moved humanitarian organizations to prodigious labors and caused common folk to dig deep into their pockets. Yet, these same facts neither convinced governments to come to Biafra's political aid nor induced their mass citizenry to insist upon that choice. Valor and decimation, after all, cut both ways. If they furnished reasons for Nigeria to relent, they also furnished reasons for Biafra to surrender. As Ibo leaders like Asika and Azikiwe, who came over to the Federal cause kept remarking: "Enough is enough." To many Ojukwu's determination to continue resistance eventually suggested a callous disregard of his people's survival; and when, for alleged military and security reasons, he rejected the daylight relief flights into Uli that the FMG announced it would permit, nearly all his friends in the press began deserting him. Biafra's genocide-starvation theme thus revealed itself as doubly unwise. It comported poorly with elite-centered Realpolitik, for it was an argument from dire weakness. It was also a dubious choice for broad-scale communication, since its logic required that the Biafran regime appear morally superior to its opponent. Once that was no longer so evident, the theme in fact became a serious obstacle to sustained public support for Biafra's separate existence.

*****

NEWS BROADCASTING ON SOVIET RADIO AND TELEVISION*

BY F. GAYLE Durham

Domestic news broadcasting in the Soviet Union serves to generate political support for governmental policies and programs and further the development of a Communist society.

We may gain a direct insight into the Soviet conception of the functions of radio and television from the following explicit statements made in a resolution by the Party Central Committee:

The main task of Soviet radio broadcasting and television is the mobilization** of our country's working people for the successful implementation of the Seven-Year Plan and the entire program of the comprehensive construction of Communism in the USSR for raising labor productivity and stepping up progress in all branches of the national economy... Radio and television must inculcate in all Soviet people a Communist attitude toward labor and the need for participation of every Soviet person in socially useful work. Radio and television must demonstrate the people's condemnation of loafers and good-for-nothings who try to live at the expense of others and must describe in concrete terms how labor becomes a need of Soviet people.

*Excerpts from "News Broadcasting on Soviet Radio and Television," Research Program on Problems of Communication and International Security, Center for International Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massaachusetts. June 1965. The research for this paper was sponsored by the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) of the Department of Defense. Reprinted with the permission of the author, copyright holder.

Radio broadcast must help people to think through the historical changes in the life of mankind that have occurred mainly through the heroic deeds of the Soviet people who are building the most advanced and just society. It must tell of the advantages of socialism over capitalism, unmask the falsity of imperialist propaganda, and train Soviet people to be irreconcilable toward bourgeois ideology. It must educate them in a spirit of pride in their motherland, and in their work, and in a spirit of patriotism and internationalism.1

The very verbs used to indicate the functions of these two media show the breadth of influence which they are expected to play in the lives of their listeners. Far from being instruments of passive entertainment or of education in an informative sense, radio and television in the U.S.S. R. are pledged to act as active instruments of socialization for Soviet citizens in order to speed up the formation of the "future Communist society." They are viewed as instruments of indoctrination in Communist values and ideology as interpreted by the Party leadership at any given time, and as translated into economic, social, or political policy; further, they are agents of agitation for implementation of those policies. Not surprisingly, newscasts as a component part of "political broadcasting" play a leading role in this propaganda and agitation.

The specific place of radio and television in the network of mass media which report news has fluctuated considerably from time to time, depending upon the rigidity of censorship at any given period. Thus, for example, complaints were rampant during the early and middle fifties that news broadcast on radio and television was simply a rehash of those items which had appeared earlier in the pages of Pravda and Izvestia. The reasons for this are related to the sources of information and mechanisms of clearing of content of broadcasts. At certain times the main source for approach and commentary, and often for the actual news item itself, was the official Party organ, Pravda. Whatever items Pravda selected for emphasis, and whatever view Pravda took for presentation and interpretation served as the governing approach for radio and later, television newscasts as well. Thus, radio could not perform the functional role in news reporting which it has traditionally occupied in the Western mass media system that of being able to present the news almost as soon as it happened, "ahead of the headlines." Complaints of the tardiness of broadcast news became widespread, not only among members of the populace at large, but increasingly among members of the radio and journalistic professions. Gradually the complaints crystallized, and the result was the official, published resolutions of 1960 stating the following change in policy:

The central radio stations in Moscow must first of all assure timely broadcasts of important political information, effective commentary on domestic and foreign events, and the organization of various artistic programs... Because radio should give the population the important news before the newspapers do, TASS has been instructed to transmit news immediately to central and local radio stations.

The handbook prepared by the State Committee on Radio and Television, published in 1963, specifically states: "Radio should communicate to the population all important news earlier than do the newspapers." 3 Recent audience research has indicated that news broadcasts now rank among

the most listened-to programs. Because of their frequency and because news begins and ends the broadcasting day, for most citizens the news provides a framework for the entire broadcasting day.

Besides providing the population at large with information on and interpretation of events, news broadcasts also serve the very influential function of acting as an important source of interpretation for the widespread network of Party agitators and other specific segments of the population. These agitators learn a great deal about selection of items for emphasis and Party policy from the approach which a radio newscast or commentary takes toward any specific event. Thus the news items broadcast are expanded, amplified, and elucidated by the personal efforts of agitators.

NOTES

1. In the Party Central Committee: "On Improving Soviet Radio Broadcasting and on Further Developing Television,” Partiinaya Zhizn, No. 4, February, 1960, pp. 26–34. 2. Ibid.

3. Boglovskii, T., and L'vov, Z., Posledniye Izvestia po Radio (The “Latest News" on Radio), published by the Scientific-Methodological Department of the State Committee on Radio and Television, USSR, 1963, p. 5.

STRATEGIC LEAFLETS*

BY CARL BERGER

Strategic leaflets have been employed for varied purposes such as news, directives, and political arguments and for appeals to target groups to prepare them for certain military activities.

1

In both World War II and the Korean conflict, the strategic leaflet came into play soon after the outbreak of fighting. Ninety-six hours after Hitler's armies marched into Poland in September 1939 and set off World War II, Britain's Royal Air Force dropped six million leaflets on Germany. Their purpose was strategic-to explain to the indoctrinated German people the British version of the causes of the war and to warn of the consequences of continued support of the Nazi regime. The bulk of all Allied leaflets used in Europe continued in fact to be strategic until after the successful D-Day landings had changed the military situation to a more fluid state, in which tactical leaflets would be appropriate and useful. Similarly, in late June 1950, within 72 hours after the Communists launched their Aggression against the Republic of Korea, the U.S. Far East Air Force began disseminating 100,000,000 leaflets over the peninsula, telling of the "cease fire" orders of the United Nations, revealing to the North Koreans "the duplicity of their leaders," and bringing "encouragement to the people of the Republic of Korea." 2

*Excerpts from An Introduction to Wartime Leaflets, Documentary Study No. 1, the American University, Special Operations Research Office, Washington, D. C., 1959 AD 220 821, pp.7-19.

In both cases the start of hostilities provided an opportunity, not usually found in peacetime, to break the totalitarian monopoly of news and information; that is, to speak directly to enemy peoples through the printed word. (Radio, of course, is available in both peace and war but, enemy jamming efforts aside, one can rarely be certain who is listening.) These early strategic leaflets, besides trying to restore a balance to the distorted version of events given the people, also sought to undermine confidence in the existing regimes. As the fighting continued, leaflets were used for a variety of military and humanitarian purposes, for example, to give bomb warnings to specific communities, to disrupt enemy factory production, or to cause internal dissension.

Most strategic leaflets of recent international wars were prepared, written, and printed in rear areas, where the necessary large production facilities existed. Paris and London were the centers for the large-scale production of Allied leaflets in World War I, while in the second World War the bulk of the leaflets dropped over Europe was produced in London. In the war against Japan large printing facilities in Australia, Hawaii, and the United States also produced millions of leaflets for strategic purposes. Japan was the center of U.N. leaflet production during the Korean War.

The purpose of disseminating strategic leaflets to occupied and presumably friendly countries has often been simply to give news of the outside world in an effort to keep up morale and encourage the people not to give in to the enemy. In World War II, prior to the Allied landings in Europe, about half of the Allied strategic leaflets went to Germany, about 43 percent to occupied France, and 7 percent to the Low Countries. But once the Allies were back on the European mainland, 90 percent of the strategic leaflets were directed against German targets and the remainder against the French, Belgians, and Dutch.3

During Britain's struggle against Communist terrorists in the Malayan jungles, the bulk of leaflets dropped was strategic and long-term in the following sense: their primary aim was "to condition the minds of the Communist terrorists in such a way that when affected by physical factors, such as food shortages, pressure by Security Forces, or internal dissension, they would defect and take advantage of the Government's invitation to surrender."

During the Middle East crisis of July-August 1958, the strategic leaflet was brought into play by the United States government. A million copies of an Arabic-language special leaflet, signed by President Eisenhower and illustrated with his photograph, were disseminated by aircraft over Lebanon. The English text was as follows:

TO THE CITIZENS OF LEBANON:

The forces of the United States have entered your country at the request of your own established government. These forces are here to assist you in your efforts to maintain the independence of Lebanon against those who desire to interfere with your affairs and who have endangered the peace and security of your homeland.

The American officers and men have left their homes to assist in the protection of your way of life, your prosperity and your families. They will leave your country as soon as the United Nations has taken measures assuring the independence of Lebanon.

The American government has acted in response to an appeal for help from a peaceful nation which has long had ties of closest friendship with the United States.s

This leaflet is an excellent example of the uses to which the strategic leaflet can be put. Leaflets of this nature have been described as "longrange in scope and . . . designed to orient the opinions, attitudes, emotions and ultimately the behavior of the target audience towards the broad objectives of United States policy. Used in wartime against an enemy target, strategic leaflets are aimed at increasing tensions and thus decreasing the enemy's emotional and productive capacity to wage war.

It is not surprising that the same strategic leaflet themes have recurred in various conflicts. For example, Allied propagandists in the first World War published the following leaflet in late 1917, reminding their German readers of the suffering they had undergone:

YOU POOR GERMAN PEOPLE!

Already you are in the 4th year of this war. One shudders to think of your suffering, which will increase this year. To the hunger, the pestilence, the cold, will be added the terrible campaigns on the front and the aeroplane attacks on your cities. . . .

Three million dead, the flower of your nation, the future of your land, rest in foreign fields; one million of your best sons languish in prisons; millions of your children will have become poor, helpless orphans. . . .

7

In the Korean action, American propagandists returned to a similar theme in strategic leaflets dropped on North Korean targets. In October 1952, their pungently worded leaflet, headed "A Third Winter of the Communists' War," bluntly charged: "Your bosses condemn you to a third winter of war-of death and misery! The Communists ignore your suffering. On orders from their Chinese and Russian masters, they refuse to accept a just and honorable peace. They prolong the war that lays waste to your land. They prolong your suffering. They bring death to your people...

Although the tone of these leaflets differ greatly, both were aimed at creating tensions within the enemy camp and lowering morale.

Another strategic leaflet dropped on the Japanese mainland in the summer of 1945 had as its purpose clarification of the Allied policy of "unconditional surrender." This leaflet, in the form of a special statement to the Japanese by President Truman, explained the phrase as follows:

What does military unconditional surrender mean to the Japanese people? It means the end of the fighting and the termination of the power of the militarists who have led Japan to the brink of destruction.

Again, it is the first step in returning soldiers and sailors to their families, their farming villages, and to the places where each has his job.

Furthermore, it means not prolonging the agony and suffering of the Japanese people, who are clinging to the dream of victory. It does not mean the extermination or enslavement of the Japanese people."