PROPAGANDA: In the Era of the Big Lie

Last January the British Foreign Office released a hair-raising document called "Protocol M" (TIME, Jan. 26). It purported to be a Cominform blueprint for a Communist-led general strike in the Ruhr aimed at crippling coal production and hampering the Marshall Plan. Its deadline for action was March.

But March passed without a Ruhr general strike. Last week the New York Times's persistent Chief European Correspondent Cyrus L. Sulzberger reported, from a "completely reliable source," that Protocol M was a forgery. The British government, which in January had stoutly asserted "[we] believe this document to be genuine," responded to Sulzberger's report with...

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