rocks and tossed across enemy lines, sought to

encourage desertion by playing upon the poor conditions in the British Army. The

“Bunker Hill” leaflet specifically contrasted the Redcoats poor pay, rotten food, and

tendency to come down with “The Scurvy” with the “freedom, ease, and affluence” and

“health” of the American soldier, not to mention the “good pay” and “fresh provisions.”
5
Despite efforts at securing enemy defections, American propaganda did not appear to

have much effect at first. Many handbills never reached their intended audiences and in

anticipation of an American propaganda campaign, the British had inoculated their own

troops via indoctrination and fear.6 Perhaps more significantly, in 1775, when

Massachusetts militia first used the “Bunker Hill” leaflet, a colonial victory was in

doubt to most British soldiers. As the war dragged on however, additional psywar

efforts, including an offer of 50 acres of land, two cows, and a tax exemption for

monies earned in military service, and most importantly, American victories, helped to

encourage perhaps as many as 6,000 desertions from 1777 to 1781.7 Despite these

5
See Linebarger, Psychological Warfare, 21. Additionally, Carl Berger, Broadsides and Bayonets: The
Propaganda War of the American Revolution (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1961) is a
good overview of the military and diplomatic propaganda battles of the War. Carl Berger’s 1959 study
for the U.S. Army, explains how some of the basic themes of early American leaflets, e.g. “surrender, it’s
good for you,” have continued to be used in conflicts throughout the twentieth century.
6
In one instance, British officers had told their German allies that, “the Americans were savage
cannibals, especially those who were shaggily clad, whom they must exterminate first of all if they were
not to be tortured and eaten alive by them.” See Lyman H. Butterfield, “Psychological Warfare in 1776:
The Jefferson-Franklin Plan to Cause Hessian Desertions,” in Daugherty and Janowitz, Psychological
Warfare Casebook, 62-72.
7
Butterfield, “Psychological Warfare in 1776,” 72.

21
successes, it would be inaccurate to say that psychological warfare played any more

than a limited tactical role during a few engagements in the War of American

Independence. During the War of 1812 newspapers sought to boost American morale

and accuse the British of atrocities but there was little use of propaganda for military

purposes other than as part of tactical deception operations.8

From a military perspective, simply defeating the enemy’s forces in battle still

presented the most obvious and effective way to break enemy morale and induce

surrenders and desertion.

Although Santa Anna’s armies successfully used propaganda to incite American

soldiers to desert, the United States did not undertake any notable “combat” propaganda

operations to encourage desertion and erode morale during the Mexican War (1846-

1848).9 General Winfield Scott, however, tailored his military occupation policies to

win the hearts and minds of the local Mexican populace and to dissuade local support

for guerilla units that continually harassed American supply lines.10 His use of

8
Particularly notable were newspaper headlines such as “Remember the Raisin,” a reference to the
massacre of wounded American prisoners near Frenchtown (now Monroe) Michigan in 1813 by Indian
fighters allied with the British. This served not only as a rallying cry but as a justification for the
American gathering of Indian scalps and hostile treatment of British troops. See Harry L. Coles, The War
of 1812 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965), 115-117.
9
Prior to the declaration of war in May, 1846, Mexican authorities sought to seek the support of foreign
born Americans, particularly Irish Catholics. Offers of 320 acres of land to soldiers who would desert,
met, in the words of General Zachary Taylor, with “considerable success,” and at least 30 deserters made
their way across the Rio Grande to become the first members of the” San Patricio” Battalion of the
Mexican Army. Marshall Andrews, “Psychological Warfare in the Mexican War,” in Daugherty and
Janowitz, Psychological Warfare Casebook, 72-73.
10
For further discussion of General Winfield Scott’s occupation policies during the Mexican War see
volume two of Justin Harvey Smith, The War with Mexico, 2 vols., (New York: Macmillan, 1919),
pp.222-232; and K. Jack Bauer, The Mexican War, 1846-1848, Bison Book edition (Lincoln: University
of Nebraska Press, 1993).

22
economic incentives, reconstruction projects, and generally fair treatment of the

Mexican population helped to garner support for the U.S. occupation.11 Neither the

Union nor the Confederacy made much use of psychological warfare during the U.S.

Civil War, although both sides made great efforts to gain foreign support for their

respective causes. The Confederate State Department ran a moderately effective

propaganda service in Europe from 1861-1865 using “publicity agents” in Europe to try

and inspire foreign journalists, and their audiences, to support the Southern cause. If

their efforts at verbal persuasion failed, the Confederate propagandists simply bought

the required “editorial opinion.”12 Henry Holtze, a Swiss-born journalist with the

Mobile Register, became an extremely influential peddler of the Confederacy’s view of

the “American question” and ably turned Confederate defeats into victories in the pages

of the Times and other British newspapers. Holtze, however, proved unable to sugarcoat

the debilitating impact that slavery had on European support for the Confederacy and

the Southern efforts largely failed. In the end, it was Lincoln’s political actions that

proved most effective in the war for European hearts and minds. The Emancipation

11
General Scott’s efforts represent the close relationship between psychological warfare and Civil Affairs
operations. Civil Affairs operations involve management of the relationship between military forces,
civil authorities, and the population in occupied areas. Effective Civil Affairs operations can secure local
support for US forces.
12
Burton J. Hendrick, “The Propaganda of the Confederacy,” in Daugherty and Janowitz, Psychological
Warfare Casebook, 79-84. For a more complete study of Confederate propaganda efforts in Europe
during the U.S. Civil War see, Burton J. Hendrick, Statesman of the Lost Cause, Literary Guild of
America, New York, 1939. Public relations and propaganda certainly are similar concepts in that both
seek to influence audiences. Publicity is a very general term describing efforts to attract public attention.
While propaganda is also an attempt to influence attitudes and behaviors, using it in this sense is too
broad as it could include almost any human communication. Propaganda is best viewed more narrowly as
activities undertaken by governments in support of their foreign policy and national security objectives.

23
Proclamation, a shining example of “propaganda of the deed,” appealed to many in

Great Britain, particularly among the working classes, and made it certain that British

policy would not overtly favor the South.

The American use of propaganda in military operations, however, did not

progress much further than the makeshift distribution of handbills until the beginning of

the twentieth century.13 The industrial revolution of the late nineteenth and early

twentieth century, however, brought technological changes such as instant

communications, electronic presses, trains, trucks, and a range of new weapons. These

innovations allowed for the cheap production of millions of leaflets, their rapid

movement to the fighting front, and dissemination by artillery across enemy lines.

Additionally, the Progressive era brought with it the age of publicity and a scientific

basis for creating propaganda. By the beginning of the twentieth century advances in

public relations and opinion manipulation by such pioneers as Edward Bernays, helped

to create an awareness of the power of persuasion and propaganda in the United

States.14 By the outbreak of the First World War in Europe in 1914, nations had the

13
Although “yellow journalism” and media manipulation created a fury in the United States that helped
lead to the Spanish American War, the U.S. military did not undertake any comprehensive psychological
warfare operations either in Cuba or the Philippines. The United States did, however, conduct some
“hearts and minds” programs but these are better understood as part of overall civil affairs and
counterinsurgency efforts than as propaganda operations. See Brian Linn, The U.S. Army and Counter-
Insurgency in the Philippines, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983) and John M. Gates,
Schoolbooks and Krags: The United States Army in the Philippines, 1898-1902 (Westport: Greenwood
Press, 1973).
14
Barry Alan Marks, The Idea of Propaganda in America, Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, University of
Minnesota, 1957, p. xii. For an excellent and informative study of the development of public relations
from the Progressive Era through the 1950’s see Stuart Ewen, P.R.: A Social History of Spin, Basic
Books, 1996.

24
intellectual and material capacity to wage organized propaganda campaigns on a mass

scale. Upon entry into the war, Americans quickly translated the familiar skills of

commercial persuasion into a discrete weapon for military use.15 The organized

introduction of psychological warfare during the First World War also gave rise to some

of the enduring criticisms of psychological warfare within the U.S. military.

Psychological Warfare in the U.S. Military During the World Wars

During the First World War, The United States established civilian and military

organizations explicitly devoted to the conduct of propaganda. The Committee on

Public Information, the “Creel Committee,” primarily focused on securing domestic

support for the war but also maintained missions in Latin America, Europe, China and

Russia to garner overseas support for the Allied efforts.16 On the military side, the

Propaganda Section (or Psychologic Section) of the General Headquarters, American

Expeditionary Forces, known simply as “G-2D”, waged a war of ideas on the

battlefield. Led by Captain Heber Blankenhorn, a former reporter from the New York

Sun, ran G-2 operations and recruited individuals such as Walter Lippman and others

15
The most important study of propaganda use during the Great War is Harold Lasswell, Propaganda
Technique in the World War. New York: Peter Smith, 1938. See also, M. L. Sanders and Philip M.
Taylor, British Propaganda During the First World War, 1914-1918 (London: Macmillan, 1982) and
Clayton Laurie, “The Chanting of Crusaders: Captain Heber Blankenhorn and AEF Combat Propaganda
in World War I”, Journal of Military History 59, no. 3 (July 1995), 457-482. Chapters in several other
works, however, give good but brief overviews of Allied psychological warfare. See Linebarger,
Psychological Warfare; Charles Roetter, The Art of Psychological Warfare, 1914-1945 (New York:
Stein & Day, 1974); Garth S. Jowett and Victoria O’Donnell, Propaganda and Persuasion, (Newberry
Park: Sage Publications, 1986); and Philip M. Taylor, Munitions of the Mind (Glasgow: Patrick
Stephens, 1990).
16
For the Chairman’s account of his efforts during the Great War, see George Creel, How We Advertised
America (New York: Arno Press, 1920)

25
who had knowledge of advertising, opinion formation, foreign history, languages, and

cultures.17 Allied propaganda campaigns during the First World War had two objectives

– the destruction of enemy morale and the strengthening of Allies’ morale. Destroying

enemy morale required convincing the enemy’s rank and file soldiers and civilians that

their cause was hopeless from the start and could not possibly succeed. On the

battlefield, the Allied Expeditionary Forces specifically used psychological warfare to

demoralize the enemy in the hopes of causing them to desert, or surrender:

The purpose of propaganda, directed against enemy military forces was to

contribute to the general demoralization of enemy morale, and in specific
sectors to break up the fighting spirit of particular fighting units and to bring
18
about desertion from particular units in critical times.

Rudimentary loudspeaker technology and an absence of radio as a means of mass

communications limited battlefield propaganda efforts to leaflet operations. The Allies

disseminated propaganda leaflets by artillery shell, mortars, balloons, or pilots hand

dropping them from aircraft. This limited operations to regions near the frontlines.

American surrender leaflets, designed to encourage defection, emphasized to German

troops that surrender would result in good care, medical treatment, privileges under

international law, along with the prospect of remaining alive and returning to loved

17
Indeed by 1918 Lippman was already a recognized journalist and editor. In addition to his efforts with
Heber Blankenhorn, Lippman worked closely with both President Wilson and Edward House, Wilson’s
personal representative in Europe, to draft the Fourteen Points program. After the First World War,
Lippman would write one of the most significant books on persuasion, Public Opinion. Walter Lippman,
Public Opinion (New York: Macmillan, 1922).
18
Linebarger, Psychological Warfare, 67; and Harry H. Jackson, “Psychological Warfare in the United
States Military Establishment: The Acceptance of the Propaganda Weapon by the Military,” (M.A.
thesis, Tulane University, 1955), 15. Jackson served as both the enlisted ranks and commissioned officer
corps (infantry) during both the Second World War (Italy) and in Korea. His thesis focuses on the
Army’s use of propaganda during the Second World War.

26
ones. Above all else, however, was the promise of “first class American food,” a theme

that eventually played very well on an army of soldiers who, heretofore, simply had the

chance of starving on the front lines or starving back in the German cities.19 In the last

three months of the war, Blankenhorn and G-2D disseminated over three million

leaflets to German troops on the Western Front.

Allied psychological warfare efforts, however, seem to have had little or no

effect until after the Allies brought Chief of Staff of the German Army Ludendorff’s

spring and summer offensives to a standstill. Once the Allies, including American

reinforcements, began their seemingly unstoppable counterattack, the number of

defections rapidly increased and Allied prison camps soon overflowed with German

prisoners.20 Blankenhorn operated in the days before scientific polling had become a

well-known technique and could only develop rudimentary methods for determining

why German troops had surrendered. While interviews of German prisoners in mid-

1918 indicated that roughly 75% of German enlisted troops expressed belief in the

messages, a similar percentage of German officers interviewed had simply laughed at

the value of the leaflets.21 Blankenhorn gave less emphasis to quantifying defections or

making percentage count of attitudes discovered among prisoners. Instead he gave a

great deal of credence to the German High command’s response to Allied propaganda

If the German leadership thought the weapon had an effect (as Hindenburg thought it

19
Linebarger, Psychological Warfare, 67.
20
Roetter, Art of Psychological Warfare, 80-81.
21
Jackson, “Psychological Warfare in the United States Military,” 15.

27
did), then, Blankenhorn argued, the weapon had an impact. 22 Indeed, some German

officers appeared concerned enough to put countermeasures into place against

American leaflets that could, in Field Marshall Hindenburg’s words, “kill the soul.23

Interestingly, rather than offering an alternative explanation to the German soldiers

plight by refuting the information in the American leaflets, the German leadership

attacked all propaganda as being unethical. They appealed to their soldiers to disregard

the leaflets as “propaganda,” emphasizing that “good German soldiers would remember

their duty.”24 Blankenhorn and his team did not overstate the case for the value of

American psychological warfare efforts. In his own assessments he noted that “it

appears that propaganda, American and Allied, helped materially to create an

atmosphere of defeat, which helped lower enemy morale.” At the same time, however,

Blankenhorn felt that their propaganda “was uneven as regards immediate effects,” and

22
Linebarger, Psychological Warfare, 69; and Jackson, “Psychological Warfare in the United States
Military,” 15.
23
Jackson, “Psychological Warfare in the United States Military,”15; and Laurie, “The Chanting of
Crusaders,” 478.

24
Linebarger, Psychological Warfare, 69. The Germans believed that distributing leaflet to enemy
troops by means of the airplane was a serious breach of international law. During the latter part of 1917,
the Germans shot down two British officers, Captain E. Scholtz and Lieutenant H.C. Wookey who were
subsequently captured and determined to have been on an aerial leaflet distribution mission. The
Germans informed the Airmen that the dropping of pamphlets was illegal and that those found guilty of
the practice were would be court-martialed and shot. On November 22, 1917, the officers were charged
with distributing pamphlets detrimental to the German troops; the attempted distribution of materials
describing the favorable conditions in the English prison camps with the intention to induce the German
soldiers to desert. On December 1 both airmen were found "guilty of treason" and were sentenced to ten
years of hard labor. See G.G. Bruntz, Allied Propaganda and the Collapse of the German Empire in
1918, (Stanford University Press: Stanford University Press; London: Oxford University Press, 1938),
142-143.

28
that due to the subtle nature of the weapon it would prove impossible to describe it’s

successes as a percentage of the victory.25

While Blankenhorn and G2-D could make a reasonable case that propaganda had

proved a useful adjunct to the conventional struggle, the evidence could not convince

military leaders doubtful of such an unconventional weapon. One of the most

unsympathetic military figures was, ironically, Colonel Billy Mitchell, commander 1st

Army Air Service at the end of the First World War. Mitchell was utterly dismissive of

Blankenhorn’s efforts to use balloons and aircraft for leaflet dissemination stating to the

Captain at one point that propaganda “has no place in combat operations.”26 Some of

Mitchell’s flyers concurred and were known to dump their loads overboard as soon as

they got out of sight of their starting point.27 Postwar assessments offered no

conclusive evidence that leaflets had produced or contributed to German surrenders.

Even the best that Blankenhorn could admit was that perhaps “a little aid” had been

provided to combat operations by G-2D’s efforts. Such mixed results did not justify the

continued existence of a dedicated military propaganda element after the end of

hostilities and by mid-1919, most of the G-2D members had been demobilized or

transferred to new duties. After all, the senior American ground commander, General

John J. Pershing, himself believed that the psychological impact of American action

25
Laurie, “The Chanting of Crusaders,” 478-479.
26
Ibid, 475.
27
James R. Mock and Cedric Larson, Words That Won the War; The Story of the Committee on Public
Information, 1917-1919 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1939), 253.

29
alone precluded the need for any additional propaganda activities.28 In the end, most

military leaders believed that propaganda would have no military value in future wars

and that the peculiar nature of the Great War had led to the few observable victories.

As the AEF after-action assessment put it:

It is pointed out that the present value of propaganda is the direct result not of
the magnitude of the forces engaged in the war, but of its long and trying
character. The organization of a propaganda service will not be necessary in
any war, no matter how great, which is settled by force of arms, as, for
instance, the War of 1870. The organization of a propaganda service is one
which can be safely delayed, and which should be delayed, until the
intelligence section functions of a more immediate military importance are
first fulfilled.29

Thus, the Armistice brought with it the end of the American military’s first organized

military propaganda effort. Twenty years later, as the United States military faced the

prospect of another global war, it would need to reinvent the wheel, and once again

American propagandists would need to convince others of the legitimacy and utility of

their craft.

In the absence of organized peacetime establishments, a patchwork of civilian

and military organizations conducted American propaganda operations during the

Second World War. These organizations emerged in the months prior to and shortly

after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. In June 1942, President

Roosevelt established the Office of War Information to coordinate all domestic

28
General John J. Pershing, Final Report (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1920), pp.43.
29
Jackson, “Psychological Warfare in the United States Military,” 16-17.

30
propaganda and overt (white) propaganda abroad.30 As part of its broader

unconventional warfare mission, the Office of Strategic Services handled covert (black)

propaganda efforts, also known as “morale operations.”31 When war began in 1941 the

military had no distinct military organization to plan for or conduct psychological

warfare except for a small staff section called the “Psychologic Branch” at Army G-2.

Psychological warfare organizations in the European and Pacific theaters, as well as

their field operating elements, did not stand up until late 1942. Beginning with the

North African Theater, the military eventually set up Psychological Warfare Divisions

at each of the theater headquarters to coordinate and control overt and, in partnership

with the OSS, covert psychological warfare operation. The Psychological Warfare

Division at the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces

(PWD/SHAEF)would prove the busiest and most dynamic of these organizations.

The Psychological Warfare Division at SHAEF had a mission similar to that of

Captain Blankenhorn’s G-2 in the previous world war: “the dissemination of

propaganda designed to undermine the enemy’s will to resist, demoralize his forces and

30
On the Office of War Information see Allan Winkler, The Politics of Propaganda: The Office of War
Information, 1942-1945 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978). For OWI’s role in military
operations overseas see Clayton Laurie, The Propaganda Warriors: America’s Crusade Against Nazi
Germany (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1996); or for a brief overview, William E. Daugherty,
"U.S. Psychological Warfare Organizations in World War II," in Daugherty and Janowitz, Psychological
Warfare Casebook, 126-136, and W. Phillips Davison, "Policy Coordination in OWI," in Daugherty and
Janowitz, Psychological Warfare Casebook, 303-309.
31
It is a popular misconception to equate “white” propaganda with “truth” and “black” propaganda with
deception, or “lies.” Technically, covert (black) propaganda refers to information that appears to
originate from another source, for example information seemingly coming from dissident groups within
an enemy country. Overt (white) propaganda emanates from a clearly identified source such as an
official U.S. government broadcast.
31
sustain the morale of our supporters.”32 The PWD’s organized large-scale leaflet

dropping operations, broadcast long-range radio broadcasts, and worked with the OSS

to develop “black” propaganda to subvert enemy authority. Mobile Radio Broadcast

companies, subordinate to the PWD, conducted the “combat propaganda” on the front

lines, conducting loudspeaker and short-range radio broadcasts and developing tactical

leaflets on site to be delivered via modified artillery shells. By the end of the war, a

little more than 2,000 psychological warfare personnel had disseminated somewhere

near 8 billion leaflets, millions of cartoons, books, and magazines to help lower enemy

morale. Likewise, countless loudspeaker broadcasts had helped to encourage the

surrender of thousands of German and even influenced some Japanese troops to “cease

resistance.” At the same time while radio broadcasts sowed discontent in the rear-

echelons, and specially crafted “black” messages deceived the enemy at key points in

battle.

Psychological warfare in the Pacific must be viewed a bit differently than in the

European theater, due largely to the nature of the conflict. The struggle between

Japanese and American troops in the Pacific proved as brutal and merciless as that

between the Germans and the Russians on the Eastern Front – as one historian has

described it, a “war without mercy.” In this struggle, psychological warfare proved less

effective from the beginning as Japanese troops tended not to surrender and American

32
Alfred H. Paddock, Jr., U.S. Army Special Warfare, 12.

32
GI’s had a propensity not to take prisoners.33 Additionally, psychological warfare

operations in the Pacific were much less structured than their European counterparts.

While General MacArthur would eventually stand up a Psychological Warfare Division

in his Southwest Pacific Command, most of the General’s senior staff were hostile to

the entire concept and delayed the implementation of both plans and operations.34

Similarly, both Admirals Halsey and Nimitz shunned psychological warfare in their

Central Pacific Theater. Those few psychological warfare actions undertaken were

largely uncoordinated and unsupervised.

In Europe, psywar certainly had a tactical impact in selected sectors, at certain

times and places but its overall operational impact during the Second World War

appears less clear. German troops, hungry for news on the war, clearly devoured the

newspapers prepared for them by the PWD/SHAEF, carried surrender leaflets with

them when crossing into Allied hands, and a number of well-publicized tactical

operations directly resulted in thousands of German troops surrendering to Allied forces

without a shot being fired.35 Additionally, the German High Command had specifically

33
See Clayton Laurie, “The Ultimate Dilemma of Psychological Warfare in the Pacific: Enemies Who
Don’t Surrender and GI’s who don’t Take Prisoners,” War and Society, 14:1 (May 1996): 99-120. For an
overview of psychological warfare in the Pacific theater see Allison Gilmore, You Can't Fight Tanks with
Bayonets: Psychological Warfare against the Japanese Army in the Southwest Pacific (Lincoln:
University of Nebraska Press, 1998).
34
Senior leadership’s suspicion of unconventional activities did not stop with military psychological
warfare. General MacArthur refused to let the OSS and its “morale operations” branch into the Southwest
Pacific Theater. Similarly, Nimitz viewed OSS as a “superfluous impracticality” without any value. See
Laurie, “The Ultimate Dilemma of Psychological Warfare in the Pacific,” 107.
35
For example, in 1944, Allied intelligence became aware of a German spy training school near Rome.
Within a few hours leaflets were dropped on Rome giving details about the school as well as the names of
all the Italians involved. In addition pictures of the trainees’ colleagues who had been captured and
33
mentioned the effectiveness of Allied psychological warfare as contributing to the

collapse of the German Army during the Normandy breakout.36 Despite this anecdotal

evidence, however, other evidence of psywar’s effectiveness remained more

ambiguous. Alternatively, observer commentaries supported the notion that psywar had

an identifiable impact on German morale and warfighting capability. Daniel Lerner,

one of the first participant chroniclers of the war surely thought so. Lerner argued in

Sykewar, that psywar did have a direct impact on the battlefield, both in terms of

inducing surrender and in terms of lowering enemy morale.37 Brigadier General Robert

A. McClure, who led the efforts at PWD/SHAEF made his views clear in the preface of

Lerner’s book -- “Results were achieved,” wrote McClure.38 The commentary of some

combat commanders appears to validate McClure and Lerner’s assertions. The senior

leadership in both the Pacific and European theaters clearly understood that a

propaganda battle that had evolved as a subtext of the larger, conventional struggle. At

his first press conference in 1943, General MacArthur spoke of the importance of

propaganda in terms of waging the war, while General Eisenhower’s support of

psychological warfare was unparalleled among senior Army leadership. In a letter to

executed by the Allies were dropped. Later indicators showed that the leaflets had caused such panic that
almost all the students had disappeared and hidden themselves from the Germans. Margolin, Paper
Bullets, 35.
36
C.D. Jackson to Daniel Lerner, January 10, 1948. Papers of C.D. Jackson, Time Incorporated, 1931-
64; General File for Time, Inc, 1931-1964, Alphabetical File, “L.” Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential
Library, Abeline, Kansas.
37
Lerner, Sykewar.
38
General Robert. A. McClure, introduction to Sykewar, by Daniel Lerner, pp.xviii.

34
General McClure at the end of the war, Eisenhower exclaimed that psychological

warfare had “proved it’s right to a place of dignity in our military arsenal,” and

Eisenhower wrote,

…The exact contribution of psychological warfare towards the final victory

cannot, of course, be measured in terms of towns destroyed or barriers passed.
However, I am convinced that the expenditure of men and money in wielding
the spoken and written word was an important contributing factor in
undermining the enemy’s will to resist and supporting the fighting morale of
our potential Allies in the occupied territories...Without a doubt, psychological
warfare has proved its right to a place of dignity in our military arsenal.39

Eisenhower’s statement that the military could not measure the “exact contribution” of

psywar is perhaps more significant than his praise for the weapon. Indeed, the inability

for the psywar operators to clearly demonstrate what immediate impacts they had in the

field often raised suspicions that psywar was no more useful than snake oil. The only

immediately observable impacts of psywar operations tended to be deserting enemy

soldiers and this proved problematic given that many psywar operations concentrated

on lowering morale – a cumulative exercise. Indeed, the standard by which most

Second World War combat commanders judged the effectiveness of psywar operations

was the number of prisoners captured -- the more prisoners taken, the more effective the

message. Most commanders did not concern themselves with degrading or reducing

morale as that did not clearly translate to them as a reduction in enemy combat power.

Soldiers who had not surrendered could still continue to resist. This resulted in a

particularly negative view of psychological warfare in the Pacific theater. The limited

39
Lerner, Sykewar, 285-286.

35
number of Japanese prisoners taken between 1942 and V - J Day led many commanders

to believe psychological warfare operations were complete failures.40

Indeed, many uniformed leaders felt that while civilians organizations could

appropriately wage a strategic propaganda war against the enemy, radios, leaflets, and

newspapers had no place in military organizations, or, as one skeptic put it, the focus of

military organizations should be on the “killing of our enemies, not persuading or

arguing them out of war.” Admiral Halsey dismissed psychological warfare as useless,

something, and “some impractical plaything of effete civilians.”41 Writing in 1949,

General McClure noted some of the sharp comments on PWD/SHAEF’s plans to wage

psychological warfare: “I hope you will kill this idea,” wrote one cynic, “paper will not

kill Germans,” stated another. Perhaps most representative of the vitriolic feelings

against psywar was one British officer’s allegation that, “any tendency towards

encouraging fighting units to act as propaganda agents is vicious, liable to insidiously

stop their fighting spirit.”42 As an American General put it, “Look, you confetti soldiers!

I’ve had this division for 20 months teaching them how to kill the enemy with rifles,

machine guns, had grenades and mortars. You’ll ruin their morale if you show them

how prisoners can be taken with little pieces of paper.”43 Similarly, General Patton,

openly hostile to psywar, once noted in his characteristically profane style that he was

40
Laurie, “The Ultimate Dilemma of Psychological Warfare in the Pacific,” 100.
41
Ibid., 107.
42
McClure, introduction to Sykewar, xv-xvi.
43
Margolin, PaperBullets, 93.

36
“not interested in writing the enemy letters telling him the bogey-man was after him; he

was here to kill the blankety-blank and so-and-so.”44

Undoubtedly, winning the “hearts and minds” of the American Army proved the

greatest battle for military psywar proponents during the Second World War. In many

ways, the U.S. Army of 1941 was much more reluctant to recognize psywar than it had

been in 1918. Heber Blankenhorn stated that, “it was the same fight all over again,”

and General McClure expressed dismay that “commanders who effectively utilize new

weapons of physical destruction, fail[ed] to grasp the possibilities of a weapon of moral

destruction.”45 These attitudes and predispositions translated into real operational and,

more particularly, logistical issues for PWD/SHAEF. Throughout the war, front line

elements who displayed little enthusiasm for “paper bullets,” or using “confetti” as

ammunition were loath to give up resources, particularly artillery and aircraft, the

primary mechanisms for delivering propaganda material. The attitude of Admiral

Leahy, Chief of Staff to the President, was representative of those who did not feel that

propaganda could contribute materially on the battlefield. Leahy felt that “the best

psychological warfare to use on these barbarians was bombs, and we used bombs

vigorously.”46 To convince their colleagues of the propaganda weapon’s value, psywar

personnel went so far as to create leaflets printed with testimonials, including those

from captured enemy personnel, lauding the effectiveness of propaganda as a weapon.

44
Jackson, “Psychological Warfare in the United States Military,” 99-100.
45
Lerner, Sykewar, 232; Sandler, Cease Resistance, 51.
46
Clayton Laurie, “The Ultimate Dilemma of Psychological Warfare in the Pacific,” pp.119.

37
As C.D. Jackson, the civilian deputy of PWD/SHAEF and one of the most influential

personalities in the development of US propaganda capabilities, noted that “we

probably spent more of our time maneuvering so that we were in a position to do our

job than we spent doing the job itself.”47

Much of the criticism surrounding psychological warfare operations stemmed

from the inability of psywar operators to conclusively quantify the effect of their

weapon on enemy morale – how could commanders appreciate a weapon they did not

understand? The surrender of German troops after a loudspeaker broadcast certainly

established an observable response, but unlike artillery or aircraft, leaflets and radio

broadcasts targeted at morale offered no visible immediate effects. Just as during the

First World War, determining that psychological warfare was the cause of a decision to

surrender proved difficult. PWD experts attempted to measure behavior and attitude

changes from interrogations of POWs, captured enemy intelligence reports, and

evaluations of enemy attempts to counter propaganda. In trying to evaluate the impact

of propaganda two clear challenges faced the psywar advocates. First, trying to

calculate the effect propaganda was having on the targets and second, separating the

impact of that effect from those of conventional munitions. As a post-war observer in

the Department of the Army’s Officer’s Call noted,

The intangible nature of psychological warfare makes its evaluation complex

and inconclusive. This is so far for many reasons. Among them is the
difficulty of separating the effects caused by propaganda from those caused by
battle action…A still more basic reason is our inability to measure accurately

47
See John A. Pollard, “Words are Cheaper Than Blood,” Public Opinion Quarterly, Fall 1945, 283-304;
and C.D. Jackson as cited in Lerner, Sykewar, 69-70.

38
 the effect of propaganda on human behavior…we can count the enemy
soldiers who surrender with our propaganda leaflets in their possession. But
how great a part did these leaflets play in inducing surrender?48

Analysis from the PWD towards the end of the war indicated that about 80% of German

prisoners carried leaflets on them when captured and that about 25% - 35% of the

prisoners appear to have surrendered based on the suggestions of the leaflets.49 Some in

the combat arms and intelligence community, however discounted information gathered

from POWs, prudently noting that soldiers will frequently tell their captors “what they

want to hear.” The PWD’s sampling techniques sought to take these issues into account

but this did not convince all skeptics. Similarly, in the Pacific theater, psywar personnel

also had difficulty evaluating the impact of their work. In a theater where enemy troops

proved less-inclined to surrender, Allied psywar efforts focused on diminishing enemy

morale and thus, separating the impact of the leaflet vs. the high-explosives proved

difficult. Still, enough circumstantial evidence of psywar’s effectiveness existed to

convert some disbelievers. General Walter Bedell Smith, Eisenhower’s Chief of Staff,

but no friend to McClure and his band of psywarriors, proved one such convert.

Testifying to Congress in 1946, General Smith, who once thought of psywar as “just a

headache,” declared;

I knew nothing about psychological warfare or propaganda, and it was just an

added group of what I thought at the time were well-meaning people, slightly
crackpot [laughter] that we had to absorb while we were engaged in the really
serious business of conducting a major military campaign. I have paid dearly
for that, but I have learned. We should have known better of course.50

48
Jackson, “Psychological Warfare in the United States Military,” 84.
49
Sandler, Cease Resistance, 155.
50
Jackson, “Psychological Warfare in the United States Military,” 98-99.
39
Despite a lack of conclusive evidence on the effect of psywar operations on enemy

morale, desertions, and surrenders, there were indications that psychological warfare, as

a battlefield weapon, could help remind enemy soldiers of their poor lot and perhaps

offer a choice – surrender and live, or stay and die. Some American leaders, such as

General Eisenhower, came out of the war believing that psywar did have a discernable

impact on combat operations. Their beliefs, however, did not prove strong enough to

allow more than a skeleton psywar capability to escape the demobilization pressures or

budgetary axes of the post-war years. After the defeat of Germany and Japan, the U.S.

military reduced its psywar capability to such a degree that when war broke out in

Korea, the U.S. military would, once again, have build an operational psywar capability

essentially from scratch. Fortunately, the downsizing of the psywar community was not

nearly as complete as after the First World War. For the small staffs that remained,

however, a running battle took place for acceptance of propaganda as an appropriate

military weapon. The need to prove, irrefutably, that psychological warfare worked,

drove both proponents and practitioners during the years after the war and well into the

next conflict in Korea.

U.S. Psywar Capability in the Post-War Period

40
The end of the Second World War and the advent of nuclear weapons altered the

strategic environment within which the United States developed and executed its

national security policy. The advent of nuclear weapons significantly limited the ability

of the United States and the Soviet Union to use military power as a means to compel

each other through military force. To paraphrase the civilian strategist, Bernard Brodie,

before the atomic bomb armies’ waged war, but since the destructive power of these

weapons meant that in the future, the purpose of armies had to be to deter war. Still, the

Clausewitzian model of war and politics did not die but simply took a new form. War,

as a continuation of political intercourse, became a direct political, economic, and

cultural struggle between the totalitarian Communist states and the Western

democracies. While U.S. and Soviet forces would quietly confront each other from

time to time and “limited” wars would be fought, the decisive struggle between East

and West would be waged by non-military methods – where “propaganda became the

continuation of politics by other means.”51

Due largely to the impact of the Cold War taking shape across the globe, the

most significant developments for military psychological warfare in the period between

the Second World War and the Korean War came from outside the military

establishment. Most importantly the United States established permanent organizations

responsible for overt and covert propaganda and psychological warfare activities.

Civilian agencies quickly accepted propaganda as a crucial element in the conduct of

51
Philip M. Taylor, Munitions of the Mind: War Propaganda From the Ancient World to the Nuclear
Age, (Glasgow: William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd, 1990), 221.

41
foreign affairs. In addition, “political warfare” activities, taken primarily due to their

potential psychological impact, complemented the “war of words,” as part of an overall

strategy to combat Communism. Within the military establishments, however,

psychological warfare remained a stepchild of conventional military operations. The

post-war retrenchment of psywar within the U.S. military resulted in a period of

inactivity almost to the start of the Korean War.

By 1947, some in the United States government believed that the ideological

threat posed by the Soviet Union might require a psychological response by the United

States. The introduction of the Marshall Plan, subsequent Soviet reaction in the form of

the Cominform, and the ensuing war of words between East and West heightened the

need for the Truman Administration to define the parameters of a non-military and

largely ideological struggle with the Soviet Union.52 Propaganda, whether in the form

of words on the airwaves or as “deeds” such as the Marshall Plan, quickly became

central tools to bolster democratic ideals in Western Europe and help foment discontent

behind the “Iron Curtain.”53 On another level, the United States wished to use

propaganda and political warfare to beat the Russians at their own game.

52
For an indispensable assessment of the Truman Administration’s grand strategy that recognized the
need for not just economic and military, but ideological power see Melvyn Leffler, A Preponderance of
Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and the Cold War, Stanford Nuclear Age Series,
ed. Martin Sherwin (California: Stanford University Press, 1992). On the intellectual foundations of the
propaganda battles of the Cold War see Robert Strausz-Hupe and Stefan Possony, International Relations
In the Age of the Conflict Between Democracy and Dictatorship (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1950).
53
One post-war author was so concerned about the potential of psychological warfare and propaganda
that he advocated a treaty to “ban” psychological warfare. See James P. Warburg, Unwritten Treaty,
(New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co, 1946

42
 At the beginning of the Cold War, the Truman Administration believed in a

broad interpretation of the term, “psychological warfare.” While “propaganda” referred

to the dissemination of information as written and spoken appeals, psychological

warfare included “any and all means,” other than actual combat operations, designed to

influence the thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors of other groups.54 Influential leaders

such as William Donovan had long embraced this broad view of “psychological

warfare” that included direct action, sabotage, subversion, as well as overt and covert

propaganda operations. Beginning with his days at the OSS, Donavan had stressed the

interrelationship between special operations and psychological warfare, that is, the

synergistic relationship between actions and words. After the war, Donovan argued that

a comprehensive strategic program to weaken enemy morale and sow the seeds of

dissent required a full range of operations designed to persuade including commercial,

economic, diplomatic, and military weapons.55 Embracing a broad view of

“psychological warfare” that included almost any non-military action that could

influence a target audience required a sophisticated delineation of responsibilities.

Crafting these interagency divisions of responsibility would take several years and

produce an indeterminate number of meetings, internecine quarrels, and interagency

disagreements.

54
State War Navy Coordinating Committee 304/1 Psychological Warfare; Box 3, Document 152;
Records of the Central Intelligence Agency; RG 263: National Archives, Washington DC.
55
Donavan’s ideas had great influence on General Robert A. McClure, see Paddock, U.S. Army Special
Warfare, 37.

43
 Assigning responsibility for “white” or overt, propaganda operations proved

relatively straightforward. Following the Second World War, and a series of name

changes, the activities of the Office of War Information shifted to the Department of

State’s Office of International and Cultural Affairs. In 1948, Congress institutionalized

the State Department’s propaganda mission with the passage of the "United States

Information and Educational Act of 1948,” more commonly known as the “Smith-

Mundt Act” after its co-sponsors, Senator H. Alexander Smith and Representative Karl

E. Mundt.56 This bill formed the basic charter for US overt propaganda activities that

the Eisenhower Administration would later consolidate into the U.S. Information

Agency (USIA).57 The passage of the bill also signaled the start of a concerted effort to

battle Communism by “telling the truth about America.”58 About a year earlier, George

Kennan, the “father of containment,” had begun promoting his strategy to contain the

56
The Smith-Mundt Act established a statutory information agency for the first time in a period of peace,
gave full recognition to the importance of educational and cultural exchanges sponsored by the
government, and started an International Visitor Program fund in recognition of the need to build up a
corps of informed (read: anti-Communist) intellectuals and opinion leaders in foreign countries.
57
President Eisenhower reorganized informational activities and established the United States
Information Agency (USIA) to consolidate information functions in 1953. The Voice of America was
joined to USIA but the educational and cultural exchanges remained with the State Department. For a
history of the early years of USIA see John W. Henderson, The United States Information Agency (New
York: Praeger, 1969). For a participant history of the US Information Agency see Edward Barrett, Truth
is our Weapon (New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1953). Barrett, who worked with both the OSS and OWI
at SHAEF during the Second World War was the Assistant Secretary of State in charge of all
international information and educational exchange activities from 1950-1952. Two indispensable studies
are those by Wilson Dizard Jr., who served for almost thirty years at the State Department and specialized
in international communications policy. See Wilson Dizard, The Strategy of Truth (New York: Public
Affairs Press, 1961); and more recently, Inventing Public Diplomacy: The Story of the U.S. Information
Agency (Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers), June 2004.
58
Nelson Ovia Wood, “Strategic Psychological Warfare of the Truman Administration: A Study of
National Psycholoigical Warfare Aims, Objectives, and Effectiveness,” (Ph.D. diss., University of
Oklahoma, 1982), 3.

44
Soviet Union at a variety of “shifting geographical and political points.”59 Kennan, the

director of the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff, also advocated a robust

regimen of covert, or “black,” political and psychological warfare efforts designed to

sow dissent behind the Iron Curtain and hopefully degrade Soviet control.60

Reorganizing the responsibilities for these types of subversive activities proved more

problematic. While interagency discussions on the placement of covert propaganda

capabilities began as early as 1946, the U.S. government did not resolve most of these

issues until after the end of the Korean War in 1953.

After the dissolution of the Office of Strategic Services in 1945 the War

Department and the State Department split up its white propaganda functions. The State

Department resisted responsibility for any ‘black’operations that might affect the

credibility of ‘white’ programs and damage the integrity of the diplomatic

establishment.61 Operational responsibility for OSS’s clandestine and covert (black)

activities moved to the Central Intelligence Group (CIG), which, after the passage of the

National Security Act of 1947, would become the Central Intelligence Agency.

59
George Kennan, "The Sources of Soviet Conduct," Foreign Affairs 25 (July 1947): 578. Kennan first
addressed a strategy to contain the Soviet Union when he wrote his “Long Telegram” to Washington
while serving as Deputy Chief of Mission in Moscow in 1946.
60
See Peter Grose, Operations Rollback: America’s Secret War behind the Iron Curtain (Boston:
Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000); and Gregory Mitrovich, Undermining the Kremlin: America’s
Strategy to Subvert the Soviet Bloc, 1947-1956 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2000). Ken Osgood
has written an excellent review and analysis of several recent works dealing with Cold War propaganda,
including those written by Grose and Mitrovich. See Kenneth A. Osgood, “Hearts and Minds: The
Unconventional Cold War,” Journal of Cold War Studies, 4:2 (Spring 2002), 85-107.
61
Foreign Relations of the United States, 1945-1950: Emergence of the Intelligence Establishment,
Document 250, “Report by the National Security Council on Coordination of Foreign Information
Measures.” http://www.state.gov/www/about_state/history/intel/index.html.
45
Initially, neither the CIA nor the Department of Defense expressed much interest in

either unconventional warfare or covert propaganda operations, the CIA preferring to

focus on intelligence analysis and clandestine collection. The White House made

several attempts to draw interagency lines of responsibility beginning in December

1947 with President Truman’s signing of two National Security memoranda, NSC 4 and

NSC 4-A.62 NSC-4 charged the Secretary of State with the implementation of all

information measures (white propaganda) in support of US foreign policy objectives.

Annex A authorized the conduct of covert psychological operations abroad by the CIA.

In June, 1948, NSC 10/2 reaffirmed the need for the United States to conduct a range of

covert operations including propaganda, economic warfare, direct action, subversion

and sabotage and for the CIA to lead the effort. Two years later, NSC-68, the

fundamental work of strategy (and advocacy) in the early years of the Cold War, would

underscore this need for a sustained “psychological warfare” program directed at the

Soviet Union and her allies.63 During the debates over the NSC documents, most of the

62
Report by the National Security Council on Coordination of Foreign Information Measures, National
Security Council Memorandum, NSC 4, Document 252, FRUS, 1945-1950: Emergence of the
Intelligence Establishment, http://www.state.gov/www/about_state/history/intel/index.html and
“Memorandum from the Executive Secretary (Souers) to the Members of the National Security Council,”
NSC 4-A, December 9, 1947, Document 253, FRUS, 1945-1950: Emergence of the Intelligence
Establishment, http://www.state.gov/www/about_state/history/intel/index.html, accessed on January 5,
2004.

63
NSC 68, signed by President Truman on September 30, 1950, outlined a “comprehensive and decisive
program to win the peace and frustrate the Kremlin” that included, “overt psychological warfare
calculated to encourage mass defections from Soviet allegiance,” and covert political and psychological
operations, “with a view to fomenting and supporting unrest and revolt in selected strategic satellite
countries.” See NSC 68, “Report to the President Pursuant to the President’s Directive of January 31,
1950,” Dated April 14, 1950,
http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/korea/large/week2/nsc68_95.htm

46
military officials in the Department of Defense remained indifferent to the various

interagency debates on covert and overt psychological warfare except to try and avoid

responsibility for these activities. Only a small minority of officers advocated any

Defense Department role in psychological warfare. These proponents sought a

permanent peacetime establishment for what was viewed in the Army as a weapon only

needed in case of war, if even then.

Immediately after the Second World War, the War Department dismantled most

of its psywar capabilities, eliminating the theater PWD’s and de-emphasizing psywar

planning, and dropping most training activities. In the Pentagon, the Army reduced the

psychological warfare staff to a handful of officers and submerged psywar staff

functions within the G-2 Counterintelligence. By early 1947 the reduction in staff

officer support proved so severe that only one officer handling psywar issues resided on

the Army Staff.64 Doctrinally, the Army reclassified psychological warfare as an

adjunct to the counterintelligence mission. The battlefield psywar capability for the

entire U.S. Army consisted of one small “tactical information detachment” attached to

the “aggressor,” battalion at Fort Riley, Kansas.65 By the time President Truman signed

the National Security Act of 1947, reorganizing the military services under one

64
Col. Kenneth K. Hansen, “Psywar in Korea” (Washington: Joint Subsidiary Activities Group, Joint
Chiefs of Staff, 1960), USASOC Historical Archives, Ft. Bragg, North Carolina, photocopy, 6. Hansen’s
draft manuscript is undocumented but given his experience with the psychological warfare operations at
Far East Command, it is an invaluable first hand account by a practitioner.
65
Jackson, “Psychological Warfare in the United States Military, 128-129.

47
Department, psychological warfare had “all but expired,” in the military.66 Disinterest

of and dislike for psychological warfare by the senior civilian leadership in the

Pentagon did little to discourage the lack of support for the mission. As Paul Linebarger

wrote in 1948,

For a while, the rumor went around Washington that the Secretary of Defense,
Louis Johnson, would not tolerate the utterance of the words, ‘propaganda’ or
‘psychological warfare,’ and that the secretary of the Army, Kenneth C. Foyall
refused to have the topic mentioned to him. That may be the exaggeration
characteristic of newspapermen, but it epitomized the spirit of that time.67

Linebarger described the winter of 1947 and 1948 as the “low point” in the

development of U.S. Army psychological warfare. Unlike B-36 strategic bombers and

aircraft carriers, neither Capitol Hill nor industry had advocates searching to save

psywar equipment and the 1949 defense budget cuts brought additional problems. In

1949, the Army dropped psywar from training programs, military school curricula, and

from the tables of organization and equipment for Army units. Indeed, at this new

“low” point, the Army decided to classify psywar within a category of capabilities

called “new developments” that included “atomic, radiological, subversive warfare and

guided missiles.” This characterization completely disregarded the nature of the weapon

or the experience of its use in the conflict that had ended four short years before.68 A

handful of proponents, most notably General Robert McClure, battled this ignorance

and apathy by lecturing about psywar to service schools, writing articles for

66
Hansen, “Psywar in Korea,” 6.
67
Linebarger, Psychological Warfare, 269.
68
Sandler, Cease Resistance, 236.

48
professional journals, and most critically, lobbying intensely within the Pentagon.69

While these efforts resulted in reports, working groups, and staff studies that each

expressed the need and desirability for a permanent military psywar organization, few

changes ever materialized. For the most part changes within the Army consisted of

name changes, and office reorganizations that simply served to dilute central control of

the psychological warfare function throughout the Department of Defense. Not until

June 1950, three days before the Korean war broke out, did the Army finally create a

special staff section to handle most psywar issues. Meaningful centralization of

psychological warfare activities had to wait another seven months, when the Army

created the Office of the Chief of Psychological Warfare (led by General McClure) in

January 1951.70 Despite organizational stasis, psywar proponents continued to think

about the nature of psychological warfare and how best to employ the weapon in time

of war. In 1949, psywar proponents convinced the Army Staff to commission a study

by the Operations Research Office at Johns Hopkins University on advances in

psychological warfare techniques.71 The POWOW study, as the Army and the ORO

called it, focused on evaluating the experiences of the Second World War in order to

determine which techniques, weapons, and evaluation methods the Army might most

effectively employ. Most paramount, the POWOW studies would serve as a vehicle to

69
Paddock, Special Warfare, 40-43.
70
Paddock, Special Warfare, 40-43; Sandler, Cease Resistance, 235.
71
During the first five years of the study project POWOW published between 60 and 70 “technical
memoranda” dealing with various aspects of psychological warfare. Murray Dyer and Julius Segal,
Technical Memorandum ORO-SP-51, The POWOW TM’s: An Assessment of ORO Psywar Research,
(Baltimore, MD: Operations Research Office, The Johns Hopkins University, 13 June 1956).
49
validate the utility of psychological warfare as a weapon. External studies, such as

those by academics, also contributed to the base of knowledge on psychological warfare

methods and techniques and, of course, the most effective means for evaluating the

impact of psywar

The refinement of public relations and advertising techniques and new research

in psychology and sociology after the Second World War also provided the psywar

community with an unprecedented body of knowledge and expertise. Most

importantly, academics in the field of mass communications research quickly developed

a relationship with government psychological warfare programs, to the benefit of both

disciplines. 72 Princeton University’s Public Opinion Quarterly published a substantial

number of articles that advanced an understanding of propaganda and psychological

warfare methods and tactics and quickly became the in-house journal for the

psychological warfare community. It is significant that many of the journal’s editors

and contributors had working relationships with the Department of State, the Pentagon,

and the CIA. 73 The journal and its academics provided for proponents of psychological

warfare what the Army could not – a forum and sounding board for an assessment of

the impact various psywar techniques had during the Second World War and might

have in future “hot” and “cold” wars. Articles in Public Opinion Quarterly addressed

72
Christopher Simpson has written a thorough account of the symbiotic, if not incestuous, relationship
between the US government and the academic communications research field, which developed into a
distinct discipline in the early 1950’s. Simpson argues that Psychological warfare projects became the
major if not the central focus of mass communications research from 1945-1960. Christopher Simpson,
The Science of Coercion, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994).
73
Christopher Simpson, The Science of Coercion, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), p.42-43.

50
the use of polling techniques to obtain military intelligence, reviews of the work of the

Allied propaganda organizations, the rationale for intensifying U.S. propaganda efforts

against communism in Latin America, as well as the effect of psychological warfare on

enemy troops.74 As one survey of the literature concludes, between 1945 and 1949

there were three studies of the Office of War Information, seven reports on Allied

attempts to influence German military and civilian morale, three case studies of the use

of leaflets and postcards as propaganda mediums, six essays on troop information and

education programs (counter-propaganda), over a dozen reviews of books on

psychological warfare and propaganda, and more than fifteen studies on various aspects

of the emerging psychological campaign being waged between the United States and

the Soviet Union.75

OWI and PWD vets comprised the majority of those writing about

psychological warfare in the postwar period. Many also had significant academic

experience and credibility such as the East Asian specialist and OWI veteran, Paul

Linebarger. Linebarger proved particularly influential during the period after the
74
Major Paul C. Bosse, “Polling Civilian Japanese on Saipan,” Public Opinion Quarterly, 9:2 (Summer
1945): 176; John A. Pollard, “Words Are Cheaper than Blood,” Public Opinion Quarterly, 9:3 (Fall
1945), 283; Mrs. R. Hart Phillips, “The Future of American Propaganda in Latin America,” Public
Opinion Quarterly, 9:3 (Fall 1945), 305. Perhaps the most alluring and unique article of the time was a
study of propagandistic techniques demonstrated in the plays of the Bard. See David M. White,
“Shakespeare and Psychological Warfare,” Public Opinion Quarterly, 12:1 (Spring 1948): 68.
75
Most important among these studies was, M.I. Gurfein and Morris Janowitz, “Trends in Wehrmacht
Morale,” Public Opinion Quarterly, 10:1 (Spring 1946), 78; Edward Shils and Morris Janowitz,
“Cohesion and Diseintegration in the Wehrmacht in World War II,” Public Opinion Quarterly, 12:2
(Summer 1948): 280; Martin Herz, “Some Psychological Lessons from Leaflet Propaganda in World War
II,” Public Opinion Quarterly, 13:3 (Fall 1949): 471. A full list of the articles and book reviews appears
in Christopher Simpson’s review of the literature, pp.144-146. Many of the key Public Opinion
Quarterly pieces were republished by Daniel Lerner in a one-volume study in 1951. Daniel Lerner, ed.
Propaganda in War and Crisis (New York: George Stewart Publisher, inc., 1951).

51
Second World War, both within government and in academia. Like Donavan,

Linebarger viewed psychological warfare as not simply the transmittal of information,

but the psychological impact of ideas. In his 1948 analysis of the techniques and

methods of psychological warfare, simply titled Psychological Warfare, Linebarger

argued that psychological warfare involved both non-violent and violent means of

persuasion against enemy. Linebarger’s emphasis on violent action to create a

psychological effect, or, “warfare, psychologically waged,” resonated well among those

who saw a clear psychological value to dropping high-explosives on the enemy from

aircraft. For Linebarger, non-violent means simply augmented violent actions:

Propaganda may be described, in turn, as organized persuasion by non-violent

means. War itself may be considered to be, among other things, a violent form
of persuasion. Thus if an American fire-raid burns up a Japanese city, the
burning is calculated to dissuade the Japanese from further warfare by denying
the Japanese further physical means of war and by simultaneously hurting
them enough to cause surrender. If, the propaganda can be considered an
extension of persuasion – less violent this time, and usually less effective, but
nevertheless an integral part of the single process of making the enemy stop
fighting.76

Linebarger’s description of a single process highlighted the difficulty that psychological

warfare personnel traditionally had making quantitative claims for their successes.

While psychological warfare operations might induce surrenders, assessing whether

artillery shells or the leaflets had caused the desertions proved somewhat problematic to

demonstrate conclusively. Breaking down the individual impact of psywar operations as

a factor in operations directed against enemy morale could prove impossible given that

76
Paul Linebarger, “Warfare, Psychologically Waged,” in Lerner, Propaganda in War and Crisis, 267.
52
the targeted soldiers themselves might not even understand whether the leaflets, hunger,

or bombing had caused them to decide on surrender or desertion.

The refinement and evolution of psychological warfare techniques and tactics

proved the silver lining in the clouds. When North Korean troops crossed the 38th

parallel in June, 1950, the ideas of those such as McClure, Linebarger, and the various

members of the POWOW studies would quickly be refocused on the North Koreans and

Chinese Communist Forces. Unfortunately, the development of a permanent

psychological warfare capability within civilian agencies was not paralleled within the

military establishment. For the most part, the Army remained ambivalent at best and

hostile, at worst to the idea of a psychological warfare. Skepticism of psychological

warfare as a useful capability had historically proved the main obstacle to its

institutionalization within the military. Ad-hoc operations prior to the First World War

simply did not provide a base of experience upon with to build a permanent

organization. Uncertainty over psywar’s value did not cease, even after the battlefield

experiences of two World Wars. The inability to conclusively, and perhaps more

crucially, demonstrate quantitatively, that psychological warfare could have an

operational impact ensured that the primary battle for psychological warfare remained a

struggle for recognition. Just as during the Second World War, psychological warfare

proponents during the Korean War would have to convince the conventional military of

the utility of their efforts.

53
 CHAPTER 3

ORGANIZING FOR PSYWAR AND THE STRATEGIC CAMPAIGN

The North Korean crossing of the 38th parallel on June 25th, 1950 caught many

in Korea and in Washington by surprise. The UPI news flash reached Washington

about 9pm on Saturday, the 24th of June, about five hours after the attack began in

Korea. It also brought the news to President Truman who was in Missouri. The

Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff had just returned

from a series of briefings at Far East Command in Tokyo where there had not been a

hint of the possibility of a North Korean Attack1 By the time the armistice was signed

three years later, the Korean War had resulted in major shifts in US defense policy,

including a tripling in the size of the armed forces and a doubling of the Pentagon

budget. Perhaps more importantly the Korean War demonstrated that the United States,

1
On the 20th Anniversary of the Korean War An Informal Memoire [sic] by the ORE Korean Desk
Officer, Circa 1948-1950; Document 300047; History Source Collection (HSC); Records of the Central
Intelligence Agency, RG 263; National Archives at College Park, MD (hereafter NACP).

54
along with the free nations of the West, now faced a worldwide diplomatic, ideological,

and military threat from Communism.2

Like their colleagues in Seoul, Tokyo and Washington, the “Special Projects

Division,” the innocuous name for the psychological warfare (psywar) staff at Far East

Command (FEC), unexpectedly found themselves in the middle of a shooting war. The

staff reacted promptly to the crisis and quickly put contingency propaganda campaign

plans into operation. As a result, on June 28th, just 24 hours after President Truman’s

announcement that the United States would oppose aggression in Korea, FEC had

written, translated, printed and dropped over 12,000,000 leaflets over South Korea. The

leaflets urged ROK troops and civilians to resist in the face of aggression and promised

that UN forces would soon arrive to challenge the North Koreans.3 The next morning,

J. Woodall Green, who headed General MacArthur’s psywar staff told his radio

programs officer, Major T. O. Mathews: “I want 30 minutes of radio time tonight for

psychological warfare to Korea.”4 Major Mathews cobbled together a program and at

nine that evening “The Voice of the United Nations Command” began broadcasting out

of the Japan Broadcast Corporation studios in Tokyo. The North Koreans swiftly began

2
For a review of U.S. military policy during the early years of the Cold War see Allan R. Millett and
Peter Maslowski, “Cold War and Hot War: The United States enters the Age of Nuclear Deterrence and
Collective Security, 1945-1953,” in For the Common Defense: A Military History of the United States of
America, rev. ed., (New York: The Free Press, 1994), 494-531; and Leffler, A Preponderance of Power.
3
William Daugherty, Technical Memorandum ORO-T-3 (EUSAK), Evaluation and Analysis of Leaflet
Program in the Korean Campaign June-December 1950 (Chevy Chase, MD: Operations Research
Office, The Johns Hopkins University, 23 January 1951), p.7 and Sandler, Cease Resistance, p.238.
4
Murray Dyer, Technical Memorandum ORO-T-4 (FEC), Strategic Radio Psywar in Far East
Command, (Chevy Chase, MD: Operations Research Office, The Johns Hopkins University, 31 January
1951), 3.

55
their own campaign, as if their rapid advance was not psychologically destructive

enough. As General William Dean and his 24th Infantry Division defended Taejon in

July, the North Koreans made their first and possibly only leaflet air drop of the war,

which read, in stilted English: “Dear Conscientious officers and sergeants! Do

surrender as soon as possible with all the men under your command. Dear Friends! Be

relieved and surrender.”5 Initially, the Americans also had a hard time developing

effective and culturally attuned psychological warfare campaigns. Like almost every

other aspect of American military capability in the summer of 1950, psywar efforts on

the Korean peninsula were severely limited by personnel shortages, organizational

inadequacies, and insufficient planning measures.6

In doctrinal terms, psychological warfare remained largely what it had been

during the Second World War, the use of propaganda to “influence the opinion,

emotions, attitudes and behavior of enemy, neutral or friendly foreign groups” in a

manner that benefited overall U.S. war aims.7 Psychological warfare during the Korean

War supported both diplomatic action and battlefield operations. The Department of

Defense primarily concerned itself with strategic propaganda to win civilian hearts and

minds and lower enemy morale over the long term, tactical propaganda to induce

desertions or surrenders, and affect enemy morale in the short-term, and consolidation

propaganda to help maintain law and order in areas under military government.
5
D.F. Hall, “Psychological Warfare Training,” Army Information Digest, 6 (January 1951), 46-47.
6
Department of the Army, Report on Psychological Warfare Activities, Far East Command (29 August,
1950), Records Group 319, Army Operations, 1950-51, P&O 091.412, NACP.
7
Joint Staff, Joint Chiefs Dictionary of United States Military Terms, Washington DC, June 1950, 71.

56
Strategic propaganda operations sought long-term effects while tactical operations

sought to impact specific engagements in a timely manner. On the battlefield,

psychological warfare was “officially” waged by the United Nations Command. In

functional terms, however, the United States independently conducted almost all psywar

operations with, at times, a helping hand from a hastily created Republic of Korea

(ROK) “information and education battalion.”8

As had been the case during the Second World War the U.S. military

disseminated propaganda via leaflets, loudspeakers, and radio broadcasts. Radio

broadcasts were almost exclusively used for strategic purposes or as a consolidation

psywar tool in areas occupied by the United Nations (UN) forces and under military

government. Operating with the assistance of the Korean Broadcasting System (KBS)

and the Japan Broadcast System (JBS), the “Voice of the United Nations Command”

broadcast throughout the war to South Korean, North Korean, and eventually Chinese

audiences. The United Nations forces delivered tactical and strategic leaflets to target

audiences by B-29 bombers, a variety of transport aircraft, artillery shell, and even by

hand. At times Far East Command with the assistance of the 1st Radio Broadcast and

Loudspeaker Group (1st RB&L) distributed more than 20 million leaflets per week. At

the same time the 1st Loudspeaker and Leaflet (1st L&L) Company focused on the

8
ROK propaganda operations primarily focused on South Korean civilians. Interestingly, the ROK
“information and education” battalion conducted psywar focused on enemy forces while the ROK
“psychological warfare battalion” conducted troop indoctrination and education missions – the
nomenclature being exactly the reverse of that of US military units, see George Pettee, Technical
Memorandum ORO-T-3 (FEC), U.S. Psywar Operations in the Korean War, (Chevy Chase, MD:
Operations Research Office, The Johns Hopkins University, 1951), 53; and Hansen, “Psywar in Korea,”
27.

57
development of surrender leaflets for North Korean and Chinese forces and conducted

hundreds of loudspeaker broadcasts to harass Communist forces and convince them to

desert, malinger, or surrender. By the end of the war about 2.5 billion leaflets had been

distributed by air, artillery, and even by hand.9

While undermanned and unorganized during the early days of the Korean War,

the persistent and capable psywar staff officers, planners, and team chiefs rapidly

overcame personnel deficiencies and equipment shortages to piece together a robust and

capable propaganda program in support of military operations on the battlefield. In

Washington, psywar became firmly entrenched as a legitimate diplomatic tool.

Likewise, the Office of the Secretary of Defense and even the Joint Staff warmed to the

idea of “unconventional” and “psychological” warfare activities, at least in terms of

creating organizations to plan for its employment. The Army Staff, however, compiled

a mixed record of success in supporting the psywar mission. While the Korean War

coincided with the establishment of a permanent staff section within the Army to handle

psychological warfare issues, the Army still only provided the bare minimum in terms

of resources for the psywar mission. As had been the case during the Second World

War, psywar had to start from scratch and overcome not just the operational and

technical problems of the battlefield, but the skepticism of combat arms officers who

still disregarded the weapon as unhelpful or illegitimate.

The war of ideas in Korea began long before June, 1950 and its organizational

roots lay not at Far East Command in Tokyo, but in the halls of the Washington DC.

9
Ponturo, Psychological Warfare Operations, 16.

58
When war broke out in Korea, the Truman Administration still had not resolved the

interagency differences surrounding responsibility for the planning and execution of

political and psychological warfare operations in support of broader national objectives.

This had not, however, prevented the Administration from beginning a concerted effort

to counter Soviet propaganda efforts in Western Europe. Policy statements such as the

Truman Doctrine, military undertakings such as the Berlin Airlift, and diplomatic

maneuvers such as the Marshall Plan and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization

comprised the initial rounds of what would become a plan to sell democracy and

freedom and pressure the Soviet Union through a range of overt and covert propaganda

activities.

National Security Council (NSC) directives provided the overall strategic

guidance for the conduct of U.S. political and psychological warfare campaigns. The

NSC “4” and “10” series, as well as NSC 59/1, “The Foreign Information Program and

Psychological Warfare Planning,” set forth the major goals of U.S. psychological

warfare strategy, outlined the basic relationships between the government agencies

conducting psychological warfare, and put forth the major goals of the US

informational strategy for the budding Cold War. In April, 1950, the Truman

Administration defined its overall strategy to combat Communism, including political

and psychological warfare plans, in NSC-68. NSC-68 called for an expansion of both

overt and covert psychological warfare programs in order to attack the Soviet Union

and bolster democracy among Allied nations, particularly in Europe. It also contained a

call for subversive activities and authorized the “intensification…in the fields of

59
economic warfare and political and psychological warfare with a view to fomenting and

supporting unrest and revolt in selected strategic satellite countries.”10 NSC-68 did not

address how the United States would organize for a “cold war,” it simply laid out the

strategy. Thus, at the outbreak of the Korean War there was still no single coordinating

body for the range of political and psychological warfare activities outlined in NSC-68.

The organizational directives under NSC 59/1, signed in March, 1950, remained in

effect as did its bureaucratically complex and contentious arrangements. Each of the

main players in the political and psychological warfare arena, including the State

Department, the Pentagon, and the CIA, had a part of the overall political and

psychological warfare effort but none had the lead for the mission. This approach had,

for the past several years, created damaging but not incapacitating levels of interagency

tension, especially in terms of the coordination between overt and covert activities.11

Not until April 1951 did President Truman take significant steps to provide for a

more efficient planning and coordination mechanism for psychological warfare

operations. On April 4th of that year he authorized the creation of a Psychological

Strategy Board (PSB), responsible for “over-all national psychological objectives,

policies and programs, and for the coordination and evaluation of the national

10
NSC-68, as cited in Kenneth Osgood, “Regimenting the Public Mind: The Communications Revolution
and the Age of Total War,” unpublished manuscript, 2004, 33.
11
Scott Lucas, Freedom’s War: The American Crusade Against the Soviet Union (New York: NYU
Press, 1999), 128.

60
psychological effort.”12 The PSB replaced the State-War-Navy Coordinating

Committee, initially established during World War II to coordinate the Government's

psychological warfare efforts. While designed as an autonomous organization that

reported directly to the National Security Council, the PSB’s membership consisted of

the senior officials from each of the various departments concerned with psychological

warfare including the Director for Central Intelligence, the Under-Secretary of State,

and the Deputy Secretary of Defense. A senior representative of the Joint Chiefs of

Staff served as the principal military advisor to the Board.13 The PSB’s basic function

was to resolve or at least soften the effects of interagency rivalries of those agencies

involved in psychological operations. The White House hoped this would help to

improve the way in which American diplomatic actions and initiatives were supported

by American publicity efforts – whether for informational or propaganda purposes.

Although it was eventually disestablished by President Eisenhower in September 1953,

for the last year and a half of the Truman Administration, and for the length of the

Korean War, the PSB became the “nerve-center for strategic psychological operations”

and a “focal point” for the “planned use by all governmental units of activities to

12
Presidential Directive to the Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, and Director of Central
Intelligence (4 April 1951), Records Group 58, Records of the Department of State, Records of the Policy
Planning Staff, Lot 64D S63, Subject Files, “Psychological Strategy Board,” NACP.
13
As a planning and coordinating body vice an operational organization, the Psychological Strategy
Board maintained a relatively small staff consisting of a Director, 25 permanent officials, and additional
consultants and government workers assigned temporarily for specific projects. The PSB had three
directors during its existence. Gordon Gray served until May 1952 and was followed briefly by Raymond
H. Allen and Admiral Alan Kirk served from September 1952 until the end of Truman’s term. Gray
would later become the first director of the Operations Coordinating Board (OCB) established under
President Eisenhower.

61
influence the opinions, attitudes, emotions and behavior” of foreign audiences in

support of national objectives.14

While the PSB focused a great deal of its efforts on developing a “global”

strategy the outbreak of the Korean War significantly impacted the Board’s activities.

Gordon Gray, the PSB’s first director, established three main directorates within the

board: a directorate for plans and policy; an office of coordination; and an office of

review, analysis, and reports. Planning, resources, and coordination offices handled

long-term projects and daily bureaucratic requirements. However, the furious pace of

the global propaganda battles between East and West quickly created a need for

additional interagency task forces to handle specific issues. 15 In the autumn of 1951

Gray set up three specific task forces to handle specific problems in the psychological

arena. “Panel B” focused on ways to exploit Soviet vulnerabilities while “Panel C”

looked at a ways to combat Communist inroads in Western Europe – primarily France

and Italy. Panel A focused on the immediate problem of Korea and provided advice on

leaflets being dropped on North Korean and Chinese forces, debated whether or not to

drop leaflets into China, and discussed how to counter Communist allegations of U.S.

14
Psychological Strategy Board Directive (PSB D-4 Revised), “Role of Psychological Strategy Board
under 4/4/51 Presidential Directive,” (28 September 1951), U.S. Army Center of Military History
(USACMH) Washington, DC (hereafter USACMH). After Eisenhower succeeded Truman in January
1953, the PSB lost its planning functions and became purely a coordinating body. Following a thorough
review of the PSB, the Eisenhower Administration decided to disestablish the board and transferred its
functions to the Operations Coordinating Board.
15
Memorandum for the Under Secretary of State, Subject: “Psychological Strategy Board,” (10 August
1951), Records Group 59, Psychological Strategy Board Working Files; and “Psychological Strategy
Board, organization, Functions and Budget,” Psychological Strategy Board Working Files.

62
atrocities.16 The PSB as a whole also considered specific psywar course of action in

Korea such as whether or not to “reorient” North Korean and Chinese prisoners of war,

or to demand the non-repatriation of those individuals who did not want to return to the

Communist states at the end of hostilities. The board also sought to balance the

psychological benefit of specific propaganda campaigns with the larger political and

military realities. Even after the war, for example, the board shot down a Department of

Defense (DoD) plan to exploit the Soviet presence in Korea. While intelligence clearly

indicated that the Russians had sent not only pilots but also ground force advisors to

help the Chinese Peoples Volunteer Forces and the North Korean Army, the PSB

worried that exploitation of this fact might lead to a direct confrontation between

Washington and Moscow. Thus the PSB authorized the development of a more limited

propaganda effort that would emphasize that the Soviets, while not culpable, bore some

limited responsibility as they had “instigated” North Korean aggression and continued

to train North Koreans in “rear areas.”17

NSC 59/1 had required the Joint Staff to review all U.S. government

psychological warfare policies to ensure their compatibility with military plans. This

requirement also served to limit the role of the State Department and keep DoD in

16
Memorandum from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Subsidiary Plans Division (Brigadier General
Millard C. Young), “Department of Defense Contribution to the Second Quarterly Psychological Strategy
Board Report to the President and the National Security Council,” (12 January 1953), RG 218, Central
Decimal File 1951-1953, (6-4-46), 1-3. Also see Lucas, Freedom’s War,134-137.
17
Director of USIA (Streibert), “Memorandum to Certain Diplomatic Posts,” USITO 21 (15 August
1953), Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), 1952-1954, Volume II National Security Affairs
(Part 2 of 2 parts). (p.1735)

63
control of psychological warfare activities within “active” military theaters.

Psychological warfare policy initiatives required a prominent role for the Department of

Defense at senior levels – much to the chagrin of the military psywar proponents who,

at times, still had to move mountains to get the service staffs to believe in the value of

their work. Each of the military services had responsibilities for the psychological

warfare operations outlined in NSC 59/1 with the Army having the major supporting

responsibility. 18 The Army’s duties included supporting the Department of State in the

execution of its peacetime foreign information programs, preparing joint and national

psychological warfare plans, developing doctrine and techniques for the conduct of

military psywar operations, and developing requirements for unit organization and

resourcing.19 To accomplish these missions, the Army organized a temporary

“subsidiary projects group” within Army G-3 to help develop psychological warfare

doctrine and plans. Following the outbreak of war on the Korean peninsula, the

Secretary of Defense charged this same group with the oversight of psychological

warfare operations in Far East Command.

The deteriorating military situation in Korea in the late summer of 1950 and the

entry of the Chinese into the war that autumn forced the Army to take the mounting

18
U.S. Air Force responsibilities for psywar were directly related to its long-range strategic air operation
mission. The USAF was responsible for the “distribution of leaflets by strategic aircraft” and by other
aircraft as available. While Joint Staff guidance did not clearly delineate between Army and Air Force
responsibilities the Army clearly believed both services were to avoid “duplication” of effort and that the
Army would retain operational responsibility for the conduct of psywar missions involving radio, artillery
leaflets, support aircraft, and loudspeakers. Department of the Army, Memorandum for The Chief of
Staff, U.S. Army, Subject: Roles, Missions, and Organization for Psychological Warfare (30 August
1950), Records Group 319, Army Operations, 1950-51 Top Secret, P&O 091.412, NACP.
19
Department of the Army, Roles, Missions, and Organization, 30 August 1950, RG 319.

64
psychological warfare requirements in theater more seriously. By early June, Secretary

of the Army Frank Pace, a consistent supporter of Army psywar, made his views clear

in a memorandum for the Army Chief of Staff:

Events of the current Korean situation further confirm my views on the need
for a Psychological Warfare organization in the Department of the Army.
Please let me have a report on this matter showing action taken an, as well,
such recommendations as you deem appropriate at this time.20

Ironically, the Army leadership seemed to place more faith in the ability of the

Communist propaganda to impact Allied and American audiences rather than the ability

of U.S. psywar personnel to change the attitudes and behaviors of foreign peoples and

troops. Though the military services reluctantly accepted an independent and

autonomous psychological warfare capability, they willingly developed a global Troop

Information and Education (TI&E) program to “orient personnel in the language, habits,

and customs,” of those countries in which they served. The idea was that this would

help with the acceptance of Americans abroad in order to counter the “Hate America

Campaign” begun by the Soviet Union in Western Europe.”21 The military services also

initiated programs to inoculate U.S. troops against Communist psychological warfare

and by late 1952 the services thought that Communist indoctrination of U.S. prisoners

of war might prove so effective that U.S. POW’s returning from Korea would have to

20
Secretary of the Army Frank Pace as quoted in Paddock, U.S. Army Special Warfare, 90.
21
JSPD, DoD Contributions to the PSB Report (1953), 7-12; Psychological Strategy board, “Status
Report on the National Psychological Effort As of December 31, 1952, and Progress Report of the
Psychological Strategy Board,” Annex B, 5; PSB Working Files, 1951-3, General Records of the
Department of State, RG 59, NACP.

65
“be held for a substantial period to undergo a de-indoctrination phase.” 22 In order to

expose and counter Soviet propaganda during the Korean War, the Army launched

programs during the Korean War to study the specific Communist indoctrination

techniques known popularly as “brainwashing,” as well as similar approaches used to

extract forced confessions from captured Air Force and Marine airmen held in Korea.

The small but persuasive “subsidiary projects group” and other psywar

proponents fought hard for the creation of a permanent and robust psywar staff section

to take on the full range of peacetime and wartime psywar tasks. On August 1st 1950

Lieutenant General Maxwell Taylor, the Army’s Assistant Chief of Staff for

Operations, blessed the creation of a “special staff section” to deal with psychological

warfare. The section could only boast seven personnel – four officers, one enlisted, and

two civilians – far from permanent or robust. Such limited efforts did not sit well with

Secretary Pace, who spelled out his dissatisfaction with the Army’s psychological

warfare initiatives in a blunt letter to the Army Chief of Staff, General J. Lawton

Collins in August 30th 1950. 23 Largely as a result of Pace’s prodding and perhaps, also

as a result of meetings with the Army’s preeminent psychological warfare expert,

Brigadier General Robert A. McClure, the uniformed Army leadership made plans for a

permanent and properly staffed psychological warfare division on the Army staff. On

January 15, 1951, General McClure, the obvious choice to lead the new staff, opened
22
Memorandum from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Subsidiary Plans Division (BG Millard C. Young),
“Department of Defense Contribution to the Second Quarterly Psychological Strategy Board (PSB)Report
to the President and the National Security Council,” 12 January 1953, 7-8. Records of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff (JCS), RG 218, Central Decimal File 1951-1953, 385 (6-4-46).
23
Paddock, Special Warfare, 90-95.

66
the Office of the Chief of Psychological Warfare (OCPW). While initially staffed with

10 officers and 25 civilian psywar specialists, by 1953 the OCPW grew to almost 100

military and civilian employees – a far cry from the time when the Army could barely

scrounge up a single billet for psychological warfare specialist.24

In basic terms, the creation of OCPW centralized responsibility for military

psywar in the hands of a single staff agency. OCPW also became the proponent for the

emerging field of unconventional warfare and the development of special units

(Rangers and Special Forces) to wage guerilla and partisan warfare. With regards to

psychological warfare OCPW’s mission was not only develop plans and policies for the

Army for the conduct of psychological warfare but to coordinate all strategic and

operational matters – including those of the other services – relating to psywar in the

overseas commands.25

General McClure took three major steps upon taking over OCPW in 1951. His

first move was to recall a great many of the psywar personnel of the Second World War

in order to seed the Army with experts who knew how to carry out organized and

effective psywar operations. His second was to convince Army field organizations,

24
General McClure submitted a proposal in April of 1951 requesting 54 officers and 89 civilians for
OCPW. Given that McClure received most of what he requested, his efforts represent a great success.
Department of the Army, “Chronological History of Army Psychological Warfare Staff Development,”
n.d.; Psychological Warfare and Unconventional Warfare, TS Correspondence 1954-1958; Records of the
Office of the Chief of Special Warfare; RG 319; NACP. Note: The Office of the Chief of Psychological
Warfare became the Office of the Chief of Special Warfare in 1954.
25
Brigadier General Robert A. McClure, “Trends in Army Psychological Warfare,” Army Information
Digest, 7 (February, 1952), pp. 8-14 and Colonel Robert L. Cardell, “The Relationship of Psychological
Warfare to Intelligence Operations,” Student Paper, U.S. Army War College, Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas,
February, 1951, 9.

67
most importantly Far East Command and EUSAK, to move their psywar staff sections

from within the G-2 to the G-3 shops where they could truly integrate with the planning

for military operations. Additionally, OCPW instituted a number of “orientation”

courses and “seminars” designed for combat leaders to come learn about the capabilities

and methods of psywar.26 McClure above all others within the military psywar

community understood that psywar would have to be “sold” to the conventional

military. McClure also made a significant effort to expand psywar training throughout

the Army and to develop the force structure to execute psywar support to theater

commanders in Korea and across the globe.

Shortly after the creation of the OCPW McClure presided over the graduation of

the first psywar class at the Army General School. Despite the Korean War’s

demonstration of the insufficient numbers of trained psywar personnel, the Army was

still was not sold on a discrete psychological warfare training regimen and McClure

continued to have to fight for the resources to train staff officers in the art of

propaganda. The Office of the Chief of Army Field Forces (OCAFF), which was

responsible for the operational direction and training of Army units stationed in the

United States, also had the mission of training and equipping psychological warfare

forces. The OCAFF had established a Psychological Warfare Department and created

psychological warfare courses and curricula at the Army General School at Ft. Riley,

Kansas but McClure saw the need to centralize both psychological warfare and the

burgeoning unconventional warfare training requirements at one location. McClure did

26
Joint Staff, Contribution to the Second Quarterly PSB Report (January 1953), 8-10, RG 218.

68
not believe a bastion of the type of “conventional” Army thinking that looked askance

at “elite” and “unconventional” units was the right location for such an institution.27

After a year of heated bureaucratic battles, McClure successfully oversaw the creation

of a discrete training facility for psychological and unconventional warfare personnel at

Ft. Bragg, North Carolina. In April 1952 the Army established the Psychological

Warfare School (later the Special Warfare Center and School), and by May it had

moved psywar training activities from the Ft. Riley to Ft. Bragg. The new Center also

served as home to a Psychological Warfare Board, designed specifically to evaluate

new equipment, doctrine, and techniques. Despite the wariness of conventional

commanders and staffs towards “elite” units, by 1953 the Psychological Warfare School

had trained almost four hundred officers and had become home to both Psychological

and Special Forces units.28

By 1952 there were initial signs of a warming towards the idea of Army

psychological warfare as a legitimate enterprise – or at least opportunities for

psychological and unconventional warfare to slip through the cracks. Indeed, new

estimates by the military that the “cold war” might not prove a short term affair had led

some uniformed leaders to reconsider the role of unconventional and psychological

warfare as a way to weaken the Soviet Union and her satellites while avoiding a general

27
Paddock, Special Warfare, pp.134-139 and Dale Story, “Army Psychological Warfare Training,”
Public Opinion Quarterly, Fall, 1951. Notably, despite the Army staff’s movement of psywar
responsibilities to G-3 (Operations), OCAFF felt that psywar should remain part of the G-2 sections in
order to conserve manpower. OCAFF Historical Division, “Intelligence Training and Intelligence
Organizations,” in OCAFF Annual History (1 January – 31 December 1951), USACMH, 16-20.
28
Linebarger, Psychological Warfare, pp.304; and Paddock, Special Warfare, 135.

69
war. A “potential long-range” struggle with the Soviet Union might, in the Joint Staff’s

view, require increased psychological warfare activities and plans, but also a significant

increase in terms of research and development programs for psychological warfare and

the pre-requisite fiscal support for such programs.29 This willingness to at least

consider the need for a “special warfare” capability in the military, coupled with

President Eisenhower’s view that political and psychological warfare had a significant

role to play in his Administration’s national security strategy set the stage for future

opportunities for “propaganda” organizations within the Pentagon. While by 1953

psywar had found an institutional base from which to grow in Washington, its

development as a battlefield weapon during the Korean War proved much more

painstaking and problematic.

As of June 1950 Americans had little, if any, experience with psychological

warfare in Korea. Unlike its operations in Europe and most parts of Asia, the United

States had not undertaken any psychological warfare operations on the Korean

Peninsula during the Second World War, although the Joint Staff had considered doing

so as early as 1942.30 Despite postwar downsizing throughout the military Far East

Command maintained a residual psywar planning capability. Additionally, the Supreme

Command Allied Powers (SCAP) in Tokyo contained a robust Civilian Information and

29
Joint Staff, Contribution to the Second Quarterly PSB Report (January 1953), 5, RG 218.
30
During the Second World War, the Joint Psychological Warfare Committee at the Joint Staff had
developed plans for psychological warfare in Korea that included the creation of pro-democracy
sentiment in Korea with the hopes that this would spur anti-Japanese propaganda, “incidents,” and even
armed resistance on the Peninsula. Joint Psychological Warfare Committee, “Possible Action for Korea,”
(16 March 1942) and “Proposed Plans for Using Koreans Against Japan,” (21 March 1942), Geographic
File 1942-1945, Section 385 Korea, Records of the JCS, RG 218; NACP.

70
Education (CI&E) section that, in conjunction with the U.S. Department of State,

disseminated materials to inform, entertain, and persuade in order to help shape the

attitudes and behaviors of the Japanese people. In November 1949, possibly in response

to the fall of Chang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang in China, General MacArthur, then

the Commander in Chief of Far East Command (FEC), established a “Special Projects

Division.” The division was essentially a psychological warfare branch, housed within

the Civil Intelligence Section of the G-2. 31 MacArthur selected J. Woodall Greene, a

civilian who had served as a member his psychological warfare staff during the Second

World War, to head the small staff of six officers and civilians. While Greene’s staff

prepared a psywar annex to the contingency plans in case of an emergency, e.g.

Communist aggression, it had not been provided with enough personnel or resources to

direct a full-scale propaganda operation on short notice. Nevertheless, when war came

in June 1950, the Special Projects Division quickly adapted from a planning into an

operating agency. Less than forty-eight hours after its initial orders to respond to the

North Korean invasion, the Special Projects Division had conducted psywar broadcasts

and delivered leaflets for delivery by aircraft.

During the first month of the crisis FEC augmented Greene’s staff with

emergency loans of personnel from the FEC Civilian Information and Education section

and Department of State personnel from the U.S. Information Service, and even the

Korean division of the Economic Cooperation Agency. As the initial shock of the

31
Hansen, “Psywar in Korea,” 7; Linebarger, Psychological Warfare, 301; “Psychological Warfare in
Korea: An Interim Report,” Public Opinion Quarterly, 15 (Spring 1951), 65-67.

71
Korean People’s Army (KPA) advance wore off, the PWB FEC planned for a drawn out

struggle and formalized its relationships with other elements of Far East Command.

PWB FEC farmed out about a dozen of its staff to serve as liaisons with the fighting

elements in Korea, most significantly the Eighth United States Army Korea (EUSAK)

and X Corps. The liaison to the Far East Air Forces and 5th Air Force set up

mechanisms to supporting a heavy schedule of leaflet drops. This proved crucial during

the early months of the conflict when air delivery was one of the few ways to deliver

leaflets to enemy forces and friendly forces or civilians in overrun areas. By autumn,

the Army and civilians members of the Special Projects Division truly became a “joint”

organization, having added four Air Force officers and one Navy officer to its staff. 32

As of January 1951 the Special Projects Division, now officially renamed the

Psychological Warfare Branch (PWB) Far East Command, consisted of fifteen officers,

six enlisted personnel, and some thirty-four civilians all organized into functioning

operations, plans, and intelligence sections.33

The PWB at Far East Command remained the center of activity and directed

psychological warfare policy throughout most of the war. In accordance with directives

from the Pentagon and Department of State, the PWB FEC established the policy and

plans for all psychological warfare operations within Korea and conducted the

“strategic” level psywar operations such as radio broadcasts and leaflet campaigns

32
Hansen, “Psywar in Korea,” 218.
33
Pettee, U.S. Psywar Operations, 13. See also, Chief of Military History, History of Department of the
Army Activities Relating to the Korean Conflict, (12 September 1951), U.S. Army War College Library,
Carlisle, PA.

72
directed at civilian targets and rear-area military organizations. While field elements

eventually controlled tactical operations, such as loudspeaker broadcasts and the tactical

dissemination of leaflets, they fell under the ultimate supervision of the PWB. The

operational pace at FEC quickly illustrated that the ad-hoc FEC PWB staff was

insufficient to plan, direct, and carry out psywar operations. In order to augment Far

East Command’s psywar capabilities, the Army eventually deployed two field

organizations – a Radio Broadcast and Leaflet Group (RB&L) for the conduct of

strategic psywar and a Loudspeaker and Leaflet Company (L&L) for the conduct of

tactical psychological warfare.34

Elements of the 1st RB&L first arrived in Korea in June, 1951. In July the

soldiers relieved the PWB FEC of its operational functions but the RB&L did not

become fully operational until late August 1951. The Army had originally activated

the1st Radio Broadcasting and Leaflet Group, was activated at Ft. Riley, Kansas on 7

October, 1950, to serve as the “Psychological Warfare Branch” of a theater

headquarters in order to conduct strategic radio and leaflet operations. In other words,

the Group would add to a theater’s skeletal psywar staff in order to plan and direct

overall psywar efforts and actually conduct the strategic missions. A Radio

Broadcasting and Leaflet (RB&L) Group, commanded by a Colonel contained about

300 personnel organized into three companies: A Headquarters Company for staff and

administration as well as psywar strategy and planning; a Reproduction Company for

the development of leaflets, newspapers, and other visual materials; and the heart of the

34
The organization and activities of the 1st L&L will be discussed in Chapter IV.
73
unit, a Mobile Radio Broadcast Company responsible for broadcasting operations.35

Each of the Mobile Radio Broadcast Companies’ three platoons had a complete mobile

transmitter setup that could be attached to theater elements when more powerful,

commercial radio stations were not available for use. Not until 1953 did the Army add a

Consolidation Company to the organization, recognizing the need to have units that

focused specifically on propaganda directed at civilians in rear or occupied areas under

military control.36

While the military’s strategic psychological warfare campaign was primarily a

struggle for the hearts and minds of the Korean people on both sides of the 38th parallel,

it also strove to support State Department efforts to win the support of international

audiences. While FEC did conduct radio operations, the overwhelming emphasis of the

FEC strategic psywar effort initially focused on strategic leaflet propaganda dropped on

the North Korean and later Chinese militaries as well as North and South Korean

civilians by B-29 bombers using specially designed leaflet bombs. 37 During the first

30 days of the war, FEC dropped almost 30 million copies of about nine different

leaflets over Korea.38 By 1951, FEC had dropped over 160 million leaflets of over 100

35
Chief of Military History, History of Department of the Army Activities, 7; Linebarger, Psychological
Warfare, 301-302; Hansen, “Psywar in Korea,” 87-88; and Colonel Donald F. Hall, “Organization for
Combat Propaganda,” Army Information Digest, 6 (May 1951), 11-16.
36
Linebarger, Psychological Warfare, 301-302.
37
FEC used radio as almost exclusively a strategic medium during the war as the lack of radios among
the KPA and CPVF soldiers limited any tactical applicability. See Dyer, Strategic Radio Psywar, 27; and
Sandler, Cease Resistance, 241.
38
FEC records suggest even more leaflets might have been dropped if not for aircraft shortages that
limited both the supply of leaflet materials and the ability to disseminate them. Commander-in-Chief Far
74
different types. 39 As one historian has put it, the Korean War represented the “peak”

of U.S. leaflet psywar in terms of the artwork and originality.40 Radio broadcast proved

of secondary importance in terms of a means of persuasion. Nevertheless, it was an

important medium as it also provided information to Korean audiences who yearned for

news and information. Throughout the war FEC broadcast as “The Voice of the United

Nations Command” (VUNC) from the Radio Tokyo studios of the Japan Broadcast

Corporation. FEC programs included newscasts and commentary for the Republic of

Korea and North Korean audiences and dictation speed newscasts for the ROK press.

When possible, FEC also broadcast and retransmitted VUNC programs from Radio

Seoul, Radio Pyongyang, and other civilian transmitters on the peninsula. As FEC had

expected, many Koreans passed broadcast news along to those without radios by word

of mouth.41

During the course of the war the FEC strategic propaganda program relied on a

series of sub-campaigns, each designed to emphasize different themes, in order to create

East Command (CINCFE) Tokyo, Cable to Washington DC, “Psychological Warfare Activities,” (30 July
1950), Records Group 319, Army Operations, 1950-51, P&O 091.412, NACP.
39
John Ponturo, Technical Memorandum ORO-T-50 (EUSAK), Psychological Warfare Operations at
Lower Echelons in the Eighth Army, July 1952 – July 1953 (Chevy Chase, MD: Operations Research
Office, The Johns Hopkins University, 1954), 50.
40
USASOC History and Museums Division, “Enduring Themes of Psychological Warfare,” lecture notes
from April 1994 lecture to the Psychological Operations Specialist Course, USAJFKSWCS, in possession
of the author.
41
Military Intelligence Section, General Headquarters, Far East Command (GHQ FEC), “Psychological
Warfare Operations, 15-21 November, 1950,” (25 November 1950); RG 319, Army Operations, 1950-51,
P&O 091.412, NACP; and D.M. Rauh, “Psychological Warfare 1 August through 14 September 1950,”
unpublished draft paper, U.S. Army Special Operations Command (USASOC) Archives.

75
anti-Communist feelings among target audiences.42 Plan Blizzard, implemented over

Christmas 1951, and Plan Dragon (1952 was the year of the Dragon under the lunar

calendar) emphasized UN devotion to the cause of peace and sought to awaken feelings

about home that Chinese and Korean soldiers, as well as Korean citizens, might have in

the time of the Western and Oriental New Year seasons.43 Other plans exploited the

idea of Korean subservience to China and Chinese subservience to the USSR (Plans

Sellout, and Swindle), in the hopes of developing a sense of Korean independence and

nationalism (Plan Patriot); and to arouse resentment against the Communists for starting

a “war of aggression against the Korean people,” (Plan Invader).44

Beginning in July 1951, FEC placed particular emphasis on strategic psywar

plans which focused on supporting the United Nations Command (UNC) position in the

armistice talks and “psychologically undermining” the Communist position.45 Plan

Deadline, undertaken in November and December 1951 took aim, not only at KPA and

CPVF troops, but also at Korean civilians. Deadline, later renamed Hold-Up, and then

Deadlock, sought to portray the UNC as working to restore peace through an armistice

while at the same time, showing that it was the “Communists” who were hindering and

obstructing efforts for a peace agreement. To support the strategic messages, the

tactical propaganda often contained informational leaflets which provided news reports

42
For an overview of various psywar sub-campaigns see Appendix 1.
43
Major B.C. Mossman, “EUSAK Combat Propaganda Operations, 13 July 1950 – 1 September 1952,”
(7 January 1953), 2 vol., USACMH, 1: 62.
44
Mossman, “EUSAK Combat Propaganda Operations,” 1: 62-67.
45
Ibid., 56.

76
of the armistice discussion, explanations of the UN positions, and stressed the “needless

sacrifice of life if hostilities were prolonged,” by Communist intransigence.46 FEC

similarly prepared contingency plans (Plans Rupture and Severance) in the event

negotiations failed. These were designed to establish Communist responsibility for the

failure of negotiations, create anti-Communist reaction, and to “exploit this reaction to

UNC advantage.” Similarly, a contingency plan was developed in the event that a

military armistice agreement was reached. This plan (Concord) was designed to give

the UN credit for “bringing it together despite all obstacles.”

Policy guidance from Far East Command guided all psywar messages during the

Korean War, from loudspeaker surrender appeals to strategic radio broadcasts. The

development of psywar policy, that is, the guidance as to the themes and messages to be

used, began at the top. Statements in broadcasts and leaflets were literally statements of

U.S. policy. FEC translated Washington’s policy statements and instructions into

specific policy guidance for the psywar community. While officially the Korean War

was a UN conflict, and thus statements of policy were attributed to the United Nations

Command or the United Nations, the United States effectively crafted policy for the

Korean War. The Department of State, through the U.S. Information Service (USIS)

and the Department of Defense (DOD) issued information policy guidance for FEC

psywar operations in Korea. On some occasions, FEC requested “adjustments” to

guidance in order to reflect the realities of a fluid military situation in Korea or genuine

46
Ibid., 56-60.

77
differences in the value of a particular propaganda line.47 Daily telephone conferences

between FEC and the Department of the Army ensured that a continuing flow of

suggestions from the battlefield was incorporated into the guidance provided by

Washington. For the most part planners had broad limits within which to operate that

one psywar soldier described as simply: “we good, they bad.” 48 Most policy guidance

came in the form of “restriction,” rather than by positive statements, of what could and

should be done. In other words, if it was not expressly prohibited, the PWB felt

comfortable moving forward with an idea.49 Strategic guidance was further

complicated by the political realities of the war.

The PWB at Far East Command put out two types of guidance on psywar

objectives; themes and targeting emphasis. A “Weekly Plan” outlined the themes to be

stressed in UN propaganda media and from time to time a “Policy Guidance” addressed

specific situations. The most fundamental of these policies, as had been the case during

the First and Second World Wars, was that all messages would be truthful.50 Initially’

the strategic propaganda efforts were designed to bolster South Korean morale and keep

them assured of UN support.51 FEC radio broadcasts and propaganda leaflets explained

47
Chief of Military History, History of Department of the Army Activities, 7; and Hansen, “Psywar in
Korea,” 97.
48
Hansen, “Psywar in Korea,” 101.
49
Norris, “Tactical Psychological Warfare,” 16.
50
GHQ FEC, Psychological Warfare Division, “Psychological Warfare Operations in Korea” (Summer
1950); RG 319, Army Operations, 1950-51, P&O 091.412, NACP, 1; and Dyer, Strategic Radio Psywar,
22.
51
Dyer, Strategic Radio Psywar, 22.

78
UN war aims in Korea. They emphasized the world was rearming and coming to South

Korea’s aid and that the UN would have the “ultimate victory.” As the KPA moved

south towards Taejon, the UN desperately proclaimed that despite their successes, “the

Communists have failed to keep to their conquest schedule.” Additional leaflet drops

warned populations of areas to evacuate their homes to avoid UN air attacks, announced

the growing strength of the UN forces, and proclaimed the world solidarity against the

communist aggression.52 The FEC consciously tried to avoid using those themes that it

thought might, in the end, hurt South Korean morale. For example, despite the initial

desire to portray the war as a conspiracy by Soviet and Chinese communist forces,

psychological warfare guidance explicitly forbade implicating either the USSR or China

in the Korean conflict. It was feared that such speculation on foreign conspiracy and

support might bolster North Korean morale and discourage South Korean civilians.

Perhaps more importantly, Washington sought to avoid creating any pretenses to justify

overt intervention by China or the Soviet Union in the conflict.53

Based on instructions from Washington, Far East Command issued Policy

Guidance No. 1 on July 10th 1951 in order to outline some of the initial “themes” for use

in UN propaganda efforts including assigning blame for the war. While all psywar

materials would refer to the war as a clear act of aggression by the North Korean

Communists, propaganda would be more careful with respect to assigning any blame

52
CINCFE Tokyo Japan to Department of the Army, “Summary of Psychological Warfare Operations,”
(11 August 1950) and “Summary of Psychological Warfare Operations” (18 August 1950), RG 319,
Army Operations, 1950-51, P&O 091.412, NACP.
53
GHQ FEC “Psychological Warfare Operations in Korea,” 1.

79
for the war to Beijing or Moscow, a reflection of the larger U.S. view that the war in

Korea would remain “limited” in terms of intensity and geography. Although

propaganda could refer to North Korea as a “puppet,” the puppeteers would remain

ambiguous: “In using the term ‘puppet’ to describe North Korea, do not connect the

strings with Moscow…Do not link the Chinese Communists.” 54 Later guidance

loosened these restrictions to allow propagandists to discuss the “moral responsibility”

of the Soviet Union for the aggression due to its refusal to cooperate with the UN in

defending South Korea.55

Washington’s fear of an expanded confrontation with Beijing or a general war

with Moscow colored UN propaganda efforts throughout the war. FEC guidance

limited the mention of significant changes in the strategic situation such as the UN

crossing of the 38th Parallel or the entry of Chinese forces into the war. In each of these

instances references were limited until “official” statements by FEC had been made on

the subjects. On October 3rd 1950 , the day after elements of the I ROK Corps moved

north across the 38th parallel, Washington informed the editors and writers in the psywar

section of the restrictions on propaganda mentioning the movement of UN forces across

the parallel.56 Prior to any official announcement by the UNC or the U.S., absolutely no

mention of the crossing of the 38th Parallel would be allowed. Follow up guidance

permitted FEC psywar staff to exploit the UN crossing of the 38th Parallel but sought to
54
Pettee, U.S. Psywar Operations, 13.
55
“EUSAK Combat Propaganda Operations,” 1: 3.
56
GHQ FEC, Memorandum, Policy Guidance #10, “Crossing the 38th Parallel,” (3 October 1950), RG
319, Army Operations, 1950-51, P&O 091.412, NACP.

80
avoid the impression that the UN intended to reunify Korea by force of arms. 57 Rather,

the crossing was described as: 1. Necessitated by the North Korean Communist refusal

to cease hostilities when given the opportunity to do so; 2. Pursuant to the United

Nations Security Council resolution of 27 June, 1950 in order to “restore international

peace and security in Korea;” and 3. A military operation that did not prejudice the

ultimate UN decision on the political future of Korea.

As had been done with the UN crossing of the 38th Parallel, guidance from

Washington prohibited the mention of China’s entry into the conflict until almost mid-

November 1950 – weeks after the Chinese Peoples Volunteer Force (CPVF) had

crossed the Yalu River into Korea.58 The Chinese intervention in October 1950

exposed several problems for UN psychological warfare operations. Because the UN

was not considered at war with China, Washington prohibited FEC from developing

any Chinese language propaganda or making any references to reports of Chinese

intervention lest it provoke China to actually intervene in the war – though in fact it was

a bit late for that. 59 Despite the ban, Japanese language broadcasts and wire services

such as the Associated Press were under no such taboos, and news of the Chinese

intervention was passed to Korea through commercial channels in late October –

probably hurting the credibility of US broadcasts. On November 6 General MacArthur

57
GHQ FEC, Memorandum, Policy Guidance # 11, “Further Note on Crossing of 38th Parallel,” (6
October 1950), RG 319, Army Operations, 1950-51, P&O 091.412, NACP.
58
Pettee, U.S. Psywar Operations, 31. See also GHQ FEC, Policy Guidance #1, #2, #3, #8 and #15
(October and November 1950), RG 319, Army Operations, 1950-51, P&O 091.412, NACP.
59
Dyer, Strategic Radio Psywar, 35-37.

81
acknowledged the presence of “alien” communist forces. Not until November 12, two

weeks after Chinese forces had already entered Korea in large numbers, did FEC finally

specifically report the presence of Chinese soldiers in the field and authorize the PWB

to prepare psywar products for use against Chinese forces.60

Unfortunately it was easier to institute restrictive guidance than to rescind it and

at times the PWB FEC was hamstrung by outdated and irrelevant guidance. In the

summer of 1951, General Ridgway (who had replaced MacArthur as the head of Far

East Command in April) and General McClure, chief of psychological warfare at the

Pentagon, recognized the problem of coordinating guidance and feedback between

Tokyo and Washington and sought to correct it during the second year of the war.

Writing to Secretary of the Army Pace in August of 1951, Ridgway suggested that the

Department of the Army needed to work more closely with the Psychological Strategy

Board at the White House to provide less information on what “not” to say and “more

positive and definitive policy guidance” in order to improve the quality of the strategic

messages disseminated in Korea.61 McClure did not disagree with Ridgway but felt

some of the problem lay at Far East Command. During a visit to FEC in the summer of

1952 McClure commented that despite “new” guidance, no one at FEC had revoked

directives that were clearly out of date. This had become a particular problem with the

UN propaganda campaign in support of the Armistice negotiations. McClure felt that

60
Ibid.
61
Memorandum for Record, Subject: “Cable from General Ridgway to Mr. Pace and Draft of Reply,” (23
August 1951), RG 319, Army Operations, TS Correspondence 1951-1954 (Propaganda), P&O 091.412,
NACP.

82
FEC needed to inform Washington when a situation had changed enough to warrant

reconsideration of policy guidance.62 Not until late 1952, more than two years into the

war, did Washington and Tokyo finally established a Special Korean Information

Guidance Committee (consisting of representatives from FEC, OCPW, and the

Department of State) to discuss and coordinate information policy via teleconference on

a daily basis.63

In addition to the problems involved with communicating policy direction, a

slow and rigid product approval process hampered the ability to get timely information

out to Korean citizens and to seize the initiative when the military situation offered

exploitable opportunities. All too frequently, Koreans heard breaking news from

Chinese Radio broadcasts, international wire services, and rumors spread by word of

mouth rather than from the Voice of the United Nations Command or Radio Seoul.

FEC broadcasts lost credibility by failing to broadcast timely and accurate information

that depicted the “ground truth.” One such ill timed and inaccurate VUNC report stated

that UN forces were continuing to defend Pyongyang on December 5th, 1951, after the

city had already fallen to Chinese troops.64 In addition, FEC found it difficult to

quickly counteract significant rumors such as those in December 1950 that MacArthur

had landed 250,000 Japanese troops at Inchon to help fight against the Chinese. Given

the record during the Japanese occupation of Korea (1910-1945) and Korean feelings

62
Robert A. McClure, “Visit to the Far East Command” typescript notes, June, 1952. McClure Papers.
63
Hansen, “Psywar in Korea,” 96-99.
64
Dyer, Strategic Radio Psywar, 38.

83
toward the Japanese, this type of disinformation aroused suspicions of the intent of the

Americans and the UNC. Within forty-eight hours a large portion of the Korean

population was convinced the rumors were correct but FEC had not done anything to

prevent the rumor from proliferating.65

While the UN could overcome these credibility gaffes in time, numerous

opportunities were forever lost on the battlefield as a result of the slow approval

process. Psywar personnel reported that the number of personnel required to approve a

particular product, as well as the absence of a delegation of approval authority below

CinC FEC, hampered the ability to react quickly. The “slow, tedious, and complicated”

procedure resulted in a “time-lag between target acquisition and delivery of leaflets on

the target.”66 While particularly problematic during the first year of the war when

EUSAK did not have personnel available to deploy and exploit these situations, the

inability to produce and disseminate tactical leaflets in a timely fashion remained a

critical deficiency throughout the entire war. 67 Combat units regularly requested leaflet

drops “as soon as possible,” but “soon” ranged from less than 24 hours to more than a

week – too long a time delay for enemy units in dire but temporary peril. More often

than not, the tactical situations had changed so much that by the time psywar teams had

completed their missions they could not possibly have the desired effect.68

65
Ibid., 18.
66
Dyer, Strategic Radio Psywar, 23; and Ponturo, Psywar Operations at Lower Echelons, 19.
67
Ponturo, Psywar Operations at Lower Echelons, 19
68
Ibid., 20; and United States Air Force, “Psychological Effects of Air Activity in Korea,” Volume V of
An Evaluation of the Effectiveness of the United States Air Force in the Korean Campaign. 25 June – 31
84
 Like all military endeavors, psychological warfare operations required timely

and accurate intelligence in order to acquire and destroy the correct target at the right

time and with the use of the most appropriate weapon. In addition to conventional

intelligence information such as enemy order of battle or disposition of forces, psywar

intelligence requirements included information that might not be gleaned from regularly

available intelligence reporting, such as biographical information on small-unit leaders,

morale, the enemy’s history and culture, as well as their favorite songs and foods. The

documentary evidence suggests that PWB FEC had great difficulty in acquiring and,

more importantly, processing the type of information necessary to create effective

psywar products. Writing in 1951 as part of an official Department of the Army

assessment of FEC psywar activities, one analyst called the intelligence analysis

capability of the psywar staff during the first year of the war “all but nonexistent.”69

Simple bureaucratic wrangling affected the preparation of psychological warfare

materials throughout the war. Military intelligence personnel sometimes refused to

support psywar operations fully as the propaganda materials tended to release

intelligence information to the enemy. If an intelligence report indicated that a

particular North Korean or Chinese unit had old Soviet rifles or had eaten cold food

every day for a month, the intelligence officers were loath to allow the psywar

personnel to simply “broadcast” that information out to the world via a loudspeaker or

December 1950, p. 96, K168.041-1, in the United States Air Force Collection, Air Force Historical
Research Agency, Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama.
69
Paul M.A. Linebarger, Technical Memorandum ORO-T-11 (FEC), Immediate Improvement of Theater-
Level Psychological Warfare in the Far East, (Chevy Chase, MD: Operations Research Office, The
Johns Hopkins University, June 1951), 16.

85
leaflet. As ridiculous as that might seem, this notion caused friction between the

intelligence and psywar communities. Each day the PWB had to battle with FEC

intelligence staff over access to information required to develop broadcasting scripts

and anti-morale leaflets. Many of the civilians in the psywar shops as well as the

Korean and Chinese nationals were not cleared for access to any classified information

and thus the majority of psywar materials relied on dated stories from the Pacific

version of the Stars and Stripes and the English language Tokyo Nippon Times. While

open-source material was sometimes useful as background information the intelligence

sections at FEC often put all the unclassified and classified information in their

possession into a single classified bundle marked SECRET. The result, as one psywar

operator explained, was that “when one of us wanted to use some information that had

already appeared in Stars and Stripes, or the New York Times, he discovered that it too,

was classified…”70 Obtaining permission to use previously classified information often

took days or weeks, further hampering the ability of PWB FEC to produce materials in

a timely manner.

Perhaps most importantly, these organizations suffered from a lack of linguistic

capability and cultural expertise. Psychological warfare personnel required a

somewhat different skill-set than that of the average combat soldier. In order to help

target audiences understand America’s purpose overseas and persuade them to take

specific behavioral actions, psywar specialists needed to understand foreign cultures,

70
Dyer, Strategic Radio Psywar, 18. Hansen, however, believed that Major General Willoughby (the
FEC G-2) was very cooperative with the psywar staff with regards to the declassification of intelligence
materials. Hansen, “Psywar in Korea,” 65.

86
politics, language and religious customs, in addition to knowing how to shoot, move,

and communicate. Unfortunately, most psychological warfare specialists had few, if

any, of the domestic or foreign area skill-sets and foreign language capability was

essentially non-existent. Local Chinese and Korean speakers comprised the translator

and interpreter pool for psywar headquarters elements at EUSAK and FEC and, until

late 1952, the twenty-one tactical loudspeaker teams operating on the peninsula had

only three language qualified personnel between them.71

For at least the first year of the war, the psywar specialists lacked basic cultural

information needed to develop effective propaganda for both Korean and Chinese

audiences: what songs were widely known and sung, favorite foods, recreational

activities, the role of women in society, superstitions, etc. Psychological warfare

personnel were poorly informed on the customs, religions, superstitions, prejudices,

taboos, political history, and geography of Korea and China but were still expected to

churn out vast quantities of leaflets and broadcasts. Leaflets often did not appeal to the

average foot-soldier as they were written in a complicated manner that went far beyond

the soldiers’ ability to comprehend them. Many of the anti-morale and surrender

leaflets simply missed the mark and not until the middle of 1951 did the PWB finally

reach out to the range of Koreans and Westerners residing in Korea and seek their

services and advice in building psychological warfare programs.72 Psywar personnel

were not uneducated; the 1st RBL boasted “more PhD’s among the [enlisted] men than

71
Linebarger, Improvement of Theater-Level Psychological Warfare, 16.
72
Dyer, Strategic Radio Psywar, 26.

87
there were officers in the entire unit,” but their cultural training was inappropriate for

the Sino-Korean theater of operations. The Chief of EUSAK psywar (1952-1953)

explained:

Thoroughly oriented in World War II psywar concepts for operations against

Teutonic and Latin targets, their approach to Asian audiences was strictly
academic and their operational Chinese-American was far more American
than Chinese. Even if the latter had a language skill, it was in Cantonese,
spoken by 99% of Chinese-Americans, while the principal demand in psywar
was for Mandarin-speaking personnel.73

Few experts in Chinese or Korean culture existed in the entire U.S. military, much less

Far East Command or EUSAK.74 The lack of knowledge about either psywar or Asian

cultures made for some interesting bureaucratic situations during the production and

approval of psychological warfare materials, notably when American officers thought

the English language translations of the leaflets sounded “too Chinesey.” 75 As one

veteran recalled, a lack of cultural expertise did not prevent operations officers from

editing and changing the psywar leaflets as in one incident when the psywar writers

approached a colonel in the operations shop and asked him about a change on the

leaflet:

One of our writers, mystified by this Colonel’s peculiar editing of a particular

leaflet, had the hardihood to approach him and ask for elucidation. The
Colonel replied: ‘I made the change because I thought it should be that way.

73
Hansen, “Psywar in Korea,” 88-89.
74
Some notable exceptions existed such as Horace G. and Richard Underwood and LTJG William Shaw.
Allan R. Millett, “A GI in Pyongyang,” and “Fighting for the Koreans,” in Their War for Korea,
(Washington DC: Brassey’s), 2002, 147-152 and 192-198. Additionally, Kenneth Hansen notes that the
psywar staff at FEC benefited from the expertise of Major Ryong C. Hahm, an American citizen of
Korean birth and a member of the Army’s Judge Advocate Generals Corps. Hahm held a divinity degree
from Vanderbilt and law degrees from the University of Seoul and Yale University. See Hansen,
“Psywar in Korea,” 103.
75
Roy A. Gallant, “More Psycho Than Logical,” The Reporter, March 31, 1953, 17.

88
 Maybe it was better before I edited it, I don’t know. I don’t know anything
about the Chinese and I don’t know anything about psychological warfare.
I’m here because the Army put me here.’76

While shortages in appropriately trained personnel and a lack of adequate intelligence

information had a particularly profound impact on the conduct of strategic radio

propaganda during the war they did not prevent FEC from continuing to try to diminish

Chinese and North Korean fighting capabilities.

Even in the summer of 1950 some indications of the effectiveness of

psychological warfare were available through anecdotal evidence. Field reports from

Korean government officials indicated that those who owned radio receivers could pick

up the broadcasts and that the Voice of the United Nations Command had more

credibility than the Chinese or North Korean broadcasts. Similarly, an assessment done

by the Far East Air Forces (the air component of Far East Command) and the Johns

Hopkins University Operations Research Office (under contract to the U.S. Army)

indicated that “radio was the best medium for reaching the civilian population,” and that

FEC should expand its operations in terms of the number of hours broadcast each

week.77

These assessments, however, conflicted with a more rigorous assessment

conducted in early 1951 by the Operations Research Office (ORO) that concluded radio

propaganda had been unsatisfactory and would be unlikely to yield useful results in

76
Ibid., 18.
77
Dyer, Strategic Radio Psywar, 25.

89
Korea in the future.78 The 1951 ORO analysis was particularly critical of the “quality”

of FEC radio broadcasts citing a lack of adequate information about the tastes of the

target audience and the technical capabilities of the FEC psywar staff to produce

effective broadcasts.79 Thus, during the period when maintaining South Korean morale

proved critical – the first year of the war – FEC radio broadcasts remained very simple

and lackluster.80 In particular, FEC found itself short of skilled writers, producers,

translators, and of course broadcasters with the right language capabilities. Attempts to

enlist OWI veterans, Koreans from Radio Seoul, and members from the US Information

Service did not prove sufficient and the vast majority of the FEC radio staff had no

broadcast media experience in either the civilian or military worlds. The requirement to

conduct Chinese as well as Korean language broadcasts after November 1950

aggravated the situation. Chinese intervention required additional studios, programs,

and personnel, especially translators. Quite simply, the demand for skilled translators to

produce radio scripts and strategic leaflets under pressure and at a rapid pace far

exceeded the supply. For the first year of the war only one individual on the FEC staff,

a Korean broadcaster, had the necessary “dramatic skills” to conduct effective on-air

broadcasts. Similarly, the few Americans with experience in radio did not have the

requisite cultural expertise to determine what “American” methods might prove

78
Kilchoon Kim, Technical Memorandum ORO-T-1 (EUSAK), Radio in Korea (Chevy Chase, MD:
Operations Research Office, The Johns Hopkins University, January 1951), 11.
79
Ibid.
80
Dyer, Strategic Radio Psywar, 52.

90
inappropriate with Korean or Chinese audiences. The combination of deficiencies

prompted one ORO examiner to exclaim:

They have had no training in the principles of dramatic writing. They know
nothing about the preparation of scripts for forum presentation. They are
unversed in the dramatic uses of voice parts. They do not comprehend the
techniques by which material for air can be made ‘listenable’ simply by using
a number of different voices in the proper combinations. More importantly
they have no ability to decide what techniques common to American methods
can be expected to apply when working in a foreign language. 81

As with many military operations the requirements outpaced the allocation of resources

and the PWB FEC never caught up with the workload. Even had the PWB had the

resources to deliver sophisticated and extensive radio programming there were external

obstacles to its success – most importantly the sparse radio infrastructure and the

actions of a repressive Communist regime in North Korea.

While radio had proved to be a desirable means of waging a strategic

psychological warfare campaign in Europe during the Second World War, as well as

during the American occupation of Japan, the lack of radio infrastructure in Korea

limited the ability of audiences to actually receive the broadcasts. Less than 1% of the

population in both North and South Korea had radios around the time of the Korean

War. The absence or rationing of power supplies and spare parts after the start of

hostilities further reduced the number of working transmitters.82 Additionally, the KPA

and North Korean secret police confiscated radio sets and exacted punishments from

81
Ibid., 12-14, 29.
82
Radio was largely a luxury for the Korean people. 1949 estimates put the number of radio receivers in
South Korea at approximately 150,000 for a population of over 20 million. In North Korea there were
even fewer transmitters as North Korean authorities began to confiscate radios as early as 1946. 1944
estimates put the number of receivers in North Korea at 80,000 or less than one for every hundred persons
in of a population of 8.5 million people. Kim, “Radio in Korea,” 7, 12-14.

91
those caught listening to “subversive broadcasts,” making it far more difficult for those

owning receivers to actually use them. The poor operating environment, including

confiscated radios and intermittent electric supplies, meant that even if the PWB could

tailor the proper messages, the potential receptivity was simply not worth the effort.

The vast majority of experts and assessments agreed that the emphasis on the strategic

campaign might better be put into the leaflet programs. As General McClure summed

up in 1953, “radio broadcasting [was] probably the least effective” of the psywar

mediums used during the Korean War.83

83
Robert A. McClure, “Psychological Strategy as Preventive of Larger War,” (An Interview), U.S. News
and World Report, January 2, 1953, 60-69.

92
 CHAPTER 4

TACTICAL PSYWAR

Initially almost all UN psywar was directed towards bolstering the morale of the

South Korean civilians and had emphasized strategic themes. As the UN military

commitment increased so did the requirement for psywar operations directly supporting

combat operations, that is, tactical psychological warfare. So far as FEC was concerned

the only difference between strategic and tactical psywar operations was that tactical

operations were those conduced at or within forty miles of the front lines. Any

operations more than forty miles from the front were considered strategic. While

oversimplifying the difference between the two operations, FEC’s conceptualization

accurately reflected the notion that tactical operations were specifically designed to

support combat operations. Strategic and tactical psychological warfare operations also

differed terms of their intent, duration, and scope. Strategic operation focused on

providing news, information, and direction to slowly shape attitudes about the war and

the competence of the Communist leadership. Tactical operations similarly sought to

degrade morale but focused on the universal problems encountered by troops in battle

93
such as the lack of food and the longing for home. In short, these operations sought to

make enemy soldiers to think about anything but participating in combat. Tactical

operations also sought to impact the battlefield by inducing surrenders and desertion.

Obtaining observable results from these operations might take time. Combat

commanders, however, sought swift results from tactical psywar operations and

remained fixed on the notion that leaflets and loudspeakers could quickly create enemy

surrenders.1 This dissonance in terms of expectations added to an already pervasive

predisposition against the use of propaganda as a battlefield weapon.

FEC controlled tactical psywar operations in the first three months of the war as

no field psywar organization existed within the Korean theater of operations. In July

1950, as an initial step to set up a separate tactical psywar operation, a detachment of

psywar specialists from HQ FEC served as the EUSAK psychological warfare staff.

They were replaced in September by an independent EUSAK staff of including eleven

officers (led by a Colonel), nine enlisted, and ten civilian interpreters. This more robust

and permanent organization, similar in structure to that of its larger cousin at HQ FEC,

handled the processing of psywar intelligence, the evaluation of its effectiveness, the

preparation of loudspeaker and leaflet messages, and directed tactical dissemination

operations. While EUSAK took operational control of tactical missions, FEC continued

1
As one Operations Research Office report determined, “so much stress has been put on the number of
prisoners taken as the test of effectiveness of psychological warfare that it is difficult for many to see that
this may not be the greatest contribution that psychological warfare can make in support of ground
operations.” See William E. Daugherty, ORO T-10 (FEC), Organization and Activities of Psywar
Personnel in Lower Echelons of Eighth Army, 24 January – 5 April 1951 (Chevy Chase, MD: Operations
Research Office, The Johns Hopkins University, May 1951), v.

94
to provide thematic guidance for psywar activities in order to maintain a consistency

between tactical and strategic propaganda and to ensure that leaflets and loudspeaker

scripts did not conflict with overall U.S. policy.

The lack of a specified “unit” to conduct tactical psychological operations is one

of the reasons that tactical psywar remained largely ad-hoc, experimental, and small

scale through early 1951. Almost immediately after the outbreak of hostilities in June

1950, Far East Command requested that the Army send a Loudspeaker and Leaflet

Company to conduct combat propaganda operations. While the Army had no

Loudspeaker and Leaflet Companies in the summer of 1950, the Army hastily

reorganized the “Tactical Information Detachment” at Ft. Riley Kansas into the 1st

Loudspeaker and Leaflet Company (1st L&L). The 1st L&L deployed to Korea in the

spring of 1951 and provided “combat” or tactical propaganda support to EUSAK and its

subordinate fighting organizations. On paper, the 1st L&L contained about 100

personnel divided into two platoons and a headquarters element. The propaganda and

publications platoon developed products for dissemination throughout the operating

area. The heart of the 1st L&L was the “hogcallers” (the loudspeaker teams), whose

mission it was to: “by means of live or recorded loudspeaker broadcasts persuade

isolated groups of enemy personnel in tactically untenable positions to surrender; and to

conduct anti-morale and surrender appeals to enemy front-line troops in static tactical

positions.”2 The loudspeaker platoon

2
Colonel Jack K. Norris, “Tactical Psychological Warfare,” Student Paper, U.S. Army War College,
Carlisle, PA, March 1954, 9.

95
contained three loudspeaker teams on paper but during the Korean War the 1st L&L

operated closer to twenty-one teams on the battlefield – almost doubling the personnel

strength of the L&L Company!

EUSAK disseminated leaflets much the same way it had been done six years

earlier during the Second World War. Heavy bombers dropped leaflet bombs; bundles

of leaflets were dropped from light aircraft; some were shot in artillery shells; and once

in a while even dropped by hand.3 Air-dropped leafleting was, as in the past, highly

inaccurate. Despite this drawback, UN operations focused on “saturating” enemy

locations with tens of millions of leaflets. Neither high-performance aircraft such as P-

51’s or F-4U’s, nor transport aircraft such as C-47’s proved effective for the task, as the

loosely wrapped bundles often came apart too soon. This proved less than ideal; one

Army report noted that the high wind turbulence generally resulted in leaflets scattering

throughout the fighter cockpit or transport’s fuselage rather than ending up falling on

the target audience.4 As advances were made in terms of secure bundling of leaflets, B-

29 bombers proved the workhorse of leaflet dissemination missions due to each plane’s

capacity of over a million leaflets when fully loaded with specially designed leaflet

bombs.5 However, saturating enemy front line positions with leaflets from thousands of

3
Only a few hundred thousand leaflets per month were distributed by soldiers on foot patrols – an
insignificant number even cumulatively. Ponturo, Psywar Operations at Lower Echelons, 50.
4
Pettee, U.S. Psywar Operations, 14.
5
The standard leaflet bomb during the Korean War was a modified M-16-A1 Cluster Adapter Bomb.
This was a hollow thin-skinned bomb, about the same size as a 500-lb explosive bomb. The bomb was
hinged in order to allow a specially designed fuse to open the cluster and disperse the leaflets at about
1,000 for distribution of the materials over a relatively wide area. Each bomb held between 20-40,000
leaflets depending on the size of the material. Thirty-two bombs (about 1.3 million leaflets) could be
96
feet came with its own problems. Accuracy remained spotty, and often leaflets simply

did not land in the right place. As a message to General Ridgway, at the time the

Commanding General of EUSAK read, “Your leafleting plane has been over my

division area this morning and dropped many thousands of leaflets. We have read them.

I am ready to surrender with my division whenever you send forward a representative.”

The problem: the message was signed by Major General James Cassels, the commander

of the British Commonwealth Division.6 Artillery provided the most accurate means

for delivering propaganda to specific enemy front line units. About 400 -800 leaflets

could fit in each modified 105mm smoke shell. Between June 1950 and July 1953

EUSAK distribuited, approximately, over 100 million leaflets via artillery shell with

ammunition expenditure reaching about 15,000 rounds a month during peak periods of

use. Artillery shells proved particularly useful during both the fight along the Pusan

perimeter in 1950 and during the static war just north of the 38th parallel from mid-1951

until the 1953 Armistice.7

In October 1950, FEC began to use airborne loudspeaker systems that had been

developed by the Navy for psychological warfare during the latter part of World War II.

Psywar personnel mounted the only two available sets of speakers in two C-47 transport

planes and used them with considerable success – that is, when the speaker systems

dropped by one B-29 bomber. Ponturo, Psywar Operations at Lower Echelons, 50; and Pettee, U.S.
Psywar Operations, 14-20.
6
Hansen, “Psywar in Korea,” 197
7
Notably, the Chinese Forces in Korea used a Russian mortar shell with which to accurately disseminate
leaflets to specific front line units. Norris, “Tactical Psychological Warfare,” 19-20.

97
functioned.8 Throughout the war aerial loudspeaker missions suffered from a number

of deficiencies, most significantly the acoustic qualities of the speakers often prevented

the enemy troops on the ground from actually hearing the broadcast. Astonishingly,

EUSAK quickly discovered that using a woman’s voice seemed to facilitate the

acoustics (or perhaps the receptivity) of the broadcasts under a variety of conditions.

The use of loudspeaker broadcasts with women’s voices in the aerial broadcasts had an

additional impact. As one CPVF soldier explained the reasons for his surrender in

1952;

Four months ago,” he told his interrogators, “I heard a woman broadcasting in

Chinese from one of your voice-planes. I thought: if the Americans can circle
a slow plane over our positions with a female in it, then I am fighting on the
losing side.9

Loudspeakers on the ground did not play a major role until the Loudspeaker Platoon of

the 1st L& L became operational. Prior to this, EUSAK did manage to scrounge up a

public address system and used it for some limited front-line tactical broadcasts

beginning in the last two weeks of September, 1950.10 While the ad-hoc psywar

division, and later the HQ of the 1st L&L, coordinated operations from EUSAK, the

loudspeaker teams assigned at Division, Regimental level and below conducted the

actual operations. About twenty one three-man teams broadcasted from 1951 through

1953 along the main lines of resistance and from well within the no-mans-land

8
Chief of Military History, History of Department of the Army Activities, 11.
9
Hansen, Psywar in Korea, 190-191.
10
Military Intelligence Section, GHQ FEC, “Psychological Warfare Operations, 13-19 September, 1950,”
(26 September 1950); RG 319, Army Operations, 1950-51, P&O 091.412, NACP.

98
separating the UN and Communist forces. Generally, broadcasts were designed to

encourage surrounded units and units on the lines in particularly perilous situations to

surrender or desert. Loudspeaker teams broadcast simple expressions (“stop

shooting,”); suggestions for action (“escape from your unit at night” or “lay down your

arms”); and expressions regarding particular situations (“you are surrounded” or “your

unit is totally defeated”).11 A typical message avoided the political themes associated

with strategic messages and simply offered a way out for the enemy soldier:

Soon you will be committed to battle again to be sacrificed in the UN’s sea of
fire. Think of the thousands and thousands of your comrades who have already
died for nothing in this foreign land.12

Loudspeaker broadcasts could be tailored to specific target audiences more so than any

other type of propaganda on the battlefield. Loudspeaker teams of the 1st L&L also

engaged in a variety of tactical deception operations by broadcasting the sounds of

railroad construction, tanks, and vehicles on the move. In some instances, loudspeaker

teams broadcast in order to draw out enemy scouts for capture; in the words of one L &

L member, “did it ever.”13 Loudspeaker teams often engaged in some ad-libbing,

certainly deviating from the authorized scripts. According to one veteran of the 1st

L&L, broadcasts of tigers and lions from the Tokyo Zoo “scared the hell out of both

11
Ponturo, Psywar Operations at Lower Echelons, 125-127.
12
1st Loudspeaker and Leaflet Script Books in the USASOC History Archives as cited in Sandler, Cease
Resistance, 262.
13
Letter from Mr. Jerry Rose to the Office of the Chief of Military History, April 10, 1994 and Letter
from Jerry Rose to Dr. Stanley Sandler October 8, 1994 in the Rose Papers, USASOC Archives, Ft.
Bragg, North Carolina.

99
sides.” The teams particularly enjoyed telling the enemy that “your family is starving,

“the commissar is screwing your wife,” and “the guys back home are having a great

time.”14

EUSAK psywar personnel designed their tactical propaganda to exploit the

psychological vulnerabilities created by harsh combat conditions. From time to time

EUSAK psywar teams also supported deception operations.15 The experience of World

War II showed that the most effective tactical propaganda dealt with the “ordinary,

material facts of life” in a soldier’s immediate environment rather than with the larger

political questions addressed in strategic propaganda such as who was to blame for

starting the war.16 As with the “combat propaganda” operations of the World Wars,

U.S. psywar personnel employed two basic types of tactical psychological warfare

materials: anti-morale messages and surrender appeals. Anti-morale media, designed to

degrade enemy combat power, focused on three major themes: UN superiority in

artillery and particularly air power; the inadequacy of food and medical care available

to KPA and CPVF forces; and the willingness of Communist leaders to sacrifice their

14
Ibid.
15
To support the planned September landings at Inchon, Far East command devised a leaflet campaign to
support deception operations designed to convince the North Koreans that a U.S. amphibious landing was
planed for the Kunsan area rather than 100 miles North at Inchon. Leaflets dropped near Kunsan and
other cities along the southwest coast encouraged civilians to stay away from beaches and dock areas and
coincided with the appearance of a UN naval task force and a commando landing at Kunsan. Following
the landings at Inchon on September 15th, 1950, FEC showered KPA troop positions along the entire
Pusan perimeter urging them to “surrender or die.” GHQ FEC, “Psychological Warfare Operations, 13-19
September, 1950.
16
Pettee, U.S. Psywar Operations, 29.

100
soldier’s lives through “human sea” or “human wave” tactics. During the war, ORO

analysts noted a total of nine categories of themes:

1. Checkmate: Consider how hopeless your present situation is;

2. Bulldozer: Consider how strong we are; you are bound to lose ultimately; we have material
superiority;

3. Sweat and Toil: Think how bad you feel because of what you have to put up with (winter,
digging foxholes, weariness, etc.);

4. Home and Mother: Think how bad and resentful you feel because you are homesick.

5. Iago: Think of all the reasons you have for distrusting your superiors, your allies, your war
aims, the Communists; you are being saved;

6. Skinsaver: Think of the chance you still have to save your life;

7. Nightingale: Think how well we will treat you as a prisoner of war;

8. Signpost: Think how safe it will be for you to surrender, if you do the following things in
the following way;

9. Desdemona: Think how unselfish and honorable we and our war aims are; you can see
(from the bomb warnings) that we do not want to hurt you.17

One popular anti-morale theme used in UN leaflets during the war played upon the idea

that the Soviet Union and China had sold out North Korea. One cartoon used on a

leaflet showed a Russian soldier pushing a Chinese soldier, who was, in turn pushing a

North Korean soldier forward to certain death. The message on this leaflet was

specifically designed to get the soldier to question why he was fighting and dying on the

front. The cartoon, first dropped after Chinese intervention in 1950, displayed the

caption “Why Die for China and Russia” and read on the back:

SOLDIERS OF NORTH KOREA! The Russians have sent in Chinese

soldiers in a last effort to make Korea a puppet state. The Chinese have

17
Operations Research Office reports as cited in Conrad C. Crane, American Airpower Strategy in
Korea, 1950-1953, (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, Lawrence, 2000), 140-141.

101
 already taken command of all Communist military forces in Korea. The
Chinese generals plan to use Korean soldiers to do the worst fighting. Then,
after many Korean soldiers have been killed or wounded, the Chinese will be
able to seize control of all North Korea. Is this what you are fighting for – to
give Korea to the Chinese and Russians?18

Similarly, the leaflet entitled “Old Weapons Bring Death “(1951-1953) urged KPA

soldiers to lament over the obsolete weapons provided by the Soviet Union and offered

an alternative to fighting. The leaflet proclaimed: “Throw down your obsolete

weapons!” and “Surrender for UN protection.”19

Surrender appeals emphasized the desirability of surrender as opposed to

continued fighting and the good treatment received by prisoners of war – universal

themes that had played well during World War II. The idea was not to change the

soldier’s ideology but to simply convince him to take an action favorable to U.S. forces

such as desertion, malingering, or surrender. It was not a matter of changing attitudes

but behaviors. Concrete themes such as the grim unlikelihood of surviving combat and

the certainty of good treatment upon surrender played well on the average soldier,

regardless of their level of intelligence or political indoctrination.20 Basic surrender

appeals reminded KPA and CPVF troops that resistance was futile due to the UN’s

overwhelming advantage in firepower and equipment and (to the KPA) that “a live

18
Serial Number 1040, “Why Die for China and Russia,” Military Intelligence Section, GHQ FEC;
President’s Secretary’s Files (PSF), Truman Papers, Truman Library. Note: FEC catalogued Korean
War leaflets were catalogued by Far East Command on 8 ½ X 11 sheets of paper that contained a copy of
each leaflet (designated by a serial number), a title, a description of the intended target audience, as well
as the English language translation of the message. The most complete sets of leaflets are at the Harry S.
Truman Library, the Hoover Institution, and the U.S. Army War College.
19
Serial Number 1223, “Old Weapons Bring Death,” PSF, Truman Library.
20
GHQ FEC “Psychological Warfare Operations in Korea” (Summer 1950), 1.

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patriot can help Korea better than a dead soldier.” “Safe conduct passes” contained

specific instructions to the North Korean soldier on how to surrender; leave your

weapons behind and put your hands over your head. The passes also guaranteed that

those who gave themselves up would be treated well, given “food, warm clothing, and

cigarettes,” and could return home “safely” at the end of the war – not much different

from the Bunker Hill leaflet used by the Continental Army 175 years earlier.21. A

Chinese version of “Sad Sack” and “Henry” was developed for illiterate CPVF troops

(possibly as high as 40% of Chinese soldiers were illiterate) demonstrating in pictures

why and how to surrender to UN forces. The addition of pictures, such as maps to show

the progress of the UN operations also proved effective in getting the message of the

Allied advances to illiterate audiences within the KPA and CPVF.22

During UN counterattacks against the KPA in the fall of 1950 and against the

Chinese in the spring of 1951 combat propaganda operations exploited military

victories. Thus, it was no surprise that the vast majority of the over 100,000 KPA and

CPVF prisoners were taken during the periods when the UN was on the offensive.

Leaflets painted a bleak but stark picture for the KPA and CPVF troops: “United

Nations troops have been dropped in your rear areas and you are cut off. Choose to

live. Raise your hands over your head to surrender.” Simple maps made the tactical

21
There were dozens of different “safe conduct” leaflets each of which was translated into Chinese and
Korean. See, for example, Serial #1045, “The Doorway to Survival;” Serial #9001 “Safe Conduct Pass;”
and “Serial #1049, “How to surrender and UN Good Treatment,” PSF, Truman Library.
22
Military Intelligence Section, GHQ FEC, “Psychological Warfare Operations, 20-26 September, 1950;”
RG 319, Army Operations, 1950-51, P&O 091.412, NACP; and Serial #8591, “Anti-Morale – Surrender
Appeal,” PSF, Truman Library.

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situation clear to even those who could not read. Others designed specifically as “fear”

leaflets, stated: “Welcome to the bloodiest battlefield in the history of war…one out of

four of you will soon die.” A special leaflet designed for use right after fierce fighting

read “Today – 7,174 Communist Casualties. Tomorrow your name will be on this list.”
23
As during World War II, the most effective surrender appeals were the safe conduct

passes designed to look official and thus the signatures of Generals MacArthur,

Ridgway and Van Fleet appeared at the bottom of a variety of these passes.

Psychological warfare, particularly surrender appeals and anti-morale leaflets,

sought to take advantage of the dangers of the battlefield, to remind soldiers they were

hungry, tired, vulnerable to constant shelling. They also heard that and their girlfriends

might leave them and that their families missed them at home. The effectiveness of

psychological warfare as a weapon was a function of the mental vulnerability of the

target audience. Thus, When the UN was on the offensive, psywar was much more

likely to succeed. During the Korean War UN forces often had to contend with

planning for psywar while on the defensive against KPA and CPVF troops. This was

not to say that psychological warfare did not work on the KPA and CPVF when they

were the side “winning” a battle, it just made psywar more difficult due to the enemy’s

likely mental state. Even during hasty and rapid retreats, UN bombs and artillery fire

still killed enemy troops; and could degrade and destroy Chinese and North Korean

combat power. Additionally, EUSAK psychological warfare operations had a limited

23
Dale Story, “Psywar in Korea,” Combat Forces Journal, 2 (July 1952), 25-27; and Hansen, “Psywar in
Korea,” 60.

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tactical impact at particular points and times, e.g. when enemy troops were surrounded

or when the UN was on the offensive but the overall war was going poorly.

Even as early as the first week of July 1950 when it appeared that the Allied

forces might be driven off the peninsula, FEC dropped leaflets to encourage the

defections of KPA troops. J. Woodall Greene’s team argued that despite the

overwhelming North Korean advance, U.S. and ROK forces were winning individual

battles and North Korean soldiers in those locations might prove responsive to surrender

appeals.24 Indeed, Roy Appleman has suggested the same in South to the Naktong,

North to the Yalu.25 While during the first two months of the war U.N. forces had only

captured about 3,400 prisoners, morale in the North Korean Army may have been at a

low point. Despite their advance on the South, the loss of so many troops meant that

only about 30% of the original KPA troops remained in the divisions. Many

replacements were South Koreans, impressed into the KPA, who had no desire to fight

for the North.

During the second week of July 1950, FEC dropped the first edition of the

“Parachute News,” later renamed the “Free World Weekly Digest,”a 5x7 newssheet

designed to give the straight facts to the KPA and later CPVF troops. PWB FEC hoped

the newssheet would sow dissent between the troops and their leaders on a variety of

issues and begin the process of establishing UN credibility and degrading enemy

morale. Similarly, FEC prepared divisive propaganda campaigns following Chinese

24
Hansen, “Psywar in Korea,” 8-9.
25
Appleman, South to the Naktong, North to the Yalu, 546.

105
entry into the war in the fall of 1950. In particular, FEC sought to exploit the fact that a

large percentage of the Chinese People’s Volunteer Forces – some reports put the

number at 80% - were not volunteers at all, but former Nationalist Chinese and others

conscripted into the army and had quickly become disenchanted with Communism.

FEC also developed leaflets designed to exploit information gleaned from intelligence

reports. These reports indicated friction between the Chinese military and those

identified as Manchurian-born Koreans, who were in the service of the CPVF as

interpreters; as well as with the South Koreans who had been conscripted into the CPVF

and KPA.26 FEC developed divisive propaganda and sought to create antagonism

between not only Koreans and Chinese, but between Chinese and Russians, and the

Korean people and leadership on both sides of the 38th parallel.

During the period of the North Korean offensive from June through September

1950, neither Washington nor FEC and EUSAK concerned themselves with the conduct

or the effectiveness of tactical psychological warfare operations. Likewise, the “quality”

of leaflets was a secondary concern and a great number of early leaflets had simply

been retranslated versions of World War II surrender and morale leaflets used against

the Japanese.27 Even the staunchest propaganda proponents understood that a

meaningful evaluation would have to wait until the military situation changed in favor

of the UN forces. However, even in periods as bleak as August 1950 FEC received

26
Rauh, “Psychological Warfare;” and GHQ FEC, “Psychological Warfare Operations, 20-26 September,
1950.”
27
Chief of Military History, History of Department of the Army Activitiest, 4.

106
some indications, through interrogations and other field reports, that the psywar safe

conduct passes and promises of good conduct had a notable impact on enemy troops.28

For the most part the FEC psywar shop simply determined the effectiveness of their

operations by determining how many leaflets could be produced and disseminated – the

more the better. While that was certainly indicative of the ability of the psywar division

at Far East Command to quickly stand up a working psychological warfare

organization, it had little, if any, bearing on the effectiveness of these missions on their

target audience.

As the U.S. forces counterattacked after the Inchon landings and Pusan breakout

of September 1950, a number of observations began to filter in as to the impact tactical

psywar had on enemy forces. Information provided from FEC to Washington in

September revealed that the surrender appeal leaflets in the wake of the Inchon landings

had contributed to the “mounting demoralization of the troops.” Prisoner of war

interrogations indicated that more leaflets were reaching greater numbers of enemy

troops, EUSAK reported considerable success following leaflet drops on enemy front

lines and forwarded interrogation reports noting that one KPA soldier indicated that

“fifty per cent of the men in his unit wanted to surrender when they saw UN leaflets,”29

During the week and a half following the landings at Inchon over a dozen B-29 aircraft

dropped surrender leaflets on the KPA. While some FEAF operations officers though

28
CINCFE Tokyo Japan, “Urgent Message, WAR 8171,” (11 August 1950); RG 319, Army Operations,
1950-51, P&O 091.412, NACP; and CINCFE Tokyo Japan, “Summary of Psychological Warfare
Operations 16-22 August,” (26 August 1950); RG 319, Army Operations, 1950-51, P&O 091.412, NACP
29
Rauh, “Psychological Warfare,” no page number.

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the diversion of strategic bombers to these leaflet missions was “excessive,” FEAF

intelligence believed the operations were “highly profitable.”30 On September 27 for

example, 104 KPA troops surrendered to X Corps units and each man carried a “safe

conduct pass” that had previously been dropped by the B-29’s.

Several field reports also indicated that General Macarthur’s signature and

personal guarantee of good treatment on the safe-conduct passes convinced many that

surrender was a preferable option. In some instances UN forces captured groups as

large as 50 prisoners, all of whom carried surrender leaflets. Some reports in September

indicated that up to 80% of those captured carried the safe conduct passes, and nearly

all prisoners captured had at least heard of the leaflets. 31 Other reports, validated by

prisoner of war interrogations, gave lower figures, and indicated that only about 25 –

40% of captured personnel had seen leaflets. This did not necessarily mean that the

leaflets did not work. It simply indicated that some soldiers had not seen them and may

have surrendered for other reasons. Indeed, during interrogations of about 2700

captured North Korean prisoners between the middle of September and the end of

November1950, approximately 40% of the prisoners stated that they had surrendered

30
See Robert Frank Futrell, The United States Air Force in Korea, 1950-1953, rev. ed. (Washington DC:
Office of Air Force History, 1983), 167.
31
Indeed, FEC reported that in once instance, five soldiers surrendered with Safe Conduct Passes and
stated that six more men in their group would have surrendered if they had passes. The leaflet actually
stated that it was not necessary to have a pass to surrender but these mean could not read and therefore
only pass holders had decided to surrender. GHQ FEC, “Psychological Warfare Operations, 20-26
September, 1950;” and Pettee, U.S. Psywar Operations, 41.

108
primarily because of “battlefield conditions;” only about a third surrendered because of

“psywar” 32

Assessments conducted in early 1951 suggested that particular themes worked

best to overcome the fear of trying to surrender and perhaps being killed by KPA

officers, NCO’s or U.S. troops. A survey of 768 KPA and 238 CPVF POW’s ranked

the U.S. psywar themes in order of effectiveness as: 1) Promise to be sent home after

the war, 2) How to surrender, 3) Good POW treatment, 4) MacArthur’s signature on

any leaflet, and 5) Preserve your life. Perhaps more significantly, this early report

concluded that:

In both routed and going armies those troops who saw leaflets revealed a
markedly greater tendency to surrender that those who did not…Among those
who saw leaflets there were four surrenders for every five captures. Among
those who had not seen leaflets (one-half of the sample) the captives
outnumbered surrenderees by two and one-half to one.33

While FEC did not, at this time, seek to distinguish between the efficiency of the

leaflets versus the effect of the general KPA retreat, the psywar operators did note other

indications of psywar effectiveness. In particular, intelligence reporting indicated that

the KPA leadership had instituted psywar countermeasures. Threats of punishments for

anyone caught reading a leaflet were an indication that the North Koreans thought their

troops might now have a propensity to take the actions recommended by the leaflets.34

32
Pettee notes that between 11 September 1950 and 21 November 1950, 904 out of 2728 prisoners of war
had reported “psywar” as the reason for their surrender. See Pettee, U.S. Psywar Operations, 42.
33
Operations Research Office, “An Evaluation of Psywar Influence on North Korean Troops,”
(Baltimore: Operations Research Office, 23 July 1951), as cited in Sandler, Cease Resistance, 245.
34
Military Intelligence Section, GHQ FEC, “Psychological Warfare Operations, 11 Sep 50;” RG 319,
Army Operations, 1950-51, P&O 091.412, NACP

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KPA leadership had not only instructed soldiers to ignore the leaflets, but also ordered

KPA officers and non-commissioned officers to threaten soldiers with death if they

were caught reading them. Additionally, the KPA assigned North Korean troops to

guard South Koreans who had been impressed into the North Korean Army as they

would be more likely to look for easy ways to surrender to UN forces. 35 FEC in

anticipation of these countermeasures made clear that one need not possess a leaflet in

order to surrender. It was clear that the KPA and CPVF took U.S. psywar seriously

although the KPA threats seem to have had only limited success in preventing

defections. In one instance a squad leader simply read the leaflet to his troops and then

led them in to surrender. Similarly, a platoon leader surrendered along with several

members of his platoon after discussing the leaflets and convincing them of the veracity

of its claims. In another situation an acting company executive officer collected

surrender leaflets from his men and then brought 25 of his soldiers in to surrender.

Eighty others from the same company followed shortly thereafter. 36

It appeared in October 1950 that the tactical psychological warfare campaign

might soon be replaced by “consolidation propaganda” and Civil Information and

Education programs for use in an occupied North Korea. However, the ensuing Chinese

intervention produced changes in the outlook for combat propaganda programs. By

35
Eighth Army felt that the low percentage of enemy prisoners who were South Korean (about 10% by
October 1950) was due to this system. GHQ FEC, “Psychological Warfare Operations, 20-26 September,
1950.”
36
GHQ FEC, “Psychological Warfare Operations, 13-19 September, 1950.”

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early 1951 it was clear to many that despite some tactical successes with psywar, it was

necessary to take a comprehensive look at how tactical psywar was doing in Korea.

Building upon the original 1949 POWOW contract, the Army instructed the Operations

Research Office at Johns Hopkins University to conduct a study of both strategic and

tactical operations.

As it had with the development of strategic propaganda, the lack of cultural

expertise proved a particular problem for tactical propaganda as well.37 In the spring of

1951, psywar practitioner and China expert Paul Linebarger served as the principal

investigator for an Operations Research Office study entitled, “The Immediate

Improvement of Theater-Level Psychological Warfare in the Far East.”38 Linebarger

sharply criticized the evaluation of all tactical and strategic leaflet operations as the

FEC psywar staff tended to equate the “delivery” of a leaflet as synonymous with

receptivity by the target audience. Granted, saturating the area with leaflets made it

easy for North Korean and Chinese troops to easily and clandestinely pick up the

leaflets under the watchful eye of Political Officers, but the quantity of leaflets did not

correspond necessarily to the effectiveness of the messages. In particular, Linebarger

believed that the leaflets initially directed at Chinese troops did not speak to the Chinese

37
The importance of the cultural dimension of inducing the enemy to surrender is best illustrated by U.S.
psywar operations in the Pacific Theater during the Second World War. After initial unsuccessful
attempts at calling for Japanese troops to surrender the Army reformulated its message to the Japanese to
read, “I cease resistance,” which offered a way out for Japanese soldiers who believed surrender to be an
unacceptable proposition.
38
Paul M.A. Linebarger, Technical Memorandum ORO-T-11 (FEC), Immediate Improvement of Theater-
Level Psychological Warfare in the Far East, (Chevy Chase, MD: Operations Research Office, The
Johns Hopkins University, June 1951).

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culture. More importantly, he believed that the U.S. needed to look beyond the ability

of psywar to bring in “a few prisoners,” and should understand “how to make the

Chinese surrender, which would require tailoring the psychological impact of both

military and propaganda operations.”39 Linebarger argued that psychological warfare

could reach beyond the range of physical forms of warfare and this required an

understanding of the Chinese mind. As an advertising executive might put it, the

Chinese soldier was the customer and the customer’s marketing preferences should

determine the design of the leaflet. Linebarger recommended major changes to US

leaflets writing style and use of color. He recommended the introduction of pre-testing

panels and field tests in order gauge the receptivity of the Chinese soldiers to the

leaflets and make adjustments prior to their introduction on the battlefield.40 Further,

Linebarger recommended functional changes such as creating token size or plastic

leaflets that would help enemy troops to secure surrender passes and hide them from the

watchful eyes of officers and Communist Party officials.41

39
Linebarger, Improvement of Theater-Level Psychological Warfare, 3.
40
Linebarger also made the point that during the Yanan period (1936-1946) banknotes for circulation
within the guerilla area incorporated Latinized Chinese on one side and Chinese ideographs on the other
were viewed by the peasants to be “genuine” and not the unreliable all-Chinese money which was
suspect. Therefore, Linebarger also recommended Latinized Chinese be printed on some surrender
passes to encourage Chinese soldiers to view the surrender leaflet as particularly valuable. Ibid., 3-5.
41
In addition to physical changes to the leaflet, Linebarger recommended the “covert use of white
propaganda.” White propaganda is, by definition, overt – the source of the message is known and
message is usually straightforward and simple as is the case with most surrender leaflets. Linebarger
envisioned anti-morale leaflets and newssheets that purposefully contained simple grammatical errors, or
showing maps that demonstrated slight Chinese gains in battlefield territory in order to make the
Communist leadership feel that those leaflets should be circulated. While the Chinese political officers
would want to spread the news of UN illiteracy, vulgarity or Chinese superiority, the real message of the
leaflet would also be passed along to the frontline troops, many of whom would also read the messages
showing how many troops the UN had and the losses the Chinese had taken while attaining that territory.
112
 While psywar staff at EUSAK, FEC, and the Pentagon considered Linebarger’s

recommendations, a key obstacle to the conduct of tactical psychological warfare had

developed on the Korean peninsula. Unfortunately, it was not one the psywar personnel

could overcome by administrative fiat. Following General Ridgway’s counteroffensive

against the CPVF from January to April 1951, the Korean War entered a new and

significant phase from a psychological warfare perspective. Chinese offensives and UN

counteroffensives in early 1951 had resulted in pitched offensive and defensive actions

by each side. By July the Chinese had lost significant strength and a static war, roughly

along the 38th parallel, began to take shape. The defeat of The Fifth Chinese Offensive

(April-May, 1951) and the start of negotiations at Kaesong in July marked the end to

any large scale offensives by either side.42 Operations remained confined to a number

of limited-objective attacks, largely to gain more dominating terrain on the frontlines.

This did not translate into an overall reduction in intensity at all particular points in

time. In fact 1951-1953 saw pitched battles including the well-known actions at the

Punchbowl and Heartbreak Ridge. Gains for the UN over the summer of 1951

pressured the Chinese and North Koreans to return to the negotiating table in October

1951 where they stayed until the Armistice in July 1953. By the end of 1951 there

were still clashes, patrols and limited struggles for key positions and better ground but

While such tricks could not be used too frequently, the idea as that most Political Officers would be
clever enough to pass along the leaflet, but not “really clever” enough to suppress the full message. As
Linebarger wrote, “the communists would get the haw-haw but we would get the point across.” It is not
clear if any such leaflets were ever produced or disseminated by FEC. Ibid., 8.
42
Indeed during the Fifth Chinese Offensive UN forces took close to 17,000 prisoners, almost 80% of all
CPVF troops captured during the war. See Li, Millett, and Yu, Mao’s Generals Remember Korea, 22.

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large scale assaults had all but vanished. In its place a no-man’s land developed

between the opposing forces. While not necessarily affecting anti-morale programs, the

situation obviated any large-scale successes in surrender or desertion programs. As Col.

Kenneth Hansen, the FEC Chief of Psywar, noted, the stabilization across the front

following the start of armistice talks clearly cut down on the numbers of both Chinese

and Korean surrenders – making it “virtually impossible for either a Chinese or Korean

to surrender, however much he might wish to.”43 Ironically, at about the same time,

EUSAK started to direct almost all if its tactical leafleting towards encouraging

surrenders rather than on degrading enemy morale.

Despite the stalemate, some deserters made it across the lines and limited

engagements continued to produce small numbers of CPVF and KPA prisoners. By

November of 1951, General Van Fleet (EUSAK) had issued guidance to his Corps

commanders that limited offensive operations to those essential to maintain “present

positions,” or “regain key terrain lost to enemy assault.” Additionally, Van Fleet

instructed that “every effort will be made to prevent unnecessary casualties.”44 This

indeed provided psywar with an opportunity to play a significant role as there were no

restrictions on the use of this non-lethal weapon. UN tactical psywar leaflets and

loudspeaker broadcasts continued to play on the soldier’s likelihood of being killed on

the front lines; failed promises of artillery support, and frustrations with “human sea”

43
Hansen, “Psywar in Korea,” 61.
44
Lynn Montross, H.D. Kuokka, and N.W. Hicks, The East-Central Front, vol. 4 of U.S. Marine
Operations in Korea, 1950-1953 (Washington: Headquarter, U.S. Marine Corps, 1954), 222.

114
tactics, and “obviously false” propaganda regarding the progress of the war.45

Operation Heartache, launched in the middle of 1952, sought to lower morale and

combat effectiveness by increasing the Chinese soldier’s anxiety over loved ones at

home. Loudspeaker broadcasts featured “letters from mom” and music from home.

The approach was systematic. First programs sought to build up a listening audience by

playing news and music. Once the nostalgia had settled in the “good treatment” and

“surrender so you can live for your families” themes were woven into the broadcasts.46

Although there are no specific records on the effectiveness of Operation Heartache, the

broadcasts did produce the desired affect on ROK soldiers who had not been informed

as to “why” these broadcasts were taking place. In some cases ROK officers “broke

down in tears over some loudspeaker broadcasts designed to induce nostalgia, thoughts

of home, and worry about conditions at home.”47

Prisoner of war interrogations indicated that enemy soldiers still listened to

loudspeaker broadcasts, sought out UN leaflets and due to the combat conditions looked

for opportunities to desert or surrender. Interrogations provided intelligence information

regarding overall conditions as well as specific morale and fatigue levels in specific

units. In general, intelligence indicated that the CPFV morale was low because of battle

fatigue, inadequate provisions and heavy UN bombardments. As a result, many troops

45
GHQ FEC, “Psychological Warfare Operations, 30 May through 5 June 1951” (8 June 1951);
Geographic File (Korea), 091.412 (Psychological Warfare), USACMH, 8.
46
Mossman, “EUSAK Combat Propaganda Operations, 1: 77-79.
47
As Mossman notes, “Proper indoctrination followed to prevent the recurrence” of such incidents. B.C.
Mossman, “EUSAK Combat Propaganda Operations,” 1: 94 and 2: 18.

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“intended to desert,” or had “discussed desertion” with others in the detachment, and

“would desert if they had an opportunity.” 48 While interrogations frequently revealed

that prisoners had “heard” loudspeaker broadcasts or “believed” the leaflets, they did

not clearly indicate that troops were influenced by leaflets more than by the poor

conditions on the front line. Still, the leaflets could have had an important effect in

prompting soldiers to make a specific behavior change such as surrendering to UN

forces. As one interrogation report noted,

A rifleman and one other soldier from a guard battalion of the 65th CCF Army
(Corps) deserted and surrendered on 24 May following an engagement in
which their unit suffered heavy losses. The prisoner said that morale was very
low among a majority of the men in his company because of a lack of food,
long marches in the rain, and broken promises of artillery support. He said
that the UN artillery had a demoralizing effect on Communist troops. He had
heard UN loudspeaker broadcasts on the theme of material superiority and had
seen UN leaflets, and said that he surrendered because he believed the
promises contained in the UN [good treatment] leaflets.”49

Over time the Chinese became more systematic in their attempts to counter the effects

of UN leaflet operations. The CPVF increased its counterpropaganda efforts and troop

indoctrination sessions. CPVF leadership issued strict orders that anyone who picked up

the leaflets would be “punished or tortured” and rumors circulated that those caught

with UN propaganda materials had been executed immediately.50 Interrogation reports

48
GHQ FEC, “Psychological Warfare Operations, 30 May through 5 June 1951,” 4 -5.
49
Ibid.
50
Rauh, “Psychological Warfare,” 3-4.

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indicated that the counterpropaganda lectures and increased security had caused many

troops to hesitate to surrender, even after having read UN leaflets. 51

Following the build-up in 1950-1951, FEC and EUSAK psywar programs

undertook large-scale, established and systematic missions, though not without

problems. The continued absence of cultural experts still led to propaganda that was

written at too high a literacy level for most CPVF soldiers and technical problems with

airborne loudspeakers still prevented their regular use on the battlefield. 52 Perhaps

most importantly, in the absence of large numbers of enemy prisoners surrendering, the

FEC and EUSAK psywar staffs sought additional “tangible” means for determining if

their operations were having an effect on the battlefield. While the relatively stable

combat situation implied that eroding morale over the long term might have been more

effective than seeking surrenders and desertions, it was nearly impossible to provide

quantitative information about the degradation of enemy morale.

51
GHQ FEC, “Psychological Warfare Operations, 30 May through 5 June 1951,” 5-6.
52
Ponturo, Psywar Operations at Lower Echelons, 19

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 CHAPTER 5

ACCEPTING AND SELLING PSYWAR

In the absence of “tangible” indicators of success such as increasingly large

numbers of prisoners, FEC and EUSAK psywar staffs reverted back to the system of

determining effectiveness by counting the number of leaflets produced and distributed.

An evaluation of EUSAK psywar operations conducted in late 1952 by Captain Herbert

Avedon, a Signal Corps officer with psywar experience who would later serve in the

Office of the Chief of Psychological Warfare, determined that some of the same

problems with psywar in 1951 had not been solved over a year later. In particular,

Avedon noted a near obsession with the production of leaflets. EUSAK and FEC had

disseminated about one billion leaflets in 1951 and almost the same number by

November 1952 when Avedon wrote his report. As one 1st RB&L member noted, the

FEC PWB goal in 1952 seemed simply to drop fourteen million leaflets a week for “no

other reason than to bring the year’s total to one billion.” 1 While Avedon felt that most

CPVF and remaining KPA soldiers had seen leaflets, intelligence and interrogation

1
Herbert Avedon, “Psywar Commentary Number 1” (14 November 1952), USASOC Archives.

118
reports had convinced him that part of the target group had been hit with too many

leaflets while others had been hit with too few. As Avedon wrote, “ enemy troops are

either walking about in piles of leaflets up to their ankles or the billions of leaflets being

dropped are scattered over the Korean hills forever beyond the range of their targets’

eyes.”2

Technical difficulties, shortages of appropriately experienced personnel, and the

delayed arrival of the tactical and strategic field units hampered but did not preclude the

development of an extensive psychological warfare campaign on the battlefield. They

did, however, reduce the effectiveness of UN psywar efforts and exacerbated the

reluctance of a disbelieving military to accept psychological warfare as a legitimate and

useful weapon. While the value of psychological warfare as a strategic weapon had

been accepted by the diplomats in Washington, the military leadership (largely Army)

in the Far East was skeptical. Essentially, psywar proponents had to convince combat

commanders that psywar could be successful despite the lack of immediately

observable effects. In other words, surrender operations offered immediate observable

evidence of success but morale operations required commanders to accept their

effectiveness as an article of faith.

The leaders of Far East Command and EUSAK generally accepted that

psychological warfare had a useful role to play as part of U.S. military efforts on the

Korean peninsula and most senior civilian officials at the Pentagon were favorably

inclined towards the propaganda weapon. General Matthew Ridgway, General Mark
2
Avedon felt so strongly about this he reiterated this on two separate pages, Avedon, “Psywar
Commentary,” 6 and 8.

119
Clark, and General James Van Fleet gave relatively consistent support to psychological

warfare during the Korean War. By the summer of 1951 psywar programs had

developed to the point where Ridgway, then the FEC commander, thought them worth

mentioning to Secretary of the Army Frank Pace. Writing in August 1951, Ridgway

noted that he felt psywar had “been most effective” and that its scope and efficiency

continued to increase. In fact, Ridgway felt the tactical campaign had particularly had

an impact and looked forward to similar improvements on the strategic level.3 Secretary

of the Army Pace agreed, and argued that the weapon was one of the most effective

means of fighting Communism.4 Pace stated in his Annual Report that psychological

warfare had proven very effective in Korea and had done much to degrade enemy

morale and civilian support for the North Korean and Chinese Communist Forces.

While the report offered no evidence of operations or indicators of metrics showing a

decrease in enemy morale, the report did state that psywar had influenced about a third

of the CPVF and KPA troops who had surrendered.5 The Semiannual Report issued a

year later reiterated the successes of psychological warfare operations in Korea noting

that these operations firmly established psywar as a “respected member of the Army’s

family of weapons.”6 Secretary of Defense Robert A. Lovett expressed a similar faith

in psywar efforts. In writing to his service secretaries in 1952 he said he was aware
3
“Cable from General Ridgway,” (23 August 1951).
4
“Cable from General Ridgway,” (23 August 1951).
5
DoD, Semiannual Report (1951), 92-3.
6
Department of Defense, Semiannual Report of the Secretary of Defense and the Semiannual Reports of
the Secretary of the Army, Secretary of the Navy, Secretary of the Air Force, January 1 to June 30, 1952
(Washington DC: US Government Printing Office, 1952), 92.

120
that “psychological warfare activities in recent Korean operations are paying off

appreciably” and further instructed the Army and Navy to plan and program for

“aggressive psychological operations in Korea.”7

Army staff officers at the Pentagon and field personnel at the Corps level and

below, however, frequently viewed psywar activities largely as public relations

exercises and marginally useful as direct support to combat operations. They did

acknowledge that there was some value in putting out the truth about alleged atrocities

and in bolstering friendly morale. The non-lethal struggle for men’s minds put

psychological warfare immediately at odds with the instincts of combat commanders

trained to focus as much lethal firepower downrange as possible and, was thus, as one

combat leader put it, “at variance with normal military methods.”8 Many Army officers

continued to doubt the ability of strategic or tactical psychological warfare to have any

impact on enemy morale. One of the very few signs that psychological was working

were those surrenders that might have been the result of tactical psychological warfare

operations. Still, even these operations met resistance from many combat commanders

who felt that psywar teams should be used for traffic control and troop information.

They maintained that the most important psychological impact would result from the

physical destruction caused by artillery, mortars, and machine-guns.

Gauging the success of psychological warfare proved a difficult proposition as

even well coordinated and well-run operations did not always result in tangible

7
Sandler, Cease Resistance, 251.
8
Cardell, “The Relationship of Psychological Warfare to Intelligence Operations,” 13.

121
indications of success. Take for example a March 1953 tactical psywar mission where

EUSAK elements used well coordinated artillery fire and loudspeakers to encourage

KPA soldiers to surrender or defect:

The action began at 100 hours with a few rounds of tank fire and the broadcast
announcement of a program of destruction; at 1025 [hours] 50 rounds of
90mm shell were fired into the enemy position, and the first broadcast
repeated; at 1125 the broadcast was again repeated; at 1225 more rounds were
fired; at 1330 another broadcast was made, announcing “lunch hour,”
describing the Korean menu, and inviting enemy Koreans to “attend;” this
was followed by 5 more rounds of 90mm fire at 1400 and a rebroadcast of the
menu at 1410; several similar broadcasts, with interspersed tank fire, were
made before an after the “supper hour,” and at 2000 a good-night message was
broadcast with a promise of return; finally 100 last rounds were fired between
0200 and 0400 and at 0500 a successful infantry raid was made.9

Unfortunately, there were no indications that this operation resulted in any surrenders

but neither was there any evidence that the loudspeaker and artillery actions had not

decreased KPA morale or convinced KPA soldiers to surrender at the next opportunity –

effects that would have been unobservable in the immediate period. Similar ambiguity

could exist in strategic operations. In the spring of 1953 FEC decided to confuse the

Chinese as to UNC tactical intentions through a series of mass leaflet drops in North

Korea by carrier based aircraft. As leaflet drops had often been precursors of assaults

and attacks, the intent was to create the impression that UNC might be contemplating

initiation of offensive operations in areas well above the 38th Parallel. British and

American carrier based aircraft dropped leaflets on several targets along the east North

Korean coast in early March.10 Unfortunately, the assessments of effectiveness could

9
Ponturo, Psywar Operations at Lower Echelons, 67.
10
Not only were these the first Korean War leaflet missions by the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps but
was perhaps the only “combined” psywar operation of the war as the British carrier H.M.S. Glory
122
prove little other than the “practicality of using high-performance aircraft, particularly

jet planes, in leaflet drops.” Still, the idea that the deception could work was itself a

tacit recognition that a psychological warfare operation could force the enemy to make

a behavior change – in this case, prepare for a U.S. assault even though one was not

planned.

While the British General Sir Gerald Templar was busy winning the “hearts and

minds” of communist insurgents in Malaya, U.S. and ROK forces contended with

communist guerillas in South Korea. Templar successfully incorporated psywar into his

counterinsurgency campaign; UN psywar efforts against the communist guerilla efforts,

however, proved ambiguous at best. 11 The communist guerilla campaign in South

Korea began two years prior to the North Korean crossing of the 38th parallel. Neither

the South Koreans nor the U.S. led Korean Military Advisory Group (KMAG)

established a concentrated anti-guerilla psywar campaign until long after the start of the

conventional war. Some psywar activities after the June 1950 invasion supported

programs to win civilian “hearts and minds,” such as those carried out by UN Civil

launched leaflet dropping aircraft in support of this mission. US Army Forces Far East (AFFE) Command
Report, March, 1953, K712.OIF in the U.S. Air Force Collection, Air Force Historical Research Agency
(AFHRA), Maxwell, AFB; and Hansen, “Psywar in Korea,” 226-228.
11
Interestingly, in late September 1952 General Sir Gerald Templar requested the loan of a U.S. C-47
equipped with a loudspeaker and crew for a two week operational period and about the same time the
Pentagon approved a request Military Assistance Advisory Group in Saigon requested the use the aircraft
for operations in Indochina. While U.S. personnel accompanied the aircraft in both instances, the
Pentagon prohibited American personnel from participating in the operation of the C-47 during the actual
mission and ordered the removal of the US markings from the exterior of the aircraft. Cable from JCS
Washington to CINCFE Tokyo Japan (30 October 1952), RG 218, Central Decimal File, 1951-1953;
and JSPD, DoD Contributions to the PSB Report (1953), 715.

123
Assistance Command Korea (UNCACK).12 From December 1951 to February 1952,

psywar elements actively supported Operation Ratkiller, an ROK led counterinsurgency

effort. During this time FEC and EUSAK psywar elements dropped about 12 million

leaflets, directed 9 aerial loudspeaker missions, and conducted almost 300 hours of

ground loudspeaker operations in an attempt to break the morale of guerilla forces and

convince Korean citizens to stop cooperating with the guerilla forces.13 The official

history of EUSAK Combat Propaganda Operations by Billy Mossman states that

Ratkiller yielded about 9600 prisoners, some 1400-1700 of whom appeared to have

surrendered as a result of the psywar programs. On closer examination it appears as

though the Mossman assessment was too optimistic. As historian Andrew Birtle has

pointed out in his recent review of operation Ratkiller, the records of the Department of

the Army, the KMAG, and EUSAK intelligence summaries indicated that the efforts

produced only about 300 defectors. 14 It remained unclear to what degree the psywar

efforts had convinced local civilians to reduce their support for guerilla activities. In

any event, the Chief of Psychological Warfare’s comments correspond more closely

12
During the Korean War, UNCACK provided food and clothing to millions of refugees, provided health
care and inoculations to Korean citizens, and restored water, sanitation and transportation infrastructures
throughout the peninsula. While few of these efforts were undertaken specifically to respond to the
guerilla campaign the programs served to stabilize areas under American military control in order to
reduce the possibility of civil unrest. See Andrew Birtle, “Korean Extract, Chapter II, The
Counterinsurgency Experience, 1945-1954,” unpublished draft manuscript, USACMH, June 1998, 30-32.
13
Mossman, “EUSAK Combat Propaganda Operations,” 1: 77-79.
14
Andrew Birtle notes in his study that these numbers proved consistent with figures from other
counterguerilla efforts such as those conducted by the USAF in 1952. See Birtle, “Korean Extract,” 37.

124
with lower estimates on the number of defectors with General McClure noting in a 1953

study that the psywar support to Ratkiller had clearly proven unsatisfactory.15

The 1949 version of Field Manual 33-5, “Psychological Warfare in Combat

Operations,” alluded to the problem of observable effects noting that while

psychological warfare could serve not just to secure deserters and lower enemy morale

but to even more broadly, “minimize expenditure of life and destruction of property.” 16

As Alfred H. Paddock has pointed out in his history of the development of

psychological and unconventional warfare, "Psychological warfare does help save lives

on both counts. On the count of the American soldier who isn't going to be killed trying

to dig the enemy soldier out of his foxhole or bunker, and on the other count, the enemy

soldier whose life is saved.”17 Indeed, the Marine Corps looked favorably upon the use

of psywar in Korea in exactly this light. In October, 1952, the 1st Marine Division

General Order #87 instructed commanders that psywar would be conducted and “all

possible cooperation” would be provided to psywar personnel in helping to effectively

employ psywar:

The effectiveness of psychological warfare has been unquestionably

established by notable examples of successful operations in World War II and
the present conflict. Loudspeaker broadcasts and pamphlets can be effectively
used to advise enemy troops of the hopelessness of their situation and to build
up an attitude favorable to immediate or future surrender. Further, the impact
of messages of this type creates a great deal of doubt in the mind of the enemy

15
Office of the Chief of Psychological Warfare (OCPW) report (10 November 1953) as cited in Birtle,
37.
16
Captain Herbert Avedon, “Psywar Operational Deficiencies Noted in Korea – A Study,” 10 August
1953, Korean War Miscellaneous Collection, “Special Operations,” U.S. Army Military History Institute
(USAMHI), 2.
17
Paddock, Special Warfare, 102.

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 and reduces his will to fight resulting in savings of our own personnel and
material.18

Psywar proponents were often “unrelenting” in their quest to demonstrate that “psywar

could do everything,” even when propaganda was not the appropriate tool for the job.

As Captain Herbert Avedon, an avid but objective proponent of psywar argued, there

were simply some units that “should be shot up or bombed, not have paper dropped on

them.”19 Avedon felt the propensity to campaign too strongly for the weapon was an

inherent weakness in psywar and, in fact, may have caused some commanders,

especially in the field, to disregard any claims made by psywar personnel as to the value

of the weapon. Reflective of this view was the reaction of Major General Edwin L.

Sibert, the Chief of Staff of Army Forces Far East and former G-2 for General Omar

Bradley at the Battle of the Bulge. At first, Sibert refused to believe psywar estimates.

When he asked to see information on the proportion of CPVF and KPA prisoners who

had surrendered because of psywar pressures Sibert reacted angrily.

I’ll never believe any such proportion of Chinese and Koreans surrendered
because of psychological warfare. That’s the trouble with you psychological
warfare people, always bragging. Get me the G-2’s figures on this – I’ll
believe G-2! “These are G-2’s figures,” the psychological warfare person told
him. “Ours are a little higher and we don’t believe them.”20

18
Division General Order Number 87, 20 October 1952, as quoted in Ponturo, Psywar Operations at
Lower Echelons, 146, emphasis added.
19
Avedon, “Psywar Operational Deficiencies,” 2. cf., U.S. soldiers fighting in Iraq in 2004; “It's hard for
us to want to win their hearts and minds while they're shooting at us, if that makes any sense.” Sgt Mark
Davis, Arkansas National Guard, CNN’s Newsnight with Aaron Brown, June 23rd, 2004.
20
Hansen, “Psywar in Korea,” 184.

126
By 1953 even Sibert had kind words for psywar, but the skepticism and distrust that

some officers continued to have for psywar illustrated the internal battle that psywar

proponents had to wage during the Korean conflict. As the chief of FEC psywar

reminded readers a few years after the war, “Ignorance of the oldest surviving arm of

the world’s second oldest profession [had] begotten fear of it.”21

More so than any other single factor, the success or failure of psychological

warfare operations during the Korean War depended on the attitude of commanders

towards propaganda as a weapon of war. Most combat commanders had a negative

predisposition to psywar and lacked experience in propaganda operations, Therefore,

psychological warfare personnel’s first mission was to persuade the American forces

which they supported that psywar had potential value on the battlefield. Just as C.D.

Jackson noted of PWB / SHAEF during World War II, “selling” psywar became a full-

time mission during the Korean War.22 At least one Operations Research Office report

based psywar success or failure entirely upon “how good a selling job is done to those

units.”23 As another psywar proponent proposed, the failure to convince the combat

commander of psywar’s utility could, in turn, guarantee its failure:

Unless the Psywar Chief is able to sell Psywar to the extent that the Army
Commander is willing to “plug” it occasionally to his entire staff and to his
Corps Commanders, Psywar will have a rough time indeed in getting the
maximum results. The skeptical question, “yes, but are you really ding any

21
Hansen, “Psywar in Korea,” 3.
22
See for example the observations of Captain Jay V. Russell, in his student paper while at the Advanced
Infantry Officers Course in 1952. Captain Jay V. Russell, “Psychological Warfare Operations During the
Attack,” Student Monograph, Advanced Infantry Officers Course, Ft. Benning, Georgia, Class #2, 1952-
1953, USASOC Archives.
23
Pettee, U.S. Psywar Operations, 37.

127
 good?” will constantly plague the Psywar Chief unless the Army Commander
himself is sold to the extent that he offers at least occasional words of praise as
to Psywar results which have been proven to his satisfaction.

While the best way to sell psywar at the White House, Pentagon, and Foggy Bottom had

simply proven to provide a thorough understanding of the weapon’s capabilities to a

few top members, selling psywar in Korea involved much more than convincing the

Commanding General of Far East Command or even U.S. Eighth Army.24 For the most

part, the senior military leadership was already convinced, or at least willing to devote

enough resources to the activity to keep General McClure and his psywar proponents

from raising too much noise at the Pentagon. Selling psywar to the corps, division, and

regimental leaders, not to mention the soldiers on the front line, however, required

battling long-held predispositions against the weapon and convincing soldiers of

psywar’s value despite the lack of tangible evidence.25 Selling psywar further included

efforts to indoctrinate combat commanders and regular combat arms soldiers on the

ground. In publications such as Military Review, Combat Forces Journal and the Army

24
Memorandum for the Consultants, Subject: “Comments and Recommendations RE Psychological
Warfare in FECOM,” 13 November, 1950, RG 59 (General Records of the Department of State); Records
Related to International Information Activities, 1938-1953; Lot 53 D47, Psychological Strategy Board.
25
Army Forces Far East comments on one ORO assessment agreed that the “probable reason that Corps
and Divisions did not take a more active part in the psywar program was a lack of interest in and
knowledge of psywar, its uses, capabilities and limitations of media, on the part of Corps and division
staff officers.” See US Army Forces Far East Memo, “Evaluation of Technical Memorandum ORO-T-50
(FEC), 30 June 1954, p.3. Unnumbered enclosure to Ponturo, Psywar Operations at Lower Echelons.

128
Information Digest the psywar practitioners wrote articles designed to link

psychological warfare to readily understandable military concepts such as mass,

maneuver, and surprise. 26

Within the Korean theater of operations similar articles in Armed Forces Talk,

and Officer’s Call extolled the value of psywar to ensure that the average soldier

understood how psychological warfare could make people surrender – an important

goal insofar as surrender was one of the few immediately visible indicators of psywar

impact. Articles such as “Meet Psychological Warfare,” or “Bullets or Words?”

explained what psychological warfare was, demonstrated where it had been used

successfully in the past, and argued how it might benefit the combat arms officer in a

number of combat situations. Psywar also remained a frequent, albeit forced topic of

discussion in the troop information and education sessions for U.S. Army officers (one

per month) and enlisted (one per week).27 Psywar personal conducted a “tactical”

campaign on Army units assigned in the Korean theater in order to help persuade them

to integrate loudspeaker and leaflet operations into their combat organizations. While

this should have been done through the use of liaison officers, during the first year of

the war PWB FEC found it nearly “impossible” to provide enough liaison officers to the

combat units to help explain, promote, and conduct psychological warfare operations.

26
For example see Donald Hall, “Psychological Warfare Comes of Age,” Army Information Digest, 4
(September, 1949); idem., “Psychological Warfare Training,” 6 (January 1951); and idem., “Organization
for Combat Propaganda,” 6 (May 1951); as well as Martin Herz, “The Combat Leaflet – Weapon of
Persuasion,” Army Information Digest, 5 (June 1950); Story, “Psywar in Korea,” and U.S. Army, Army
Forces Far East, Eighth U.S. Army, Troop Information Bulletin No.1, “Psychological Warfare, The War
Against the Enemy Mind.”
27
Hansen, “Psywar in Korea,” 184.

129
PWB sought to remedy the situation by providing practical information on the

capabilities and possibilities offered by the use of propaganda on the battlefield. Taking

a page from the psywar playbooks of the world wars, PWB FEC distributed several

hundred pamphlets in August, 1950 entitled “Dissemination of Leaflets by Artillery” to

staffs at EUSAK, X Corps and various divisional and regimental staffs.28 PWB

followed up this publication with “Employment of Tactical Loudspeakers” and

“Dissemination of Leaflets by Aircraft.” Psywar proponents had a more difficult time,

however, in convincing the average foot soldier that the most powerful psychological

weapon was not the “cold flashing steel of a bayonet”29 Artillery units in particular were

loath to give up firing

high-explosive rounds for “confetti,” and elements dug-in along the front lines did not

always appreciate that loudspeaker broadcasts often brought enemy fire down on their

positions.

The competition between artillery units and EUSAK psywar elements for

artillery shells was a perpetual problem for the duration of the war. Artillery personnel,

understandably, had greater faith in their 105mm rounds than “morale busting”

propaganda leaflets. This bias mirrored views held by the artillery community during

World War II when countless batteries resisted calls to halt their high-explosive

28
Pettee, U.S. Psywar Operations, 37.
29
“War without Weapons,” n.d, Pacific Stars and Stripes, photocopy in USASOC Archives. A comment
by a former junior officer from the Korean War illustrates the lack of familiarity with the psywar weapon:
“I was part of the problem… I did not understand what psychological operations could do.” Remarks by
Brigadier General (Ret.) Roy Flint on “Minds then Hearts,” Fifth Annual New Faces Conference,
Triangle Institute for Security Studies, Duke University, September 10, 2004.

130
barrages so that they could instead fire surrender leaflets at German positions. As one

artillery colonel reflected while attending the Army War College in 1951, his troops

simply did not believe that a weapon might be valuable if it was not decisive or have an

immediate impact:

Fifth Army was preparing to break the Gustav line in the south in order to link
up with the forces at Anzio. Base ejection smoke shells were being conserved
for future operations. My artillery battalion was ordered to unload some of
these some shells and to fire leaflets in them at selected German targets. No
immediate results were apparent from this “attack.” The entire operation was
considered an extravagant waste of good ammunition by every cannoneer and
gunner in the outfit.30

Understandably, the logistical priority during the Korean War remained combat

ammunition; at certain times those shells designated for psywar were never unloaded

from the ships or delivered to the front lines. During the initial year of the war psywar

operations required a minimal 30-50 rounds of 105mm ammunition per week dedicated

to their use and competition for resources did not prove particularly problematic.31

Beginning in the spring of 1951 EUSAK psywar operations requested closer to1000

rounds of ammunition a week and by 1952 these figures had increased to about 2000

rounds a week! 32 Artillery officers for the most part did not like firing even a few paper

bullets a month, much less several thousand rounds a week. By 1952 it appeared as

30
Cardell, “The Relationship of Psychological Warfare to Intelligence Operations,” 13.
31
The established Eighth Army rate of supply per-howitzer-per-day for each of its 523 105mm howitzers
during this period was 30 rounds per-howitzer-per-day. That meant that psywar personnel were
requesting one howitzer’s worth of ammunition each day less than ½ of 1 percent of EUSAK’s artillery
capability. See Kelly Jordan, Building Combat Power: The Combat Effectiveness of the United States
Eighth Army in Korea, January-July 1951, unpublished M.A. Thesis, The Ohio State University, 1996,
70-73.
32
Hansen, “Psywar in Korea,” 198.

131
though the artillery community had begun its own psywar campaign and

unsubstantiated rumors circulated throughout EUSAK units that leaflet shells caused

excessive wear on artillery tubes, a ridiculous assertion that slowed down and, in some

instances, stopped leaflet missions until intervention by General McClure at the

Pentagon.33 Not until March 1953 did EUSAK finally remedy the quota situation

through a Letter of Instruction signed by Lieutenant General Maxwell Taylor, the

commanding general of EUSAK that allotted 9500 rounds per month for psywar

operations throughout the two US and two ROK Corps.34

Some infantry units were not just skeptical about psychological warfare, but

outright hostile. Most U.S. soldiers on the frontlines generally felt that Communist

psychological warfare directed at the Americans was a waste of paper. Some U.S.

troops did not express much more appreciation for U.S. propaganda efforts and

displayed frustration, if not hostility, towards the loudspeaker teams of the 1st L&L.35

For U.S. soldiers the leaflets from both sides made little more than good toilet paper.36

This was particularly evident during the period of the static war between mid-1951 and

the Armistice in 1953. For many front line troops, both US and Communist propaganda

were simply annoying and resulted in nothing more than lost sleep and concealed

33
McClure, “Visit to Far East Command,” 8. Leaflet shells were simply smoke shells with the
phosphorous filler removed.
34
Annex 11 (Psychological Warfare) to Letter of Instruction (LOI) #1, HQ EUSAK (27 March, 1953),
RG 407, Box 1477, EUSAK Command Reports, June, 1953.
35
As quoted in Rudy Tomedi, No Bugles No Drums: An Oral History of the Korean War, (New York:
John Wiley & Sons, 1994), 19, 55, 81.
36
See for example the comments of Alvin L. Alward and others in the 3rd Battalion, 23rd Infantry
Regiment. 2nd Infantry Division Korean War Surveys, U.S. Army Military History Institute, Carlisle, PA.

132
positions given away. At times, both Communist and American propaganda broadcasts

may even have attracted American gunfire. According to the commanding officer of the

5th Regimental Combat Team (24th Infantry Division), troops on the front lines detested

loudspeaker teams because “every time a team opens up, an artillery concentration

comes in.” While this was, ironically, one of the few reasons artillery units might put up

with psywar teams (loudspeakers drew enemy fire, which facilitated counter-battery

attacks), some infantry units simply would not allow loudspeakers to operate in their

areas. L&L teams thus bounced from unit to unit along the front lines until they could

find an officer or NCO willing to take them and protect them from the wrath of

American troops.37

Perhaps the most incredulous commentary on the contempt American soldiers

had for psywar operations comes from the letters of Corporal Jerry Rose, a Korean War

veteran and member of one of the loudspeaker platoons of the 1st L&L. 38 Writing

about 40 years after the end of the war, Rose described the conventional units feelings

toward the 1st Loudspeaker and Leaflet Company: “Never in the recorded history of

warfare, including that of the United States Army, has there ever been a unit that was

37
Letter from Mr. Jerry Rose to the Office of the Chief of Military History, April 10 1994, Rose Papers,
USASOC Archives. The use of psychological operations loudspeaker teams to draw enemy fire has
actually become a standard doctrinal technique and such counter-battery / psywar combined operations
were used very successfully by the USMC against Iraqi artillery units during the Persian Gulf War of
1991.
38
Jerry Rose served as a Corporal in the Loudspeaker Platoon of the 1st L and L. In a letter written to the
USASOC Historians Office on October 8 1994 Rose explained he was writing to the Army historians’
because “I was (and am) incensed about the way my country allowed this to become the “forgotten war”
not even including our operations in its official history.” Rose continued, “Hell, they’re going to build a
monument to the dogs of Vietnam…Even the film HEARTBREAK RIDGE was credited to the Marines!
And had nothing to do with the Army.” See Rose to Sandler, October 8, 1994 and Rose to OCMH April
10 1994, Rose Papers, USASOC Archives.

133
HATED by BOTH sides.” The loudspeaker platoon’s engendered great feelings among

both friend and foe:

It performed missions at night, and incredibly, in daylight as well, on an

almost daily basis – sometimes two in a 24 hour period and it invariably drew
fire...most of them a lot of fire. This did not sit well with our troops who were
counting points and hoping that a “live and let live” period would result in a
rotation home or a cease-fire. When we appeared, everyone headed for the
bunkers after giving us a heartfelt finger or drawing it across their throats. 39

On at least one mission, the CPVF machine gun and mortar fire traced Rose’s

loudspeaker team back to friendly lines, resulting in seven casualties among the infantry

unit entrenched nearby. As a result, in Rose’s words, “a sergeant pulled a .45 on us and

meant to kill us then and there. He meant it but there were too many witnesses.”40

Conversely, the Communists loathed the psywar teams, probably due to their

effectiveness; it was lost on the conventional U.S. soldiers that the CPVF offered a

$10,000 bounty for any captured psywar personnel and threatened to hang them as war

criminals if caught.41

While Rose’s observations might be a bit exaggerated and are certainly tainted

with a dose of personal bitterness, some of the contemporary analysis backs up the basis

for the Corporal’s claims. Still, analyses conducted during the war concluded that

hostility towards psywar was not “systemic” and that the anger of U.S. troops probably

39
Rose to OCMH, April 10, 1994, Rose Papers; and Rose to Sandler, May 25 1994, Rose Papers.

40
Similarly, Rose reported that in at least three of the divisions the broadcasts the loudspeaker units
“drew heavy, concentrated, and aimed fire from our own troops. It ranged from machine gun fire to
mortars mostly at night but a few times in broad daylight. How do I know it was ours? Ask any combat
veteran, if you can’t tell incoming from outgoing your dead.” Rose to Sandler, May 25 1994, Rose
Papers.
41
Rose to OCMH, April 10, 1994, Rose Papers.

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reflected a general level of frustration with the relative stalemate in 1952 and 1953.

Captain Herbert Avedon reported in 1952 that although an unfortunate consequence,

“no loudspeaker team [had] a record of enemy counterfires with every broadcast” and

that despite the amount of artillery brought down on friendly positions, combat units

tendency to joke with the L&L teams was “mixed with grudging respect” for the psywar

personnel.42

A lack of respect, or more likely the failure to understand the propaganda

weapon, could hamper the conduct of psychological warfare operations. Supported

combat units might fail to provide adequate intelligence, logistical, or operational

support to the psywar operatives; the psywar element might simply be pushed to the

side to allow combat units to conduct their own “independent” war against the CPVF

and KPA; or the psywar units might simply be set up to fail by their supported units.

Without adequate coordination of psywar and supported units, even those enemy troops

who chose to surrender might not make it into UN hands. Tactical propaganda

campaigns, particularly those designed to secure enemy prisoners required combat

soldiers on the front line to work hand-in-hand with psywar personnel. Deserting across

the front lines was a dangerous proposition for Korean and Chinese soldiers. In

addition to CPVF and KPA patrols looking for stragglers and deserters, the no man’s

land between the front lines contained dangers beyond the barbed wire and mine-fields.

Frequently, groups of Chinese prisoners would be scattered or killed by CPVF or UN

artillery fire before they could make it across the no-mans-land into safety or, albeit less

42
Avdeon, “Psywar Operational Deficiencies,” 20-22, emphasis added.

135
frequently, killed by UN troops who were not always inclined to take CPVF prisoners,

especially when they were caught wearing U.S. uniforms.43 As Brigadier General (later

General) William C. Westmoreland learned while commanding the 187th Regimental

Combat Team, even when enemy troops proved receptive to surrender appeals other

CPVF forces might open up on their own troops in order to prevent their desertion.

Westmoreland described the scene following a combined artillery barrage and

propaganda leaflet operation.

When the flame and thunder subsided and the smoke drifted off, the crest of
Sugar Loaf was one-third smaller. Three Chinese started down off the right
side of the hill and a trigger happy-tanker cut them down with his machine
gun. There’s always someone who doesn’t get the word. The CCF had it,
however. Before any more of their troops had a chance to experiment with
surrendering via the directed route, every artillery piece on the Chinese side
opened up on what was left of Sugar loaf, and to its front. The enemy platoon
was wiped out by fire from its own side.44

When the dangers on the Communist side of the battlefield combined with the tendency

on the UN side to “shoot first and ask questions later,” taking prisoners often proved a

difficult proposition:

One Communist intelligence officer who safely escaped from his own lines
and negotiated the mine fields of both sides was fired on by the first unit to
which he tried to give himself up. He raced across the front waving his hands
wildly, until firing became general and he was cut down. When his body was
pulled in, his notebook was found to be loaded with vital intelligence. But the
man himself, who might be presumed to know vastly more, was dead.45

43
See for example the experience of the 1st Cavalry Division in 1950, Pettee, U.S. Psywar Operations,
24; and Linebarger, Improvement of Theater-Level Psychological Warfare, 10
44
Hansen, “Psywar in Korea,” 64.
45
Ibid., 62.

136
While commanders and psywar personnel continually lectured troops on the importance

of permitting soldiers with their hands up or waving safe conduct passes to surrender,

the influx of new U.S. and Korean troops meant that there was always someone who

had not gotten the word:

The circulars and lectures did not touch the Koreans, who figured that the only
good communist soldier was a dead one. The [U.S.] replacement was usually
trigger-happy, and more often than not anxious to get his first “gook” and be a
veteran. If the gook had a safe-conduct pass in his dead hand, that was just too
bad.46

Units that resisted the concept and value of psychological warfare frequently failed to

integrate the psywar teams or staffs into their organizational structures, as they would

have with traditional battlefield systems such as artillery or intelligence. Working in

concert with the combat units was critical for successful psychological warfare

operations. The use of loudspeaker aircraft beginning in October 1951 required

particularly good coordination and had the potential to prove extremely effective as part

of a combined arms effort. The combination of fighter, bomber, and propaganda

aircraft could give the CPVF and KPA troops a clear choice between surrender and

death, particularly when used to broadcast surrender appeals to by-passed or surrounded

groups. While used infrequently during the war (there were only two such planes in the

entire theater,) loudspeaker aircraft could come up with spectacular results. In October

1950 for example, a C-47 loudspeaker plane escorted by observer and fighter aircraft

managed to capture close to 300 enemy troops on one run:

46
Ibid. The problem of taking prisoners under the confusing conditions of the battlefield was certainly not
unique to the Korean War. See Clayton Laurie, “The Ultimate Dilemma of Psychological Warfare in the
Pacific: Enemies Who Don’t Surrender and GI’s who don’t Take Prisoners,” War and Society, 14:1 (May
1996), 99-120

137
 The plane was working over the enemy lines and was therefore accompanied
by a T-6 and by four fighters. The T-6 saw two trucks on the road and with
two of the fighters made a pass over them, without firing. The loudspeaker
then told the trucks to turn around and proceed until they met UN forces who
could take them into custody. The trucks turned. About 300 enemy troops,
not previously observed, then came out of hiding and also proceeded
southward, and two trucks that had been camouflaged were uncovered and
also proceeded in the same direction. All were followed by the T-6 plan until
they were seen to be taken into custody by a UN unit.47

In addition, the psychological impact of a particular piece of propaganda required

timely and effective military action – the leaflet alone could not get the job done.

Psychological warfare might remind enemy troops of the deadly effects of UN weapons

even when the weapons were not firing:

Comrades. Soldiers of the NK (or CCF) Army! Attention! UN airplanes are

overhead prepared to strike your positions. They are loaded with rockets,
napalm and machine guns. UN artillery is sighting on you. At my command
they will bring you death. You have seen the effect of our napalm on your
fellow soldiers. You have seen your positions littered with the burned,
blackened, and shattered bodies of your buddies after our planes and artillery
come down on you. You have seen your buddies with their clothes and bodies
aflame from jellied gasoline. You have seen the mangled bodies blown limb
from limb by our shells. We have enough planes and artillery to drive you out
of your minds. Even if you are not hit directly your nose and ears will bleed,
your ear drums will be broken, your organs deranged and your minds will
cease do function… Act now, you have five minutes to come forward….five
minutes, five minutes…48

The effectiveness of propaganda operations depended largely on the timing of the

conventional arms effort: surrender leaflets offering safety and warm food might not

work well on a well-fed unit that had just successfully repulsed a UN attack. As the

47
Pettee, U.S. Psywar Operations, 25-26. A story about this operation also appeared in U.S. newspapers,
perhaps peddled by Eighth Army psywar personnel. See Charles Grutzner, “U.N. Voice Plane Garners
Captives,” New York Times, 26 October 1950, ProQuest Historical Newspapers, New York Times (1857-
Current file).
48
William E. Daugherty, ORO T-10 (FEC), Organization and Activities of Psywar Personnel in Lower
Echelons of Eighth Army, 24 January – 5 April 1951 (Chevy Chase, MD: Operations Research Office,
The Johns Hopkins University, May 1951), 44.

138
psychological warfare operators understood, favorable conditions might only appear for

a short period of time and required quick action and coordination with a variety of

elements in order to be exploited properly. This meant that psychological warfare

elements and staffs had to be in a position to quickly get the attention of the senior

leadership at division and corps levels. They also had to be able to contact the dozens of

supporting elements such as ordnance, aircrew, artillery batteries, and intelligence

personnel. Success required that psywar personnel obtain accurate and timely

intelligence on the enemy situation, rapid approval for their mission, and the necessary

resources to carry out the attack. Those units that believed in the propaganda mission

tended to support psywar requirements and integrate units and staffs into their regular

scheme of operations. Understandably, these units tended to have more frequent success

with psychological warfare that in turn reinforced their belief in the weapon. In those

units that neglected psywar or allowed it to operate independently of the regular

military command, psywar tended to interfere with conventional military operations.49

In short, those units that believed in psywar tended to have more success with its use.

In the spring of 1951, William Daugherty, a psywar specialist and Marine Corps

intelligence and Japanese language officer during World War II, conducted a

comprehensive assessment of the conduct of psychological warfare operations in

Korea.50 Daugherty’s criticisms centered on the conduct of battlefield psychological

49
Cardell, “The Relationship of Psychological Warfare to Intelligence Operations,” 8.
50
Daugherty, “Organization and Activities.” Daugherty served as an Operations Analyst with the
Operations Research Office field team in Korea in 1950 and 1951 and was the adviser to the PWD /
EUSAK in Korea in 1951. Along with Paul Linebarger, the duo made up the core institutional and
cultural expertise with regards to psychological warfare operations in Korea.
139
warfare operations at the corps and division level. Daugherty argued that while FEC

and EUSAK psywar staffs had created some “interest” in psywar during the first nine-

months of the war, they had not generated the type of support required for extensive and

effective psychological warfare operations. Specifically, Daugherty felt that the interest

and limited enthusiasm for psywar at EUSAK and FEC had translated into lack of

support at corps, division, and lower echelons. While a scarcity of equipment and

personnel had certainly hampered operations, Daugherty thought the greatest failure

was organizational: the Army’s failure to require or provide full-time personnel to

manage psywar operations at the division level. This failure directly resulted in the

failure to consistently provide effective psychological operations support. It was not

until almost a year after the Korean War ended, however, that the Army concurred with

the recommendations made in Daugherty’s and other ORO reports to assign a “full time

officer” at division in order to develop and implement psywar plans.51

From June 1950 until February 1951 none of the EUSAK divisions or corps had

full-time psychological warfare officers. Army organizational guidance authorized each

of the three Army corps in Korea (I Corps, IX Corps, and X Corps) a billet for a

psychological warfare officer, but the slots remained unfilled during the first several

months of the war. During this time EUSAK psywar staffs were comprised mainly of

personnel sent on short-term assignment from FEC. EUSAK staff officers did not

51
ORO-T-50 (Ponturo) came to similar conclusions about the need for full-time psywar officers at the
division level. See U.S. Army Forces Far East, Memorandum to the Adjutant General, Department of the
Army, “Evaluation of Technical Memorandum ORO-T-50 (FEC),” 30 June 1954; (attached to ORO-T-
50), U.S. Army Center of Military History.

140
pressure the three Army corps on this issue as they themselves felt they could spend

little “more than a fraction of their time” on psychological warfare duties.52 In February

1951, under pressure from FEC and McClure’s office at the Pentagon, EUSAK required

that each of the corps and divisions assign psychological officers within each of their G-

3 (Operations) divisions. Most of the units, however, complied slowly with this

directive and a subsequent analysis by the Operations Research Office indicated that

until the end of the war most psywar officers at the division level were able to “devote

very little time to psychological warfare matters on any systematic basis.”53

As of April 1951, IX and X Corps had complied with the EUSAK directive by

assigning psychological warfare as an “additional duty” for one of the several officers

within their G-3 shops. Only I Corps appointed a full-time psychological warfare

officer to its staff. In March1951, I Corps assigned one of their operations officers, a

major, as the psychological warfare officer. Perhaps most importantly, the G-3 of I

Corps, Colonel Harold K. Johnson, supported the concept of one of his officers working

psywar issues on a full-time basis, as he himself believed in the potential value of

psychological warfare. As commander of a regiment of the 1st Cavalry Division in

1950, Johnson had successfully used mobile loudspeaker teams and, in his view, it had

helped to destroy the enemy’s will to resist and reduced casualties in his own unit. As

noted in the Daugherty report of 1951, Colonel Johnson had no doubts that the psywar

campaign had reduced the enemy’s will to stand and fight and that he [Johnson] was

52
Daugherty, “Organization and Activities,” v, vi.
53
Ponturo, Psywar Operations at Lower Echelons, 75-77.

141
“especially enthusiastic” about the weapon as “compared to other weapons,”

inexpensive and seemingly effective.”54 Indeed, in 1951 the U.S. Air Force had

concluded that the average cost of killing an enemy soldier by air action was $4500; the

cost of winning his allegiance through psychological warfare was only $750.00.55

Looking at it from the skeptic’s viewpoint, however, the problem was that you could be

relatively certain of the effects of the bomb.

Although not all of the divisions assigned to I Corps in the spring of 1951 had

full-time psychological warfare officers, the acceptance and success of the psywar

programs reflected the command climate regarding propaganda at both the corps and

division staffs. Pointedly, the 25th Infantry Division did not have a full-time staff

officer, but Daugherty felt that the First Lieutenant who held the job as an “additional

duty” managed to piece together a well organized and “systematic” program in support

of the divisions combat efforts. In Daugherty’s view, the I Corps’ other American

Division, the 3rd Infantry Division, carried out the “most comprehensive and effective

psywar program of any division in the Eighth Army.” 56 Daugherty believed that Major

General Robert Soule, the commander of 3rd Infantry Division provided psywar with an

opportunity to excel because he believed in the utility of psychological warfare. Soule

directed two officers on his staff to handle psywar operations; one, full-time and the
54
Daugherty, “Organization and Activities,” 6-9.
55
Air Force Memorandum, “Cost of Psychological Warfare,” quoted in Lucas, Freedom’s War, 129.
Another estimate put the cost at $2200 to garner one prisoner by way of psywar contrasted with an Eighth
Amry estimate of $150,000 for each enemy soldier killed by conventional action. See Kilchoon Kim and
E.A. Johnson, Evaluation of the Effects of Leaflets on North Korean Prisoners of War (ORO, Ft. Lesley J.
McNair: 20 February 1951), 7-8.
56
Daugherty, “Organization and Activities,” 12-13.

142
other on a part-time basis. He further directed that his regiments consider assigning

specified psywar officers within their operations staffs. In fact, the part-time psywar

officer, Major Frank Burdell, had served in the China Burma India theater during the

Second World War; and he believed in the value of not only propaganda but in

considering the enemy’s culture when preparing operations against them. Thus the 3rd

Infantry Division operations shop found itself well-versed in the psychological

dimension of war on the battlefield. Consequently, the psywar elements assigned to

support the unit found a receptive command and staff with whom to work. Daughterty

felt that the attitude of the Commanding General and the receptivity of his staff created

a situation, within which the psywar personnel could effectively plan and coordinate

successful propaganda missions in support of the 3rd Infantry Divisions overall military

mission. This, in turn, enabled the tactical psywar units such as the 1st L&L to win the

“admiration and respect” of the front line soldiers that further reinforced the

propagandists ability to get the job done.

Observers besides Daugherty made the case that General Soule’s acceptance of

psywar as a legitimate and useful weapon created a climate that made the weapons’

success more likely. During his tenure at the Advanced Infantry Officer’s Course in

1952-1953, Captain Jay Russell (who had just returned from Korea) wrote a case study

based on personal experience that illustrated the stark differences between well

supported and poorly supported psywar operations. Russell noted that good intelligence

information on enemy disposition and morale, a high priority for equipment repairs, and

thorough coordination with the infantry task force during the planning stages of various

143
missions characterized those psywar operations conducted by the 3rd Infantry Division.

The results: successful psywar missions involving the surrender of enemy forces that

convinced the combat leaders that the loudspeaker could reduce unnecessary hazards

during infantry assaults. In contrast, the 1st Cavalry Division provided their loudspeaker

teams with “no translator…no specific [target] audience to be planned for…nothing was

given the loudspeaker team but skeptical, vacant stares.”57 Understandably, the

loudspeaker missions conducted by 1st Cavalry Division did not prove as successful as

those conducted by their counterparts in the Infantry.

Russell agreed with Daugherty’s assertion that General Soule’s “vision” was a

factor in the successful employment of psychological warfare. As Russell described it,

Soule viewed psywar efforts to the “vision and interest” of Maj. General Robert A.

Soule, the Division’s Commanding General who saw the psywar weapon as simply

another tool, like artillery, tanks, or infantry, with which to reach his military

objectives.58 At the same time some psychological warfare proponents believed that

psychological warfare was not just “another weapon,” their official advocacy was much

more measured. The 1949 version of Field Manual 33-5 (Psychological Warfare in

Combat Operations) acknowledged that psychological warfare was not a secret weapon

that could win the war on its own but simply a “supplementary means of combat which

57
Russell, “Psychological Warfare Operations During the Attack,” 5.
58
In his student paper Captain Russell cites Daugherty’s ORO study but bases the vast majority of his
assessment on his “own experiences” as an officer in Korea, though it is not clear where precisely Russell
served or if Russell served in a psywar or signal officer capacity. Russell, “Psychological Warfare
Operations During the Attack,” 4; and Daugherty, “Organization and Activities.”

144
can facilitate and exploit success on the battlefield.”59 Unfortunately, many combat

commanders hesitated to take MG Soule’s approach and integrate psywar it as a part of

overall military operations; instead they preferred that it remain an adjunct or system

that would operate independently on the battlefield. Indeed it should be re-emphasized

that more so than any other factor, the attitude of commanders towards the

psychological warfare mission, appears to have ensured success or guaranteed failure.

The organizational response to psywar within the other IX and X Corps

divisions paralleled that of higher headquarters, in that there was only one full-time

psywar officer throughout all the various units. For the most part, junior officers

handled psywar activities as an “additional duty.” These officers’ primary

responsibilities took up most of their days and nights leaving them little time to direct or

coordinate a psywar program. In some instances, the role of psywar officer was

assigned to 1st L&L non-commissioned officers (sergeants) who, while capable, were

immediately handicapped within the division staffs by virtue of their rank. According

to Daugherty, both IX and X Corps officers complained about the problems of

coordinating for both theater and regimental psywar support and, understandably, often

characterized psywar missions as not supportive of their overall military campaigns.60

The command and staff of the 1st Cavalry Division (at the time part of IX Corps)

provided lukewarm support for psywar units and had even relegated the position of

psychological warfare officer to a junior NCO. As Captain Russell noted in his 1953

59
Department of the Army, Field Manual 33-5, Psychological Warfare in Combat Operations,
(Washington: August 1949), iii.
60
Daugherty, “Organization and Activities,” 5-9.

145
study, the 1st Cavalry Division did not appear to have successfully mastered how to

integrate the psywar weapon into its overall combat operations. 61 General Bruce

Palmer, the commanding general of the division was highly skeptical about the ability

of psywar to reach the Chinese audience. He stated to Daugherty that while he was

willing to do anything to reduce enemy resistance and lessen friendly casualties, he was

not willing to devote full time staff to that end. Daugherty noted that this meant that no

one of sufficient rank or influence could coordinate operations up at the Division level.

Even “selling” psywar was thus limited to the junior NCO who called regiments and

battalions periodically to see if they desired any psywar support – a technique unlikely

to yield any takers.

Within X Corps, psywar ran into problems as well. The commander of 7th

Infantry Division in early 1951, Major General Claude Ferenbaugh, insisted that psywar

be employed to the maximum extent possible. His G-3 echoed, though not

enthusiastically, his superior’s sentiments: “We like psywar. We believe it is paying its

way.”62 Unfortunately, without full-time staff at division or corps level, regimental

requests for tactical leaflet drops or loudspeaker teams often went unfilled. In one

instance in the spring of 1951, the 7th Infantry Division’s 32nd Infantry Regiment called

for an aircraft loudspeaker mission just prior to their advance on an enemy held

objective. After the X-hour passed without a mission, the EUSAK psywar staff

informed the 7th Infantry Division that the mission could not be flown at the time

requested but that the loudspeaker aircraft could fly over the following day. By that
61
Russell, “Psychological Warfare Operations During the Attack,” 5-11.
62
Daugherty, “Organization and Activities,” 16.

146
time, of course, the 32nd Infantry had passed well beyond the enemy objective and the

point psywar where support might have proved helpful. As one operations officer in the

7th Infantry Division G-3 stated following this incident, “It is difficult to maintain the

interest of the front line commanders if communications, liaison, and support, continue

to be so inadequate.”63

The status of psywar within the 24th Infantry Division in the spring of 1951

reflected true disagreements among senior leaders about the value of psychological

warfare in combat operations. Major General Blackshear Bryan, the 24th Infantry

Division’s commanding general, had initially encountered deficient psywar support,

including a loudspeaker team with broken equipment, and another with a translator who

fled while under fire during an operation. Nevertheless, Bryan harbored a great deal of

respect for propaganda operations and did not require immediate results in order to

believe in the value of the weapon. Some of Bryan’s staff, however, remained

particularly pessimistic about the value of psywar. Bryan’s G-3 noted that despite

steady advances and few casualties, few prisoners-of-war had surrendered to the men of

his division and thus it was unlikely that psywar was having any effect in 24th ID’s

sector or “anywhere else for that matter.”64 Indeed, as Daugherty noted, the desire for

psywar personnel to show tangible results to the supported units created an impression

that all psywar was about the capture of enemy prisoners. General Bryan noted to

Daugherty that the only way to correct these misunderstandings would be to properly

63
Ibid.
64
Ibid., 19-21.

147
“indoctrinate” his staff and troops on the front line as to the true nature and value of the

psywar weapon. Daugherty explained the problem in the introduction to his report: “So

much stress has been put on the number of prisoners taken as the test of effectiveness of

psychological warfare that it is difficult for many to see that this may not be the greatest

contribution that psychological warfare can make in support of ground operations.”65

He further noted that this was one of the major dilemmas for psywar personnel who had

to show skeptics some sort of tangible results. Selling psywar in this way might unduly

raise expectations and could result in significant disappointments among supported

units. However, securing prisoners certainly proved to be a quick and easy way to gain

a supported unit’s confidence.

Despite the absence of a full-time psywar officer or sophisticated psychological

warfare program, Major General Clark Ruffner’s regiments in the 2nd Infantry Division

showed enthusiasm for the weapon, largely due to observed successes with tactical

psywar. Even though conventional attacks such as artillery or air strikes using napalm

could easily dislodge enemy strongpoints, 2nd ID units sometimes chose to use their

psywar support to solve these types of tactical problems. Loudspeaker teams could

frequently encourage small numbers of KPA and CPVF troops to surrender rather than

continuing to man roadblocks and bunkers that impeded a regiment’s advance. On

many of these occasions, the regiments specifically gave the psywar team credit for

overcoming obstacles, thereby saving time, ammunition, and possibly U.S. soldiers’

lives.

65
Ibid., v.

148
 The 2nd Infantry Division’s experience during Operations Ripper and Killer in

March of 1951 demonstrated that artillery and airpower alone might not be enough to

dislodge enemy troops without significant friendly casualties. Frequently, troops had to

dislodge the CPVF forces from their positions with bayonets, trench by trench and

bunker by bunker.66 During these operations Major General Clark Ruffner had

requested and received loudspeaker teams that broadcast surrender appeals to convince

enemy troops to surrender or desert rather than fight. In March, 1951, perhaps as a

result of the experiences of the two operations, Ruffner issued basic instructions to his

artillery and infantry regiments on the proper conduct of psychological warfare.67

Ruffner believed that psychological warfare was still unfamiliar to many in the Army

and that in order to use psywar effectively his unit commanders and operations officers

needed to understand the weapon. Rather than try and cite the historical value from

Hannibal to Hitler as the psywar community frequently did, Ruffner’s memo focused on

the here and now – the practical aspects of loudspeakers and leaflets for his troops on

the Korean front lines in 1951.

Ruffner explained in Letter of Instruction (LOI) #24 what his infantry regiments

had quickly learned in practice: psywar could be used of to dislodge enemy forces from

situations where direct assault might mean significant friendly casualties. Additionally,

66
“Killer and Ripper,” in History of the 2nd Infantry Division during the Korean War, www.2id.org,
website maintained by Professor Robert Bruce, Department of History, Sam Houston State University,
Texas. The materials appear to be the text of the unit histories put together in November, 1951 by Major
Fred J. Meyer and Captain Carleton F. Robinson, 2nd ID historians.
67
Maj Gen Ruffner, Letter of Instruction 24 (Psychological Warfare), 26 March 51; as quoted in
Daugherty, “Organization and Activities,” Appendix B, 1-3.

149
Ruffner emphasized the desirability of bringing increasingly fierce artillery barrages

upon fixed enemy positions in conjunction with intermittent psywar broadcasts that

offered opportunities for surrender. He also instructed that units should seek the

presence of close air support and napalm strikes (or simply the perceived threat of

napalm strikes) in order to increase the psychological effects of these surrender

operations.68 Ruffner further explained that “threats once made, must be carried out as

described,” lest the credibility of future broadcasts be put in jeopardy. Most

importantly, he sought to diminish the possibility that those KPA or CPVF forces trying

to surrender would be cut down by U.S. troops and ordered that “opportunities offered

the enemy to surrender must be scrupulously honored.”69

2nd Infantry Division’s ability to coordinate and plan combined arms operations

resulted in successful missions along with opportunities for psychological warfare to

assist during one of the Division’s most aggressive actions of the war. In late May 1951,

Ruffner’s troops engaged in a counterattack against Chinese forces. During this time

the 38th Infantry Regiment utilized prearranged procedures with the airborne

loudspeaker aircraft that arrived on schedule in response to a specific request, to

broadcast surrender appeals to enemy forces blocking the 38th’Infantry’s advance. The

operation demonstrated clearly that the regiments had implemented the guidance

provided in LOI #24. After encountering a minor but effective roadblock, elements of

68
Ruffner, Letter of Instruction 24, p.2.

69
To help the enemy surrender, specific instructions were provided in broadcasts on how to surrender
such as laying down all arms, moving by specified routes with hands raised above their heads. Ruffner,
Letter of Instruction 24, 1-3.

150
the 38th Infantry called for artillery support. When the barrage lifted and no troops had

surrendered, the 38th Infantry brought a loudspeaker team forward to begin the next

phase of the operations. The “hogcallers” told the CPVF that they were in a hopeless

position from which surrender was the only escape. Approximately thirty enemy troops

responded immediately and crossed the main line of resistance to surrender. The

loudspeaker team followed up with a final broadcast that informed the enemy that “they

had their chance and would now be killed.” At this point artillery opened up fire one

last time and the threat was, as Ruffner had ordered “carried out as described.” 70

The use of psychological warfare on the battlefield during the Korean War

demonstrated the significance of the relationship between waging psywar and selling

psywar. As Colonel Kenneth Hansen wrote in 1957 in his unpublished manuscript on

psywar in Korea, “They had to choose between selling psywar and waging psywar, and

they had found that waging effective psywar was the best way to sell it.”71 Effective

psywar demanded concrete planning and coordination with conventional units. A

combat commander’s willingness to plan and coordinate with psywar required either a

favorable predisposition towards the weapon or a willingness to give it a shot. It came

as no surprise that those units accepting psywar as a legitimate weapon and integrating

70
GHQ FEC, Psychological Warfare Operations (8 June 1951), Geographic File, Korea (Psychological
Warfare), 4. Ruffner’s support for psywar was clearly illustrated in a “Dear Bob,” letter he penned to
General McClure on 22 April 1951. Not only did Ruffner state he felt that psychological warfare was
doing a good job but that he would “welcome anything, repeat anything that you and your gang want to
try in our division area.” He concluded, “Anything that you can do to save an American life or shorten
the war a single day, I am all for. If you have any new projects you want to try out, come to the 2nd
Division. We willbe delighted to do all we can.” Major General Clark L. Ruffner to Brig. Gen. Robert
A. McClure, 22 April 1951. Personal Papers of Robert McClure, Butte Creek Canyon, California. These
papers are now archived at the U.S. Army Military History Institute.
71
Hansen, “Psywar in Korea,” 4.

151
it into overall military operations had success with the propaganda weapon. As

Daugherty concluded in his 1951 study, “wherever the Commander believes in the

effectiveness of psywar that is where one finds the most effective operations being

conducted.”72 Unfortunately, those units that dismissed psychological warfare were not

likely to request regular psywar support. With the limited psywar resources in theater,

whoever “yelled for it the loudest got it the fastest,” and if it was there on time, there

was a good chance it was likely to work. Therefore, those units skeptical of the weapon

likely had their beliefs reinforced due to unquantifiable, intermittent, or nonexistent

support.73 The limited tactical psywar successes reduced the number of skeptics over

time, but they did not create psywar proponents amongst combat commanders.

Strategic psywar appeared to have few supporters outside of Far East Command.

Combat commanders appeared, for the most part, unwilling to support a weapon that

could not clearly demonstrate tangible and quantifiable evidence of its effectiveness. In

the hopes of securing more support, psywar personnel mistakenly reinforced the notion

that the sole measure of effectiveness was the number of enemy troops captured on the

battlefield or the numbers of leaflets dropped on the battlefield.74

72
The full quote reads as follows: “psywar must be recognized as a function of command. Maximum
effectiveness can only be achieved where the commanding officer decrees that psywar will be used in
accordance with what is required for its success. Logistic, personnel, and intelligence support are
required on a continuing basis. All too frequently these have not been available in Korea.” Daugherty,
“Organization and Activities,” vi.
73
Avdeon, “Psywar Operational Deficiencies,” 6.
74
1st Loudspeaker and Leaflet Company, Command Report No. 19 (July 1952), USASOC Archives; and
Daugherty, v.

152
 Between 1952 and 1954 Captain Herbert Avedon produced several official

“commentaries” on the nature and conduct of psychological warfare during the Korean

War. In particular, Avedon felt that FEC psywar staff should have done more to

demonstrate that psychological warfare was not purely a weapon designed to induce

surrender or defection but a concept designed to maximize the psychological impact of

lethal weapons on the battlefield. Avedon felt that commanders should consider every

combat action with regards to their impact on the enemy morale. The goal of every

military operation, no matter what the weapon, was the destruction or capitulation of the

enemy. Subscribing to the point of view first expressed by Paul Linebarger in 1948,

Avedon argued that war should be “psychologically waged rather than waged by

physical destruction.”75 Avedon wrote:

Psywar, it is claimed, seeks to change enemy attitudes and opinions by means

of spoken or written word. It accomplishes its mission of reducing combat
efficiency by producing successive attitudinal changes in individuals among
the enemy target group until the desired frame of mind is achieved. Warfare
psychologically waged, actually seeks the same reactions. However, in
addition to attempting to change enemy attitudes and opinions by means of the
vocal and graphic pressures of more orthodox Psywar, warfare psychologically
waged fully utilizes other pressures – pressures which range from armed force
to the unexpected impact of candy bars – as integral parts of its operations.76

While most combat leaders clearly understood that their lethal weapons had a

psychological impact on the enemy, the psywar personnel did a mediocre job of

explaining the concept of psychological warfare in these terms. Rather, they focused on

the notion of using leaflets to induce enemy surrenders, an observable, but limited

concept of operations. The U.S. Army made few attempts to consider how

75
Paul Linebarger, “Warfare Psychologically Waged,” in Psychological Warfare, 1st Edition, 1948.
76
Captain Herbert Avedon, “War for Men’s Minds,” Military Review 33:12 (1954), 55.
153
psychological warfare might extend the reach of conventional weapons or how the

psychological target might prove more appropriate and vulnerable than the physical.

This notion was, however, less of a leap for the U.S. Air Force, whose pursuit of the

independent strategic bombing mission taught them that the psychological effects often

trumped the physical.

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 CHAPTER 6

THE U.S. AIR FORCE AND PSYWAR IN KOREA

As might be expected of a service born of another, the Air Force’s views on propaganda

as a battlefield weapon largely paralleled those of the Army. Consequently, many in the

Air Force believed that propaganda could serve as a useful adjunct to military

operations but most pilots would rather drop high explosives than leaflets. In its quest

for independence from the Army, the Air Force also established notions about the

conduct of psychological warfare that had their roots in the same concepts and ideas

that fostered the development of strategic airpower doctrine. By the beginning of the

Korean War, the United States Air Force psywar proponents had begun to grapple with

the notion of two types of psychological warfare. The first was psychological warfare in

an orthodox sense, characterized by leaflet, loudspeaker, and radio propaganda. The

second was the use of violent action to create a psychological effect, what Paul

Linebarger had called, “warfare, psychologically waged.”1

1
Paul Linebarger, “Warfare Psychologically Waged,” in, Psychological Warfare (Washington DC:
Infantry Journal Press, 1948).

155
 While Paul Linebarger introduced the world to the concept in 1947, it was Major

Bernard Peters, an Air Force public relations officer, who truly publicized the notion of

two types of psychological warfare in the Air Force professional literature of the time.

While a student at the Air War College in 1948 and in a 1949 revision of his paper

published the Air University Review, Peters argued that the pre-requisite for any

effective psychological warfare campaign would have to be gaining and maintaining

command of the air.2 As Peters put it, “any planning for propaganda dissemination or

morale disruption through shock action will depend for its success upon aircraft being

able to deliver on the target.”3 This certainly pleased those in the Air Force who were

seeking justifications for an independent air service. The notion that the strategic

bombing mission itself was a form of psychological warfare, however, made the

concept of an independent corps of psywar planners redundant. The Air Force conduct

of psychological warfare during the Korean War demonstrated both types of

psychological warfare. In terms of the propaganda war the Air Force remained largely

a handmaiden to the needs and programs of the Army. The use of airpower itself as a

psychological weapon, however, provided an opportunity for the Air force to launch an

independent assault on the minds of the enemy both on the battlefield and deep behind

enemy lines.

2
Major Bernard Peters, “The Role of the USAF in Psychological Warfare” (student paper, Air War
College, Maxwell Air Force Base, November 1948). “The USAF and Psychological Warfare,” Air
University Quarterly Review, 2 (Spring 1949), 4-5.

3
Peters, “The Role of the USAF in Psychological Warfare,” and “The USAF and Psychological Warfare,”
Air University Quarterly Review, 2 (Spring 1949), 4-5.

156
 In the years before the Second World War the belief that independent airpower

could quickly win most wars had driven airpower enthusiasts in Europe and the United

States. The airpower theorist Giulio Douhet argued that air forces could lay a vertical

siege on an enemy and destroy their war-making capacity and thus, their will to resist.

Douhet argued that the devastation caused on just one city by a rain of high explosives,

incendiaries, and perhaps even gas would inevitably lead to a psychological domino

effect throughout a nation. Douhet explained the potential societal collapse in

Command of the Air,

What could happen to a single city in a single day could also happen to ten,
twenty, fifty cities. And, since news travels fast, even without telegraph,
telephone, or radio, what, I ask you , would be the effect upon civilians of other
cities, not yet stricken but equally subject to bombing attacks? What civil or
military authority could keep order, public services functioning and production
going under such a threat? And even if a semblance of order was maintained and
some work done, would not the sight of a single enemy plane be enough to
stampede the population into panic? In short, normal life would be impossible in
this constant nightmare of imminent death and destruction.4

While historians disagree on the extent of Douhet’s influence, his ideas were echoed

throughout the evolution of American strategic bombing doctrine. Robert Futrell writes

that Douhet never had any special influence on American airpower proponents and that

most in the Air Corps realized that Douhet’s advocacy of attacks on unfortified cities

was politically unacceptable in the United States following the World War I. At the

same time there is little evidence that Douhet’s text was studied at the Air Corps

Tactical School.5 Some official histories, however, suggest that Douhet “was taken

4
Douhet, Giulio, The Command of the Air, trans. Dino Ferrari, New York, Coward-McCann, 1942,
reprinted by the Office of Air Force History, Washington DC, 1983.
5
Robert F. Futrell, Ideas Concepts, Doctrine: Basic Thinking in the United States Air Force, 1907-1960,
vol. 1 (Washington DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1989), 39.
157
very seriously at the time,” and that by the 1930’s Command of the Air was cited by the

Chief of the Army Air corps as an “excellent exposition of certain principals of air

warfare.”6 The American way of waging war in the air envisaged, in Billy Mitchell’s

words, a precision bombing campaign aimed at the destruction of a nation’s military-

industrial targets or “vital centers.” Mitchell expounded this proposition in Winged

Defense (1925):

To gain a lasting victory in war, the hostile nation’s power to make war must be
destroyed—this means the manufactories, the means of communication, the food
products, even the farms, the fuel and oil and the places where people live and
carry on their daily lives. Not only must these things be rendered incapable of
supplying armed forces but the people’s desire to renew the combat at a later
date must be discouraged.7

For many airpower proponents the experience of World War II as outlined in the United

States Strategic Bombing Surveys (USSBS), clearly demonstrated the efficacy of

airpower in degrading and destroying enemy morale and thus, the enemy’s will to resist.

While airpower proponents’ interpretations were clearly colored by the fact that a

“favorable” interpretation of airpower’s role would help to justify an independent air

force, their views nevertheless impacted other assessments on the importance of

airpower to the psychological defeat of the enemy. A number of post war studies by the

Pentagon, including studies by the Joint Staff and the RAND Corporation, validated the

6
See USAF Historical Division, The Development of Air Doctrine in the Army Air Arm, 1917-1941,
USAF Historical Studies: No. 89, Research Studies Institute (Maxwell AFB: Air University, 1955), 48-
51.
7
William Mitchell, Winged Defense: The Development and Possibilities of Modern Air Power –
Economic and Military, (Kennikat Press: Port Washington), 1925: Kennikat Press Scholarly Reprints,
Dr. Ralph Adams Brown Senior Editor, Series in American History and Culture in the Twentieth
Century. 1971, 126-127.

158
notions that high explosive and incendiary attacks could have a serious psychological

impact on an enemy target population.8 Analyses by the preeminent strategist Bernard

Brodie (who had served on the Navy’s small psywar staff during the Second World

War) supported the contention that airpower could prove “decisive,” while similar

reports pointed out that air attacks on the battlefield created the type of emotional

damage that could be effectively exploited by follow-on ground attacks.9

While the RAND studies circulated throughout Air Force offices, a 1949

Operations Research Office study appears to have had even more of an impact on

thinking about the psychological effect of strategic bombing. The Study, entitled,

Lessons on Morale to be Drawn from Effects of Strategic Bombing on Germany: With

Special Reference to Psychological Warfare, was prepared as part of the Army’s

POWOW project.10 The work was significant as it directly informed those researchers

evaluating and making recommendations to FEC on psywar operations during the

8
The first of these studies was probably the October 1948 analysis commissioned by Secretary of
Defense James Forrestal to study the psychological effects that atomicweapons might have on Soviet
capability to wage war. See Barry H. Steiner, Bernard Brodie and the Foundations of American Nuclear
Strategy, 268, note 1.
9
See for example, Bernard Brodie, Strategic Air Attacks on Enemy Morale: Present Meaning of the
World War II Experience, RAND informal working Paper, and Bernard Brodie, “Strategic Bombing,
What Can it Do,” Reporter, 3 (August, 1950); and Janis, Irving L. Air War and Emotional Stress:
Psychological Studies of Bombing and Civilian Defense, (New York: RAND Corporation and McGraw-
Hill, 1951).
10
The POWOW studies, as described in Chapter II, focused on evaluating the psywar techniques and
weapons of World War II. During the first five years of the study project POWOW published between 60
and 70 “technical memoranda” dealing with various aspects of psychological warfare. Murray Dyer and
Julius Segal, Technical Memorandum ORO-SP-51, The POWOW TM’s: An Assessment of ORO Psywar
Research, (Baltimore, MD: Operations Research Office, Johns Hopkins University, 13 June 1956).

159
Korean War.11 In short, this ORO Study evaluated whether attacking civilian morale

truly had an impact on enemy’s military capability. Interestingly, the study concluded

that although the Allied strategic bombing of Germany during the Second World War

had certainly impacted enemy morale, the destruction of enemy morale “had little effect

on the workers function of producing munitions.”12 Kenneth Yarnold, the report’s

principal investigator, explained this phenomenon by positing that clear behavior

changes were the result not of specific attacks but the “algebraic sum of all stimuli

received over the previous months or years.”13 In layman’s terms attacking morale was

not likely to immediately reduce the enemy’s combat power.

Fire and shock might create conditions for future action but propaganda could

help lead target audiences to actually do something. Yarnold’s analysis, as well as

several articles published in military circles, raised the question of how to separate the

results achieved through the use of “fire and shock” action from those produced by the

propaganda leaflets or broadcasts. D.H. Kehm wrote in Military Review of the U.S.

experience in France in 1944:

It was the bombs of our aircraft, the fire of our guns, and the skill and courage
of our troops that placed certain channel port garrisons in a position in which
they were receptive to the loudspeaker’s message. On the other hand, facts
given to them in leaflets and newspapers, as well as over radio and loudspeaker

11
K.W. Yarnold, Technical Memorandum ORO-T-2, Lessons on Morale to be Drawn from Effects of
Strategic Bombing on Germany: With Special Reference to Psychological Warfare, (Ft. Lesley J.
McNair: Operations Research Office. The Johns Hopkins University, 4 October, 1949).
12
The ORO report noted that while by July 1944 about half the German population did not want to
continue with the war (this increased to 75% by the time the war ended). Still this dissatisfaction only
resulted in about 10% of the workers staying away from work for “morale” associated reasons. Yarnold,
Lessons on Morale, 1, 2, 9, 15.
13
Ibid., 3.

160
 certainly predisposed them to an earlier surrender than would have occurred
without them.14

These conclusions also demonstrated why psychological warfare operatives and combat

commanders could hold different interpretations of success. Psychological warfare

personnel might consider enemy changes in attitude or beliefs indications of a

successful propaganda campaign. However, unless these attitude changes translated into

actions, they had little immediate military value. In other words, the general lowering of

morale or dissatisfaction with combat conditions were unimportant unless they kept

civilian workers from going to the factories to produce more aircraft or resulted in

enemy soldiers malingering, surrendering, or deserting.

The realization that military action and propaganda worked together, and that

military action in and of itself had a psychological impact stood out clearly in Air Force

official publications during the Korean War Era. Air Force regulations governing

psychological warfare strategy in 1949 and 1952 enshrined the notion of the two

approaches: psychological warfare and “warfare, psychologically waged.” The purpose

of psychological warfare was to work in conjunction with air operations to reduce the

enemy’s will to fight, create fear, panic, and unrest amongst enemy troops and to

promote the defection of enemy forces. 15 Military attacks such as bombing or artillery

would create a window of “fear” during psychological warfare and might be used to

persuade the enemy to take specific actions such as desertion or surrender. For the Air

14
Colonel H.D. Kehm, “Can Psychological Warfare Pay its Passage?” Military Review (March 1947), 3.
15
A copy of AFR 55-11 may be found in the Appendix to Volume IV of the History of the Directorate of
Plans, Deputy Chief of Staff, Operations, Headquarters, USAF (1 January 1952 – 30 June 1952),
K143.01, USAF Collection, AFHRA.

161
Force, whose primary mission was the projection of combat power via the air, the main

purpose of psychological warfare was to enhance the ability of strategic bombing to

weaken and destroy enemy morale and to sow the seeds of discontent and distrust

among the enemy’s civilian population. Like their Army counterparts, Air Force leaders

were thus more favorably inclined towards those types of “psychological” operations

that had the most potential for rapid and tangible indications of success. For the

psychological warfare personnel in the USAF this meant their mission would clearly

have to include not just the preparation and distribution of propaganda, but the tailoring

of airpower to create the most effective psychological impact possible.

At the start of the Korean War the U.S. Air Force did not have an independent

psychological warfare capability, though not for a lack of trying. Following World War

II the Air Force did set up a Psychological Warfare Division at the Pentagon to help

develop doctrine and secure funding for Air Force “sykewar” operations.16 Without an

influential figure like the Army’s General McClure to push the agenda, however, these

efforts bore little fruit. During the Korean War the USAF simply served, in some

respects, as a delivery mechanism for Army psychological warfare programs. Since

there were no purposefully designed psychological warfare units in the Air Force in

general, much less in the Korean Theater, FEC relied upon conventional units such as

bomber (B-29’s) and air transport squadrons to deliver leaflets by air. With the

exception of “The Speaker,” and “The Voice,” the two C-47 transports rigged with

aerial loudspeakers, 5th Air Force never specifically dedicated any aircraft for the

16
Army and Air Force Adjustment Regulation, 1-11-30, 30 June 1948.

162
psywar mission. The Department of the Air Force, the Far East Air Force, and its

operating element, 5th Air largely viewed the dissemination of propaganda as an

extraneous duty.

Technically, propaganda operations were considered one of a number of

“Special Air Missions,” a category that also included “unconventional warfare” and

“partisan” operations. To support unconventional warfare operations such as the

infiltration of clandestine agents and support to partisan fighters, the FEC and its air

component, Far East Air Forces (FEAF), organized a number of low profile and

obscurely named organizations. Among these were the 21st Troop Carrier Squadron,

the Far East Command Liaison Group, and eventually the Combined Command for

Reconnaissance Activities Korea (CCRAK).17 The operational elements of these units

ran a series of “cover” activities, including conducting psywar leaflet drops, in order to

mask their participation in the covert and clandestine missions. Unit 4 of the 21st Troop

Carrier Squadron, for example, routinely conducted personnel drops and radio intercept

missions at night. During the day, however, they operated the two loudspeaker aircraft

and served as transport for VIP’s such as President Syngman Rhee, and General

Ridgway.18 Similarly, in April 1952, 5th Air Force stood up “B-Flight” of the

17
CCRAK actually stood for “Covert, Clandestine, and Related Activities - Korea,” perhaps one of the
only times where both the cover and real acronym for a program were the same. See Michael E. Haas,
Apollo’s Warriors: United States Air Force Special Operations during the Cold War, (Maxwell AFB,
Alabama: Air University Press, 1997), 16. For more extensive histories of Air Force Special Operations
during the Korean War see Michael Haas, In the Devil’s Shadow: UN Special Operations During the
Korea War (Annapolis, U.S. Naval Institute Press, 2000).
18
As Haas notes, “to operate psychological missions as requested by 8th Army” was frequently the official
eulogy used for those killed on classified missions that could not be officially acknowledge at the time.
See Haas, Apollo’s Warriors, 34 and 42.

163
innocuously named 6167th Operations Squadron to conduct leaflet and loudspeaker

missions during the day and illumination flare drops at night. B-Flight’s classified

mission, however, was to transport and resupply personnel and units operating behind

enemy lines. In 1952 the Air Force also deployed the 581st Aerial Resupply &

Communications Wing (581st ARCS Wing) to the Philippines to support operations on

the Korean peninsula. The ARCS Wing’s were specifically built to support

psychological and unconventional warfare activities. They conducted psychological

warfare operations as a primary mission and for purposes of “cover” for more sensitive

missions including partisan resupply, signals intelligence collection and clandestine

search and rescue; they also lent support to CIA activities.19

The ARCS concept actually originated with partisan, not psychological, warfare

in mind. Following the June1948 reaffirmation of the need for the United States to

conduct a range of covert and clandestine operations (NSC 10/2), the NSC hosted

discussions on the need for dedicated air support these missions. In 1949, at the

specific request of the CIA, the NSC directed the Department of Defense to create a

dedicated unit capable of introducing, extracting, and supplying “ranger-type” or

partisan units behind enemy lines.20 The decision was not taken in anticipation of a

Korean scenario but rather with the recognition that in open-war with the Soviet Union

a great deal of the battle would take place “behind enemy lines.” Although the

19
Haas, In the Devil’s Shadow, 116.
20
Historical Division, Headquarters, Air Resupply and Communications Service (ARCS)History of the
Air Supply and Communications Service, 23 February – 30 June 1951; K318.8, United States Air Force
Collection, Air Force Historical Research Agency, Maxwell AFB, Alabama (hereafter, AFHRA), 4.

164
Department of Defense recognized the need for such units it took almost two years to

draft requirements and develop organizational, equipment, and personnel specifications.

In January 1951 the Joint Chiefs of Staff formally instructed the Air Force to stand up

the organization directed by the NSC. In response, the Air Force directed the Military

Air Transport Service (MATS) to stand up and train an Air Resupply and

Communications Service (ARCS) to conduct, in basic terms, aerial resupply and

psychological warfare operations.21

Initial planning called for the activation of seven “special operations,” or

“ARCS” wings of about 741 officers and 2800 men all to be activated over a two-year

period. Each would be capable of infiltrating, supplying and recovering personnel

behind enemy lines. Additionally, an ARCS wing would have the capability to produce

and disseminate psychological warfare leaflets, broadcast radio propaganda, and jam

enemy radio frequencies. ARCS wings were comprised of a headquarters and several

task-defined squadrons, most importantly an Aerial Resupply squadron consisting of the

aircraft and crews that would ferry personnel and supplies behind enemy lines. An

Airborne Materials Assembly squadron packaged operational supplies and propaganda

leaflets; a Holding and Briefing squadron served as the cover for the administration of

personnel from the military and the CIA engaged in covert operations. Finally, a

21
Commanding Officer, Air Supply and Communications Service, Semi-Annual Report of the Air
Resupply & Communications Service, United States Air Force, Department of Defense, 1 January – 30
June 1951; K 318.8, USAF Collection, AFHRA, 1-3; and History of the Air Supply and Communications
Service, 23 February – 30 June 1951, 1-3.

165
“Reproduction Squadron” could prepare and reproduce psychological warfare materials

such as leaflets and pamphlets as well as develop and deliver radio broadcasts.22

Despite their grand visions, the Air Force struggled in 1951 with filling the

ARCS psywar positions as the units required personnel with skills not generally found

the Air Force. Almost all ARCS mission training was “specialized” to some degree but

this particularly held true for psychological warfare, covert operations, and evasion,

escape, and survival procedures. Attempts at securing active-duty officers with a

sufficient level of psywar or foreign language training failed completely and culling the

reserves (where approximately 1100 individuals had varying degrees of language

proficiency) only netted 14 with any interest in returning to active duty in the ARCS

program.23 The Air Force responded with a combination of academic and military

training, supplemented with a course in what was known officially as “spot knowledge

through assignment in the area of specialization;” a fancy term for on the job training or

“OJT.”24 Personnel and equipment shortages postponed the activation of the first two

ARCS Wings but as the 581st was scheduled to deploy in January 1952 the delays could

22
In July 1951 HQ USAF directed that the ARCS units each add a balloon launching squadron to employ
balloons as an “efficient and inexpensive” delivery method of propaganda materials in enemy held areas.
Historical Division, HQ Air Resupply and Communications Service, History of the Air Supply and
Communications Service, 1 July-31 December 1951; K318.8, AFHRA, 1, 7.
23
History of the Air Supply and Communications Service, 1 July-31 December 1951, 167-168.
24
To train sufficient officers for the ARCS program the Air Force contracted with Georgetown
University for a formal psychological warfare and language “refresher” course designed to train almost
200 officers per year. Following the Georgetown course, officers would join enlisted personnel for an
additional four months of “advanced applied training” including courses in persuasive writing, language
maintenance, area studies, and applied psychological warfare instruction through case histories and
practical workshops in propaganda development. Unfortunately theblack of officers applying for the
program and the failure of applicants to meet the minimum academic standards required for attendance at
the Georgetown course limited the matriculation rate of this program. See History of the Air Supply and
Communications Service, 1 July-31 December 195, 165-9.

166
not persist. Indeed, the 581st’s activation was conducted in June 1951 on the basis of

“one officer and one man per unit.” In December 1951 the 581st still had only 43% of its

authorized airmen and “no key personnel with special knowledge of Far East affairs.”25

While able to carry out a range of unique missions in support of covert and

unconventional warfare, the ARCS added little to psywar efforts. In the end the Army

still saw them as primarily a transportation element.

Despite the development of the ARCS program, the Air force saw its role in

“conventional psychological warfare,” that is, the dissemination of propaganda

messages, as “passive.”26 There was no truly “joint” psychological warfare

organization for psywar in Korea or Tokyo. The Army controlled psywar operations

and neither Far East Air Forces nor its subordinate units had any of their own

psychological warfare officers until late 1951. Although discrete, the Air Force

contribution to psychological warfare was significant. Aircraft were the sole means of

leaflet delivery during the early days of the Korean War and by 1953 USAF planes had

flown thousands of sorties, dropped hundreds of millions of leaflets and conducted

numerous aerial loudspeaker missions in support of tactical operations.27 Additionally,

25
History of the Air Supply and Communications Service, 1 July-31 December 1951, 24, 25, 31-33 and
170. Indeed the shortage of trained and experienced personnel, particularly pilots, was Air Force wide
and forced Secretary of the Air Force Finletter to quickly mobilize Air National Guard and Air Force
Reserve personnel. By April 1951 about 72% of FEAF officers and 80% of all personnel assigned to
FEAF were reservists. See George M. Watson Jr., The Office of the Secretary of the Air Force, 1947-
1965, (Washington DC: Center for Air Force History, 1993), 117-118.
26
United States Air Force, “Psychological Effects of Air Activity in Korea,” in An Evaluation of the
Effectiveness of the United States Air Force in the Korean Campaign, 25 June – 31 December 1950;
K168.041-1, USAF collection, AFHRA, 4-5.and 93-111.
27
For a brief analysis of Air Force psywar operations during the Korean War see W. Phillips Davison,
“Air Force Psychological Warfare in Korea,”, Air University Quarterly Review, 4 (Summer 1951), 40-48.
167
Air Force and Army psywar planners designed and carried out specific propaganda

missions that supported Air Force missions such as strategic bombing and air

superiority.

FEC waged several divisive campaigns designed to sow dissent among enemy

air forces. In 1953 FEC waged a combined leaflet and radio campaign called “Where is

the Communist Air Force” that harkened back to the “Where is the Luftwaffe?”

campaign of 1944.28 Aircraft dropped leaflets on the same CPVF and KPA forces

previously hammered by UN air strikes while radio broadcasts taunted the People’s

Liberation Army Air Force and the Korean Peoples Army Air Force in the hopes that

they would get angry enough to launch sorties to defend their egos. In a replay of

another operation of the Second World War, the oft-talked about Operation Moolah

sought to encourage Chinese or Russian pilots to defect along with a MiG-15 in

exchange for a substantial reward.29 Those who designed the plan thought it might

force the Communists to strengthen their security procedures to such a degree that it

might hamper their pilots’ ability to conduct missions. Operation Moolah’s basic terms

were to offer $50,000 and political asylum to any pilot who flew an undamaged MiG to

28
See Robert Frank Futrell, The United States Air Force in Korea, 1950-1953, rev. ed. (Washington DC:
Office of Air Force History, 1983), 652. For an overview of Operation “Where is the Luftwaffe,” see
Carroll, Persuade or Perish, 215-231.
29
The origins of Moolah are not entirely clear but during the Second World War, a similar “black”
operation attempted to undermine the efficiency of the Luftwaffe by leading the German High Command
to believe fliers were deserting in their aircraft to the Allied side. See Sefton Delmar, Black Boomerang
(New York: Viking Press, 1961), 195.

168
South Korea with a $50,000 bonus to the first pilot to do so. 30 The proposal was

drafted by the Air Force personnel at FEC in 1952, bounced around the Pentagon for the

better part of a year, and was finally approved by the Joint Staff in March 1953.31 FEC

printed leaflets in Korean, Chinese, and Russian and prepared companion radio

broadcasts in Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean, Russian, and Hungarian.32 General Mark

Clark, the FEC Commander, announced the $100,000 prize over the VUNC in April

1953 just after the 5th Air Force dropped over a million leaflets near known enemy air

bases along the Yalu River. General Clark and his psywar staff did not necessarily

expect to receive a MiG right away. They did hope that the operation would at least put

psychological pressure on the Communist flyers by leading to additional loyalty

30
The most popular version of Moolah’s origins is that the idea came from a war correspondent who
thought it up while drinking with other war correspondent’s in Seoul. The journalist then wrote up the
idea as an “imaginary” interview with an “anonymous” and nonexistent Air Force General. The Air
Force read the unpublished interview and turned the concept into an operation. Colonel Kenneth Hansen
believes the journalist got the idea from some intelligence officers who had been musing over how nice it
would have been to have a “whole MiG in flyable condition” vice the “bits and pieces” they had been
able to acquire. Given the lengths to which the United States had gone to acquire a working MiG, Futrell
suggests that it may have been Harvard University’s Russian Research Center that came up with the idea.
Hansen’s account appears the most likely and it is probable that others had no knowledge or had not read
Hansen’s draft report. See Hansen, “Psywar in Korea,”, 231-233; Pease, Psywar, 66-77; Mark W. Clark,
From the Danube to the Yalu (New York: Harper, 1954), 205-209, and Futrell, pp 652-653.
31
According to Hansen the lone dissent was from the CIA who had several plans in the works to secure a
working MiG. When General Clark asked the CIA about their plans they replied that they had an
eighteen year old North Korean refugee who CIA hoped to infiltrate back to North Korea, join the air
force, volunteer for jets, and then when he was checked out he would fly the plane to the South. General
Clark felt the reward program should go ahead as planned as the CIA’s plans seemed “a little long-
range.” Hansen, “Psywar in Korea,” 237-238.
32
The Joint Chiefs of Staff authorization to conduct this mission also included permission to drop leaflets
and make broadcasts in Czech, Polish, East German, and other languages in case the rumors that pilots
from Soviet satellite countries were flying in Korea proved true. Ibid, 233.

169
screening and perhaps grounding particular pilots or significantly limiting overall

sorties. Operation Moolah ran for a ninety-day period from April 27th 1953 until the

last day of the war on July 27th.

While Communist pilots did not defect with any MiG’s in the months following

the offer, there is some evidence that the operation did put pressure on the enemy air

forces and helped to diminish their combat capabilities. In the 90 days following the

start of Operation Moolah, MiG sorties dropped by about 30% and, indeed, for an eight

day period there was an unprecedented stand down of all MiG operations.33 Enemy

forces began jamming the Russian-language broadcasts out of Tokyo and Korea almost

immediately (although Chinese and Korean language transmissions were not jammed).

Further, the Air Force noted a significant decrease in the quality of MiG pilots after

Operation Moolah began. There were also indications that the Russians grounded their

pilots following the start of the Moolah.34 From January to April 1953 the Air Force

shot down about 4.4% of the MiG’s they encountered in combat as compared to 13.6%

of those encountered between April and July 1953. The Official Air Force History

describes the period between May and June of 1953 as reminiscent of the famed

“Marianas Turkey Shoot” of the Second World War and General Clark wrote in his

33
Pease, Psywar, 72-74.
34
Futrell, The United States Air Force in Korea, 653. It is worth noting that during this same time period
the United States grounded two of its top aces, Captain Joseph M. McConnell and Captain Manuel J.
“Pete” Fernandez and sent them to Tokyo and Washington for domestic propaganda purposes -- a victory
tour.

170
memoirs, “I think the idea hit the jackpot.”35 The Communist air forces clearly had to

change their operating procedures to prevent the likelihood that one of their pilots

(particularly Russians) would defect across UN lines. In that respect the Soviet,

Chinese, and North Korean air forces succeeded in preventing defections but at a very

high price. Not until September 1953, two months after the armistice, did a North

Korean Captain fly a MiG to Kimpo airfield and ask for political asylum; though

Captain No Kum-sok had never heard of the $50,000 offer.36

Missions such as Moolah were too few and far between to have more than a

passing impact on the war; the Air Force also used psychological warfare as a way to

enhance its strategic bombing efforts. In basic terms, FEC saw propaganda as a

mechanism to increase the psychological damage inflicted by 5th Air Force’s bombing

campaigns. FEC eventually concluded that moving people out of the cities could also

help to jam roads, complicating continued KPA advances; while a significant flow of

North Korean civilians out of the factories might even hamper North Korean war

production.37 Specifically, Fifth Air Force believed that successful air campaigns could

35
Futrell, The United States Air Force in Korea, 653 and Clark, From the Danube to the Yalu, 207. The
historical reference to the “Marianas Turkey Shoot” refers to the naval air battle on June 19, 1944 when
U.S. Navy fighters destroyed over 300 Japanese aircraft in the skies near Guam.
36
Due to the political sensitivities (including President Eisenhower’s dislike of the notion of “bribing”
pilots) the UN withdrew the $50,000 offer and No Kum-sok openly rejected any money in exchange for
the MiG. In any case No Kum-sok had been motivated by a dislike of his Soviet and Chinese “advisors.”
Captian No Kum-sok traded his MiG for a new name (Kenneth Rowe) and life in American as an
intelligence expert on North Korea and an anti-Communist spokesman. See Millett, Their War for
Korea, 57-63.
37
CINCFE, “Psychological Warfare Activities,” (30 July 1950); and Hansen, “Psywar in Korea,” 8.
Throughout the war the State Department tracked and monitored foreign reactions to UN bombing
operations. See the Coordinator for Psychological Intelligence, Special Paper Number 5, “Foreign
Reactions to Intensified UN Air Offensives in Korea,” n.d., Special Papers, entry 1044 (Coordinator for
171
also help to influence North Korean civilians to resist forced labor which was needed to

repair damage caused by the rail interdiction program, arouse resentment against the

Communist air forces, and perhaps even force a cease-fire.38 Most observers agree that

airpower did have some impact on imposing a settlement on the Communists at the end

of the war. Specifically, historians have argued that the UN placed continued pressure

on the Communists via air power and that in the end combat losses and the economic

cost to the enemy, as a result of UN airpower, made the war too costly to continue.39

“Air pressure,” or “military pressure,” was simply a rubric for the use of airpower in a

war of attrition against entrenched enemy forces. Indeed, the entire notion of “air

pressure” could justify the acquisition of large numbers of bombers for use in situations

where strategic airpower was not applicable. Significantly, however, there was a

psychological component to this war of attrition that may, at times, have outweighed the

physical. As Peters had suggested in his student paper and Air University Review

article, it was not propaganda in support of airpower, but the psychological impact of air

power itself where the Air Force played a decisive role in

Psychological Intelligence), RG 306, NACP; CINCFE, “Psychological Warfare Activities,” (30 July
1950); and Hansen, “Psywar in Korea,” 8.
38
Fifth Air Force, Far East Air Forces, “History of the Fifth Air Force,” Volume I, Chapter XI, “1
January to 30 June 1952,” 257-8; K730.01, USAF Collection. See also Futrell, 439.
39
See Rees, The Limited War, 404-406, Futtrell, United States Air Force in Korea, 656-658, and Stephen
T. Hosmer, Psychological Effects of U.S. Air Operations in Four Wars, 1941-1991 (Santa Monica:
RAND MR-576-AF, 1996), 24-26.

172
persuading the enemy on the battlefield.40 Some studies even suggested that airpower

should be used “primarily to achieve desired psychological effects with accompanying

physical damage being of secondary importance.”41

In summer, 1951, W. Phillips Davison, a RAND analyst, published an

assessment of Air Force psywar efforts to date in Korea. 42 Davison contended, as had

Peters, that the Air Force had two psychological warfare missions. This, Davison

argued, could lead to two very different conclusions about the value of Air Force

psychological warfare during the Korean War. As Davison wrote in 1951:

If one considers that psychological warfare is only a matter of dropping

leaflets, making radio broadcasts, and operating loudspeakers, then the Air
Force contribution in Korea has been very modest. If, however, one
includes as part of psychological warfare the use of weapons to achieve
beneficial psychological results—and it is the contention of the writer that
one should – then the contribution of the Air Force has been very large.43

Directing the calculated use of airpower to achieve psychological impact offered a

unique opportunity for Air Force psywar proponents to contribute to the war effort. Air

Force Chief of Staff, Gen. Hoyt Vandenberg, envisioned from the beginning of the

conflict a strategic bombing campaign against North Korea similar to that waged by the

Allies against Germany and Japan during the Second World War, replete with physical

and psychological effects. This sat well with senior Air Force leadership such as

Secretary of the Air Force Finletter, who argued at the FY 52 Senate Appropriations

40
Peters, “The Role of the USAF in Psychological Warfare.”
41
Colonel Roger E. Phelan, “Role of USAF in Psychological Warfare,” (student paper, Air War College,
Maxwell Air Force Base, June 1953).
42
W. Phillips Davison, “Air Force Psychological Warfare in Korea,” Air University Quarterly Review, 4
(Summer 1951), 40-48.
43
Davison, “Air Force Psychological Warfare in Korea,” 41.

173
Hearings (held in 1951) that strategic air power was the greatest war fighting weapon

the nation possessed.44 Vandenberg quickly obtained Joint Staff permission to send

approximately 100 B-29’s bombers to the Far East in order to carry out attacks against

strategic targets such as oil storage facilities, munitions factories, chemical plants and

other industrial sites that the Air Force deemed critical to enemy war making capacity.45

The strategic bombing campaign, however, ended rather quickly after Lt. Gen.

Stratemeyer, the Commanding General of the Far East Air Forces (FEAF), announced

in September 1950 that practically all strategic industrial targets had been destroyed by

high-explosives.46 After the Chinese intervention in late 1950, political limitations

meant that strategic sites such as war material staging areas in Manchuria remained off

the target list throughout the war. Thus, Stratemeyer and his successors focused on

using airpower to apply military pressure on the enemy forces, regardless of whether

UN ground forces were on the offensive or defensive.47 The USAF mission consisted

primarily of “air pressure” and interdiction campaigns aimed at destroying those enemy

supply centers, transportation equipment and troop concentrations that contributed to

enemy efforts on the battlefield.

44
George M. Watson Jr., The Office of the Secretary of the Air Force, 1947-1965, (Washington DC:
Center for Air Force History, 1993), 117.
45
Wayne Thompson, “The Air War over Korea,” in Bernard Nalty, ed.,Winged Shield, Winged Sword, A
History of the United States Air Force (Washington DC: U.S. Air Force History and Museums Program,
1997), 2: 13.
46
Ibid, 14.
47
See William W Momyer, Air Power in Three Wars (1978; reprint, Maxwell AFB: Air University
Press, 2003), 170.

174
 During the earliest days of the Korean War, FEAF contemplated the

psychological implications of planned strategic bombing operations. Within weeks of

the outbreak of war, Lt. Gen. George Stratemeyer wrote a memo to General MacArthur

recommending that FEC provide the North Koreans with an “ultimatum” for surrender

and that failure to comply would result in the destruction of dozens of specific targets

by aerial bombardment. The warnings would have had the additional humanitarian

purpose of warning civilians away from areas likely to be bombed. Stratemeyer’s memo

of July 12, 1950 advised that:

All available channels of communication be used by you to notify those

responsible for current operations of the NK armed forces that it is your intent
to destroy by air bombardment all railroad centers, airfields, heavy industry
locations, port facilities, and sub bases, POL storage facilities, refineries and
railroads and highways used by their armed forces. (b) All persons to be
warned to leave such areas and remain at points sufficiently far removed to
avoid needless loss of life. (c) The sole action on the part of North Korea which
will prevent such actions on your part is the withdrawal of all North Korean
Armed Forces above the 38th parallel, complete cessation of all hostile activity,
and an agreement by the North Korean government to abide by any future
decisions of the United Nations.48

Although MacArthur rejected the plan the PWD FEC used the concepts of the 12 July

memo in developing a general “warning” leaflet program to accompany strategic

bombing missions during 1950. Washington, particularly the Department of State, was

not as concerned about amplifying the psychological impact of bombing, as they were

more worried that the Soviet Union and her allies would portray UN bombing strikes

against North Korean targets as aggressive, indiscriminate, and designed to prevent the

48
U.S. Air Force, “Psychological Effects of Air Activity,” 107-108.

175
Communist “liberation” of the Korean people. 49 In contrast to the Pentagon, the State

Department viewed psychological warfare operations primarily as a way to minimize

this negative publicity surrounding the use of UN airpower– a striking example in

which two potential goals of U.S. psychological warfare were seemingly at odds.

From the earliest days of the war, FEC radio broadcasts had included warnings

for civilians to evacuate from major cities. In July 1950 the PWB FEC added advance

warnings for specific cities similar to those provided to German and Japanese civilians

during the Second World War. Leaflet drops following strikes reiterated the “necessity”

of the previous raids and reiterated those measures that the UN had taken to protect

innocent lives. FEC hoped the post-attack leaflets would not only help defend collateral

damage but help the civilian population to redirect any anger towards the Communists.

It is important to note that Stratemeyer’s proposal, however, was not simply a

recommendation to warn civilians out of the cities but a plan to persuade a target

audience to take a particular “action.” Stratemeyer specifically targeted the North

Korean leadership with the intent to induce the North Korean leaders into surrendering.

Additionally, the “action,” a cessation of hostilities, would have been an easily

observable event and thus the psychological impact of the operation could have proved

easily measurable.

The use of warning leaflets with strategic bombing campaigns continued

throughout the Korean War. In July of 1951 Washington specifically directed FEC to

drop warning leaflets in conjunction with renewed strategic bombing campaigns against

49
Chief of Military History, History of Department of the Army Activities, 2.

176
Pyongyang and 77 major North Korean cities.50 FEC, EUSAK, and especially Fifth Air

Force viewed the propaganda offensive, code named Plan Strike, as not only an attempt

to reduce civilian casualties but to lower civilian morale and disrupt industrial

production – something even well placed bombs could not always do well. Plan Strike

specifically focused on communications centers and major supply routes while Plan

Blast supported attacks against military targets in Pyongyang. In addition to leaflets,

Strike and Blast used Radio Seoul and other media outlets to warn residents of the

upcoming missions.51 Following the bombing strikes additional leaflet missions were

used to encourage North Korean troops in the target areas to surrender. FEC hoped that

civilians fleeing from these areas would clog roadways and thus make it difficult for

North Korean supplies to reach troops on the front line.

In theory, Plan Strike and Plan Blast were a textbook examples of how

psychological warfare could amplify the effects of conventional weapons. Not only

could the psychological impact of the strategic bombing reach beyond those sites

50
The leaflets featured a bomb burst, with large slogans that read, “ACT QUICKLY! MOVE AWAY
FROM MILITARY TARGETS.” On the back of each leaflet the warning was repeated and specifics
were provided such as, “Your city is one of those in which the Communist gang has built war factories
and concentrated military supplies to be used in killing other Koreans. One by one these military
installations will be destroyed by UN planes. The UN air force will do everything possible to protect
innocent civilians from the war forced on Korea by the Communist traitors. But you must act quickly.
Stay away from military targets. Move to the country…join them and preserve your lives so that you can
help build a strong, free Korea after the communists have been driven out.” “Civilian Evacuation of
Military Target Areas,” Serial Number 1011, President’s Secretary’s Files, Papers of Harry S. Truman,
HST Library.
51
While conventional wisdom held that the Air Force might not want to let the enemy know ahead of
time that particular targets were to be bombed in advance, this did not seem to be the case amongst
planners and pilots. For the most part FEAF assumed that the enemy’s early warning systems, even if
primitive, would allow them to determine where UN aircraft were headed. See Hansen, “Psywar in
Korea,” 107-109.

177
actually struck but it might even have a tangible impact even when bombs were not

actually dropping. As described by a psywar staff officer in Tokyo:

With a bomb-warning campaign added, factory production and rail and road
transport would falter everywhere between as well as during raids and damage
is repaired much more slowly. In addition, natural civilian resentment at
being subjected to military bombing is properly channeled, against their own
government for engaging in aggressive war. It is pointed out repeatedly to
civilians that military installations and rail and road centers are the bombing
targets, and that for their own protection they should stay away from such
targets before they are bombed and avoid being press-ganged into work details
to repair them after they are bombed – just in case they are scheduled to be re-
bombed. This contributes to absenteeism and further slows production and
transport.52

Unfortunately the results of the propaganda campaigns such as Strike proved as difficult

to quantify as did ground-focused psychological warfare operations. For the State

Department and even FEC there was little question that alerting civilians to evacuate

target cities was an important counterpropaganda tool against the Communists. It was

less clear to FEAF or FEC that the propaganda effort had an impact on North Korean

war production or enemy morale. As Yarnold had anticipated in his study of World War

II, it was unclear what exactly had made civilians leave the cities and whether or not

there had been any impact on war production. Air Force leadership in Korea argued

that the combination of warnings and strikes could continue to pressure and influence

the North Korean people and leadership. The focus was clearly on the physical effects

of the bombing rather than the psychological impact. Significantly, the Air Force did

not use the lack of tangible and quantifiable evidence of success to downplay the

52
Hansen, “Psywar in Korea,”106.

178
importance of psywar programs. In fact, the Air Force believed throughout the war that

propaganda needed to remain part of the strategic bombing offensive.

Similarly, the Air Force recognized that tactical airpower had both a physical

and psychological effect on the battlefield but did little to design operations for

maximum psychological benefit. Ironically, aircraft had a much more decisive

psychological effect, especially in terms of degrading enemy morale, than even strategic

bombing attacks. Although bombing and strafing enemy troops was designed to kill

them, close air support and interdiction missions also had an indirect psychological

effect. Tactical air power sought to influence the battle not only by interdicting the flow

of men and material to front lines but also providing additional firepower with which to

strike enemy positions.53 During the Korean War the USAF conducted tactical airpower

operations with the understanding that these missions had incidental psychological

effects such as damaging Communist morale and improving the morale of UN ground

forces. Like psychological warfare, airpower could best be used to exploit opportunities

on the ground and was, at times, viewed as an “adjunct” to the more important ground

force missions. Airpower, however, also clearly created situations that ground forces

could capitalize on and ground commanders clearly understood how close air support

and interdiction operations directly reduced enemy combat power.54 In fact, the

53
See I.B. Holley, Jr., “A Retrospect on Close Air support,” in Benjamin Franklin Cooling, ed., Case
Studies in the Development of Close Air Support (Washington DC: Office of Air Force History, 1990),
535-555.

54
See U.S. Air Force, “Psychological Effects of Air Activity,” 1. For more detailed contemporary
discussions of airpower in its interdiction and close air support roles during the Korean War see Brigadier
General Homer L. Saunders, “Tactical Air Operations in Retrospect and Prospect,” Air University
Quarterly Review, 4 (Spring 1951), 38-46; General Otto P. Weyland, “The Air Campaign in Korea,” Air
179
lessons of World War II had shown that in contrast to attacks on strategic targets, the

enemy troops exposed to air attacks experienced significant enough psychological and

morale damage to clearly hinder their combat performance.55 Operation Cobra (the

breakout from Normandy in summer 1944) clearly demonstrated the enormous

psychological degradation and physical destruction that airpower could have on the

battlefield. After the attacks the Germans estimated that not only were 50% of German

casualties caused by aerial bombardment but, in the words of one General officer, the

“shock effect was nearly as strong as the physical effect.”56

As both Communist and UN forces attested, USAF tactical operations during the

Korean War appear to have been equally as effective. Close air support of ground

troops enabled the UN forces to repel overwhelming numbers of North Korean and

Chinese forces as well as exact an incredible toll on Chinese forces during the stalemate

of the later two years of the war. Psywar programs effectively exploited the fear created

by UN close air support in leaflets stressing to KPA and CPVF forces the futility of

resistance in the face of UN airpower. Contemporary assessments such as Stephen

Hosmer’s RAND study, The Psychological Effects of U.S. Air Operations in Four

Wars, 1941-1991, suggested that the emotional stress caused by air attacks created a

University Quarterly Review 6 (Autumn 1953), 2-28; and Lt. Colonel George E. Tormoen, “Political Air
Superiority in the Korean Conflict,” Air University Quarterly Review, 6 (Winter 1953-4), 78-84.

55
Richard P. Hallion, Strike from the Sky: the History of Battlefield Air Attack, 1911-1945 (Washington
DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989), 264.
56
As quoted in Hallion, Strike from the Sky, 213. During postwar interrogation Generalleutnant Fritz
Beyerlein noted that “during the bombardment…some of the men got crazy and were unable to carry out
anything…this was the worst I ever saw.”

180
clear window within which psychological warfare could operate.57The first mention of

air power came on July 17, 1950 when UN aircraft dropped a leaflet showing a KPA

troop train under attack by UN aircraft. The reverse side of the leaflet described the

senseless fighting and spelled out General MacArthur’s promise of good treatment to

those who surrendered.58 During the UN counterattack in the autumn of 1950 about

fifteen of the fifty different leaflets dropped on KPA troops contained references to

airpower. In addition to the aforementioned “warning” leaflets, UN propaganda spoke

to the increasing UN airpower arriving in theater, the failures of the KPAF, drawings of

UN aircraft attacking KPA troops and a variety of other visual and verbal

pronouncements emphasizing the futility of fighting in the face of UN air supremacy.

Airpower, however, was one of the major factors that created windows of

opportunity within which propaganda could be used to incite actions such as desertion

and surrender. As historian Allan R. Millett has written in his study of close air support

during the Korean War, tactical airpower’s effects were so decisive that Chinese field

armies designed their operations specifically to avoid UN air strikes and other analyses,

such as those by Stephen Hosmer and Frank Futtrell have come to similar conclusions.59

Airpower was one of the major causes for decreased morale amongst North Korean

57
Hosmer, Psychological Effects of U.S. Air Operations.
58
U.S. Air Force, Psychological Effects of Air Activity, 70. Hosmer (150) notes that between September
1951 and March 1952 the UN ceased dropping leaflets focusing on the effects of U.S. airpower in Korea
but does not offer an explanation. It is likely, however, that the absence of these leaflets was due to FEC
instructions to focus propaganda operations on plans Deadline and Hold-Up in support of the UN position
during the Armistice talks as discussed in Chapter III of this dissertation.
59
Allan R. Millett, “Korea, 1950-1953,” in Cooling, ed., Case Studies in the Development of Close Air
Support, 345-410 and Hosmer, Psychological Effects of U.S. Air Operations, 107.

181
troops according to surveys of prisoners of war. About 19% of those surveyed

indicated that continued UN airstrikes were the major reason for their low morale.

While over 20% of those captured had indicated that food shortages were the primary

cause of low morale, Hosmer is quick to point out that the food shortages came largely

as a result of UN aerial interdiction operations.60

Despite the amount of research into the psychological effects of strategic and

tactical airpower, it does not appear as though the Air Force ever put this information

into operational channels. At the Pentagon, the Department of the Air Force gave a

great deal of thought to the psychological effects that atomic bombs might have on both

civilian and military populations. During the Korean War the Air Force specifically

commissioned RAND to research CPVF and NKPA concerns about the atomic bomb.61

At the same time the Air Force also sponsored a larger effort by the Human Resources

Research Institute (HRRI) at the Air University to travel to Korea to look generally at

how enemy soldiers reacted to combat conditions (including sustained bombardment)

on the battlefield with the explicit purpose of improving overall psychological warfare

programs.62 The HRRI study easily concluded that a combination of bombing for

60
Hosmer, Psychological Effects of U.S. Air Operations, 107.
61
The study came to the palpable conclusion that Communist forces were concerned about American use
of atomic weapons. It did present the observation that Chinese troops exhibited a more “awestruck,” and
“emotional” attitude towards atomic weapons whereas North Korean soldiers were more concerned with
the “thermal properties and effects,” of the weapon. See H. Goldhamer, “Communist Reaction in Korea
to American Possession of the A-Bomb and its Significance for U.S. Political and Psychological
Warfare,” RAND Memorandum 903 (RM-903), 1 August, 1952 (Santa Monica: Rand Corporation,
August 1952).
62
U.S. Air Force, Implications and Summary of a Psychological Warfare Study in South Korea,
(Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama: Air University, 1951); K.168.7103-21 in the George C. Kenney
Papers, Air Force Historical Research Agency, see especially pp. 15-17.

182
psychological effect and classic propaganda operations could reduce the enemy’s

military effectiveness. Specifically the HRRI research showed evidence that airpower

could be used in conjunction with psychological warfare to encourage economic slow-

downs, malingering, hoarding, sabotage and perhaps even revolts.

Despite the theoretical and doctrinal discussions about tailoring the

psychological effects of airpower, however, the USAF did not regularly integrate these

findings into operational plans during the Korean War. The tailoring of the

psychological effects of air activity remained, for the most part, unplanned. Like their

Army counterparts, FEAF found themselves incredibly short of psywar officers. The

one psywar officer at FEAF at the outset of the conflict spent most of his time with

liaison and reporting duties and not in any position to comment or contribute to the

overall design of psychological warfare operations. 63 To some degree, FEAF staff saw

no need for specialized psywar officers and remained content that bombing itself,

without any special planning, was psychological warfare enough. The lack of personnel

and desire meant that FEAF and 5th Air Force did not integrate psychological warfare

planning into its “operations” shops. As in the Army psychological warfare officers did

not regularly advise their commanders on the “probable psychological effects their

operations will achieve.”64

63
U.S. Air Force, “Psychological Effects of U.S. Air Activity,” 107.
64
Davison, “Air Force Psychological Warfare in Korea,” 42.

183
 The Air Force’s own assessment supports the contention that FEAF and 5th Air

Force’s consideration of psychological factors was “spasmodic and unsystematic.”65 In

almost every strategic and tactical air mission the psychological effects were secondary

considerations to the physical effects. Indeed, this assessment also determined that

during the Korean War “no major air strikes were undertaken with the achievement of

given psychological effects as the dominating motive.”66 At best the some air planners

attempted to weigh the probable morale effects of air strikes. In most cases, however,

no consideration was given to those issues. In addition, the study noted the lack of

psychological warfare officers on operations staffs and more importantly, noted that

these officers did not participate in targeting considerations “regularly” and had limited

access to high level discussions of targeting policy and airpower strategy.67 Similarly,

air staffs neither sought nor collected a great deal of intelligence regarding the

intangible and psychological effects of air activity. This was a province left to HRRI

and ORO researchers. Thus, even in those operations where someone had considered

“secondary” psychological effects there was no systematic effort to assess whether or

not those calculations had been correct.

While the planners on the air staffs had perhaps missed an opportunity to

effectively degrade enemy combat power using a combination of psychological and

conventional attacks, this was not due to a dislike for or a misunderstanding of

65
U.S. Air Force, “Psychological Effects of U.S. Air Activity,” 5-6.
66
Ibid., 37.
67
Ibid., 94.

184
psychological warfare as a battlefield weapon. In that regard the USAF experience with

psychological warfare during the Korean War was functionally different than that of the

U.S. Army. While psywar proponents in the Air Force failed to create an

“independent” psywar corps within the Air Force, it was not due to the lack of respect

for propaganda as a weapon. In 1952 the Air Force considered the concept of a “major

command” to provide psychological operations support to the entire Strategic Air

Command mission. The organization would provide plans, vulnerability and area

studies and materials to support strategic air offensives.68 Air Force psywar personnel,

however, focused on the concept of an independent organization to do what the Army

already was doing – design, prepare, and distribute propaganda leaflets and conduct

radio broadcasts.

The notion of an independent “psychological” or “unconventional” warfare

branch within the Air Force, as represented by the ARCS program, proved short-lived

due, not to the conventional Air Force, but largely to the strength of the Army’s

psychological warfare organization run by General McClure. General McClure’s

opinion was that the Air Force was simply a “supporting agency.”69 If the Air Force

needed its own organization to support Army psywar efforts, that was an Air force

matter, but McClure would not allow the ARCS program to simply duplicate the

Army’s psychological and guerilla warfare capabilities. Air Force psywariors were

particularly upset at the notion that the Army psywar was a “unique” contribution to the

68
History of the Air Supply and Communications Service, 1 January – 30 June 1952, 8-9 and 150-152;
K318.8, USAF Collection, AFHRA.
69
See “Interview with General McClure,” U.S. News and World Report, 2 January 1953, 60.

185
U.S. military and it became a priority to demonstrate that the Air Force could do the

Army’s mission better than the Army. One contemporary account notes that the ARCS

personnel were concerned and almost paranoid about the Army’s desire to quash any

Air Force psywar program. At one point ARCS officers acused the Army’s

compilation of its Korean War psywar activities “at short notice” simply as part of the

Army’s propaganda campaign for recognition as the preeminent psywar service.70

Any cursory review of US airpower doctrine demonstrates that USAF personnel

understood that there was an inherent psychological impact in any strategic or tactical

application of airpower. While some believed that airpower alone might convince the

enemy that resistance was futile, others felt that it simply opened up opportunities to

utilize other military or psychological weapons. During the Korean War the Air Force

contribution to psychological warfare could technically be described as ancillary. In

terms of overall FEC psywar operations the Air Force simply provided a mechanism,

albeit the primary one, for the distribution of leaflet propaganda over friendly and

enemy territory. This view, however, disregards the way that civilian and military

psywar proponents of the time thought about psychological warfare. While the direct

application of airpower had psychological effects, it is clear from the record that these

were not, except in a few cases, the result of planned activities.

70
ARCS members were so competitive with their Army counterparts that they once accused the Army of
stealing the ARCS psywar emblem for its own use. History of the Air Supply and Communications
Service, 1 July – 31 December 1952, 9.
186
 CHAPTER 7

COMMUNIST PYSWAR: THE BACTERIOLOGICAL WARFARE

ALLEGATIONS

On July 8, 1952, Colonel Frank Schwable, the chief of staff of the First Marine

Aircraft Wing, and his co-pilot Major Roy Bley, took the controls of their SNB trainer

(a variant of the twin-engine C-45 Beechcraft) and began a routine four-hour flight

required to remain eligible for their monthly flight pay. This was actually Schwable’s

first flight since arriving in Korea and the colonel had yet to orient himself with the

front lines of the battle from the air. Schwable and Bley took off over the west coast of

Korea at low level and headed north towards the UN front lines. As the crew

approached the front lines the Beechcraft was hit by enemy anti-aircraft fire, and

Schwable and Bley had to bail out to safety. CPVF troops quickly captured both pilots,

and separated them. The Chinese housed Bley with other prisoners of war but he would

187
not see Schwable again until their release from captivity over a year later. As for

Colonel Schwable, would not speak with another prisoner of war during his entire time

in captivity.1

Following their initial interrogations, their Chinese captors moved Schwable and

Bley from the frontlines to long-term holding facilities more appropriate for the conduct

of strategic interrogations. The Chinese isolated the pilots from other prisoners,

controlled their sleep cycles, and managed every aspect of their daily routines. During

the interrogation sessions Chinese military personnel grilled Schwable and Bley on

military order of battle, U.S. Marine Corps organization, and a host of other standard

operational and tactical question. The Chinese also persistently questioned the aviators

about germ warfare. As Schwable recalled years later, there was nothing to do except sit

in a cold and damp cell. The Chinese did not permit the colonel to exercise at all and

constantly harassed him about the use of bacteriological agents against Communist

forces in Korea. As the Chinese tightened the interrogation screws, Schwable decided

to make up what he felt were ridiculous assertions such as the Americans were using

contaminated flies to spread disease in Korea. Schwable figured that his superiors

would clearly view admissions as ludicrous given that flies could not survive in the sub-

zero weather in Korea. Schwable also felt these admissions would let his command and

everyone back home know he was alive. What Schwable did not anticipate was that the

1
Oral History Transcript, Brigadier General Frank H. Schwable, USMC (Ret); Benis M. Frank,
Interviewer. History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, Washington DC, 1983,
152-217 and MEMORANDUM from USARMA MOSCOW to G2, 281010Z FEB 53; Office of Naval
Intelligence, POW Desk (ONI POW Desk), Operational Section 1949-1954, A-16-11B, “Bacteriological
Warfare,” Records Group 38, Records of the Chief of Naval Operations, NACP.
188
Chinese would use his statements, and similar admissions by Major Bley, as part of one

of the most extensive strategic propaganda campaigns of the Korean War.

Despite Schwable’s intentions, many in the military viewed Schwable as a

traitor or at least as a victim of Communist brainwashing. After the war a Court of

Inquiry cleared Schwable of charges that he collaborated with the enemy but no one in

the Marine Corps appeared willing to lend Schwable any further support.2 Although

offered a quick retirement, Schwable wanted to continue to serve in the Marine Corps.

All the Marine Corps was willing to give the Colonel was a harmless job in an aviation

safety office – where he would have no operational responsibilities or command of

troops in any meaningful manner. Indeed, Schwable’s story demonstrates the

effectiveness of Communist propaganda operations. While the “germ warfare”

allegations themselves held no sway in the United States, the “confessions” concerned

many in the Pentagon that the Chinese had a “brainwashing” program as part of their

overall psychological warfare and propaganda apparatus. In short, if they could get

Schwable to confess, then they could get anyone.

The reality was much less frightening and far more mundane. The Chinese

efforts to extract confessions were the product of routine, albeit well-practiced,

interrogation techniques along with “indoctrination programs,” designed to educate

American prisoners as to the virtues of Communism. Indoctrination, along with

2
While the Department of Defense and the Department of State agreed that their would be no punishment
of soldiers for their public statements or confessions this did not preclude lengthy investigation of
allegations of collaboration with the enemy. POCC Memorandum dated 19 Mar 1953, “Accountability of
Military Personnel for “Confessions,” ONI POW Desk, Operational Section 1949-1954, A16-14/04
“Broadcasts by UN POW’s,” RG 38, NACP.

189
interrogation and mail screening and censorship also served to help control prisoners

with a minimal use of guards. Indeed, these programs were, in practice, no different

than U.S. programs after World War II designed to de-Nazify Germany or

“rehabilitation” programs in UN prisoner of war camps during the Korean conflict.3

The indoctrination efforts scared the United States military more than the

confessions themselves. Indeed, in the United States the military services were so

concerned that by late 1952 the services thought that Communist indoctrination of U.S.

prisoners of war might prove so effective that U.S. POW’s returning from Korea would

have to “be held for a substantial period to undergo a de-indoctrination phase.”4 In

order to expose and counter Soviet propaganda during the Korean War, the Army

launched programs to study the specific Communist indoctrination techniques known

popularly as “brainwashing,” as well as similar approaches used to extract forced

confessions from captured Air Force and Marine airmen held in Korea. The military’s

concerns were exacerbated by a public debate over the conduct of U.S. service

personnel while prisoners of war. In 1957, Eugene Kinkead wrote in the New Yorker

that Korea had proved the “only time in history that American captives have chosen not

3
For a brief review of U.S. rehabilitation programs in Korea see Kenneth K. Hansen, Heroes behind
Barbed Wire, (Princeton: D. Van Noostrand, 1957).
4
Memorandum for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Subsidiary Plans Division (BG Millard C. Young),
“Department of Defense Contribution to the Second Quarterly Psychological Strategy Board (PSB)
Report to the President and the National Security Council,” 12 January 1953, 7-8. Central Decimal File
1951-1953, 385 (6-4-46), RG 218, Records of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, NACP; and Memorandum from
the Adjutant General, United States Army, “Intelligence Processing of Returned or Exchanged Captured
American Personnel – Korea (Short Title RECAP-K, Part II), 13 March 1953, 1-2; ONI POW Desk,
Operational Section 1949-1954, A16-14/00, Bacteriological Warfare, “UN POW (Korea),” Records
Group 38, Records of the Chief of Naval Operations, NACP.

190
to return home because they preferred the enemy’s form of government to our own.”5

While the Army grappled with a solution to POW conduct, which would result in a

Code of Conduct for Members of the Armed Forces, most of Washington continued to

fixate on Communist “brainwashing.” In particular, hearings before the House

Committee on Un-American Activities on “Brainwashing,” after the war perpetuated

the belief that these techniques had been the primary Communist psychological warfare

technique. During hearings in March 1958, Edward Hunter, a foreign correspondent and

author of Brainwashing in Red-China (1953) testified that brainwashing explained why

“roughly 1 of every 3 American prisoners collaborated with the Communists,” and, “for

the first time in history Americans – 21 of them – swallowed the enemy’s propaganda

line” and failed to return home.6

Communist Battlefield Psywar Operations

For Communist societies propaganda was integrated politically and militarily to a much

greater degree than in any of the Western democracies. Propaganda was an instrument

of total policy – domestic, foreign and military. For Mao Tse-Tung in particular, the

military was not just an instrument to destroy the enemy on the battlefield but to harness

5
Eugene Kinkead, In Every War but One (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1959)
6
While Hunter did not specifically state that brainwashing was synonymous with “psychological
warfare,” his use of the term “mind attack,” as a dimension of war designed to soften up the enemy was
close enough so that those outside of the military would have made no distinction between the military
would make no distinction between the two terms. House Committee on Un-American Activities,
Communist Psychological Warfare (Brainwashing), 85th Cong., 2nd sess., 13 March 1958, 1, 3, 5.

191
the political power of the domestic audience and to propagate the faith abroad. As Mao

wrote in 1929:

…the Red Army exists not merely to fight; besides fighting to destroy the enemy’s military
strength, it should also shoulder such important tasks as agitating the masses, organizing them,
arming them, and helping them set up a revolutionary political power, and even establishing
7
organizations of the Communist Party…

During the Korean War the North Korean and Chinese military waged a limited and

relatively unsuccessful battlefield psywar campaign against South Korean and United

States troops. With the help of the Soviet Union the Communist nations sought to attain

one overarching goal – to advance the distrust in and hatred for the United Nations and

the “American imperialists.”8 On the battlefield the North Koreans used radio, leaflets,

pamphlets, loudspeakers, word of mouth, and psychological action (propaganda of the

deed) in attempts to lower U.S. and ROK morale and perhaps induce surrenders.

Additionally, the North Koreans and Chinese directed propaganda at South Korean

civilians to convince them of the just nature of the North Korean cause, promote

hostility towards the “imperialists,” and create antipathy for the Rhee government.

North Korean and Chinese “combat propaganda,” resulted in few successes on

the battlefield. The Communists similarly did not develop any materials targeted

specifically at UN coalition partners (such as the Turks, Greeks, or Colombians) during

7
Mao Zedong, Selected Works, I, (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1961), 106.
8
For a good overview of North Korean psywar operations see, Fred H. Barton, ORO-T-10 (EUSAK),
North Korean Propaganda to South Koreans (Civilian and Military) (Chevy Chase, MD: Operations
Research Office, The Johns Hopkins University, February 1951).

192
the war.9 Chinese and North Korean forces developed leaflets solely in English, Korean

and Spanish – for Puerto Ricans in US units and radio programs while radio programs

broadcast in English and Korean. Additionally, while a few leaflets targeted African-

American troops, the Chinese and North Koreans do not appear to have made a

concerted effort to use racially divisive propaganda in the way the Soviet Union would

in the global war for hearts and minds and the North Vietnamese would during the

American war in Vietnam.10 Indeed, one of the only examples of a KPA propaganda

leaflet directed at African-American troops was provided to six American prisoners

released on January 7, 1951. In this instance the North Koreans released the soldiers

(presumably African-American) along with a message directed to the “Colored Men of

U.S. Forces.” The hand written leaflet read:

COLORED MEN OF U.S. FORCES. FIND THE ONLY WAY TO LIVE !

YOU MUST LIVE. YOU MUST GO HOME AGAIN. Your family is awaiting
your return. How sad were it when your death be informed to them. Who will
support your family’s lives after your death? You are now defeated on every
front and are surrounded in many areas by brave Korea People’s Army and

9
Hansen, Psywar in Korea, 28. From time to time CPVF and KPA forces mentioned British troops in
their propaganda. For example a small cloth bag, reading "GI CARE KIT" was left by the communists
for UN troops in some front-line areas. A joint message from the KPA and CPVF read: "Your Loved
ones want you home sound and safe. American and British soldiers: Don't like dead in the foreign land
far from your own states." Cloth bag obtained in Box 2 of the Donald A. Seibert Papers, USAMHI.
10
Intelligence reports indicated that the Chinese had asked some U.S. POW's about the location of "negro
units" presumably with the intention of directing propaganda at them. Indeed the Department of State
believed that United States had a particular vulnerability with regards to racially divisive propaganda. As
one State Department report noted, despite the absolute progress in racial equality made by the U.S. the
“gap” between “all men our created equal” and the national practices of segregation was the “great
American weakness in the Cold War.” See Carroll, Draft report of 12 June, 1950, “Psychological
Pressures – Our Global Objectives,” Box 12, “Records Relating to International Information Activities,”
Lot 53D47, RG 59, NACP; and Memorandum from LT Nelson (OP322) to LCDR Bartlett: Subject
"Interrogation of U.S. and South Korean Prisoners of War in Korea," p.5; Office of Naval Intelligence,
POW Desk, Operational Section, 1949-1954, Records Group 38, Records of the Chief of Naval
Operations.

193
 voluntary Army of China. Your continuous fight brings nothing else but
worthless death in a strange land.

YOU MUST HAVE YOUR JUST RIGHT TO ENJOY FREEDOM AND

EQUALITY.
You certainly remember that you have been mistreated with racist
discrimination and in slave life. American capitalists are plotting to colonize
Korea by military intervention. We should cut this chain.

HATE WAR AND COME OVER TO KOREAN PEOPLE’S ARMY. IF YOU

WANT TO FIND THE ONLY WAY TO LIVE.

Korean People’s Army will treat you very well and will send you home soon!11

While on paper this leaflet played on textbook themes (inequality and lack of freedom

for minorities in the United States as well as the history of slavery) the Chinese and

North Koreans appear to have focused on “class” vice “race” as an issue for their

propaganda campaigns. In any case, it does not appear that any Communist battlefield

propaganda, racially oriented or otherwise, had a notable impact on UN forces.

Many of the best North Korean and Chinese propaganda leaflets, such as the

safe conduct passes, were straight lifts from U.S. propaganda sheets, perhaps an

indication of the actual or perceived success of these materials on KPA and CPVF

troops. The Chinese also produced a newssheet entitled “Peace” (published by the

Peace News Press), leaflets that stressed that U.S. soldiers were fighting for the

imperialist dogs of Wall Street, and later in the war leaflets explaining to U.S. soldiers

that Eisenhower had sold out the American soldiers to big business. A dearth of trained

11
A caption beneath this leaflet reads that “it was one of three given by North Koreans to six American
prisoners on their release on 7 Jan 51,” but it remains unclear whether these were African-Americans.
Presumably, the North Korean release of African-Americans would have been propaganda (of the deed)
in and of itself. “North Korean Propaganda to the United Nations,” Box 14, William Vatcher Collection,
Hoover Institution Archives, Palo Alto, California.

194
propagandists and an overall lack of familiarity with the English language, especially

the vernacular, resulted in a number of leaflets with grammatical errors and contextual

problems such as one leaflet that urged U.S. troops to “be relieved and surrender.”

“Peking Polly,” who’s modulated and well-educated voice berated U.S. Air Force

personnel for the “promiscuous bombing of schools and strafing of farmers,” and

“Seoul City Sue,” could not garner anywhere near as large an audience that “Tokyo

Rose” did during World War II.”12 Overall, North Korean and Chinese radio efforts on

the tactical level appear to have been unsuccessful as U.S. programs.13

Despite its overall simplicity and unsuitability, some Chinese psywar methods

did have discernable, albeit fleeting, effects on Allied morale. As soldiers from the 2nd

Infantry Division recalled after the war, when the enemy played Joni James’ rendition

of Hank Williams “Your Cheatin’ Heart,” it gave soldiers some reason to pause and

think of home and announcements welcoming specific units and leaders to the front line

stunned some men because it showed the Chinese knew “who we were before we were

even in the foxholes.” 14 Likewise, as another soldier recalled, the Chinese playing of

12
On August 27, 1950 a United Press story identified “Sue” as Mrs. Ann Wallace Suhr, a missionary who
married a Korean who had supposedly been forced to broadcast for the Communists. Once the story was
broken then “Polly” came on the air but did the program never caught on and disappeared by mid-1951.
Hansen, Psywar in Korea, 321 -322.
13
Like their American adversaries, the Chinese also produced a variety of unusual propaganda products.
One of the more interesting devices was a bag of Chinese tea with the following message attached:
"Demand Peace, Stop the War!" A similar message on the back read: "Peace: This Chinese Famous tea
is given you to kill the hillish [sic] time at the front.” Donald A. Seibert Papers, Box 2, USAMHI,
Carlisle, PA.
14
CPL Edumnd Ferguson, 23rd Infantry Regiment; Korean War Questionaires, (A-J), 23rd Infantry
Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division, USAMHI. In 1953, Joni James recorded a particularly eerie if not
outright creepy of the Hank Williams song, “Your Cheatin’ Heart” that fit well into the fog shrouded
night-time battlefield. The Chinese musical selection in this instance was particularly well tailored to their
195
“taps” during engagements gave some soldiers “the creeps.” Similarly, one female

loudspeaker broadcaster encouraged GI's to meet her "in no-man's land and get drunk

and be happy" while another made a more sinister suggestion, "why don't you shoot

your GI buddies."15 In the vast majority of cases, however, American troops felt that

“the enemy wasted their paper.” In most cases U.S. troops simply “laughed about”

enemy propaganda leaflets, “joked about it,” and sometimes used the leaflets for toilet

paper. As one soldier noted, gift baskets left by Chinese forces for front line U.S. troops

during Christmas made good barter for “booze from the flyboys.”16 One of the rare

instances of divisive propaganda targeted African-American soldiers and promised

them “a blond, a Cadillac car, and to live like a big shot” if they defected also had no

effect on soldiers, black or white.17 The most the Communist propaganda seemed to do

was anger or irritated U.S. troops who frequently responded to enemy loudspeakers

crying on about the “hopeless war” with machine gun or artillery fire. As one 2nd ID

soldier reminisced,

Loudspeakers on the enemy side of Old Baldy played a record telling us to

give up by dark or we would die. They then played music from the U.S. I
was squad leader of a machine gun squad and ordered the gun to fire towards
the direction of the speakers – with success, no more records played!18

audience who was undoubtedly familiar with that popular recording. Joni James. “Your Cheatin’ Heart,”
Joni James Sings Songs of Hank Williams, Country Style, Taragon Records, 2001.
15
Reports of U.S. Army Forces Far East Psywar Section to Chief, Psywar DA, 19 April to 18 July, 1953
as quoted in Sandler, Cease Resistance, 268.
16
Alvin Alward, John Heisey, Philip Bailey, and other unidentified individuals from the 23rd Infantry
Regiment; Korean War Questionnaires, (A-J), 23rd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division, USAMHI.
17
PFC Charles Alioto, 23rd Infantry Regiment, Korean War Questionnaires, (A-J), 23rd Infantry
Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division, USAMHI.
18
COL Jessup, 2-23 Infantry, Korean War Questionnaires (A-J), 23rd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry
division, USAMHI.
196
Other than proving a nuisance from time to time, for the most part enemy propaganda

had no effect on U.S. troops. As one soldier put it, the most serious morale issue they

encountered was that the Women’s Temperance league stopped the beer ration for

soldiers under age twenty one.19

Communist strategic propaganda operation fared significantly better than their

combat operations. At the beginning of the War the Soviet and Chinese possessed a far

more significant Korean language broadcast capability than did Western outlets such as

the Voice of America (VOA) or the BBC and by the end of 1950 Russian and Chinese

stations broadcast almost four times as much Korean language programming than did

the VOA.20 The North Koreans strategic propaganda campaign sought to create distrust

in or hatred for the UN and the so-called “American imperialists.” North Korean

propaganda distinguished between U.S. and U.N. forces and sought to portray the U.S.

bombing efforts as designed to impoverish Korea. The North Koreans exploited their

early military successes to show the impotence of the United States and the inevitability

of a Communist victory. The Chinese supported the effort covertly during the initial

stages of the war when Radio Beijing began broadcasting as “Radio Free Japan,”

19
Richard Collins, 23rd Infantry Regiment, Korean War Questionnaires, (A-J), 23rd Infantry Regiment, 2nd
Infantry Division, USAMHI.
20
U.S. Department of State, “Weekly Hours of International Broadcasting by the U.S.S.R, The Satellites,
Communist China, VOA, and BBC, 1948-1950,” Report No. A-87, January 1951. Box 12, “Records
Relating to International Information Activities,” Lot 53D47, RG 59, NACP.

197
purportedly a clandestine station operated by Japanese who were refugees from the

“imperialist American occupation.” Few Japanese, however, were fooled by the

effort.21

Perhaps where the Communists did their most effective work was in the

exploitation of captured U.S. personnel for propaganda purposes. On the tactical level

the Chinese also tried to publicize statements by captured U.S. prisoners attacking U.S.

action in Korea. In September 1951, U.S. I Corps reported receiving letters written by

two U.S. prisoners of war that requested a “front line peace conference” and cited good

treatment at the hands of their captors but military intelligence believed these letters

were fabrications. The first confirmed report of the Chinese using POW’s for psywar

purposes came a two months later, in November1951, when members of the U.S. 45th

Infantry Division heard a captured member of their unit shouting surrender appeals

across enemy lines.22 FEC and Pentagon leaders did not feel that the U.S. POW

broadcasts had any impact on the troops serving in Korea. They did, however, express

concern with Radio Beijing’s broadcasts to audiences within the United States arguing

that they had been “quite successful” in degrading civilian morale.23 U.S. psywar

specialists and military leadership however, agreed that only a change in the military

situation on the ground could truly counter the propaganda from Beijing and

21
Hansen, Psywar in Korea, 17.
22
Daugherty, “Organization and Activities,” 12-13.
23
Psychological Warfare Division, Briefing on the Problem of American P.O.W. Messages, n.d., 1.
USASOC Archives.

198
Pyongyang.24 The most important use of U.S. prisoners for propaganda purposes

during the war came in 1952 and 1952 when their “confessions” fueled a well-

orchestrated campaign of bacteriological warfare allegations designed not for the

military but for civilian audiences in Korea and abroad.

The Campaign of Bacteriological Warfare Allegations

The bacterial, or germ warfare allegations, were the apex of a concerted strategic

propaganda campaign designed to stiffen domestic support for the Communist

leadership in Pyongyang and Beijing as well as discredit the United States throughout

the world.25 The allegations also served Moscow’s political warfare efforts aimed at the

entire “capitalist” system, an effort culminating in a “hate barrage” during the Korean

War.26 Throughout the war the Soviets, Chinese, and North Koreans alleged in a range

of “atrocity propaganda,” that American and British soldiers had perpetrated a range of

war crimes against the Korean people. Leaflets, radio broadcasts, and pamphlets spread

24
CINCFE Tokyo Japan to Department of the Army, G-3, Plans and Operations, “Urgent Message, WAR
8171,” 11 August 1950; Assistant Chief of Staff, G-3 Operations, 091.412, 1950-1951; Records of the
Army Staff, RG 319; National Archives at College Park, College Park, MD
25
Most popular histories of the Korean War contain coverage of the bacteriological warfare allegations.
See, for example see Goulden, Korea, The Untold Story of the War. For specific assessments of the
bacteriological warfare allegations see Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, The Problem of
Chemical and Biological warfare, Volume V: The Prevention of Chemical and Biological Warfare,
(Stockholm: Almavist & Wikel l/ Humanities Press, 1971), 238-258; Albert E. Cowdrey, “‘Germ
Warfare’ and Public Health in the Korean Conflict,” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied
Sciences, Volume 39 (April 1984), 153-172; John Ellis van Courtland Moon, “Biological Warfare
Allegations: The Korean War Case,” in Raymond A. Zilinskas ed. The Microbiologist and Biological
Defense Research: Ethics, Politics, and International Security, (New York: Annals of the New York
Academy of Science, 1992. 53-83; and Mary Rolicka, “New Studies Disputing Allegations of
Bacteriological Warfare during the Korean War,” Military Medicine, 160: 3, 97-100.
26
See, for example, Anthony Leviero, “Soviet Hate Drive Makes U.S. Target,” New York Times,
December 11, 1951, A-14.

199
the claims within Korea, behind the Iron Curtain, and throughout the world. As with

U.S. and U.N. propaganda efforts during the Korean War the Communists directed their

propaganda campaigns at multiple target audiences. The Soviet-led atrocity campaigns

served as part of an overall campaign to secure condemnation of the United States and

support for Moscow’s overall foreign policy agenda. For the Chinese and North

Koreans the timing of the atrocity campaigns coincided with domestic challenges such

as military setbacks, which suggests these might have been equally important for

firming up domestic support for the war.

The first Soviet efforts at “atrocity propaganda” began in July 1950 with a wire

report from the Tass New York Bureau stating that “…American forces are committing

atrocities in burning down Korean villages in a vain attempt to halt the advance of the

People’s Army,” and that “American soldiers often fired at people in civilian dress”27

Later in the war the Chinese also sought to exploit the world press by designing detailed

pamphlets such as Out of Their Own Mouths, published by the Red Cross Society of

China in 1952 and consisting of a series of ostensibly genuine statements signed by

American and British prisoners of war.28 The campaign of bacteriological warfare

allegations came in two waves, the first during early 1951 and the latter during the

winter and spring of 1952. The Communists supported their allegations with a series of

“impartial” investigations (also carefully orchestrated by Moscow) conducted by the

27
Barton, North Korean Propaganda, 162.
.
28
Out of Their Own Mouths: Revelations and Confessions Written by American Soldiers of Torture,
Rape, Arson, Looting, and cold-Blooded Murder of Defenceless Civilians and Prisoners of War in Korea,
(Red Cross Society of China: Peking, 1952); Copy obtained in records of the ONI POW Desk, “Captured
Communist Documents,” RG 38, NACP.

200
Soviet International Scientific Commission. Although the United States admitted to

retaining an offensive biological weapons capability for deterrent purposes it

strenuously denied ever using the weapons. The Soviet Union rejected requests by the

United States to allow the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) or the

World Health Organization to investigate the charges as “disguised attempts at

espionage.”29

The use of unproven atrocity allegations was nothing new and had even been a

favorite tactic of Communist propagandists. The long-held spiritual fear of poisons and

disease made bacteriological warfare allegations particularly effective. Whether

evoking visions of St. John the Divine’s fourth horseman (pestilence); the Black Death,

or a memory of the flu pandemic of the First World War, bacteriological warfare

allegations created a unique dread, alarm, and psychological strain on potentially

affected audiences. During the 1930’s Stalin effectively used bacteriological warfare

allegations to discredit his opponents. In one instance he charged Kulak farmers of

trying to kill their own cattle with anthrax as a protest against collectivization.30 As

David Rees has pointed out, Stalin’s charges represented the beginning to a pattern of

using charges of bacteriological warfare use to explain away domestic failures, in this

instance the failure of a collective agricultural system.31 Likewise, the Chinese would

29
LTC George W. Christopher, LTC Theodore J. Cieslak, Maj Julie A. Pavlin, COL Edward M. Eitzen,
Jr., “Biological Warfare: A Historical Perspective,” Journal of the American Medical Association, 278:5
(6 August 1997), 412-417.
30
Memorandum, “Communist Bacteriological Warfare Propaganda,” June 16, 1952, in Miscellaneous
Reports and Studies from Various Offices of the Department of State Filed with the Office of Research,
1950-1953, RG 306, Records of International Information Activities, NACP.
31
Rees, Korea, 355.
201
use bacteriological warfare allegations to excuse the naturally occurring epidemics in

North Korea and China caused by wartime conditions and exacerbated by inefficient

public health systems. The bacteriological warfare allegations held great sway among

Chinese and North Korean and even some neutral audiences. Blaming the Americans

provided an explanation that was clear, simple, and consistent. Thus, to some extent the

Soviet-led campaign of bacteriological warfare allegations had less to do with the

Korean War than with the overall struggle between East and West. The allegations

during the Korean War were simply one action in a propaganda campaign that began

shortly after the end of World War II and would continue long after the end of the

Korean conflict in July 1953.

Following World War II the Soviet Union launched a variety of propaganda

campaigns designed to associate the United States with aggression and the Soviet Union

with peace. Specifically, the Soviet Union sought to exploit rifts between Westerners

who saw the Soviet Union as an immediate military threat and those who sought

accommodation rather than war. As Lenin had noted before his death, the peace

movement was excellent way to exploit the “pitiful pacifism of the bourgeoisie.”32 The

communist theoretician, Dmitri Manuilski, made similar observations in a speech to the

Lenin School of Political Warfare in 1931:

War to the hilt between communism and capitalism is inevitable. Today,

of course, we are not strong enough to attack. Our time will come in
thirty to forty years. To win, we shall need the element of surprise. The
western world will have to be put to sleep. So we shall begin by
launching the most spectacular peace movement on record. There shall
be electrifying overtures and unheard of concessions. The capitalist

32
Ibid., 348.

202
 countries, stupid and decadent, will rejoice to cooperate to their own
destruction. They will leap at another chance to be friends. As soon as
their guard is down, we shall smash them with our clenched fist. 33

To this end Moscow supported the creation of international groups of intellectuals and

Communists such as the World Congress of the Partisans of Peace, the World

Federation of Trade Union, the International Association of Democratic Lawyers and

the Medical Association for the Prevention of War.34 Each of these groups sought to

convince progressives of Moscow’s goodwill and help to spread atrocity propaganda

during key phases of the Soviet campaign. As early as 1949 the Soviet Union began

using these groups to support official proclamations accusing the United States of

preparing to wage bacteriological warfare. Documentary films sponsored by these

organizations charged the U.S. with using science for “anti-humanitarian” purposes and

official statements by the Soviet Union blasted the United States for its failure to ratify

the Geneva protocols banning the use of chemical and biological weapons. The Soviet

news agency Tass published reports that the U.S. had supplied chemical weapons to the

Greek and West German governments while a book review in Pravda, entitled, “Peace

or Pestilence” argued that the United States preferred biological warfare to other forms

of warfare for the “clearly capitalist” reason that it destroyed people without “causing

damage to property.” 35

33
Dmitri Manuilski Speech at the Lenin School of Political Warfare, Moscow, 1931 as cited in the U.S.
Army Special Operations Command, Public Affairs Weekly, The Vanguard, n.d. ; USASOC Archives.
34
Rees, Korea, 348-351.
35
Memorandum, “Communist Bacteriological Warfare Propaganda,” June 16, 1952, 5. Although the
Geneva Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases, and of
Bacteriological Methods of Warfare was signed at Geneva in June 1925, the United States Senate did not
immediately ratify the treaty. The treaty sat in the Senate until after the Second World War at which
203
 In 1950 the Soviets raised the stakes and charged that the United States had

actually started waging bacteriological warfare. In July1950, Moscow accused the

United States of air-dropping Potato Bugs (also known as the Jerusalem Cricket or the

Colorado Beetle) into East Germany during late May in order to destroy agriculture

within the Soviet Bloc.36 Radio Moscow reported in July that the bugs that had quickly

spread to the Po Valley in Italy where they had destroyed the tomato crop. Despite the

fact that Europeans had suffered real potato bug infestations as recently as World War

II, the Soviets claimed that the outbreak could not be natural and had even been found

“attached to parachutes and balloons.”37 While the stories may have seemed

unbelievable on the surface the fear that farmers had of the debilitating outbreak was

real enough. A second series of accusations followed in 1951 including claims that

Austrian officials had discovered the “larvae of Spanish fly,” a dangerous tree pest,

after an aircraft operated by a “Western power” had flown by. Despite the inaccuracy

of the claims, European audiences proved receptive to the notion that crop problems in

Eastern Europe had man-made origins. More importantly the Soviet-inspired charges

point President Truman withdrew the treaty from Congress. The United States finally ratified the
convention during the Ford Administration in 1975.
36
The potato bug is a black and yellow beetle that feeds in adult and larval stages on potato leaves. It
originated in the eastern Rocky Mountains but in modern times has been found worldwide. American
Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company,
2003).
37
Memorandum, “Communist Bacteriological Warfare Propaganda,” June 16, 1952, 5; and Hansen,
Psywar in Korea, 39.

204
helped set the stage for an alleged “pattern” of bacteriological warfare use by the United

States throughout the world, including on the Korean peninsula. 38

The first wave of Korean War bacteriological warfare allegations began in

January 1951 when Communist run radio stations in Asia and Europe erroneously

reported that the United States had established a bacteriological warfare facility in

Japan. According to the reports, General Ishii Shiro would head the center. Ishii had

been responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent civilians while heading Japan’s

biological warfare programs during World War II. 39 A few weeks later the Marx-

Engels-Lenin Institute launched what became known popularly as the “Hate-America

campaign,” when they announced that hands of the American people were “red with

Russian peoples blood” as a result of the American intervention into Russia from 1918-

1920.40 The Soviets designed both efforts to focus anger, dissent, and frustration

towards America and the West. The U.S. Department of State believed these efforts

were part of an overall effort to psychologically prepare the citizens of the Soviet Union

38
Interestingly, during the First World War the British contemplated using Colorado Beetles to devastate
the German Potato Crop. The beetle had no natural enemies on the European continent and a small
outbreak in 1914 had forced the Germans to mobilize at least a regiment of soldiers to help isolate the
outbreak. PRO, AIR 1/461, Memorandum dated June 12, 1918 (illegible author signature). There is no
indication that the Soviets were aware of these earlier operational plans. Credit and thanks to Dr. Tami
Biddle for this document.
39
For a brief review of the activities of General Ishii see Sheldon Harris, “Japanese Biological Warfare
Research on Humans: A Case Study of Microbiology and Ethics,” in Zilinskas ed. The Microbiologist
and Biological Defense Research, 21-53.
40
Memorandum, “Communist Bacteriological Warfare Propaganda,” June 16, 1952, 24 – 25; and
Psychological Strategy Board, “Staff Study—Preliminary Analysis of the Communist BW Propaganda
Campaign With Recommendations,” 25 July 1952. “PSB Working Files”( PSB D-25b); LOT 62D 333;
RG 59, NACP.

205
and Soviet-bloc countries for war with the United States.41 The accusations and

allegations, however, also allowed the Soviets to blame conflicts, droughts, blights, and

inefficient industrial programs on America rather than on an expansionist and

bureaucratically stifling Soviet system. More importantly, such programs could raise

doubt and concern in the eyes of neutral nations or those with anti-Colonial feelings,

particularly in Asia.

The campaign continued to build with Soviet broadcasts to East and West

Germany in February of 1951 reporting that ship workers in Hamburg had been

overcome by unknown fumes, perhaps mustard gas, being unloaded from US ships.42

In early March, the People’s Daily, a Soviet state-controlled newspaper, asserted that

the U.S used poison gas in Korea and supported these allegations by noting the previous

report from Hamburg. Protest meetings by Communist controlled student groups such

as the China Peace Committee or the Catholic Committee for World Peace an Against

Aggression followed within days of the reporting. A week or so later the Bulgarian Red

Cross also charged the United States with atrocities. This pattern was similar to those

used in the past. This time, however, Moscow added a new twist. On May 10, 1951

radio Moscow quoted a New China News Agency (Beijing) report that a Lieutenant

Love Moss of the U.S. 24th Division of Artillery [sic] had admitted that the Americans

had used “gas” in Korea.

41
Memorandum, “Communist Bacteriological Warfare Propaganda,” June 16, 1952, 24 – 25.
42
Ibid., 26-27.

206
 During the same timeframe the Soviet Union, China, and North Korea reiterated

earlier charges that the United States was preparing to wage bacteriological warfare in

North Korea. On March 22, Pravda reported that “reliable sources” indicated that

General MacArthur was “engaged in the large scale production of bacteriological

weapons for use against the Korean Army and people.” On April 30 the Soviet Army

daily, Red Star, reprinted the allegations in the an article entitled, “Bacteriological

Warfare Is a Criminal Weapon of Imperialist Aggression,” and added charges that the

United States had conducted bacteriological experiments on captured Chinese prisoners

of war. About a week later North Korea lodged an official protest in a letter from Pak

Hon-Yŏng, the North Korean Foreign Minister alleging that U.S. forces had caused

smallpox outbreaks between December 1950 and April 1951. Pak provided specific

locations and numbers of victims while the Soviet and Chinese Press reprinted the

allegations and Communist officials throughout Europe and Asia publicly condemned

the U.S. actions.43

Psychological Warfare professionals at the Department of State and the

Pentagon believed the Chinese and North Koreans had launched the bacteriological

warfare allegation campaigns to divert attention away from the Chinese and Korean

inability to overcome the enormous sanitation and public health problems in areas under

their control. In January of 1951 Radio Pyongyag issued appeals for the “restoration of

hospitals and clinics, training of nurses, a campaign against eruptive typhus, and

43
Memorandum from the Japanese Liaison Section, G-2, “Radio Press, 0900, 9 May 1951: North Korean
Foreign Minister Pak Sent a Letter of Protest to UN,” Crawford Sams Papers, Box 4, “Korean Episode,”
HIA.

207
exertion of utmost effort to prevent epidemic diseases.”44 Additionally the

Psychological Strategy Board saw some limited counterpropaganda value to the

campaign insofar as the Chinese and North Koreans had instructed their troops not to

pick up U.S. propaganda leaflets that might be carrying bacteriological warfare agents.

KPA and CPVF leaders also perpetuated stories about the UN conducting experiments

on POW’s. While no data exists as to how many CPVF and KPA soldiers actually

believed their leadership it’s clearly possible that the warnings and allegations may have

reduced the number of troops willing to pick up the leaflets or surrender to UN forces.

At a minimum the CPVF and KPA warnings created an additional psychological barrier

to surrender.45

Assessments of the public health situation in Korea during and after the war

indicated that over 70% of hospitals and medical equipment had been destroyed and

that about 25% of medical personnel had been killed, captured, or displaced.46 In

February 1951 a hemorrhagic smallpox outbreak in North Korea resulted in such a high

mortality rate that the U.S. undertook an extremely dangerous covert mission to assess

the situation lest the disease pose a threat to U.S. forces.47 In the same vein, the UN

44
Hansen, Psywar in Korea, pp.41.
45
Memorandum, “Communist Bacteriological Warfare Propaganda,” June 16, 1952, 24 – 25;and PSB,
“Staff Study – Preliminary Analysis of the Communist BW Propaganda Campaign,” 2-3.
46
U.S. Army, Annual Report of the Chief, Public Health Branch, Korean Civil Assistance Command, 14
Feb. 1954 in Crawford Sams Papers, Box 4, “Korean Episode,” HIA; and Crawford Sams to MG William
E. Shambora, 9 April 1952, Crawford Sams Papers, Box 4, “Korean Episode,” HIA.
47
Reports in February 1951 indicated a rare, but not unheard of outbreak of Bubonic Plague in Korea.
This particular strain had “practically 100% mortality,” spread rapidly, and thus, had the “potential of
affecting the military operations in Korea to a major degree.” UN troops had not been immunized against
plague due to the shortage of vaccine and the short lifespan of the inoculation. Brigadier General Sams,
208
sought to respond to the general threat of disease as much out of concern for military

operations as for humanitarian concerns or to counter the propaganda charges. Still, if

successful, the effort could take away the basis for Soviet claims but to clearly

demonstrate that the United States was part of the solution rather than the problem.

Thus, in 1951, the UN Civil Assistance Command – Korea (UNCACK), assisted by the

World Health Organization, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and the

International Refugee Organization sought to stem diseases that had spread dramatically

throughout the refugee population in Korea.48 The Soviets simply responded to the U.S.

efforts with charges that U.S. and Japanese saboteurs were spreading bacteria in Korea

and that U.S. public health programs, including the inoculation of U.S. troops for

diseases as evidence of a U.S. offensive bacteriological warfare.

With the beginning of the armistice negotiations in July 1951, Chinese radio

stations dropped the campaign completely and the charges subsisted at a fairly

innocuous level for the rest of the year. In February 1952, however, Moscow and

Beijing launched more robust and global campaign of bacteriological warfare

allegations, this time complete with manufactured evidence, protests in a number of

the FEC Chief of Public Health and Welfare, recommended an operation to determine the veracity of
these reports. Using an epidemiological control ship (LCIL 1091), Sams and a deputy, undertook a
dangerous behind the lines mission in March 1951 to determine the veracity of the reports. Within a few
days Sams was able to report that the disease in question was hemorrhagic smallpox –which causes
“black” legions. Translation problems confused the issue and “black pest,” quickly became “black
death,” or, bubonic plague. Brigadier General Crawford Sams, Memorandum 266992, “Special
Operations in North Korea,” Box 4, “Korean Episode,” HIA; and Cowdrey, “‘Germ Warfare’ and Public
Health in the Korean Conflict,”159.
48
U.S. Army, Annual Report of the Chief, Public Health Branch, Korean Civil Assistance Command, 14
Feb. 1954 in Crawford Sams Papers, Box 4, “Korean Episode,” HIA; and Crawford Sams to MG William
E. Shambora, 9 April 1952, 11; Crawford Sams Papers, Box 4, “Korean Episode,” HIA.

209
Communist nations, and eventually a world-wide propaganda effort. In general terms

Moscow designed its program to prove that the United States was guilty of every

conceivable form of atrocity and aggression and built upon previous charges leveled

against the United States in 1950 and 1951. The communist propagandists linked the

U.S. failure to prosecute Japanese military personnel engaged in bacteriological warfare

experiments during World War II, “eye-witness accounts,” the confessions of U.S.

prisoners of war, and “scientific evidence,” gathered by “impartial” investigators. This

latter effort demonstrated a more sophisticated synchronization between Soviet,

Chinese, and North Korean media outlets clearly designed to win condemnation of the

U.S. in the court of world opinion. As before this campaign also had a domestic

agenda. As Albert Cowdry, who has explored the history of the Korean

epidemiological situation, has suggested, this second wave of bacteriological warfare

allegations was designed as part of a mass campaign of preventive medicine aimed at

forestalling the public health situations that occurred in 1951. Within China and North

Korea authorities used the fear of the use of bacteriological warfare to encourage proper

sanitary precautions by the civilian population. In Cowdry’s assessment The Chinese

and North Korean efforts were genuine public health campaigns teaching, “fundamental

lessons in cleanliness and sanitation, vector control, and the need to report epidemic

outbreaks,” and furthermore, these outbreaks were timed perfectly for the final week in

February just before the spring thaw and “at the proper time to get the spring clean-up

campaign going.”49

49
Albert E. Cowdrey, The Medics’ War, United States Army in the Korean War, (Washington DC:
210
 The 1952 campaign of allegations began in February with statements by the

Soviet News Agency, Tass that UN forces had used explosive bullets laden with

“poisonous substances.” Soviet UN Ambassador, Malik echoed these statements at the

United Nations and Radio Moscow followed up on February 18th that American spies

and saboteurs were “poisoning wells, and spreading smallpox and typhus bacteria,” not

to mention well as sending lepers secretly into North Korea.50 On February 21, 1952,

North Korean, Chinese, and Russian radio stations launched what Colonel Kenneth

Hansen described as a “coordinated campaign of unprecedented virulence.” The

Communist radio stations declared that the population should be on the lookout for a

range of ticks, mosquitoes, “poisonous worms,” and bedbugs that were some of the

“American agents” now bringing disease into North Korea. Radio Moscow remarked

that “one of the most villainous methods practiced by the American interventionists is

the sending of lepers secretly into North Korea.”51 The Chinese and North Korean

foreign ministers repeated the allegations in official statements while in March 1952 the

World Federation of Democratic Women, a communist puppet organization, protested

the U.S. actions to the UN. Far East Command issued public denials of the accusations

on February 27, 1952 and U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson called for an ICRC

investigation into the allegations. The Soviets, however, rejected the call for ICRC

involvement, calling the group a “partisan Swiss” organization.

Center of Military History, 1987), 5; and Hansen, Psywar in Korea, 49.

50
Rees, Korea, 353.
51
Hansen, Psywar in Korea, 46.

211
 In the spring of 1952 the Chinese charged the United States with using 500

aircraft to drop “germ” bombs in Korea, claiming on March 31, 1952 that there had

been 226 attacks, on April 7, 322 incidents and 410 on April 24. The following day the

Chinese doubled the number of U.S. attacks to 810.52 Even more interesting was the

range of disease vectors the Chinese suggested that U.S. troops had used to spread

disease. As Pravda reported, the U.S. was using rats, chicken feathers and shell-fish to

spread disease in North Korea and China. On the battlefield, Chinese forces began to

use similar bacteriological warfare allegations to persuade (unsuccessfully) American

troops to oppose the war. Signs planted near the front lines contained slogans in broken

English such as: “For the guaranteeing of your safety you have to take practical action

and resolutely to oppose the bacteriological war,” “Mass destruction by germs is the so-

called American Civilization highly sung by your officers,” and “Peace can only be won

by the resolute opposition of bacteriological warfare.”53

Moscow was more concerned with damaging American credibility throughout

the world than with the domestic public health agenda’s in Beijing and Pyongyang.

Thus Soviet radio broadcasts to the West from Moscow reminded listeners that the

United States had used smallpox laden blankets in efforts designed to wipe out native-

American populations. Indeed, the selective scattering of “truth,” albeit with a great

52
Memorandum, “Communist Bacteriological Warfare Propaganda,” June 16, 1952, 21.
53
Department of Defense, Office of the Chief Signal Officer, Photograph SC 403732, April 16, 1952;
U.S. Army Signal Corps Photographs Of Military Activity During World War II and The Korean
Conflict, 1941 – 1954; Records Group 111, Office of the Chief Signal Officer, NACP.

212
deal of spin, added credibility to Communist claims of similar U.S. actions in Korea.54

Beijing and Moscow quickly followed up with organized protests in Asia and

throughout Eastern Europe to include rallies by the Bulgarian “Peace Committee” and a

petition to halt American aggression signed by a million Czech school children.

Additional groups flooded U.S. embassies with cables and letters of protests and

diplomats from behind the Iron Curtain called for “independent” investigations, though

not ones run by the “partisan Swiss.” The North Koreans contributed to these efforts

with tours of bombed areas given to “neutral” audiences and humanitarian organizations

and by providing the standard propaganda photos of women and children killed

(probably) by U.S. air raids. Moscow appears, however, to have been dissatisfied with

the impact these allegations had on neutral or Western opinion and perhaps for that

reason began to manufacture more compelling evidence, in this case, “confessions” by

U.S. personnel regarding their involvement in secret bacteriological warfare missions.

On May 16, 1952 Radio Moscow first reported that U.S. airman “Robert

Gilarola,” (probably Captain Robert Gilardi, USMC) had confessed to dropping

Colorado beetles (potato bugs) over East Germany as well as bacteria over Korea in

January 1952.55 According to Moscow, Gilarola admitted his association with a

“special air outfit” that used “secret bombs called “duds,” to spread the bugs and

54
The Soviets did not seem to exploit the fact that American colonists and British forces had suggested
and in some cases, deliberately used smallpox to infect Native American tribes hostile to British interests.
See Christopher et al, “Biological Warfare: A Historical Perspective,” 414.
55
Department of the Air Force, “Incoming Unclassified Message AF IN: 4894,” May 16, 1952; ONI
POW Desk, Operational Section 1949-1954, A16-11/B, Bacteriological Warfare, “UN Photo’s and
Letters,” RG 38 NACP.

213
germs.56 Communist run stations out of China and Korea began broadcasting similar

confessions in May 1952. Air Force Lieutenant Charles Shill, a captured B-29 crew

member admitted that he was told, “not to talk about germ bombs with anybody,” and

“especially not to confess this to the Communists in case I was captured by them.”

While confessions to waging bacteriological warfare were not limited to U.S. airman,

the flyers became the focus of the Communist effort, largely due to the focus put on the

concept of bacteriological weapons being delivered by air.57

Two of the most significant confessions came from B-26 pilots, Lieutenants

Enoch and Quinn who confessed in May that they had dropped bombs laden with

bacteriological agents on Korea in January 1952. Enoch and Quinn’s situation was

typical of captured flyers in that after they had been shot down, their captors told them

that they were war criminals and would never see America again. The Chinese

interrogators told both pilots that if they capitulated and confessed they would be heroes

and subject to the more “lenient” incarceration policies. As Enoch later explained to

American debriefers after the war, the choices for him were simple, “insanity, death, or

these absurd confessions.”58 Quinn’s confessions as well as those by a handful of other

56
Unfortunately this author could not find debriefing reports or analyses to determine if Gilardi had
fooled his captors into using the “secret bombs called ‘duds’” line or if this was simply a result of poor
translation on the part of the Communist psychological warfare staff that manufactured the confession.
It’s entirely possible that Gilardi thought, as Colonel Schwable did, that by making up something so
ludicrous that listeners and the chain of command back home would realize that the confessions had been
forced and unavoidable.
57
For an example of Army officer confession to BW, see the confessions of 1LT Henry Petesu, in
Foreign Broadcast Information Service, “Pyongyang: US Confess Germ War Roles,” December 5, 1952;
ONI POW Desk, Operational Section 1949-1954, A16-14/03, “UN Photo’s and Letters,” RG 38 NACP.
58
Memorandum, “Communist Bacteriological Warfare Propaganda,” June 16, 1952, 16; Rees, Korea,
355-8; and Memorandum on Enoch Confessions, n.d; ONI POW Desk, Operational Section 1949-1954,
214
pilots were broadcast over the airwaves and printed in so-called “independent” reports

such as the Report of the International Scientific Commission for the Investigation of

the Facts Concerning Bacterial Warfare in Korea and China, published in Beijing in

1952.59 The confession included calls for the “people of America to rise up together and

stop this germ warfare,” and how pilots had been duped by the baron’s of Wall Street

into committing these war crimes. As Quinn confessed,

It is very clear from these facts that the capitalistic Wall Street warmongers in
their greed, their ruthless greed, have caused this horrible crime of
bacteriological warfare in order to get more money for themselves in the hope
of spreading the war…I was forced to be a tool of these warmongers, made to
drop germ bombs and do this awful crime against the people of Korea and the
Chinese Volunteers.60

More subtle approaches were used in broadcasts designed for news organizations that

would pass the messages to audiences in the United States and Europe. Radio Beijing,

for example, broadcast the “testimony” of Corp. James L. Ball who had “written” a

letter to his parents about the great treatment he was receiving while a prisoner. Ball

also added,

A16-14/04, “Broadcasts by UN POW’s,” and “Bacteriological Warfare,” RG 38, NACP. See also the Air
Intelligence Information Report’s for both Enoch and Quinn in ; ONI POW Desk, Operational Section
1949-1954, A16-14/04, “UN POW’s (Korea),” RG 38, NACP.
59
Air Attaché, Guatemala City, “Air Intelligence Information Report,” March 11, 1953; “Bacteriological
Warfare;” ONI POW Desk, Operational Section 1949-1954, A16-14/04 RG 38, NACP. For an example
of how Enoch’s confessions were used on the airwaves see the Foreign Broadcast Information Service
Extracts for Friday, 6 March, 1953; ONI POW Desk, Operational Section 1949-1954, A16-14/03, “UN
Photo’s and Letters,” RG 38 NACP.
60
The original “confessions” of Quinn, Enoch, et al may be found in the Report of the International
Scientific Commission for the Investigation of the Facts Concerning Bacterial Warfare in Korea and
China (Peking: n.p, 1952), 491-608. See also “Depositions of Nineteen Captured U.S. Airmen on Their
Participation in Germ Warfare in Korea;” IRIS Document Number 0470319 in USAF Collection,
AFHRA.

215
 I got to hear one of the four airmen who were tricked into dropping the
bacteriological warfare on the towns and villages of Korea and Northeast China.
Dad, I wish you could have heard the man speak, because he spoke so soft and
truthful about the thing he had been fooled into doing against those innocent
people.61

Intelligence reports also indicated that communist sympathizers in the United States had

made it a practice to contact the relatives of specific prisoners to provide advance notice

of the broadcasts.62 To help reach an even wider audience the Chinese arranged for the

notorious Wilfred Burchett, of the French paper Ce Soir to report on, photograph, and

make a documentary film about the U.S. airmen’s confessions. Burchett, an Australian

(though considered a traitor in his homeland) and unrepentant Communist propagandist,

produced reports on Enoch, Quinn and seventeen other airmen that he published

regularly and compiled in one volume later in the war for worldwide distribution.63 It

also appears likely that Burchett and Alan Winnington, a British correspondent for The

Daily Worker, also helped to prepare the confessions and copy for propaganda

61
Memorandum, “Germ War Testimony Heard;” ONI POW Desk, Operational Section 1949-1954, A16-
14/04, “Broadcasts,” RG 38, NACP.
62
Memorandum for Information, “Broadcasts by U.N. Prisoners of War,” 21 May 1951; ONI POW Desk,
Operational Section 1949-1954, A16-14/04, “Broadcasts by UN POWs,” RG 38 NACP. See also a
discussion of the broader effort to create anti-war sentiment among the families of captured American
flyers in, John F. Loosbrock, “Target: MOM,” Air Force Magazine (February 1953), 24-27.
63
See “Depositions of Nineteen Captured U.S. Airmen on Their Participation in Germ Warfare in
Korea.” Wilfred Burchett, a self-confessed communist sympathizer wrote in Korea from "the other side",
in an attempt to present balanced views of what was happening in Korea. The U.S. and Australia alleged
that Burchett had unusually free access to the Chinese POW Command in Korea that held UN prisoners,
and that he refused to help these POWs unless they co-operated with their captors. Burchett once
described Chinese camps as a "luxury resort" - a statement that incensed POWs. Burchett likely
participated in and edited the "confessions" that were extracted from British and American POWs in the
course of interrogations concerning alleged UN germ warfare weapons. Some POWs claimed Burchett
used direct threats or told them news from the outside world that was intended to break down their
morale. He was denied a passport by the Australian government for many years, although no formal
charges were ever made against him. Like Winnington, Burchett also died in 1983. See “Out in the Cold:
Australia’s Involvement in the Korean War,” at
http://www.awm.gov.au/korea/faces/burchett/burchett.htm (accessed on 15 November, 2004).

216
broadcasts.64 Beijing also opened up an exhibition day of “bacteriological crimes” that

sought to attract foreign visitors already in China for May Day celebrations. Moscow

secured the religious condemnation of bacteriological warfare in general from the Mufti

of Soviet Islam, the leadership of the Soviet Baptists, and the Patriarch of the Russian

Orthodox Church, though specific condemnation of the United States proved less

forceful than Moscow would have liked. Finally, National Peace Committees

(Communist party front groups) in Pakistan, India, Guatemala, Brazil, France, Canada,

and the United Kingdom delivered scathing remarks condemning the U.S. action while

the Communist press in Europe, Canada, and Brazil reprinted allegations from Soviet

and Chinese newspapers.65

The robust efforts of May 1952 did not last for but a few months and the

combined propaganda offensive waned to some degree in the summer and autumn of

1952.66 The campaign intensified again the winter of 1953 beginning with the

broadcast of confessions by Colonel Schwable and Major Bley. Their confessions,

amongst other things, included an admission that the Joint Chiefs of Staff had ordered a

“disease belt” across North Korea that included using cholera, yellow fever, and typhus
64
See Rees, 355-8. Alan Winnington was born in London in 1910 and died in East Germany in 1983.
Winnington served as a press officer of the British Communist Party before joining the Daily Worker. He
went to Korea to report on the war from 1950 - 1954. In 1954 renewal of his British passport was refused
after the British Government determined that Winnington had engaged in the interrogation of British
POWs. Geoffrey Goodman, “Too May Truths,” British Journalism Review, 10:2 (1999), n.p. Both
journalists met with U.S. POW’s, including Enoch and Quinn and statements by the pilots indicate that
the journalists could easily have been part of Chinese “interrogation” approaches to acquire information
from the U.S. pilots. See Air Intelligence Information Report’s for both Enoch and Quinn in ; ONI POW
Desk, Operational Section 1949-1954, A16-14/04, “UN POW’s (Korea),” RG 38, NACP.
65
Memorandum, “Communist Bacteriological Warfare Propaganda,” June 16, 1952, 19.
66
Memorandum from U.S. Embassy Pusan, Number 413, “RPTD INFO CINCUNC DIP 173,” October
2, 1952; Decimal File 1950-1954 (511.954), RG 59, NACP.

217
– coincidentally some of those diseases naturally plaguing the population. Indeed,

Schwable’s discussion of disease carrying flies alluded to a particularly amusing phase

of the Communist propaganda effort.67 By the end of the war the Soviet Union and her

surrogates had claimed that the United States had used a plethora of different vectors, in

one author’s view, “a veritable entomological Noah’s Ark” to transmit disease in North

Korea. One author has described the unlikely list as a “As the State Department

reported the list of “alleged” vectors included:

a. Common insects such as flies, fleas, ticks, mosquitoes, spiders, grasshoppers, lice bedbugs,
ants, crickets, midges, sand flies, larvae of butterflies, snow fleas, locusts, ‘flower flies,’ and
caterpillars

b. Curious insects such as flies marked by tiny heads and white spots under their wings, their
legs covered with a sticky substance; white spotted mosquitoes with small abdomens; flies
and fleas of a species never before seen in Korea that can stay alive even in cold weather;
spiders of light brown color covered with thick down as well as insects unknown in Korea
faintly resembling the Kwanji butterfly with green and white-spotted wings; insects which
resemble fleas but white protuberances like horns in front with a slender body and six legs
with two projections on their hind parts; ants carrying a pair of stings on their backs;

c. Infected animals such as rats, birds, dead fish, bees, snails, earthworms, maggots, frogs,
foxes, snakes;

d. Infected articles such as cotton, corn leaves, oak leaves; chicken, duck and goose feathers;
white cloth containing white crystals and yellow cloth bearing yellow powder; a viscous
liquid; infected dust, biscuits, pork, leaflets, meats, straw, cigarettes, balls of cotton, soap,
paper, envelopes, medical goods, ornaments, grain, confectionery, toilet goods, glass
68
hairpins filled with germs; toy snakes carrying germs.”

67
Indeed, UN POW’s also managed to amuse themselves as a result of the Chinese fear of biological
weapons. In one instance a one group of NCO’s allegedly gathered up a number of dead beetles and
spiders around their prison camp, painted “U.S. Mark 7” on their backs and let them loose in the POW
camp. According to UNC reports “this counteractivity [sic] threw the Commies into a spin.” Communist
delegates in Oct. 1952 made germ warfare charges. Similarly, “bored” special operations troops came up
with “Operation Red Frog.” CCRAK personne, incensed at the biological warfare allegations, decided to
give the “bastards something to really bitch about.” The soldiers caught large frogs, painted them bright
red and placed them into cages designed for dropping carrier pigeons to partisans. As part of regular
CCRAK missions about one hundred frogs dropped into the Chinnamp’o-P’yongyang area. Conrad C.
Crane, American Airpower Strategy in Korea, 1950-1953, (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2000),
147-8; and Ed Evanhoe, Dark Moon: Eighth Army Special Operations During the Korean War
(Annapolis: U.S. Naval Institute Press, 1995).
68
Memorandum, “Communist Bacteriological Warfare Propaganda,” June 16, 1952, 20.

218
While Far East Command bore the brunt of the propaganda assault the U.S. Department

of State largely led the response to the1952 charges. The United States categorically

denied the use of bacteriological warfare in Korea and stressed the need for independent

investigations. General Ridgway was initially concerned that the State Department

would not respond forcefully to the Communist allegations and might simply ignore the

assault or simply provide retaliatory “no comments.” 69 Ridgway expressed his

concerns in a cable to the Department of State in March 1952 and secured a promise

from U.Alexis Johnson, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs,

that any bacteriological warfare allegations would be handled with a “prompt, vigorous,

and categorical denial.”70 The United States did not try and refute the Communist

allegations point by point but rather to use alternative explanation for the serious

epidemiological situation in Korea. Specifically the Department of State and Far East

Command provided information on the United Nations campaign against epidemic

diseases in Korea. 71

Initial evaluations of the impact of the Communist allegations and the UN

response, however, showed that the allegations could have long-term impacts on

nternational public opinion towards the U.S. efforts in Korea. An initial investigation in

69
Memorandum from U.S. Embassy Pusan, Number 413, “RPTD INFO CINCUNC DIP 173,” October 2,
1952.
70
Ibid.
71
Department of State Telegram, “Brophy (U.S. Embassy, Pusan) to Kohler,” March 14, 1952, Decimal
File 1950-1954 (511.954), RG 59, NACP.

219
the spring of 1952 concluded that Moscow had clearly collaborated with Beijing and

Pyongyang in orchestrating the world-wide campaign of bacteriological warfare

allegations but that the impact outside of the Iron Curtain as relatively ineffective. 72

The Western European press had largely refuted the claims and the Communist press in

Western Europe had, to this point, largely refrained from reprinting the allegations as

had the press in Latin America. Still, the State Department “psychological intelligence”

analysts had concerns that the “big lie” may have “created a certain amount of

suspicion, uneasiness and doubt,” amongst the general populations in Europe and Asia

that might lead to long term difficulties for the West in the struggle against

Communism. The British Foreign Office agreed that if the campaign of bacteriological

warfare allegations continued that it might create anti-U.S. feelings, an ignorance

regarding who began the war, and resentment of a “Western war against Asiatics.”73

The of bacteriological warfare “confessions” in May 1952 and the conclusions of the

final State Department assessments in June convinced some at the Pentagon and the

White House that the Communist campaign had proved strategically significant enough

to justify continuous attention.

In July 1952 the Psychological Strategy Board commissioned a larger study, led

by Colonel Hansen, to assess the Soviet-led propaganda efforts. The PSB directed

72
Memorandum, “Communist Bacteriological Warfare Propaganda,” June 16, 1952; Report for the
Coordinator of Psychological Intelligence, “Special Paper Number 1: The Effectiveness of the
Communist Bacteriological Warfare Propaganda Campaign;” Special Papers entry #1044, Coordinator
for Psychological Intelligence Files, RG 306, NACP.
73
Psychological Strategy Board, “Staff Study—Preliminary Analysis of the Communist BW Propaganda
Campaign with Recommendations.” 4-5.

220
Hansen to not only assess the nature of the Communist campaign but to suggest a

particular approaches to deal with the bacteriological warfare allegations and the overall

“Hate America” campaign. As the PSB directive put it, the U.S. goal should be to

counteract the effects of the campaign and shoot down the “Stockholm dove” – a

reference to the global Soviet “peace campaign” that sought to label the West as the

aggressors in the global struggle between Communism and Democracy.74 The PSB

study concluded that the Soviet-led campaign had several political and military goals

including discrediting the United States in the eyes of indigenous Asian peoples and

providing an alibi for current and future epidemics in Korea and China. The report

reaffirmed earlier assessments that the campaign also sought to make CPVF and KPA

troops more fearful of picking up leaflets and less willing to surrender to UN personnel.

Finally, the PSB assessment emphasized that the allegations had created a difficult

moral climate within which the United States could employ bacteriological, chemical,

or atomic weapons in the event of a general war with the Soviet Union. Some even

viewed the allegations as a possible justification and thereby a prelude to the use of

chemical or bacteriological weapons by the Soviet Union in the event of a general

war.75

74
Ibid.
75
During the Cold War the West accused the Soviet Union of using chemical weapons in several third-
world struggles. The Soviet Union never admitted to the allegations nor did they attempt to justify their
use because the West had already used them. For allegations of Soviet use of chemical weapons during
the Cold War see Elisa D. Harris, “Sverdlovsk and Yellow Rain: Two Cases of Soviet Noncompliance?,”
International Security, 11(4), 1987, 41-95.

221
 The PSB assessment noted that the 1952 series of allegations had made it

difficult for the United States to carry out military and humanitarian assistance efforts.

The PSB was particularly concerned that local peoples would challenge American

efforts to help provide medical care during epidemiological crises and that some nations

might, either on their own or with Soviet “encouragement,” take the opportunity to

blame the United States for their own public health or agricultural problems. Indeed,

the PSB noted that U.S. planes fighting locust infestations in Iran had already been

reported by Middle Eastern newspapers as not spraying but spreading locusts while

Rockefeller Foundation field workers battling flies in Egypt had been accused of

“breeding DDT-resistant strains.”76 The PSB report also suggested that the

bacteriological warfare allegations had, at best (or at worst from a Soviet perspective)

seriously impaired the U.S. “psychological position” in certain areas but that a

concerted counter-propaganda effort accompanied by observable U.S. actions might

help to mitigate the effects of the Soviet-led campaign. Specifically, the PSB

recommended additional coordinated denials including securing the support of neutral

nations such as India and Sweden, continuing disease control assistance to Korea and

other nations, and efforts to anticipate the specifics of future Soviet atrocity allegations.

The PSB even raised the question of whether some sort of legal action on the grounds of

a libel charge might at least help in terms of the battle for perceptions. Still, none of

these recommendations was markedly different from what had already been done

76
Hansen, Psywar in Korea, 43.
222
especially given that the number one recommendation continued to be denying the

charges. Even the specific U.S. efforts to refute the bacteriological warfare

“confessions” of U.S. personnel by impressing to the world audience that the Chinese

had “brainwashed” the prisoners, had little effect on public opinion outside of the

United States.

Although an outright lie, the bacteriological warfare allegations held some

credibility in the eyes of neutral and anti-Western audiences and forced a concerted

U.S. response to disprove the claims. Indeed, as Joseph Goebbles and Adolf Hitler had

shown before and during the Second World War audiences often responded well to the

“big lie.” Writing in Mein Kampf, Hitler himself had argued that the bigger the lie the

more easily it is believed.77 Thus, despite fervent U.S. denials during the war and a lack

of clear and credible evidence supporting the Communist claims the allegations proved

credible enough so that no one thoroughly refuted them for over forty years. For more

than thirty years following the end of the Korean War, writers with left-leaning

sympathies such as the London Guardian reporter John Gittings argued in the Journal

of Contemporary Asia in 1975 that the bacteriological warfare attacks likely took

place.78 These articles perpetuated the circumstantial case against the United States and

77
Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Ralph Manheim, trans., (Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1971), 231.
78
John Gittings, “Talks, Bombs, and Germs: Another Look at the Korean War,” Journal of
Contemporary Asia 5:2 (1975): 205-217.

223
in particular cited the U.S. failure to ratify the Geneva Conventions and the absence of

bubonic plague in Korea before 1950 as evidence of U.S. germ warfare strikes.79

In the 1980’s and 1990’s a series of scientific works refuting the bacteriological

warfare claims including several articles in the Journal of the American Medical

Association in 1997.80 These pieces attacked the technical basis of the Communist

claims and developed more thorough epidemiological assessments of the disease

outbreaks. These studies concluded that the horrific disease and public health crises

during the Korean War had more to do with battlefield conditions and austere public

health responses in North Korea and China than with outside influences. Korea, as

Alfred Cowdrey has noted, was a particularly fertile ground for biological warfare

allegations as it possessed a “disease environment” typical of undeveloped regions and

“more medieval than modern.” 81

79
Gittings argued that the U.S. capability to wage biological warfare was evidence of its actual use during
its “imperialist” crusade in Korea. Gittings and a few other authors also argued that the inability of the
United States to provide hard evidence to the contrary meant that the germ warfare attacks must have
taken place and any ambiguity was the result of a U.S. government cover-up. Gittings, however, based his
assessment almost entirely on Chinese propaganda broadcasts and the claims of the Australian
propagandist, Wilfred Burchett and lacked any deep analysis of the issue. See both Gittings, “Talk,
Bombs, and Germs,” 207 and Jaap van Ginneken, “Bacteriological Warfare,” Journal of Contemporary
Asia 7:2 (1977): 130-152.
80
See the Journal of the American Medical Association, “Special Communication,” 278:5 (6 August
1997); as well as van Courtland Moon, “Biological Warfare Allegations;” Cowdrey, “‘Germ Warfare’
and Public Health in the Korean Conflict;” and Rolicka, “New Studies Disputing Allegations of
Bacteriological Warfare.”
81
Cowdrey noted that in post World War II Korea, smallpox, cholera, Japanese encephalitis, and typhus
were endemic and tuberculosis was a common cause of death. Water supplies were usually polluted,
human excrement was a common fertilizer and disease carrying flies and mosquitoes abounded.
Cowdrey, Medics’ War, 53 and “Germ Warfare and Public Health,” 154.

224
 The destruction of public health and sanitation infrastructure as a result of the

war as well as the primitive medical capabilities of the CPVF and KPA helped to create

an environment where typhus, malaria, encephalitis, cholera, hemorrhagic fever, and

smallpox could flourish and spread in epidemic proportions. In 1951, the high point of

epidemic illness in Korea, the World Health Organization catalogued over 43,000 cases

of smallpox, 32,000 cases of typhus, and 81,000 cases of Typhoid as well as over

30,000 cases of measles, dysentery and diphtheria.82 The WHO estimated over 40,000

deaths as a result of these diseases. While the WHO only had statistics for South

Korea, other studies make it clear that no part of the peninsula was entirely immune to

its dangers.83 The U.S. worried constantly that epidemics among civilian populations

and enemy troops might spread to UN forces and struggled to suppress outbreaks

among enemy POWs and Korean civilians. By the end of the war UNCACK had

provided upwards of 80 million inoculations for various diseases.84 UN efforts reduced

the incidence of disease by almost 90% by 1952 and by 1954 there were less than 200

reported deaths in Korea as a result of diseases such as smallpox and typhus.85 Despite

the UN efforts, bacteriological warfare allegations proved particularly potent as part of

82
World Health Organization, Annual Epidemiological and Vital Statistics, (Geneva: World Health
Organization, 1951-1954).
83
UNC intelligence indicated that disease was rampant among North Korean civilians and KPA troops.
Intelligence also indicated that only about 20% of KPA troops had been immunized and that inoculations
provided to Chinese troops may have been ineffective. See Cowdrey, Medic’s War,173-174;
84
Report of the Rusk Mission to Korea, March 11-18, 1953, (New York: American – Korean
Foundation, Inc., 1953), 173-4.
85
World Health Organization, Vital Statistics, 1951, 1952, 1953, 1954.

225
an overall “atrocity propaganda” campaign due to the difficulty in verifying or refuting

whether or not disease outbreaks in Korea had natural or deliberate origins.

Other authors argued that from a political and military standpoint, the first-use

of biological weapons by the United States simply made no sense.86 Indeed, not only

did American policy at the time prohibit the first-use of biological weapons but the

United States clearly understood the impact on European and neutral public reaction

that would accompany such an attack. Indeed, from a military perspective these were

still unproven weapons and neither Truman nor Eisenhower wanted to do anything that

might precipitate a larger war in Asia or a general war with the Soviet Union. Despite

these assessments it was not until 1998, after the Russian government released

documents demonstrating that the accusations of bacteriological warfare use were

fraudulent, was the issue finally put to rest. And even still, some allegations live on to

this very day. As recently as 1998 soldiers in Ft. Lewis, Washington found leaflets on

their cars declaring that the Koran Central News Agency had confirmed the “undeniable

historical facts” that in October of 1951 the “US Aggression forces,” used germ warfare

with the explicit consent of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.87

The bacteriological warfare allegations demonstrated the difficulties the United

States had in refuting charges that, while baseless, nevertheless resonated in the minds

of many who were openly suspicious of the U.S. policies. As Colonel Kenneth Hansen

86
See van Courtland Moon, “Biological Warfare Allegations;” Barton Bernstein “Origins of the
Biological Warfare Program,” in Susan Wright, Preventing a Biological Arms Race (Cambridge: MIT
Press, 1990);and “Communist Bacteriological Warfare Propaganda” 1-4.
87
“Americans Stay Home,” Leaflet found on cars at Ft. Lewis Washington on February 10, 1998. Copy
possessed by author.

226
noted in his study of the psywar campaigns in Korea, “the horrifying aspect of the

campaign was the fact that, ridiculous or not, it achieved credence, although nowhere to

the extent that it did behind the iron curtain.”88 The United States faced difficulty in

dealing with atrocity allegations in general, including the bacteriological warfare

allegations, because there were grey areas that made the Soviet claims believable in the

minds of various target audiences. In any war there is likely to be civilian collateral

damage, atrocities, and perhaps even war crimes committed by both sides in the

conflict. While there is a moral distinction between the systematic conduct of atrocities

and an atrocity committed by exception or in the heat of battle, that difference is often

lost on outside audiences. Indeed, in the case of atrocity propaganda it is the job of the

propagandist to obfuscate these differences. During the Korean War civilians were

killed by both sides as a result of military action. The North Koreans and Chinese took

great efforts to exploit the deaths of civilians killed in UN air raids and the UN, aware

of this tactic, took its own efforts to minimize the likelihood of civilian deaths caused

by legitimate strikes. Additionally, UN troops were sometimes truly guilty of

inappropriate treatment of enemy civilians such as when ROK troops took harsh action

against suspected collaborators. Likewise, the American failure to ratify the Geneva

Conventions, American soldiers racist attitudes, and the American association with

Japanese scientists responsible for bacteriological warfare operations during World War

II, made the U.S. particularly vulnerable to allegations of wartime atrocities.

88
Hansen, Psywar in Korea,43.

227
 It is not clear how paranoid the Chinese truly were about the use of

bacteriological warfare given their experience as targets for Japanese bacteriological

warfare actions and experiments during World War II. In any event the U.S.

willingness to use vice prosecute those Japanese personnel involved with the use of

bacteriological warfare against the Chinese made for ripe propaganda fodder. From the

1930’s through the end of World War II General Ishii Shiro had led Unit 731 a secret

unit within the Imperial Japanese Army, in the conduct of bacteriological weapons

research, experimentation, and operations.89 The three-thousand man unit operated out

of Manchuko (Manchuria) and experimented on prisoners of war, conducted at least 12

large scale field trials, and carried out attacks against about a dozen Chinese cities using

bacteriological warfare agents. Some estimate that Ishii and his troops killed at least

10,000 prisoners during the war and perhaps tens of thousands of Chinese civilians.

General Ishii and his troops were responsible for a range of grotesque and criminal

experiments on prisoners including live vivisections, frostbite tests, and grenade tests

using humans staked to various distances and positions. After the war the United States

believed a great deal of the research Ishii had conducted might prove extremely

valuable.90 Additionally, the U.S. did not want the Soviet Union to acquire this sort of

information; particularly with regards to offensive bacteriological warfare capabilities

89
While several other units besides Unit 731 involved in the conduct of Japanese biological warfare
activities, Unit 731 served as the focal point for the biological warfare activities of the Imperial Japanese
Army. See Yuki Tanaka, Hidden Horrors: Japanese War Crimes in World War II (Boulder: Westview
Press, 1996); and Christopher et al, “Biological Warfare.”
90
In 1947 experts working for the State War Navy Coordinating Committee determined that the results of
Ishii’s work were “of great value in confirming, supplementing and complimenting several phases of U.S.
research…” State concurred with DoD that General Ishii’s information would be secured and denied to
the Russians without a prosecution for war crimes. See Cowdrey, Medics’ War, 218.

228
(Ishii had developed effective methods for disseminating bacteriological warfare agents

such as plague and anthrax). In exchange for their help with the United States some of

General Ishii’s troops) were granted immunity from any prosecution after the war.91

Given the Soviet indictments of twelve Japanese prisoners involved in bacteriological

warfare activities during World War II, their subsequent “confessions,” and eventual

sentencing to terms of two to twenty-five years the United States appeared awfully

forgiving to those who had killed thousands of innocent Chinese.92 The credibility of

the U.S. response, however, was damaged by the U.S. failure to create a consistent

picture for opponents and neutral audiences. The strength of the argument is clear in

that the debate continued until the mid-90’s and for the North Koreans, until current

day.

In short, the United States could do little to counter the Communist charges and

while the allegations did not have significant strategic consequences, the allegations

certainly put U.S. credibility into question and, more importantly, reinforced pre-

existing anti-American attitudes in Asia and in within the Soviet bloc. The efforts by

Beijing and Moscow took advantage of one of the major problems in countering

91
Interestingly, in Psywar in Korea, Colonel Kenneth Hansen treats General Ishii’s status as a war
criminal and biological warfare expert as suspect. Hansen writes, “…listeners were reminded that it had
allegedly been Ishii who had spread plague, typhus, typhoid and other diseases…” [emphasis added]
Even fifty years ago it was clear that Ishii had been responsible for those activities. The question
remains why Hansen described Ishii’s involvement in this way in 1957? Clearly Hansen, who worked on
the biological warfare counterpropaganda campaign for the Psychological Strategy Board was aware of
Ishii’s activities and the United States handling of Japanese biological warfare research and scientists.
While he simply could have avoided the issue if he was concerned about classification issues, his
deliberate obfuscation may have been an attempt to persuade audiences if and when he published the
manuscript. Hansen, Psywar in Korea, 38.
92
Ibid.

229
propaganda – once an allegation is made it is nearly impossible to disprove. Even

skillful propagandists, such as the Americans, found it impossible to completely erase

all suspicions about the use of bacteriological weapons during the Korean War. As the

theory of the “big lie,” holds – repetition, no matter how ludicrous, reinforced by

persuasive communicators can often prove more powerful than the truth. 93

93
The United States exacted some “revenge” to a degree after the Soviet Union shot down Korean Air
Lines (KAL) Flight 007 on August 31, 1983. By releasing only partial transcripts of intelligence
recordings between Soviet Air Defense commanders and the pilot of the Sukhoi-15 fighter that shot down
the civilian airliner, the United States made it appear as though the act had been completely deliberate.
Despite full accounting in the months and years following the incident, the initial “propaganda” battle
completely discredited the Soviet Union and effectively destroyed their “peace campaign.”
230
 CHAPTER 8

CONCLUSIONS: THE EFFECTIVENESS OF PSYWAR DURING THE

KOREAN WAR

During the course of the Korean War, U.S. forces conducted a range of

psychological warfare operations designed not only to bolster the morale of the South

Korean civilian population but to help destroy the combat effectiveness of KPA and

CPVF forces. To this end US psywar programs sought not only to weaken enemy

morale but to induce defection, desertion, or surrender. The question remains, however,

did the dissemination of billions of leaflets and thousands of loudspeaker message make

any difference? Did psychological warfare achieve any meaningful results?

Shortly after the 1953 Armistice, Paul Linebarger attempted to address this

question and in doing so introduced the two central problems involved in evaluating the

impact of psychological warfare operations: the inability to obtain immediate

observable results and the difficulty in distinguishing between the impact of

psychological warfare media and other factors. As Linebarger wrote in the 1954 edition

of Psychological Warfare,

The effects of planned persuasion in a thousand days of radio

broadcasts, in tens of thousands of loudspeaker appeals, in billions of
leaflets, may be measured only in retrospect. The question may be
answered when reaction in the target area has reached (or fails to
reach) favorable proportion, provided that the tangible results of the

231
 military operations can be clearly separated from those of concurrent
and subsequent strategic international information operations.1

The problem of evaluating psychological warfare techniques is a problem as old as the

weapon itself. Measuring human behavior and attitude change in any situation can

prove a tricky and difficult proposition. While battle damage assessments following

artillery or bombing missions may suffer from inconclusive evidence and subjective

interpretation, in the end the commanders could see physical damage. Attacking the

enemy’s mind in war rarely has an immediate or observable impact. Even psywar

proponents admitted that the “intangible nature” of psywar made its evaluation

“complex and inconclusive.”2 With the exception of tallying the number of troops who

surrendered, psywar had few tangible ways to demonstrate its impact. Added to the

difficulty of determining a positive outcome was convincing a disbelieving military of

the value of the weapon even if it “worked.” In basic terms psywar personnel during the

Korean War had three major obstacles to overcome. First, they had to convince those

organizations who were dubious to resource and permit them to carry out operations.

Second, they had to carry out technically proficient operations with messages crafted

for their target audiences. This also meant messages sufficiently convincing to

persuade troops that the Americans would treat them well, despite messages to the

contrary from CPVF and KPA cadre. Finally, they had to provide convincing evidence

of the success of these operations.

1
Linebarger, Psychological Warfare, 307.
2
Officer’s Call, “Army Psywar,” 9.

232
 The experience of World Wars I and II had demonstrated to the military and

psywar proponents within the services that psywar could rarely achieve a tactical, much

less a strategic, victory on its own. Psywar proved most useful as part of a combined

arms effort and was not the appropriate tool for every situation.3 The very nature of the

battle itself could preclude psychological warfare from having any meaningful impact,

as was clearly while the UN was on the defensive or during the stalemate on the

frontlines between mid-1951 and the end of the war. For the most part, psywar

personnel during the Korean War usually understood this, most importantly when they

explained the limits of psywar to conventional combat commanders:

The psychological warfare soldier cannot by his own efforts create situation
which impels an enemy to listen seriously to a suggestion that he lay down his
arms. He can, however help the combat solider exploit success – with savings
in lives, equipment, and time over what fighting alone would entail.4

The problem remained that most psywar personnel often overstated the case for using

their weapon. As Capt. Herbert Avedon, a psywar proponent noted, there were simply

some units that “should be shot up or bombed, not have paper dropped on them.”5

3
Even Linebarger, one of psywar’s greatest proponents, agreed that psychological warfare had its
limitations and was not a “supplement” to vice a “substitute” for conventional military operations.
Linebarger, Unpublished Manuscript, “The Immense Potentiality of Psychological Warfare,” November
1963, 1; Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger Papers, 18/5, Hoover Institution Archives (HIA), Stanford
University, California.
4
N.a. “Army Psychological Warfare,” 2:5, 2; and T. G. Andrews, et al, An Investigation of Individual
Factors Relating to the Effectiveness of Psychological Warfare (Baltimore, MD: Operations Research
Office, Johns Hopkins University, 1952). The study basically argues that psywar can produce effects, but
not without acting jointly with other factors such as hunger, bombing, etc. Andrews and Kahn also
published their results in “An Empirical Analysis of the Effectiveness of Psychological Warfare,” Journal
of Applied Psychology, 38 (1954), 240-44.
5
Avedon, “Psywar Operational Deficiencies,” 2. cf., U.S. soldiers fighting in Iraq in 2004; “It's hard for
us to want to win their hearts and minds while they're shooting at us, if that makes any sense.” Sgt Mark
Davis, Arkansas National Guard, CNN’s Newsnight with Aaron Brown, June 23rd, 2004.

233
Overstating the case for psywar and the resultant failure to achieve results caused some

commanders, especially in the field, to disregard any claims as to the value of the

weapon.

Simply stated, psychological warfare operations required both lethal and non-

lethal components: bombs to help create combat stress and leaflets/loudspeakers to

exploit that success. Success at integrating the lethal and non-lethal weapons, however,

did not always guarantee the desired result. The psywar materials had to be technically

proficient to impact their audience and, at the same time, fulfill the need of

demonstrating impact. Ironically, as Daniel Lerner pointed out in his study of psywar

operations during World War II, the more closely integrated psywar was then the more

difficult it became to distinguish the impact of psywar from the effects of other

operations. As another author put it, “the better he [the psywar soldier] does his job the

more difficult it is to measure his effectiveness.” 6 Lerner also argued that the military

was understandably predisposed to dismissing the impact of anything beyond brute

military force as the reason for the enemy’s demise. Some senior officers during World

War II had even argued that playing up propaganda as the cause for an enemy defeat

would reduce a soldier’s fighting spirit or destroy their morale.7 Lerner wrote, “there is

no quicker way to run down the self-respect of a soldier than to tell him after a bitter

6
Lerner, Sykewar, 287; and Linebarger, Psychological Warfare, 307.
7
Lerner, Sykewar, xv-xvi; and Margolin, Paper Bullets, 93.

234
fight that his fighting was not very good and some extraneous factor affected a victory

which he thought was his.”8

While the U.S. military had made some attempts to evaluate the impact of

psychological warfare after the end of combat, the Korean War represented the first

time the military attempted to systematically assess psywar performance during the

conflict. Captain Heber Blankenhorn’s psywar efforts during World War I took place

before the widespread availability of scientific polling techniques and thus had only

rudimentary methods for evaluating the success of his operations. During World War II

the psywar specialists could rely on a broader range of survey and polling techniques in

order to evaluate not just the quality of their products but also the impact they had on

their target audience However, most of the evaluation took place after the end of the

war. In Sykewar, Daniel Lerner identified four basic types of evidence available to

psywar personnel during World War II to evaluate their operations: counterpropaganda

analysis, observer commentaries, participant reports and responsive action.9

Counterpropaganda analysis meant deciphering the rationale behind enemy

efforts to directly or indirectly counteract allied propaganda on a point by point basis.

Lerner argued that counterpropaganda analysis and commentaries by the participants or

observers were only indirect indicators of effectiveness and thus, only useful as

“supplementary” data. In Lerner’s view, the most satisfactory measure of psywar

effectiveness during World War II had been “responsive action,” that is clear tangible

8
Lerner, Sykewar, 20.
9
Ibid, 286-289.

235
evidence that the enemy had taken an action in response to the suggestions or guidance

in the leaflets. The problem was the scarcity of such clear indicators. In other words,

rarely was there an example such as when thirty enemy troops blocking the 38th Infantry

Regiment’s advance in June 1951 surrendered after loudspeaker requests made by U.S.

psywar personnel.10 Even in this particular situation, however, there may have been

other more important factors that precipitated the troops’ surrender. Psywar analysts had

to avoid the assumption that any given act which conformed to a psywar activity

resulted from that action simply because it happened after the stimulus.”11 Finally,

many psywar missions did not lend themselves to this sort of response analysis. Indeed,

the chief mission of a psywar operation was frequently attrition – to lower the morale

and resistance of the enemy rather than to immediately induce surrender.

The most abundant source of information on the impact of psywar came from

“participant reports,” or, in layman’s terms, interviews with the target audiences such as

enemy prisoners of war. Interviews with captured enemy personnel were most useful in

that they could provide insight into the impact of particular stimuli, for example,

reactions to the color, style of text, or pictures used in a leaflet. Historically, almost all

studies of psywar effectiveness relied upon the interrogation of enemy POWs. During

World War I, surveys of captured German personnel showed that while 75% of German

enlisted troops believed psywar messages and similar surveys conducted on German

prisoners during World War II indicated that 25%-35% surrendered based on the

10
See discussion in Chapter 5 of this work; and GHQ FEC Psychological Warfare Operations (8 June
1951), 5.
11
Lerner, Sykewar, 289.

236
suggestions in the leaflets. Sampling enemy POW attitudes about psywar products,

however, raised several problems. First, as McClure, Hansen, and others noted, taking

prisoners was rarely the goal of any major strategic psywar campaign and even most

tactical campaigns sought primarily to reduce enemy morale. Inducing surrender or

desertion might have been the focus of specific loudspeaker and leaflet operations from

time to time but the cumulative degradation of morale remained the major focus of both

FEC and EUSAK psywar operations. Second, some prisoners chose to deliver the

answers they felt their captors wanted to hear. Finally, the prisoners themselves may not

have clearly understood how to distinguish between the factors that made them

surrender, e.g. cold, hunger, fear of death or loss of belief in their cause. This might

have made it nearly impossible to make reliable statements about the influence of

combat leaflets.

Evaluating Psychological Warfare Operations in Korea

A reasonable estimate provided by U.S. Army official histories concludes that about

450,000 North Korean and Chinese troops perished from 1950-1953.12 The UN

captured somewhere between 160,000 and 180,000 prisoners during the conflict.

Determining the exact number is complicated by the fact that many North Korean

prisoners did not appear on official rosters. Based on the repatriation numbers from the

end of the war, the UN captured 21,374 Chinese troops and 100,000 North Koreans.

UN forces had captured an additional 60,000 Koreans but Syngman Rhee had released

12
Hermes, Truce Tent and Fighting Front, 50. Dr. Allan R. Millett notes that the figure may actually be
closer to 1,000,000. Dr. Allan R. Millett, note to author, 7 January 2005.

237
them long before the Armistice was signed.13 Significantly, the UN took the vast

majority (135,000) of KPA prisoners between August and December 1950. Similarly,

the majority of CPVF captures (15,500) came in the period between April and June

1951, during the failed CPVF offensives. In both instances, the UN was in a favorable

military situation and the KPA and CPVF were on the run. Under such conditions

psywar focusing on the inevitability of death and defeat could understandably have an

impact on enemy soldiers. Notably, the UN took over 90% of CPVF and KPA

prisoners during this fluid first year of the war. Less than 10% of prisoners came in

during the second two years of the war when the front-lines remained relatively static.

In an effort to scientifically determine the effects of their propaganda campaigns

during the Korean War, psywar specialists used essentially the same evaluation

techniques used by Lerner’s colleagues at the end of World War II: counterpropaganda

analysis, observer commentaries, participant reports and responsive action.

Counterpropaganda analysis provided some general information about the enemy’s

attitudes towards propaganda and observer commentaries, such as those by Captain

Herbert Avedon, provided interesting information about the “effectiveness” of U.S.

efforts from the combatant commanders’ standpoints. Psywar specialists also gleaned

13
The UN repatriated approximately 76,823 Koreans and 6,670 Chinese to Communist control at the end
of the war. 7900 Koreans and 14,704 Chinese refused to be repatriated. In addition to these 106,000
prisoners, an estimated 60,000 Korean POW’s and civilian internees had already been screened, released,
or freed by a sanctioned “escape” ordered by President Syngman Rhee. Determining the number of
Communist prisoners captured during the war is complicated by the fact that many of them did not appear
on official rosters and some figures provided by ORO researchers during the war were slightly higher
(150,400 KPA and 21,100 CPVF). See Allan R. Millett, “Korean War Casualties,” unpublished
manuscript, The Ohio State University, 1997; Xiaobing Li, Allan R. Millett and Bin Yu, Mao’s Generals
Remember Korea (University Press of Kansas: Lawrence, 2001), 5-6; and Lessing Kahn and Florence K.
Nierman, A Study of Chinese and North Korean Surrenders, Chevy Chase, MD, ORO, September 5, 1952.

238
some data from operational reports searching for the rare instances of CPVF or KPA

“responsive action.” As during World Wars I and II however, evaluation efforts focused

on the most abundant source of information: enemy prisoners of war. Predictably, it

appears as though interrogation reports provided useful information about enemy

attitudes towards particular leaflets, but completing an overall evaluation of psywar’s

impact on combat operations remained problematic. Three major sources of

information on “participant reports” exist. First, the Eighth U.S. Army Weekly Psywar

Bulletins wrapped up information from various field interrogation and operational

reports. Second, the Operations Research Office (ORO) at Johns Hopkins University,

under contract to FEC and EUSAK, conducted a series of interim reports on psywar

effectiveness in early 1951. Finally, the ORO investigators completed a series of

follow-up and final assessments on psywar effectiveness in 1952 and after the end of

the war.14

Early in the war, General McClure informed the senior Army leadership that

68% of CPVF and 65% of KPA forces had been influenced by U.S. psywar programs.15

More dramatically, as McClure reported to the Comptroller of the Army in March of

1952, information from 1951 indicated that no less than 90% of those Chinese and 77%

14
Lessing A. Kahn, Technical Memorandum, ORO-T-2 (EUSAK), A Preliminary Study of North Korean
and Chinese Surrenders, (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University, ORO, 27 February 1951); Lessing
Kahn and Florence K. Nierman, Technical Memorandum, ORO-T-2 (EUSAK), A Study of Chinese and
North Korean Surrenders, (Chevy Chase, MD: Johns Hopkins University, ORO, September 5, 1952);
and Lessing Kahn and Julius Segal, Technical Memorandum, ORO-T-40 (FEC), Psychological Warfare
and Other Factors Affecting the Surrender of North Korean and Chinese Forces, (Chevy Chase, MD:
The Johns Hopkins University, ORO, 1953).
15
U.S. Army Forces Far East, “Report to Chief of Psywar,” 2 November 1953, 2; USASOC Historical
Archives, Ft. Bragg, North Carolina, photocopy.

239
of North Koreans who had voluntarily surrendered had admitted they had done so due

in part to psywar messages. EUSAK psychological warfare highlights from 1952

similarly indicated that psywar had influenced KPA and CPVF troops. Army psywar

“highlights” from June through August 1952 indicated that about 50% of captured

prisoners indicated that psywar messages had influenced them. Even more significant

was that no less than 72% of those who voluntarily surrendered reported that they had

been influenced “to some extent” by psywar messages.”16 EUSAK data for 1952 and

1953 combined proved even more encouraging with 85.6% of Chinese and 68.5% of

North Koreans who had voluntarily surrendered claiming UN propaganda influenced

their decision.

The Army appeared significantly more cautious in its public statements on the

effectiveness of psywar operations. During a public briefing in December, 1951, the

Army contended that U.S. psywar programs had led to the capture of about a third of

the 170,000 enemy prisoners taken during the Korean War.17 Indeed, while their

estimates of POW’s taken was probably a bit high, the estimates that about a third of

enemy forces had been influenced to surrender by psywar leaflets were not entirely off

the mark. In 1952, J. Woodall Greene, the Chief of the FEC psywar division told the

New York Times that psychological warfare “had some success despite the small

number of Communists taken prisoner.”18 Perhaps most telling was that in an interview

16
See Fifth Air Force Intelligence Summary, 31 August, 1952, “Army Psywar Highlights 1 Jun 52 – 23
August 52,” 66; K-730.607, USAF Collection, AFHRA.
17
“Korean Reds Yield to U.N. Propaganda,” New York Times, December, 15, 1951, 3.
18
Murray Schumach, “U.N. Words Do Job of Guns in Korea,” New York Times, April 11, 1952, 3.
240
with U.S. News and World Report, and in a postwar address to the U.S. Army War

College, General McClure noted that the number of enemy prisoners influenced by

psywar was probably about a third19 Indeed, what Woodall Greene’s assessments

probably reflected, and what McClure’s post-war analysis most certainly does, was the

result of the more thorough assessments carried out in the field by Operations Research

Office investigators working under contract to the Department of the Army and Far East

Command.

Throughout the war ORO investigators conducted a range of studies on

technical and organizational aspects of FEC and EUSAK psywar programs. In

February, 1951 the ORO released an initial assessment on the impact of psywar

operations on KPA troops.20 The assessment, Evaluation of Effects of Leaflets on Early

North Korean Prisoners of War, was likely the first systematic and scientific attempt to

survey POW attitudes during the Korean War. The study sought to evaluate the number

of POW’s in UN hands who had read or heard of UN psywar efforts. In September and

October 1950, ORO investigators conducted interviews with 438 North Korean

prisoners using a variety of survey techniques such as oral interviews, written and

19
After the war, McClure claimed that number was probably only about a third. See “Psychological
Strategy as Preventive of Larger War,” (An Interview), U.S. News and World Report, 60; General Robert
McClure, “Psychological Warfare,” lecture to the U.S. Army War College, 16 February 1953, USAMHI,
photocopy; and Sandler, Cease Resistance, 289.
20
Kilchoon Kim and E.A. Johnson, Technical Memorandum ORO-T-4 (EUSAK) Evaluation of Effects of
Leaflets on Early North Korean Prisoners of War (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University, ORO, 20
February 1951), 3.

241
multiple choice questionnaires. The investigators posed simple questions such as: Did

you believe what is written in the leaflets; do you believe Americans are stupid; and

why did you surrender? 21

The report demonstrated that, as had proven the case in World War II, while the

surveys could do well in answering some questions, they could not answer the general

question of how psywar impacted a soldier’s behavior. For example, the February, 1951

study provided psywar personnel with an idea as to the KPA’s response to particular

leaflets, colors, themes, and images. This allowed psywar personnel to make changes

that improved the quality of leaflets. Information such as this is what helped psywar

personnel to increase use of themes regarding the superiority of UN weapons. In a

similar study conducted by ORO particular, interrogations and questionnaires indicated

that KPA troops feared UN airpower more than any other weapon system. In fact, 82%

of those POWs questioned stated they feared air attack most of all where as only 7%

responded with artillery, 2.6% tanks, and 1.6% infantry.22 This information would

reinforce notions already within the psywar community that surrender and morale

attacks should emphasize the superiority of UN airpower and the likelihood of being

killed by UN air attack.

ORO studies in 1951 also confirmed that the KPA and the CPVF had instituted a

number of counterpropaganda efforts but did not conclude whether or not these

measures had resulted in fewer enemy surrenders. Still both the ORO researchers and

21
Kim and Johnson, Evaluation of Effects of Leaflets,3.
22
Ibid, 4; and Kahn, Preliminary Study of North Korean and Chinese Surrenders 4-5.

242
the FEC psywar staff felt that countermeasures indicated at least a perception on the

other side that UN propaganda could negatively impact communist fighting morale. A

number of other intelligence reporting and interrogations clearly showed that the KPA

and CPVF leadership spent significant time indoctrinating their forces about the causes

of the war and U.S. intentions, in part, to inoculate them against UN psywar efforts.23

As a result of these efforts a large number of enemy soldiers believed that they would

be killed if captured by the Americans or ROK Army. In one instance KPA cadre

regularly reminded soldiers that the “ROK army kill not only one who surrenders but

his families,” and that superior officers explained that if “one was captured by the U.S.

army he would be burned alive or stripped the skin off.”24 Information like this

persuaded FEC and EUSAK to put additional emphasis on “good treatment” themes and

leaflets designed to create more discussion about surrender among the troops.

In open ended surveys and questioning, almost half the KPA soldiers claimed

they surrendered “because of the dislike of Communism,” about 35% because of low

morale or distaste for combat conditions, and only about 10% “because of the leaflets.”
25
In surveys with a restricted set of “reasons,” to choose from, leaflets appeared to have

a more significant effect on surrender:

23
Wilmore Kendall, Technical Memorandum, ORO-T-39 (FEC), Beliefs of Enemy Soldiers About the
Korean War,” (Chevy Chase, MD: The Johns Hopkins University, ORO, 24 May 1952); “Psywar in
Korea: an Interim Report,” 69; and Richard C. Sheldon and Henry Senft, Technical Memorandum ORO-
T-6 (EUSAK), Preliminary Evaluation of Psywar Broadcasts from IPOR POW Interrogations, (Chevy
Chase, MD: The Johns Hopkins University, ORO, 22 February 1951), 22-23.
24
Sheldon and Senft, Preliminary Evaluation of Psywar Broadcasts, 23.
25
Ibid., 4.

243
 Read UN Leaflets……………………55%
Ordered by UN and ROK Forces……17%
Too Many Comrades Killed…………..9%
Left Behind by NK Forces……………7%
Too Little Ammunition……………….0%
Other Reasons………………………...3%
No Answer……………………………9%26

While Kim and Johnson, the principal investigators, believed that the POW’s were

generally honest in providing background information such as age, rank, education, and

training, they also believed that POW answers as to surrender motivations had to be

interpreted rather than simply reported. Significantly, they felt that the information on

surrender had “to be regarded with considerable skepticism” because the closed

response required the prisoner to provide a “simple answer” to a complex motivation.27

Thus, despite the 55% figures, Kim and Johnson felt that UN leaflets may only have

caused about 30% of the surrenders. Given a sampling error of 15% the researchers

conceded that perhaps only as few as “10% of the total prisoner ‘take’ could be ascribed

to the UN leaflet campaign.”28 ORO reports that analyzed both Chinese and North

Korean surrenders in 1951, 1952, and 1953 came to similar conclusions.29

26
Kim and Johnson, Evaluation of Effects of Leaflets,5.
27
Ibid., 4-7. The investigators for the study believed that prisoners had only been ordered not to
surrender rather than being instructed on proper behavior upon surrender. Thus, Kim and Johnson felt
that the North Korean prisoners were not necessarily lying about their situations but probably felt that
they were improving their own situation by cooperating.
28
Ibid., p.7.
29
Kahn, A Preliminary Study of North Korean and Chinese Surrenders; Kahn and Nierman, A Study of
Chinese and North Korean Surrenders; and Kahn and Segal, Psychological Warfare and Other Factors
Affecting the Surrender of North Korean and Chinese Forces.

244
 The ORO reports also provided indications as to when psywar might be

expected to perform “above average,” or to prove particularly effective in garnering

prisoners. For example, one ORO report completed in mid-1951 indicated that that in

enemy formations that were “fleeing or routed,” those who saw leaflets were more

likely to surrender than be captured.30 Indeed, UN forces captured very few KPA

troops during the early days of the war when they fell back towards Pusan. Following

the UN landings at Inchon and the subsequent counteroffensive, UN forces captured the

majority of prisoners that they would take during the entire war. UN forces captured

almost 100,000 KPA in October alone and an additional 20,000 by years end -- more

than 90% of the total prisoner take for the entire war. Indeed, the UN captured the bulk

of Chinese prisoners (15,000) during the next UN counteroffensive in the spring of

1951 and 95% of the eventual 170,000 prisoners would be in U.S. hands by that

summer (See figure 8.1).31 In 1952 and 1953 the EPW count did not grow significantly.

Other reports also supported what many psywar specialists had understood innately, that

the intensity of the military situation, the experience of sustained combat with the

accompanying shortages of food, ammunition, and lack of sleep, as well as a

30
Specifically, in a survey of 768 KPA and 238 CPVF prisoners taken during the winter of 1950-1 of
those who saw leaflets there were four surrenders for every five captures. Among those who had not seen
the leaflets (50%) the captives outnumbered those who surrendered by two and one-half to one.
Operations Research Office, An Evaluation of Psywar Influence on North Korean Troops, vii.
31
Samuel M. Meyers and William C. Bradbury, The Political Behavior of Korean and Chinese Prisoners
of War in the Korean Conflict: A Historical Analysis, (Washington DC: George Washington University,
Human Resources Research Office, August 1958), 28-29.
.
245
discouraging prognosis for their own future, made soldiers more susceptible to psywar

messages.32 In short, those soldiers who believed defeat was inevitable made much

better targets for psywar propaganda.33

The Final Impact of Psywar Operations on the Korean War

Despite the growing number of histories of the Korean War, there are no comprehensive

studies of psychological warfare during the Korean War. The official histories provide

only briefest mentions of psywar. While this particular work does not seek to address

the issue of a “comprehensive” history, it does seek to provide some value as an

interpretive piece. This study has sought to reconcile the contradiction between the

praise given to psywar by some senior military leaders and combat commanders with

the criticism and skepticism offered by others. It has also sought to offer a possible

explanation to the mixed reviews provided by not only General Ridgway but even

psywar proponents such as Brigadier General Robert McClure. As observed in the

existing literature and historical record the question of effectiveness is truly one of the

enduring themes in the history of the U.S. military’s use of psychological warfare.

While the art of psychological warfare clearly had little to do with “brainwashing” a la

The Manchurian Candidate, the ability of psywar specialists to come up with tangible

and meaningful measures of effectiveness indeed required some wizardry. The U.S.

military’s use of psychological warfare during the Korean War demonstrated, just as

32
Kahn, A Preliminary Study of North Korean and Chinese Surrenders, 3.
33
Meyers and Bradbury, The Political Behavior of Korean and Chinese Prisoners of War, 29.

246
Sun-Tzu suggested, one need not destroy the enemy physically, simply their willingness

to fight. The inability to demonstrate where the physical struggle ended and the mental

defeat began, however, meant that psychological warfare personnel had a difficult time

convincing not only the indoctrinated enemy soldiers, but skeptics in their own military.

From the founding of the nation, U.S. military officers have often considered

anything unconventional such as the use of guerilla tactics, propaganda, or

psychological warfare as anathema to an “American” way of war and have considered

these approaches to be “ungentlemanly,” and Nazi-esque, as well as synonymous with

lies, deception, and misinformation. As a result, propaganda in the United States

evolved as a diplomatic tool much more quickly than did psychological warfare as a

military weapon. Even though in World War I the United States established civilian

and military organizations explicitly devoted to the conduct of propaganda warfare, by

the end of the conflict, most military leaders believed propaganda had no military value.

World War II validated tactical and technical approaches to waging psychological

warfare but did not resolve the larger question of utility. Even with rigorous analysis,

psywar proponents such as Daniel Lerner found it impossible to distinguish clearly

between the impact of military and non military weapons used against the enemy. As a

result of the inability to palpably measure psywar’s impact, the best that Captain

Blanknhorn, the head of G-2D during World War I, could muster was that perhaps

psywar had provided “a little aid,” and even General McClure could offer little more

than an anemic, “results were achieved” with regards to operations during World War

247
II.34 Even the recognition that the United States was engaged in a battle of hearts and

minds with the Soviet Union did not dissipate preconceived notions against the use of

psychological warfare on the battlefield.

While the Truman Administration oversaw significant progress in development

of national psychological strategy, and organizations to manage it, these developments

largely took place at the White House and the Department of State, and not the

Pentagon. Indeed, it is unlikely that without as strong, respected, and as well-connected

an individual as Brigadier General Robert McClure, that there would have been an

Office of the Chief of Psychological Warfare or a Psychological Warfare Center at Ft.

Bragg. In short, psychological warfare developed as an institution during the Korean

War era despite the uniformed military. As staff elements fought for recognition in the

Pentagon, the ad-hoc field organizations in Tokyo fought their own battles in Korea and

at FEC. While undermanned and under-resourced the psywar division at FEC managed

to quickly put together a robust strategic and tactical campaign. Despite their admirable

ability to stand up and deliver propaganda products within days of the North Korean

invasion, the success was relatively short lived and innumerable obstacles littered the

road ahead. Americans did have a hard time developing culturally appropriate

propaganda. Dedicated psywar units such as the 1st RB&L did not arrive until mid-

1951. The poor technical quality of leaflets and the dearth of linguistic capability and

cultural expertise hampered the execution of the strategic psywar mission throughout

the war. The lack of cultural and linguistic expertise coupled with a poor

34
Lerner, Sykewar, xviii; and Pershing, Final Report, 43.

248
comprehension of the nature of psychological warfare typified many military officers.

As one combat commander noted to exasperated psywar specialists seeking his

authorization for a psywar operation: “I don’t know anything about the Chinese and I

don’t know anything about psychological warfare.”35 The poor record of the U.S.

strategic psywar efforts certainly explains General Ridgway’s postwar comments that

he did not have much faith in psychological warfare as a weapon and did not think it

had accomplished much. Undeniably, General McClure’s assessment of the strategic

radio campaign was no more positive.36

Tactical psychological operations during the Korean War did not differ

substantively from those operations conducted during World War II. While the military

made technical improvements to its delivery mechanisms, tactical psywar still focused

on the dissemination of loudspeaker messages and leaflets designed to degrade enemy

morale, and where possible, induce desertions or surrender. As with the strategic

operations, the tactical propaganda mission suffered from technical deficiencies and the

lack of personnel with the appropriate cultural and linguistic training. The battlefield

itself, however, proved an even more significant obstacle to the employment of tactical

psychological warfare especially when used to help induce enemy surrenders. As even

the FEC psywar leadership noted, the stalemate after the spring of 1951 made it much

more difficult, if not impossible, for enemy troops to surrender.

35
Gallant, “More Psycho than Logical,” 17.
36
Robert McClure, “Psychological Strategy as Preventive of Larger War,” (An Interview), 65.

249
 Still, the historical record indicates that more so than any other factor the

success or failure of psychological warfare operations during the Korean War depended

on the attitude of the individual combat commander toward propaganda as a weapon.

Issues of technical proficiency aside, if the combatant commanders refused to use the

weapons then the success or failure of the missions were foregone conclusions.

Commander’s used those weapons they felt would have the most impact on the

battlefield around them and tactical or operational environments did not always beg a

psywar response. Commander’s felt reasonably certain, however, that high-explosive

solutions would almost always have an impact on the enemy. While the FEC and

EUSAK leadership supported psywar general terms, their subordinates at the Corps and

division levels believed the weapon had only a marginal utility. Combat officers at the

front lines often felt psywar was at odds with the notion that they should put as much

lethal firepower downrange as possible and that the most important psychological

impacts resulted from the physical destruction of the enemy. Successful psywar

operations also depended on proper integration with conventional military efforts.

Those commanders skeptical of the value of the weapon did not synchronize psywar

efforts with kinetic battlefield activities. Command climates that encouraged and

demanded the integration of psywar into military plans and operations clearly

contributed the success of psywar missions in units such as the 2nd and 3rd Infantry

Divisions. In short, these units used lethal firepower to create situations that psywar

could exploit.

250
 The need to convince reluctant combatant commanders of the value of

psychological warfare set psywar proponents on an unrelenting quest to sell itself

throughout the theater. The lack of tangible indicators of success also meant that the

psywar division at FEC first sought to demonstrate their value by focusing on the

number of leaflets dropped and radio scripts broadcast. The former, however, simply

demonstrated a level of effort on the allied side and, as proponents and observers such

as Captain Herbert Avedon pointed out, was an inappropriate metric with which to

evaluate success. Psywar proponents also began to focus on the number of enemy

prisoners captured as a result of psywar operations. As noted, the psywar staffs faced

the impenetrable problem of distinguishing the effects of psywar from conventional

military operations. Still, counting prisoners allowed the psywar organizations to

provide a tangible and quantifiable indication of how psywar could reduce enemy

combat power. Evaluating psywar impact on enemy surrenders, however, could not

entirely explain the effect that psywar had on enemy morale. As General McClure had

pointed out, the primary purpose of psywar was not to capture prisoners but to build

dissent behind enemy lines. The ease with which counting prisoners could provide an

answer to the combat commanders question of “so what,” created a situation where too

much emphasis was placed on conducting and evaluating psywar surrender operations.

This set up tactical psywar for failure when the Korean War shifted into an operational

stalemate after several failed Chinese offensives in 1951. As Colonel Kenneth Hansen,

251
the FEC psywar chief, pointed out, this created a situation where psywar focused on

surrenders in a situation in which it was “virtually impossible to surrender.” 37

Proponents of psywar within the U.S. Air Force did not have to deal with

skeptics who doubted the value of psychological warfare, but rather a different

conceptualization of what psywar was. With a few exceptions the orthodox approach to

psychological warfare never truly took hold in the Air Force and thus during the Korean

War operations the Air Force simply provided logistical and transportation support for

Army psywar operations as well as cover for a range of covert and clandestine

operations. Likewise, the ARCS program, an attempt at an independent psywar

capability, barely began before the Air Force chose to dismantle the program. Instead,

the Air Force fostered the view that psychological warfare was the use of violent action

to create a psychological effect, or, as Paul Linebarger had written, “warfare,

psychologically waged.”

The experience of World War II reinforced the Air Force tenet that high-

explosive and incendiary attacks could have a serious psychological impact on the

enemy population. For proponents of an independent strategic air arm, psychological

warfare was simply an inherent part of every Air Force operation. Just like with

propaganda, the challenge was tailoring that psychological impact to a certain purpose.

During the Korean War, however, recognition of the psychological impact of airpower

did not translate into an institutionalized approach to that style of warfare. By their own

37
Hansen, Psywar in Korea, 112-113.

252
assessment, consideration of psychological factors was not systematic and most simply

took it for granted that bombing would lead to a psychological defeat.

Ironically, the U.S. military leadership appears to have had more respect for

North Korean and Chinese psywar efforts. U.S. troops at the front proved no more

receptive to communist propaganda then they did to the notion of U.S. psywar

operations and often the only comparison appeared to be as to who made the better

quality toilet paper. The Chinese and North Koreans suffered even more than the

United States from same lack of cultural knowledge and even English speaking

communist sympathizers could not eliminate the stilted and often ludicrous propaganda

leaflets and broadcasts. The reaction to the well-planned and executed bacteriological

warfare campaign, however, created a group within the Pentagon that feared the impact

that communist psywar programs might have on the U.S. military and even the

American population at large. The communist psywar programs are also important in

that they indicated that the North Koreans, Chinese, and, of course, the Soviet Union

truly believed in the power of propaganda. Thus, no matter what U.S. commanders

might think of the psywar efforts on the battlefield, the CPVF and KPA leadership

thought it could have an impact on their own troops.

Assessments conducted by the military during and after the Korean War

demonstrated that psywar messages alone rarely proved to be the decisive factor in

creating behavior changes among enemy soldiers. Rather, it was the combined impact

of conventional military action and psychological warfare that compelled the enemy to

take particular actions. This put a premium on the integration of propaganda into overall

253
tactical and operational concepts. Likewise, it opened up an opportunity, though not

exploited at the time, to consider the psychological impact of the lethal fires such as

bombs, artillery and machine-guns. In the end, the significance of psywar messages

was to exploit the situation created by conventional weapons – it confirmed what the

physical environment indicated to the troops: surrender, desertion, dissent, and

malingering were all preferable to continuing the fight. In other words, while

propaganda could promote the desirability of surrender it was not the true catalyst of

those actions.

But the contemporary analyses, even by psywar proponents, probably do not

think broadly enough about the impact that psywar had on the battlefield. Even

Linebarger discounts the importance of increasingly strict counterpropaganda efforts by

the KPA and CPVF to ensure that their troops did not pick up UN leaflets. It is likely

that these measures simply drew more attention to the UN propaganda or perhaps gave

it more credibility. More importantly, the KPA and the CPVF had to expend men and

material to counter the UN propaganda effort, resources that, while not significant

enough to have a strategic impact, could nevertheless have been used elsewhere.

Perhaps most compelling is the notion that UN efforts (Operation Moolah) may have

resulted in reduced Soviet and Chinese airpower effectiveness by keeping experienced

Russian pilots on the ground. Indeed, any actions the CPVF and KPA had to take to

reduce the likelihood that their troops would surrender to the UN reduced their

concentration on conventional operations. Though difficult if not impossible to

quantify, this was the true value of psywar. On the battlefield, propaganda could keep

254
the enemy soldier thinking of anything but preparing to fight the battle: home, hunger,

sleeplessness, unfair conditions. Just like a deception operation, propaganda could force

the enemy leaders to look in the wrong direction – in this case focusing on the actions

of their own troops rather than on the enemy across the lines. Every minute spent

worrying about UN leaflets was one less minute the CPVF and KPA could worry about

the UN forces.

In short, a number of different obstacles challenged the successful development

and execution of psywar operations during the Korean War. Technical and resource

challenges, however, do not adequately explain the uneven success record of the

strategic and tactical programs implemented by FEC and EUSAK. Rather, the

experience of the Korean War makes it clear that most Army officers, most importantly

those of field grade, did not understand the potential of psychological warfare. They

thought of it almost solely as an annoying adjunct, or as an instrument designed simply

to induce surrender. Psywar personnel, eager to demonstrate their worth did little to

dispel this limited view. In addition, the inability of the psywar proponents to

consistently provide demonstrable and tangible indicators of success meant that when

forced to choose between leaflets, loudspeakers and firepower, operational leaders

chose firepower. Even the Air Force, more receptive to the concept of psywar than the

Army, demonstrated a clear preference for the firepower. In the end, however, the

psywar proponents could provide little more tangible evidence about the overall effect

of their operations than their predecessors of the World Wars.

255
 Inchon Chinese Chinese UN Armistice
UN
Landings Intervention Fifth Counter-
Retreat
(15 Sep) Offensive Offensive

100

90 135,873 161,877

17,161
80
Percent of Total Number of Prisoners Taken

All POW’s Chinese POW’s

Korean POW’s
70

60 Korean POW’s (100%= 150,420)

Chinese POW’s (100%=21,074)

50
256

All POW’s (100% = 171,494)

40
Korean POW's
30
Chinese POW's

20 All POW's

10 1950 1951 1952 1953

0
Jun Jul Aug S ep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug S ep Oct Nov Dec Apr May Jun Jun Jul

Figure 8.1: Percentage of the total number of prisoners taken as a function of time. See Meyers and Bradbury, 28-29.

256
 APPENDIX A

SUMMARIES OF SELECTED FEC PSYWAR OPERATIONS AND PLANS 1

1
Extracted except where noted from Mossman, EUSAK Combat Propaganda Operations, 2: 86-101.
257
Deadline, Hold-Up, Deadlock and Concord

In order to support the UN position at the armistice negotiations in late 1951, FEC

launched several psywar plans to portray the UN as working hard to restore peace and

the Communists as the obstructionist element at the talks. While their were no clear

quantifiable objectives, psywar planners designed the campaigns to create unspecified

“adverse reactions” among civilians against the Communists negotiating positions in the

hopes of encouraging a settlement. Target groups included not just CPVF and KPA

troops but (North) Korean civilians. Between November 28, 1951 and December 27,

1951, tactical operations avoided the use of surrender appeals and instead focused on

news reports of the armistice discussions, to include explanations for the UN’s positions

on various issues. Other leaflets and radio broadcasts emphasized the needless loss of

life that ensued from continued Communist intransigence at the armistice talks. Plan

Deadline was superceded by plan Hold-Up once the armistice discussions continued

past the original 27 December 1951 deadline. Plan Hold-Up continued until July 1952

when FEC published Plan Deadlock. Plans Deadlock and Hold-Up largely pursued

the same aims and used the same themes as did Deadline. Rupture and Severance were

designed to establish Communist responsibility for the failure of negotiations in the

event of a breakdown in the talks. Similarly, plan Concord would publicize that UN

efforts in the face of Communist inflexibility proved the key to bringing about the

armistice.

258
Operation Blizzard / Plan Dragon

FEC carried out Operation Blizzard during the period December 24-26, 1951. Blizzard

capitalized on the “significance of the New Year season in the Orient.” Leaflets in

Korean and Chinese focused on “themes related to UN efforts to restore peace” such as

the desirability of an armistice and bringing the troops back home. FEC leaflet

operations targeted front line military units and civilians in major cities under North

Korean control. Radio broadcasts directed at civilians complimented the leaflet drops.

Plan Dragon similarly sought to arouse nostalgia and a longing for home amongst KPA

and CPVF troops. Between January 19 and January 27, 1952, the lunar holiday season,

leaflets designed to make soldiers think of home while other leaflets targeted civilians

in order to encourage dissatisfaction with their husbands and sons continued military

duty. Operations culminate during the lunar New Year’s holiday. Additionally,

reminders of the 360th anniversary of the Imjin War were attempts to appeal to Korean

nationalism and encourage animosity towards Chinese and Russian interlopers.

Plan Sell-Out / Plan Swindle

U.S. intelligence sources indicated that Chinese Communists had made undisclosed

economic concessions during formal treaty negotiations between the PRC and the

USSR in February 1950. The aim of plan Sell-Out was to show CPVF soldiers that the

Chinese Communist regime had sold out China’s national interests and turned the

nation into a satellite of the USSR. Leaflets dropped each week between 28 January

259
and 23 February emphasized four different sub-themes: domination of China was a

long standing Russian objective; military concessions made by China gave Russia the

power of life and death over the Chinese people; economic concessions had turned

China into a “puppet” to be exploited for Russian benefit; and finally, China’s

subservience to Russia had destroyed Chinese independence. In conjunction with Sell-

Out, FEC executed Plan Swindle as a way to further demonstrate the false promises and

hopes offered by the Communist Chinese government. Plan Swindle emphasized

domestic policy failures enacted by the Chinese government, including land and

industrial reforms, and reinforced the notion that the Chinese Communists were

subservient to the Soviet Union.

Plan Patriot

Each year Koreans celebrate the March 1 1919 attempt to seek independence from

Japan. FEC sought (February 24 to March 15, 1952) to intensify Korean patriotic

feelings along pro-UN and anti-Communist lines by identifying the UN as the champion

of Korean unification and independence. Leaflets and broadcasts directed at Korean

civilians in North Korean held territory sought to create resentment against eh

Communists for preventing unification and attempting to supplant Korean traditions,

culture, and independence.

260
Plan Invader

From June 15 to July 5 1952, Plan Invader sought to create resentment and anger

towards communist leaders for starting and prolonging a war of aggression against the

Korean people. Radio operations directed at Korean civilians and leaflet operations

directed against CPVF and KPA troops emphasized that the invasion had been

deliberate and premeditated and that the Communists were using the armistice as a

“breathing spell” to reorganize their defeated forces. Leaflets also stressed that the

Communists were intentionally prolonging the war and therefore were deliberately

bringing destruction, death, and misery to millions of Koreans.

261
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