The First Amendment; Edward Bernays

A. WGBH Boston in cooperation with the Institute for Democratic communications at the School of Communications is Boston University now presents the First Amendment and a free people. An examination of civil liberties in the media in the 1970s and now here is the director of the Institute for democratic communication. Dr. Bernard Rubin. Very happy to have as my guest for this program Mr. Edward Elgar news known to many people as the father of public relations certainly one of the most eminent of the pioneers. It's hard Mr. Burnett to call you a pioneer because you have been a contemporary in every phase of modern public relations with everybody else and still very much active in the field. My co-host is Professor

autoload unsure of Boston University. The subject is reorganization a reappraisal perhaps is a better phrase of the United States Information Agency and its work overseas. Mr. Bernays is eminently well qualified to discuss this subject. I remember reading his first book crystallizing public opinion which appeared in 1923. And that book followed as I recall only by a year. Walter Lippmann ZX a really outstanding introduction modern introduction to the field of public opinion analysis. One of his many works was the one published in 1970 that he sponsored called The Case for reappraisal of the United States overseas information policies and programs. Mr. Bernays Can I ask you this question at the start. In regard to the United States Information Agency What do you consider the work of that agency to be now and

what would you like it to be in the near future. At the present time Dr. Ruben I consider it to be an agency spending as I recall it two hundred ninety five million dollars of taxpayers money without its having any specific goals or objectives. Over the last 50 years since World War 1 when we had a US Committee on Public Information. It grew like Topsy without any specific goals or without the people in power whether the president or the Congress setting up its specific goal.

I would say that if you asked five different people in the agency today what its purpose was or is they would all give you different answers. That is my answer to your question well let me just follow up before I ask you to to ask you a question and say What are the essential subjects that ought to be debated all the essential questions that ought to be debated as we look ahead to the future possibilities for such an agency. Well I could answer that by giving you a number of things that the agency might do. Number one it might promote the flow of ideas about the United States to other countries. Number two it might support the US foreign

policy of the United States. So through public diplomacy other peoples would know what that policy is. Number three it might further goodwill and public understanding about the United States in other countries. Number four it might advance education and the arts as they are practiced in the United States and bake them understandable and also acceptable to other countries. It might further the goodwill and public understanding between our people and other people. Maybe to day it may be doing these things in a minor or lesser degree. May be it may be balling them up in different places. At all events

in my experience nobody has sat down and actually defined the values in each one of these ideas might get nor has anyone to my knowledge and I've been in touch on and off with this instrumentality for fifty years ever determined policy is in a way let's say that Mr. Kissinger despite his force knew exactly what his Macchiavelli and program and goals were. So that I say today the agency is just moving along like Topsy with many people in it being paid by taxpayers money. But nobody determines a what we might expect from it. Number

two what are its potentials. In what areas. Number three what activities it should carry on. Number four what relations it should have to the State Department and to the other functions of government. And furthermore. To my mind it lacks one very important element and that is the application of the social sciences to the problem at hand. Whatever the goals that I decided upon I remember working with people in the agency and anybody that came up with an idea from social psychology or cultural anthropology or psychology or sociology or semantics or linguistics was long

hair and that was the worst appellation that one could give a person. Oh. Your reference to the social sciences Mr. Bernays reminds me of another question that indirectly also refers to purposes. What kinds of people should run the US A. Some have said they should be public relations people occasionally advertising people want to get involved. Academicians have made claims should it be a diplomat somebody from the State Department who understands the countries the audiences. Do you have any views on the kinds of people who write him. I have a very definite let me first interview the people who should not run it who have run it. Number one a salesman for. Broadcasting time on the air ran it for quite some time. Number two a perfectly nice

radio commentator who is charming and able and effective ran it. Number three journalist ran it who had no idea of the fact that communication is a two way process. Demanding a deep and thorough understanding of everything from cultural anthropology to stereotypes to social psychology to semantics linguistics and so on. The only man in my experience over the last 50 hears and we followed it in that time. Who had the background the competence the understanding to run it was Bill Benton who then became vice president of the University of Chicago who had headed a large advertising agency who became senator from Connecticut and for

McCarthy and Bill Benton was by training a man who dealt with ideas who was an intellectual who was a student of the social sciences and who had executive ability and the capacity to apply truth and sound social ideas to the problem at hand whatever it was. I notice that as you were speaking to Mr. Benton I identified Mr. Rowan from your remarks Mr Mock's Mr Shakespeare must go. Did you mean to leave out Edward R. Murrow in your listing or did you feel that he was too sick or tired at the time to know you. I know Ed morrow and I had great respect for him as a courageous journalist. But one of the interesting things that I have learned in a long lifetime is that

a very good journalist may not be a purposeful communicator a journalist reports on New Years and projects it to the frame of reference in which he is functioning. If he writes for the Foreign Affairs Quarterly his language has to be different than if he broadcasts to an audience has gone to school on an average of eight point three years. Now Ed morrow was good. Journalist a very able one a man of great integrity who played a great role in World War 2 in informing us about reporting the plight of the English. But Ed morrow was not a cultural anthropologist at Morro was not a historian

at Morro was not a social psychologist at Maro was not a semanticist at Morro was not and couldn't have been a student of stereotypes. Now one of the thing is in international relations is that one people. Has stereotypes of another. That may be completely cockeyed. I remember we made a study in England and we found out that a large percentage of Englishman thought all Americans were sex crazy money man had lived in high apartments had motor cars that ran at 70 miles an hour. They got this impression from the movies and their picture in their minds as Lippman says in his wall or in his

public opinion were completely distorted just as most people think the desert is made up of sand and that there are no oases. It may be very extensive. Now I would say that Morrow was honorable and capable journalist. But what this job needs is many attributes which are rarely found in combination because the man of action in America. Since our society has become self-made until the last generations despises intellect and intellects despise the man of action if you live in Cambridge and move in prophecy circles in 13 years I don't think we've ever met a businessman.

In those books no practical economist and a man of of intellect as well ask you the next question to follow up on that thought. Well the question I'm most interested in now is this in your description of the qualities needed in the leadership of USA is there any hint at all that what you need is not just somebody who has a capacity to give information but you draw a distinction between information and communication. And I also get the hint here that when you talk about communications you may be talking about persuasion but not necessarily entirely in the sense of advocacy but in understanding stereotypes. For example so that you can undo some of the harm that is done in world opinion. Right. Well I think. Of sound communication as taking into

consideration the knowledge of particularly when you're doing it across the ocean to other peoples taking into consideration the cultural pattern of those people. The opera already preconceived notions of those people about what I'm talking about. Truth to one man is an untruth to the other. Is that right. All we have to do is look at us look at religion I mean a religious man believes that his religion is the truth but the other man who doesn't believe in that. Well a religion may believe it is not the truth. Now in communicating from one country to another unless you know what the accepted coups are. Unless you know what the distortions are unless you know what the culture pattern is and what you know unless you know what the value

systems are if I talk of wealth to one country wealth may be anathema to that country. If I talk of our hog farms to one country. And this country is inhabited by a religion that despises hogs I'm building up negative attitudes towards the country about which I'm talking in terms of hog farms so that all I'm saying is that the communicator has to be more than a person who translates English language into the foreign language he's talking about. He has to know the attitudes the preconceived notions the ignorances the apathy as the prejudices. The groupies talking to so that he can project his truth in terms of its greatest potential

acceptance. Could I ask you this question now. Just as the information specialist on the effective communicator share attributes so there are many people in the State Department now looking at the U.S. I am and frankly it is up for grabs by many people. Some wanted eliminated some wanted to be sent back to the State Department. There are some who have a more modest proposal and that is that those communicators who are well-versed in foreign policy should move into the State Department and set up that function for the State Department and let the United States Information Agency do all of the work. Business art culture what have you for the academic community and so on but not involve itself in foreign policy. There are still others who say look the radio section should be stripped away from the United States Information Agency and we ought to have

something of the the British view of radio and have it more of a voice of the government. How do you take these ideas that are being passed about. The idea is you have just presented the ideas that were worked out by a committee headed by Frank Stanton and Frank Stanton and various associates of his came to this conclusion. My own feeling is and I know Stanton I think he's a very decent fellow. He was head of the United States advisory commission for the U.S. so he was he was head of that. He was head of that and of course he was president of CBS CBS for many years. I would say that Stanton has the point of view of what he began as. That is a researcher who is more interested in structure than he is

in the sort of thing we've been talking about. I don't say that he would pooh pooh the social sciences outside of his own which he respects and admires that is psychology and the whole business of opinion polling and actuarial projections and the like. But I don't think from my contacts with them and having heard him many years ago we. Advised Columbia Broadcasting when Paley was a bright young man about 50 years ago. I would say that I would not accept this point of view of Stanton's. What I would like to see done is to have a group of individuals who are wise in the sense

of wisdom not pragmatic hokus pokus decide number one. What should we expect of a US IRA or an organization that acts as a spokesman for the United States. Number two what are some of the potentials. That it might accomplish. And then we can use Denton to make a survey and to find out. Gallo In other words you could you could have a propaganda agency an educational agency and another related agency a cultural auto How do you could we also get into the question of access when we say a government agency for example it might imply that only government officials government spokesman here. What would you think about the idea of saying this is us I am representing the viewpoints of many Americans with different persuasions

and that the principle of access that so many public interest groups talk about should to some extent apply now. Would that be desirable or would that give the world the wrong impression of the United States. My feeling about that is that here is a very potent problem that needs solution. There are billions of people in the world. There are two hundred sixteen million people in the United States. What should those two hundred sixteen million people do. And through what instrumentality to ensure that there is the top level of understanding between these X billion people and the people of the United States. Nobody as yet has gotten together and brought either a committee or a group

to sit down and discuss this problem in terms of a problem for solutions or if they have as you know we are both fellow conferees a conference holder Tufts University the 50th Anniversary Committee. It doesn't seem that they pay much attention to what is actually said. When a number of people do their together. Now why is that is it because the agency was formed as a anti-communist agency immediately after World War Two and retains a very strong. A little. What is the reason I think I think the reason for that is that people in power are interested in power and not in abstractions. If I say to X politician whoever he may be senator or vice president or president we can give you X number of hundred thousand votes in the state of Iowa that he

understands. If I say to that man here's a problem that demands students of semantics linguistics psychology social psychology. So she ology going to work in the field of ideas. They're not going to buy any guns and not going to buy any munitions or any airplanes of any kind. This is outside of their field of experience. You might say Senator Paul Douglas is no longer in the Senate Senator who cowers taking a nap. The more practical politicians. Well I would say by and large I think Frank case would understand this. But when you get to most of them they've been men who've come up the hard way. They've come up through the clubhouse so they've come up because they stand for an

idea like national health insurance all they stand for an idea like higher tariffs on. On vegetable fat or be sugar beet. And it's very difficult. To get people to think of reality in terms of abstractions I give you an example I was asked to come down to see President Eisenhower and we came down with our committee and Elmer Davis and various other people who were with us Paul Smith of The San Francisco Chronicle and I talked to him for half an hour as he leaned against the piano urging him to adopt a broader policy on the U.S. side. And after I was finished he turned to me and said Mr. Berners I understand exactly what you mean. I'm for the people to people's

movement. At that time some people in Kansas City connected with the hall mark had had organized people to people movement and his comprehension didn't get beyond seeing any effort at international relations as meaning more than the Kansas City Chamber of Commerce having a trip to the Chamber of Commerce. Quick question. Is the world still interested as much as it has been in the past in the United States thinks about some issues and what right now would you say the world most wants to know about the United States. Is it the human rights arguments presented by President Carter. Are there other issues that you think the world wants to know more about. Well my my personal feeling and I have advised the

State Department last until last June on the bureau of cultural and educational affairs for five years and I'm now advising the Department of Commerce on their problems. I would say that the world we made a study of diplomats on this same question some years ago I would say that the world great gods. The United States is possibly the most important power in the world. It knows it has the armaments the human resources the resources of money the resources of raw material that make it this important power. On the one hand it has well it has ambivalent feelings towards the United States. On the one hand it feels it's kind hospitable will do anything if there's an earthquake. On the other hand it recognizes

that there are people that have been people like Nixon or Ulysses S. Grant for that matter who have deviated from the pattern. I think what we need to do in this country to the rest of the world is to indicate what most Americans really are decent honorable people who want to make a living and who are willing to share with others in the good life. Mr. Berners I think that is a good point to end. It's very much a phrase that President Jimmy Carter is using. I want to say that I'm very pleased that you were able to join us today Mr. Edward L. Bernays the distinguished public relations practitioner and theorist. I also want to thank our live injure for being my co-host. This is Bernard Rubin saying goodbye. To tell me of GBH radio and cooperation with the Institute for democratic and

locations of the School of Communications at Boston University has presented the First Amendment and a free people and examination of civil liberties and the media. In the 1970s this program was produced in the studios of WGBH Boston.