DEMOCRACY IN EXILE by Daniel Bessner

Author:Daniel Bessner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cornell University Press

Chapter 6

The Adviser

The Soviet detonation of an atomic bomb in 1949 was just one of several events that persuaded defense intellectuals and decision makers alike that communism was an existential threat to democracy. In addition to the detonation, Stalinization in Eastern Europe and the Berlin Blockade of 1948–1949 suggested that the Soviet Union intended to adopt a hostile posture vis-à-vis the United States and its allies. Furthermore, in the autumn of 1949 Mao Zedong’s communists seized power in China. To many foreign policy elites, it seemed that the United States was losing the war against communism before it had even truly begun.

To stem the tide of communist expansionism, in the early 1950s decision makers in the Truman and Eisenhower administrations embraced a policy of “rollback” designed to push the Soviets out of Eastern Europe. With memories of appeasement fresh in their minds, policymakers were convinced that the only way to defeat an existential enemy bent on democracy’s destruction was to go on the offensive. Officials, though, were determined to roll back the Soviets not with physical violence but with psychological warfare, a means that attracted them for several reasons. First, decision makers insisted that psychological warfare was unlikely to provoke a third world war. Second, policymakers believed that the Cold War was, to a large degree, an ideological struggle between liberal democratic capitalism and totalitarian communism that could be prosecuted with psychological operations. Third, they considered “paranoid” communist leaders mentally weak and perfect targets for psychological warfare. Finally, psychological warfare had proven effective at preventing communist parties from winning elections in postwar France and Italy, and many officials concluded that it might very well be used for more aggressive purposes.1

Despite policymakers’ interest in psychological warfare, however, officials were worried that they lacked the scientific and area knowledge needed to plan successful psychological campaigns. Therefore, when developing the United States’ psychological strategy, decision makers often turned to outside consultants for advice. Social scientists formed an integral part of the expert cohort of psychological warfare consultants. During World War II, social scientists had occupied leading positions in the Office of War Information, Office of Strategic Services, and other government bodies responsible for psychological warfare; even after the war, many continued to devote themselves to the subject. It was thus natural for policymakers to ask social scientists for guidance on how the United States should psychologically destabilize the Soviet Union and its satellites. Speier, who in the early 1950s was a nationally renowned psychological warfare expert, emerged as one of the most influential consultants on the subject.

Speier’s experiences in Weimar had convinced him that when facing a totalitarian threat, democrats needed to take the offensive, and he ardently supported rollback. Between 1950 and 1953, Speier helped convince decision makers that the time was ripe for the United States to psychologically attack the Soviet Union and its hold on the Eastern Bloc, particularly the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany). By providing policymakers with advice they deemed useful—and which echoed their own opinions—Speier solidified intellectuals’ recently won seat at the foreign policymaking table.

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