Books in Brief: The Pentagon Propaganda Machine

The Pentagon Propaganda Machine by Senator J. William Fulbright (Li-veright, 166 pp., $4.95). An expansion of a series of Senate speeches based on “raw material” supplied Senator Fulbright by the Department of Defense, this book is profoundly distressing because one must assume the Senator believes what he says.

“Of course the military needs an information program,” Fulbright concedes. “But it should be one to inform, not promote or possibly deceive.” A statement everyone can agree on, to be sure, but certainly the more important questions are: What constitutes promotion? Deception? Information? The Senator doesn’t tell us. Instead we’re subjected to a blunderbuss attack against virtually everything the military says or does: pr programs to push the ABM; “hometown news centers” which give out such subversive information as how the 25th Medical Detachment of the 17th Combat Aviation Group provides medical and dental care for two Vietnamese villages and a Montagnard refugee camp in its own area; Navy men who when speaking are carried away by the desire to make the strongest case for the Navy; and the Air Force Bagpipe Band and precision flying team, the Thunderbirds. Even Air Force chaplains do not escape the Senator’s wrath, several in particular at Whiteman Air Force Base are denounced for participating as “guest preachers” at nearby Knob Noster, Missouri. Fulbright also inveighs against those in the military with the temerity to speak out publicly against Communism as well as the Pentagon’s aid in the production of the movie Tora! Tora! Tora! which, among other things, dramatically illustrates the disastrous consequences of a militarily unprepared America. At least, the Senator’s antimilitary bias is not total; he thought enough of the Pentagon propaganda machine to rely upon it to supply him with material to attack it.

JL

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J. D. Lofton Jr.

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The Pentagon Propaganda Machine by Senator J. William Fulbright (Li-veright, 166 pp., $4.95). An expansion of a series of Senate speeches based on “raw material” supplied Senator Fulbright by the Department of Defense, this book is profoundly distressing because one must assume the Senator believes what he says.

“Of course the military needs an information program,” Fulbright concedes. “But it should be one to inform, not promote or possibly deceive.” A statement everyone can agree on, to be sure, but certainly the more important questions are: What constitutes promotion? Deception? Information? The Senator doesn’t tell us. Instead we’re subjected to a blunderbuss attack against virtually everything the military says or does: pr programs to push the ABM; “hometown news centers” which give out such subversive information as how the 25th Medical Detachment of the 17th Combat Aviation Group provides medical and dental care for two Vietnamese villages and a Montagnard refugee camp in its own area; Navy men who when speaking are carried away by the desire to make the strongest case for the Navy; and the Air Force Bagpipe Band and precision flying team, the Thunderbirds. Even Air Force chaplains do not escape the Senator’s wrath, several in particular at Whiteman Air Force Base are denounced for participating as “guest preachers” at nearby Knob Noster, Missouri. Fulbright also inveighs against those in the military with the temerity to speak out publicly against Communism as well as the Pentagon’s aid in the production of the movie Tora! Tora! Tora! which, among other things, dramatically illustrates the disastrous consequences of a militarily unprepared America. At least, the Senator’s antimilitary bias is not total; he thought enough of the Pentagon propaganda machine to rely upon it to supply him with material to attack it.