Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-5447f9dfdb-4rns8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-07-30T07:55:27.192Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

6 - Aligning with Government

Cold War and Psychological Warfare

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 July 2025

Andrew Johnstone
Affiliation:
University of Leicester
Get access

Summary

Chapter 6 looks at how the Cold War strengthened connections between PR firms and the US government. In the heightened Cold War context of the late 1940s, the US government embraced propaganda and looked to the PR industry to help it promote its foreign policy. The industry happily obliged. It did so most notably through the Crusade for Freedom campaign that raised money for Radio Free Europe, which broadcast American propaganda behind the iron curtain. What the American people did not know was that Radio Free Europe’s creator, the National Committee for Free Europe (NCFE), was not an organically created citizens’ organization. It was in fact a front organization created by the CIA. Arthur Page knew, and he was happy to help regardless. Other PR leaders, such as Edward Bernays, urged more effective use of the government’s overseas information services, such as the United States Information Agency (USIA).

Information

Type
Chapter
Information
Spinning the World
The Public Relations Industry and American Foreign Relations
, pp. 129 - 152
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Accessibility standard: Unknown

Accessibility compliance for the PDF of this book is currently unknown and may be updated in the future.

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×