The Nature and Consequences of Black Propaganda

F OR PRESENT purposes, propaganda may be defined as the planned use of any means of communication to impose one's will, in an actual or potential conflict situation, on anyone not ordinarily disposed to acquiesce peaceably to that will. Impose one's is the key phrase, and should be discussed at length, but space does not permit. In this definition questions of truth or falsity, as determined by any standard, are not raised. Propaganda which achieves its end may be entirely true, or it may be entirely false; expedient rationality alone governs the choice of means. When long-time imposition of will is the end in view, it may be highly expedient to restrict propaganda to the realm of truth, but that is a matter of strategy versus tactics which need not be considered at this point; it will come up later. White propaganda is that variety which is definitely announced by the propagandizer as coming from a source the propagandized. Outside is the key term; it may refer either to outside a single personality or to outside groups ranging in size from pair to national aggregate. Ordinarily the reference is to groups; an advertiser propagandizes a given public, a frontline hog caller uses a loud speaker to call on a regiment to surrender, and so on. Black propaganda is that variety which is presented by the propagandizer as coming from a source inside the propagandized. Inside is the key term; here again the scope is the widest thinkable. A salesman may so propagandize a prospect that the salesman never appears as such; the prospect