Psychological Warfare, by Paul M. A.
Linebarger
 Out of print at present, this book retains a
timeliness. Sometimes people email me, asking where they
can get a copy. Unfortunately for the casual reader,
copies can sell for several hundred dollars on the
used book market. All I can say is do some comparison
shopping and keep an eye on this website. You can try
interlibrary loan as well.
Every now and then, someone contacts our agent
regarding publishing a new edition... well, copying
all the pages of an early edition. If this does seem like it is
about to happen, I will post something
here. Evidently there is a new possibility at
present. (summer 2008).
In the meantime, here are three bits from the book. First,
two serious ones, and then my favorite, an amusing one. Where
my father says "the Communists" I think you can substitute any
fanatic extremists. Here he goes:
Whatever PsyWar does, it certainly does not and
should not increase the bitterness of war. Fighting
itself is the supreme bitterness. Radio broadcasts
and leaflets even in wartime only rarely should
promote hatred. The situation which the world faces
is dangerous because of technological development,
not because of psychological knowledge. PsyWar
ranks as a weapon, but it is almost certainly the
most humane of all weapons.
Apart from PsyWar, what military weapon destroys
the enemy soldier's capacity to fight by saving his
life? PsyWar tries to bring him over alive and
tries to send him home as our friend. No rival
weapon can do this...
Since 1945, we Americans have written more, studied
more, and talked more about Psywar than have any of
the other free peoples. This is a hopeful sign. It
can be read as an indication that the American love
of the gadget, the American quest for a novelty,
can be turned to the arena of the soul. The
Communists are better liars, better schemers,
better murderers than we shall ever be; they start
off by being better fanatics. Is it not in the
American spirit that we should out-trick them,
out-talk them, and out-maneuver them?
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From practically the first minute that I heard the news on
September 11, 2001, I wondered what perspective my father would
have had on it. I pulled out my copy of Psychological
Warfare and was drawn towards a chapter that included
mention of the future. He speaks [1955 edition, page 285] of
"the relief [of tension] offered within each civilization by
the opportunity to discharge hatred against members of other
civilization[s] instead of recognizing self-hatred for the very
real problem that it is."
He continues:
In other terms, it is tough to be modern; the
difficulty of being modern makes it easy for
individuals to be restless and anxious;
restlessness and anxiety lead to fear; fear
converts freely into hate; hate very easily takes
on political form; political hate assists in the
creation of real threats such as the atomic bomb
and guided missiles, which are not imaginary
threats at all; the reality of the threats seems to
confirm the reality of the hate which led to it,
thus perpetuating a cycle of insecurity, fear,
hate, armament, insecurity, fear, and on around the
circle again and again.
It is possible, but by no means probable, that the
rapid development of psychological and related
sciences in the Western world may provide whole new
answers to the threats which surround modern
Americans, including the supreme answer of peace as
an alternative to war or the secondary answer of
victory in the event of war....
Too specific a concentration on the problem of
winning a war may cause a leader or his expert
consultants to concentrate on solutions derived
from past experience, therewith leading him to miss
new and different solutions which might be offered
by his own time.
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My Favorite Bit from Psychological Warfare
One day I talked with someone who called to order a couple
of the CS books. (I used to sell them directly myself.)
He mentioned that he had worked in Korea and that his
favorite story about Paul Linebarger was the one told by J.J.
Pierce in his introduction to The Best of Cordwainer
Smith.
I looked it up, and it reminds me so much of my father's way
of thinking that I'm quoting Pierce here: "While in Korea,
Linebarger masterminded the surrender of thousands of Chinese
troops who considered it shameful to give up their arms. He
drafted leaflets explaining how the soldiers could surrender by
shouting the Chinese words for 'love,' 'duty,' 'humanity,' and
'virtue'--words that happened, when pronounced in that order,
to sound like 'I surrender' in English. He considered this act
to be the single most worthwhile thing he had done in his
life."
Well, that got me curious, and I pulled out my 1954 copy of
Psychological Warfare. I didn't find that story in
there but here's one that he used to tell, and it always made
me laugh:
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The temper of the U.S. forces in Korea was
demonstrated by a Reserve sergeant who scarcely
knew he was in the Reserves until he was on a boat
bound for Pusan. He was a practical man, anxious to
get home, but willing to do his share in this war
as long as he had to. He was given the assignment
of testing the voice plane of U.S. headquarters at
Taegu. The loudspeaker was not working quite right,
and he was instructed to test the plane at 500,
1,000, and 1,500 feet.
The plane flew low over U.S. Headquarters
The roar of the engines almost deafened
everyone within the building, yet even above
the roar of the engines there could be heard
the bone-chilling hum of the silent
loudspeaker--an immense magnification of the
noise one hears from a radio set which is
turned on without being tuned to a station.
Everyone expected the sergeant to say, 'This is
the EUSAK voice plane testing; one-ah, two-ah,
three-ah!' "Instead the immense voice came
through clearly, through brick, and plaster,
and wood, through air and trees. It must have
reached four miles. The gigantic voice of the
sergeant seemed to roar over half of South
Korea as he said,
'Why--don't--you--imperialist--sons o'
bitches--go--back--to--Wall--Street--where--you--belong?'
It was said that fifty colonels grabbed for
their phones simultaneously, but the purely
American gimmick to the whole story lay in the
fact that the sergeant was not punished. No
damage was done. The Americans thought their
enemies were funny or silly. We had shown that
we were not afraid of Communist ideas. Several
South Koreans told the author that they
regarded the Americans as inscrutable people
indeed.
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Psychological Warfare may be found at
Alibris... the link is set up
to show this search.
Here is an Amazon.com box that should show copies if they
exist there:
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