The Propaganda War •
It is improbable that the American suggestion for an impar- tial enquiry into the Russian and Chinese charges of germ warfare in Korea will be taken up, and equally improbable that, even if it was, it could result any reliable conclusions. From the Western point of view this may seem not to matter much, because nobody believes that the United Nations forces have been making use of bacterjologieal weapons.' But, even if the Security Council fails to agree to do anything further in the matter, several points of interest remain to be explained. Did China or Russia initiate the propaganda ? Why did they do it at all, and why did they do it so badly ? The " evidence " of germ warfare which has been produced from North Korea is so scrappy and self-contradictory, and often on the face of it so absurd, that it gives the impression of having been faked by a group of amateurs. But the Communists are not amateurs at propaganda, and they do not normally act on the basis that it is unimportant what you say as long as you say it loud enough. The real explanation may be that the germ story was invented by the Chinese to explain last winter's epidemics, that it was rapidly taken up by Moscow for other purposes, . and that meanwhile the manufacture of " evidence " fell a bit behindhand. This does not of itself explain why the Russians should have wished to step up their propaganda campaign against the. Americans. Reports appearing in the American -Press suggest that the recently appointed American Ambassa- dor to Moscow, Mr. George Kennan, has been disturbed by the extent and virulence of the present Russian Press campaign. This is . no longer directed against " Wall-street warmongers," but against the American pedple, and is said to equal in violence even the war-time propaganda against the Germans. In this campaign the germ-warfare accusations play a predomi- nant part. Because they now form an integral part of an official campaign, a genuinely impartial investigation of the charges is made improbable. But the implications of the propaganda camp4ign are too obvious and too alarming to be ignored.
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