The Press: Well Done

The secret of a good propaganda agency is not to be caught propagandizing. The British Ministry of Information has practised that fine art well. But before Brendan Bracken became its boss in 1941, M.O.I under three successive fumblers, was sneered at as the “Ministry of Misinformation.”*

Bracken made some changes. He saw to it that censors blue-penciled only military information. No cut was ever made unless the correspondent was so advised (and the correspondent could argue his case right up to the chief censor, if he liked). In general. Bracken hewed to Britain’s World War I propaganda line, the only one that a wartime democracy must content itself with: providing the truth—if not always the whole truth.

Through V-J day, M.O.I, will continue its job, then be absorbed into the Foreign Office. But last week, with its major tasks finished, two of its brightest stars departed. Minister Bracken, 44, a Churchillian favorite, whose unruly red hair looks like a badly made fright wig, moved up into the Admiralty. Tall, sensitive, sensible Robert Cruikshank, 47, head of the American Division, moved to Fleet Street as political editor of the News Chronicle. Britain, which knows better than the U.S. that a necessary evil can merit praise, gave them a “well done.”

*While the Allies and Germany were still righting a “phony war” and R.A.F. pilots were dropping nothing more harmful on Germany than big bundles of Alfred Duff Cooper’s M.O.I, propaganda pamphlets. British pilots allegedly cautioned one another: “Be sure to take the strings off the bundles—you might hurt somebody.”