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Popular Culture Review
Ultimately, the coup de grace was administered to Project Kingfish in a Feb
ruary 2, 1967 memorandum from Leonard Marks, USIA director, to President
Johnson, stressing that the Agency should not be involved in covert operations that
were more the domain of the CIA. If revealed, Marks argued, sponsorship of the
newsreel “could be used by foreign powers to disparage our information efforts
and to label USIA as a covert organization. Needless to say, such accusations could
... result in censorship and rigid control of our activities.” The covert Kingfish
operation ended with Marks urging movie companies to operate the newsreel un
der private auspices and to secure funding from other sources (Marks, 1967, 1).
Assessing the propagandistic effectiveness of Kingfish proves difficult be
cause of inconsistent field reporting of newsreel usage by target audiences. Ac
cording to Bogart (1995), “Propaganda is an art requiring special talent. It is not
mechanical, scientific work. Influencing attitudes requires experience, area knowl
edge, and instinctive judgment of what is the best argument for the audience”
(195-196). Certainly, the USIA appeared fractured in its debate over policy con
tent, with no consensus reached on amount, frequency, or what material was more
appropriate for which audience. This lack of a consensus also seems to fall short of
Terence H. Quaker’s assessment of what constitutes effective propaganda: “[it]
must be seen, remembered, understood, and acted upon, adapted to particular needs
of the situation and the audience to which it is aimed” (1962, xii). Interestingly, the
“particular needs” component of Quaker’s definition seems to support the position
of the USIA officials who called for the newsreels to be used only during times of
crisis. Meanwhile, Jowett and O’Donnell weigh in with their definition of propa
ganda, stating that it is “the deliberate and systematic attempt to shape percep
tions, manipulate cognitions, and direct behavior to achieve a response that fur
thers the desired intent of the propagandist” (1986,16). While certainly the history
of the rise and fall of Project Kingfish attests to the deliberative attempt to mold
American propaganda as a weapon during the Cold War, the evidence indicates
that the “desired intent” of the USIA had not been achieved by the clandestine
project.
Arizona State University
Dennis Russell and Richard Lentz
Works Cited
Barrett, Edward W. (1953). Truth Is Our Weapon. New York: Funk and Wagnall’s.
Bogart, Leo. (1995). Cool Words, Cold War: A New Look at USIA’s Premises fo r Propaganda.
Washington, D.C.: American University Press.
Dizard, Wilson P. (1961). The Strategy o f Truth: The Story o f the U.S. Information Service. Washington,
D.C.: Public Affairs Press.
Fielding, Raymond. (1972). The American Newsreel, 1951-1967. Norman: University of Oklahoma
Press.