Hillary Clinton and Propaganda

"And therefore I choose partnership and I choose -- to put aside being a child of the Cold war -- I choose to move beyond the rhetoric and the propaganda that came from my government and yours."

--Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, speaking at a Town Hall Meeting at Moscow State University (October 14, 2009)

Hillary Clinton has broken with tradition. She, a high-ranking government official, has admitted that her government engaged in propaganda.

Historically the USG has avoided the use of the word "propaganda" to describe its efforts to influence overseas publics. In World War I, George Creel, the head of the Committee on Public Information (1917-1919), which (in his words) "carried the Gospel of Americanism to Every Corner of the World," emphasized that propaganda was what the Germans used to further their military ambitions. His organization, in contrast, was involved in informational and educational activities, he argued.

To be sure, during World War II, the US government, including officials of the Office of War Information (1943-1945) did on occasion use the word "propaganda," stressing that "democratic countries must present the truth in their propaganda" -- in contrast to Nazi and fascist propaganda. But propaganda was usually associated with what the enemy, not with what we Americans did, as Roosevelt suggested in his Four Freedoms speech (January 6, 1941):

I suppose that every realist knows that the democratic way of life is at this moment being directly assailed in every part of the world -- assailed either by arms or by secret spreading of poisonous propaganda by those who seek to destroy unity and promote discord in nations that are still at peace.

During the Cold War, the United States Information Agency (1953-1999) pursued what it called "public diplomacy," a term coined by Edmund Gullion of the Fletcher School of Diplomacy, who wrote:

Even beyond the organ of the Government set up to handle information about the United States and to explain our policies, what is important today is the interaction of groups, peoples, and cultures beyond national borders, influencing the way groups and peoples in other countries think about foreign affairs, react to our policies, and affect the policies of their respective governments.

To connote this activity, we at the Fletcher School tried to find a name. I would have liked to call it "propaganda." It seemed like the nearest thing in the pure interpretation of the word to what we were doing. But "propaganda" has always a pejorative connotation in this country. To describe the whole range of communications, information, and propaganda, we hit upon "public diplomacy."

In 1999, several years after the Cold War was over due to the collapse of the Soviet Union, the USIA was consolidated into the State Department, and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright remarked (U.S. Department of State Dispatch, October 1999) that :

For almost half a century, USIA has been the most effective antipropaganda institution on the face of the earth. It pioneered a public diplomacy based not on self-serving fictions but rather on openess and truth -- and truth not as narrowly defined by some dictatorial regime but as broadly defined by the clash of free minds in vigorous debate.

Among the things President George W. Bush may be remembered for is his statement that his job was "to catapult the propaganda." But this certainly is not the way his administration described its efforts to change hearts and minds overseas. "Public diplomacy" remained the term of choice for Karen Hughes and others.

So Hillary Clinton has committed the "sin" of historical revisionism, much condemned by the previous administration.

But was she in fact telling the truth?

Propaganda may not always be what the other guy does.

Follow John Brown on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ivante

Comments

[sparky73]

I have trust in our government and have no issue with propaganda. You just need to take it with a grain of salt. After all, I will take what the government (well a democratic runned) gives me over Fox News any day

[MerhabaAbi]

Of course Secretary Clinton spoke the truth when she identified propaganda as propaganda. We've used euphemisms far too often and that has led to distrust at home and abroad. It also conditioned many Americans to accept terms like compassionate conservative and tax and spend Democrats. Truth be told, liberal philosophy is concerned with human rights and opposes conservative ideology.

[DestinationsUnknown]

peggy noonan is one to gossip about nothing

while HRC was on her way to India-noonan was on msnbc asking where HRC was?

[truegreen]

the media chooses to ignore HRC's efforts to reshape American foreign policy, yet, they rather focus on bogus stories about tension between herself and other foreign policy heavyweights in the admin.

[2Bfair]

What exactly are Hillary Clinton's efforts to "reshape" foreign policy?

[perk]

The Times reports her bold speech in Ireland yesterday. MSM in the US just ignores her.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6880006.ece

[tacevad]

the posts here prove to me that the wingnuts fear Hillary just as much as they do President Obama.
Propaganda has been stock in trade by governments for centuries,How are the rantings of someone like Rep.Bachman Ex Gov Palin,Beck or Hannraty etc different from Baghdad Bob?It is all propaganda spread to further their own goals and in these cases all disinformation.That being said,Propaganda touting the truth is also still propaganda.

[seawolf77]

Parents, but especially mothers, are the ultimate propagandists.

[EpicureanNutrients]

Now she tells the truth...

[relayer]

Secretary Clinton was speaking plainly. I like plain speaking. Frankly, isn't it nice to have an American government that is more willing to speak plainly to both its' own citizens and her neighbours around the world?

The president speaks plainly when he explains that changes can't happen immediately, that things will actually be difficult, that he can't just sign cheques...Plain speaking. And Secretary Clinton speaks plainly. Somehow, gee, a plain-spoken American seems so....American. And I like that.

[RealityBaseCamp]

Yeah. It's kind of a relief.

[C Pollard]

What plain speaking has this president done? Close Gitmo? nope Get out of Iraq? nope Most transparent administration ever? nope Need I go on? Wake up people. He speaks with forked tongue.

[sticksnstones]

Close Gitmo ?? Get back to me on January 20, 2010. That's not my timeline, and not yours. That's Obama's timeline. He never expressed an intention to "close Gitmo". He said he intends to close the previous administration's detainee gulag at Gitmo.

Get out of Iraq ?? Give me a reliable source for ANY comment Obama has ever made which would indicate that his administration would get out of Iraq, a war not of his making and which the previous administration walked away from, beyond a 16 month timeline for the removal of combat troops. Get back to me the end of June, 2010.

[anachoret]

I don't know if admitting to propaganda is worse than attempting to conceal evidence of torture uncovered by a British High Court by threatening to end intelligence sharing with an ally.

Perhaps American mainstream media will eventually get to the question.

"according to the British Foreign Secretary in July, Hillary Clinton 'personally intervened to suppress evidence of CIA collusion in the torture' by re-iterating the threats first made by the Bush administration that intelligen­ce-sharing might be in jeopardy if those paragraphs were made public (see British High Court ruling, paragraph 42 and 83-84)."

British High Court rejects U.S./British cover-up of torture evidence
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/10/17/mohamed/index.html

[wonketteRAWKS]

Since her boss does not want to "look back" she has to follow what he says.

[2Bfair]

or resign?