Psychological Propaganda:
Leaders & Success
Thursday, January 23, 2003
He Had Power Of Persuasion
BY PETER BENESH
INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Robert McClure proved there was more than one way to win a war. And it didn't always involve guns and bombs.
Dwight Eisenhower chose McClure to run psychological warfare operations against Nazi Germany after D-Day in 1944. Ike unleashed a leader whose talents changed the way the U.S. fights wars.
Over the objections of Army traditionalists, McClure made psychological and unconventional warfare an integral part of military strategy and tactics.
Pychological operations, or psyops, played a big part in the U.S.-led defeat of the Taliban. For months, the U.S. has waged psychological warfare on Iraq.
Few know of McClure's crucial role.
In 2001, the Army acknowledged his contribution by naming the headquarters building of the Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg, N.C., after him.
McClure was the father of psyops, says Kenneth Finlayson, historian at the Army's John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Museum at Fort Bragg.
"He convinced the Army brass that we needed that psychological warfare capability, particularly in the late '40s and early '50s," said Finlayson.
The Pentagon was focused on the Soviet threat in Europe, says Finlayson. McClure's powers of persuasion "convinced them to set up a school for psychological warfare."
Unconventional Tactics
McClure's belief in unconventional warfare led to the Special Forces. "Inside the psychological warfare center, McClure created a section for special warfare. That was the genesis of today's Special Forces," Finlayson said. "McClure was a prophet without honor."
McClure was tailor-made for the job, says retired Army Col. A.H. Paddock, author of "U.S. Army Special Warfare: Its Origins."
The roots of psyops lay in censorship of news from the war front. Eisenhower saw that the Army was not doing a good job of managing the press, says Paddock, a former psyops commander who is writing McClure's biography.
"Ike knew McClure and his background and felt he was the man for the job," Paddock said.
Like Ike, McClure had been a loyal and uncomplaining officer through the long years between the wars. Paddock says many officers quit because they weren't promoted.
Not McClure, though he had stayed a captain for 17 years. He was dedicated to the cause. "McClure had a selfless, service orientation," Paddock noted.
During World War II, McClure wrote to his son explaining what an Army career was about: "If you're going into this to make money, look for another career. Your cause is greater than that. The Army is a way of life - not a job."
McClure's experience in the Philippines and China, and his work as an attache in London, gave him a head start for the complex job Eisenhower handed him, says Paddock.
"McClure was capable of independent thought and of encouraging it even though he came under fire from superiors and military colleagues," said Paddock.
"You can't use a cookie-cutter mentality in psychological warfare," said Paddock. "McClure broke from the mold."
One way he did that was by hiring people from outside the military. Several had held high-level jobs in the civilian media.
Their job was to confound and demoralize the enemy.
To indicate their importance to the operation, McClure made them officers - to the annoyance of the regular brass, says retired Army Lt. Col. Ian Sutherland, a prosecutor in Jackson, Mo.
"They didn't cut their hair. They didn't shine their shoes. Nobody accused them of being real soldiers," said Sutherland, author of "The U.S. Army Special Forces, 1952-1982."
Some of McClure's campaigns, which involved pamphlets, bogus German newspapers and radio broadcasts, disinformed the enemy. Some campaigns told the truth.
"We assume propaganda is false," said Sutherland, who was a covert operations officer in Vietnam and Iran. "It's not about truth or falsity. It's about trying to affect behavior."
By the 1950s, Sutherland said, "Pysops were top of the military heap, thanks to McClure."
Always The Diplomat
One of McClure's strengths was his politeness, says Paddock. He was scrupulously even with people, no matter their background, nationality or temperament.
"It was one of his most successful leadership traits," said Paddock. "His letters show that countervailing tensions caused him a great deal of consternation. . . . (yet) he could pull all these people together for the common effort and they respected him for it."
McClure didn't stand on ceremony or rank. Though a general, he once took off his jacket, rolled up his sleeves and offered an enlisted man help operating a printing machine, Paddock says.
"He was not charismatic, like Patton," said Paddock. "He was quiet, soft-spoken and more intelligent and articulate than the average general officer."
One reason he got little recognition in his lifetime was that he didn't toot his own horn, Paddock says. "He got things done in a low-key way."
That reflected his early life, says Paddock. Raised in Mattoon, Ill., McClure had a solid relationship with his mother and stepfather. A stepbrother became an Air Force general.
"His letters to his mother show she had been a positive influence," said Paddock.
Writing down his thoughts helped McClure organize his days. He kept a journal during his military career, says Paddock. "It shows he had the ambition to spend his after-hours educating and improving himself."
McClure's love of learning made him a first-rate teacher, says Paddock. He taught at several military schools.
Much of McClure's work depended on cooperation from the media, says Paddock. "He had a lot to do with war correspondents - including censoring their work."
Rather than cow the press, he won them over, Paddock says. He was straightforward with them, and his dedicated patriotism persuaded reporters to aid the cause.
His greatest challenge came with the end of World War II. McClure took over the propaganda side of Germany's de-Nazification. Then he took over the reorienting of all occupied countries.
But the Army began to lose interest in psychological warfare. It massed troops and equipment in Europe to face the Soviets.
"He was a voice crying in the wilderness," said Paddock. "But he saw the future and he kept stirring the pot. To his credit, McClure never stopped trying to influence preparations for another conflict."
The Korean War brought McClure back into the fray. His experience as a young officer in China paid off. He took over the Army's unconventional warfare program and set it on its way to permanence.
In May 1952, McClure opened and took command of the Psychological Warfare Center at Fort Bragg.
His legacy, says former special ops officer Sutherland, is that the Army now sees psychological and special operations as "fundamental," especially as it prepares for war with Iraq. |
