THE PROPAGANDA GAP

To paraphrase Lenin: in warfare, hot or cold, all means are legitimate. Author Walter Joyce, an American and an anti-communist, apparently agrees. His short, simplistic, rather slapdash tract, analyzes U.S. propaganda shortcomings, emphasizes the importance of the ideological East/West battle, offers a program of a total commitment to total communication: how to deep-freeze the comrades, thaw out the neutrals, beaf-up the USIA and VOA. Military might is not enough, nor economic aid as in the Alliance for Progress. We must establish clear-cut goals, clamp down on our contradictory congressional and executive pronouncements, regroup and restructure our foreign affair agencies, shake up the personnel. He further advocates hot-shot Madison Avenue marketing techniques, the enlistment of the best business and university leaders, and the building of the currently bottled-up Freedom Academy as a training ground for a persuasive, pragmatic, para-diplomatic fighting force. In short, he would have us as monolithically dedicated to our beliefs as the totalitarian brethren are to theirs. However, the divisive forces of pluralism, inherent in any democracy and the continually changing world-wide culture conflicts, are among the subtleties the author brushes off like ashes..... More pitch than pith.