PSB - - THE MEANING OF PSYCHOLOGICAL OPERATIONS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80-01065A000600010051-5
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 14, 1999
• Sequence Number: 51
• Publication Date: July 18, 1951
• Content Type: REPORT

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Draft: WRK/rhz
18 July 1951
PSB -- The Meaning of Psychological Operations
1. If anyone knows What he is to do, he can usually determine
how to do it. Probably the most important single problem now before
the PSB is to determine what it is to do.
2.. By its title, it is a Board concerned with psychological
strategy at the National level. A useful definition of strategy,
as it pertains to the current cold war, might be-"the art of distri-
buting and applying all the means available to the Government to ful-
fill the objectives of National policy.
3. In the present struggle the basic objective of American policy
is to win active moral support of the major peoples of the world. In
other words, our strategy must be devised to attract allies, to win
over neutrals, and even to gain supporters in the camp of the enemy.
4. The real aim of strategy always lies in the psychological
sphere. The psychological permeates and dominates every decision
made with respect to the current cold war, whether American or Soviet,
or made by any other nation. The seeds and roots of the present con-
flict lie in the human will. For the United States to gain its ob-
jectives in the present cold war, it must change and modify the oppos-
ing Communist will and bring it into compliance with our own policies.
5. A properly conceived and conducted cold war strategy should
aim to produce strategic situations which will alter the world's psy-
chological climate in our favor.
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6. Changes in the psychological climate can never be brought
about by direct psychological action. Psychological attitudes ark:
induced by concrete activity. While there is no such thing as a purely
psychological operation, the various pressures which can be applied
by one state upon another, the propaganda operations most closely
approaches the substance of psychological operations. Propaganda
endeavors to short-cut the normal method of changing a psychological
attitude -- by action -- but even the standby tools of propaganda
(broadcasts, pamphlets, pictures, etc.) are a form of action them-
selves. All of the tools of propaganda warfare may produce some re-
sults for a limited period of time on their own, but unless they are
backed up and supported by concrete actions in the political-military-
economic sphere, they soon lose their power.
7. It is obvious to most people by now that actions in the
political-military-economic field invariably produce psychological
results. The employment and the movement of military forces, for
example, have recognized psychological effects. The closer military
dispositions and strategy contribute to the total psychological pro-
cess of changing the eney's will, the closer their employment approaches
the ideal. Likewise, political actions, such as the formation of
alliances, the recognition of new governments, proposals for disarma-
ment, and so forth, have significant psychological attributes beyond
the substantive actions themselves. By the same token, there are
psychological consequences to almost every aspect of our economic
relations with other nations.
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b. The cold war has been brought about by Soviet initiative.
They have recognized the importance of the psychological factor, and
have regarded psychological effects as the end product of all their
manipulations and maneuvers in the realm of more conventional acti-
vity. The Politburo, the directing head of the Soviet cold war, is
the virtual embodiment of an organization designed to gain victories
in the psychological realm.
9. Our machinery for applying pressures in the primary fields
of political force, economics and propaganda, are in general well
organized.`-We have,16 gency for thinking, planning, and coordinat-
ing the psychological forces generated by actions in any of the pri-
mary fields. Each agency continue to think and act primarily in
terms of its own immediate mission, and givelittle or no systems
atic thought to how their own programs can best contribute to a favor-
able change in the total psychological situation.
10. We need to devise means of integrating the psychological
effects of our conventional programs so as to marshall them in over-
whelming force against the enemy's will. We must learn how to ful-
fill and combine whatever actions and programs are most suitable in
the winning of the psychological battle at the least possible cost.
It is vital that the aims and actions of our Government should be
conducted and explained and propagated in such a way as to wrest
the initiative from the U.S.S.R. with the least possible delay.
These speculations make it apparent that the crite i=, f psycholo-
gical desirability will impose restricting conditions on programs
carried out without taking the psychological factor into the fullest
consideration. To compensate for these restrictions, an integrated
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psychological strategy should make it all the easier for our political-
military-economic programs to attain the primary objectives established
for them. The reciprocal relation between psychological strategy and
purely political-military-economic or propaganda operations must be
recognized.
11. Only in this way will we be able to cope with the essentially
psychological character of the struggle in which we are engaged.. The
cold war cannot be compartmentalized. Man is a political animal, and
the forces that make him move are psychological. A successful strategy
of the cold war can only be erected on this sure foundation.
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