ESTIMATE OF THE ORGANIZATION, PRESENT AND REQUIRED OF PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP84-00022R000200100019-2
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 12, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 4, 1999
• Sequence Number: 19
• Content Type: REPORT

proved For Release 2001/07/27 : CIA-RDP84-00022R00020010001
copied from file tabbed OSS DOCUI ENTATION
(accompanying memorandum dated October 31, 1942 from Director of Strati
gic Services to Joint U. S. Chiefs of Staff. Subject: Proposed new
Directives of the Joint U. S. Chiefs of Staff to the Office of
Strategic Services)
TAB "A"
ESTIMATE OF THE ORGANIZATION, PRESENT AND REQUIRED
OF PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE
1. Incentive. The conduct of psychological warfare has been thrown into
confusion through a lack of coordination and collaboration among the government&1
agencies concerned and which could be remedied through centralization in a single
operative unit,
2, Objective. To formulate an efficient and practicable plan for the organ-
ization and operation of psychological warfare by the United States.
3. Definition. Psychological warfare is the coordination and use of all
means, including moral and physical, by which the end is to be attained -- other
than those of recognized military operations, but including the psychological
exploitation of the result of those recognized military actions, --- which tend
to destroy the 9111 of the enemy to achieve victory and to damage his political
or economic capacity to do so; which tend to deprive the enemy of the support,
assistance or sympathy of his allies or associates or of neutrals, or to prevent
his acquisition of such support, assistance or sympathy; or which tend to create,
maintain, or increase the will to victory of our own people and allies and to acquire,
U aintajn, or increase the support, assistance and sympathy of neutrals.
The accomplishment of these ends demands and includes:
f (a) general propaganda services, operating primarily a,,-ainst civilian
groups and using mainly ideological appeals and news manipulation;
(b) operations -
(1) subversive services enga in sabotage, rumor-spreading, bribery,etc.
(2) combat psychological warfare services directly attached to the armed
forces, which act under the theater commander and are exemplified
by the German Propaganda Companies.
(c) intelligence services engaged in accumulating "information by research
and espionage on fundamental social, ideological and leadership vulnerabili-
ties of enemy populations'-and on the current attitudes and morale of civilian
and military groups, in addition to the usual military, naval, political,
and economic information.,'
PRESENT SITUATION
TP4 4. J.P.W.C. The Joint Chiefs of Staff, awake to the intimate relationship
in modern warfare between force as exerted in combat and the pressure exerted by
the phases of psychological warfare, established the Joint Psychological Warfare
Committee W.C.S. Directive 68) under the Chairmanship of the Director of
Strategic Services with purely military and naval membership.
5. An Advisory Committee provides for liaison with the Department of State,
Board of Economic Warfare, Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs, and Office of
War Information, A Working Committee of J.P.W.C. was established. In practice,
the Planning Group of the Office of Strategic Services has 4 become the principal
source of psychological warfare estimates, analyses and plans.
6. The J.P.W.C. was later (August 15, 1942) given supervisory jurisdiction
over the Office of Strategic Services, but has been encumbered with administrative
details of that organization, until both the planning and execution of psychological
warfare and the operations of the Office of Strategic Services have been hindered.
The Office of Strategic Services has been hanpered through the necessity of its papers
and proposals being passed upon by two or more committees.
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A r ~,r4fP ~ei~d 1 ~76nCI RE 2 O~ $o Office of War
Information (Executive Order June 13, 1942) transferred to it "the gathering of
public information and its dissemination abroad" which, in effect, means control
and operation of shortwave foreign broadcasts and other publicly acknowledged
printed matter abroad. (These activities were originally a part of the psychological
warfare machinery of the Office of Strategic Services when known as the Coordinator
of Information.) Radio and printed matter, which in the last war represented the
whole American-planned activity in psychological warfare, remain an important but
only fractional part of a complex strategy now deeply involving underground activities,
economic measures, the acts, announcements and behavior of our widely dispersed armed
forces, and a mass of political maneuver.
8. Board of Economic Warfare. The Board of Economic Warfare (Presidential
Executive Order July 30, 1941) formerly known as Economic Defense Board, is to
"advise the President as to economic defense measures;" "coordinate the policies
and actions of other agencies;" "develop integrated economic defense plans." In
practice, it has developed a separate 4conomic intelligence section, manipulates
economic pressure, economic favors, and preclusive buying. All these are intrinsic ,,
parts of or influences upon psychological warfare.
9. Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs. A Coordinator of Inter-American 00
Affairs was appointed by Presidential Order dated July 30, 1941, to coordinate
activities affecting the Western Hemisphere, and "to formulate and execute programs
in cooperation with the Department of State." In practice, in friendly liaison -ri
with the Department of State, it manages the whole of psychological warfare in the o
Western Hemisphere. From this Hemisphere, Office of War Information, Board of o 0
Economic Warfare, Office of Strategic Services and other agencies are excluded ai
entirely, except that the Federal Bureau of Investigation has agents in South
America engaged in counter-espionage and G-2 has a recently organized branch of o ao
secret intelligence. Cd
10. Department of State. The Department of State is chiefly responsible
- o,
for the expression abroad of the national policy and its statements form the
''
skeleton of the whole of psychological warfare. It has no direct liaison with
cd.H
the strategical requirements except in the high echelon of the Cabinet and the
White House, and through a representative on the Advisory Committee of J.P.W.C.
F
11. Office of Strategic Services. The Office of Strategic Services, now an z +'
orgarV,,of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has a large and skilled information and intell- e
igence service specialized in combat and psychological warfare fields (R&A); has 4;10
undercover agents (S. I. and S.O,); has contact with foreign origin groups in N
~+t America (F.K,) and with many underground international groups (S.I.) Its psycho- 0
logical warfare plans and operations, when approved by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, o.?
have no formal machinery for coordinating with the Department of State, O.W.I., a
B.E.W... C.I.A.A. and other agencies except through the liaison of the Advisory
Committee of J.P.W.C.
CONCLUSIONS
12. Psychological warfare must assist our cause in a world which our military
forces can dominate at best only slowly and partially for a long time to come.
Our policies will be complicated by the struggle of the other nations, including N
Great Britain, to maintain a footing and establish their future interest by means
of their psychological warfare activities. Psychological warfare must be recognized, co
therefore, as of critical importance as an auxiliary of armed combat. .oH
4-3
13. It is essential that psychological warfare planning and operations
(a) be conducted under the control of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as an
integral part of our war effort. o
(b) be conceived in relation to current strategy and executed in coordina-
tion with military operations.
(c) be planned and conducted under the supervision of a single agency
designated by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and authorized to have the information
concerning war strategy, pla ns and operations in order to provide intelligent i
guidance for: (1) a pshchological warfare planning group; and
(2) a psychological warfare operations group, including propaganda 11
Approved For Release 2001/07/27 : CIA-RDP84-00022R000200100019-2