Rhetorical experimentation and the cold war, 1947–1953: The development of an internationalist approach to propaganda

Because most propaganda scholars examine discourse where audience and propagandist reside in the same society, they conclude that the practice of propaganda is culturally driven. By examining governmental propaganda directed exclusively to an international audience during the early years of the Cold War, this study reveals that propagandists can and do overcome the cultural constraints of language in order to inculcate their values abroad. More specifically, this study analyzes the congressional deliberations over America's first peacetime propaganda program from 1947 through 1953 as well as the impact of those deliberations on America's international propaganda. Three distinct periods epitomize the Cold War rhetoric of this seven‐year period: the period of naivete, the period of hysteria, and the period of psychological strategy. While the periods of naivete and hysteria were driven by an American conception of democracy and communism, the period of psychological strategy subtly cultivated the cross‐cultural ideological commitment to peace. At bottom, the Truman administration produced an ethnocentric approach to propaganda while the Eisenhower administration adopted a more internationalist perspective that transcended community, illustrating the existence of cross‐culturally based ideological appeals.