WEBVTT

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Everyday,

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millions of messages invade our screens.

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Their aim?

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To direct our choices in purchasing, voting,

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or adhering to an idea.

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They are omnipresent and shape our vision of the world.

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They rely on persuasion techniques, invented a century ago,

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in the United States.

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They were developed in less than 50 years,

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by a small group of thinkers,

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in order to control the masses.

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To impose their power, authoritarian regimes used force.

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Western democracies invented public relations.

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One of the group\'s leading theoreticians was Edward Bernays.

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Public relations embraces, what I call,

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the engineering of consent,

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based on Thomas Jefferson\'s principle,

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that in a democratic society,

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everything depends on the consent of the people.

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On April 6th, 1917,

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the United States declared war on Germany.

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Within weeks, huge numbers of Americans

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had enlisted in the military.

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Their president, Woodrow Wilson,

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had convinces them to shed blood

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in the defense of democracy.

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And yet, one year earlier,

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this same president had promised Americans

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they would not enter into World War I.

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When the president of the United States, Woodrow Wilson,

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ran for office in 1916, he ran under the slogan,

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he kept us out of war.

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There was this idea that this war was a European matter.

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It had nothing to do with American democracy, so to speak.

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So, as the United States began to prepare

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to enter into the war, there was a big problem.

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The debate within the Wilson White House

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was how do we control the masses,

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in order to prosecute the war.

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Wilson wanted to impose his choices by force.

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But inside the White House,

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others advocated a different solution.

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Several Wilson advisors argued,

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we can create a system, through the government,

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of mass propaganda, that will in essence,

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seduce the masses into supporting the war effort.

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We need to build up an armament of the mind.

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We need to build up a machinery

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that will sell the war to the American people,

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that will advertise the war.

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The huge propaganda campaign was deployed,

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based on the codes of the advertising, entertainment,

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and widely popular film industries.

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♪ Over hill, over dale ♪

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♪ We have hit the dusty trail ♪

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The biggest stars of the day,

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like Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks,

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were called upon to stir up the crowds.

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Thousands of other influential people

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were specially selected,

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to carry the governments message across the country.

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♪ Hi, hi, hee ♪

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♪ In the field artillery ♪

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♪ Shout out your numbers loud and strong ♪

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Businessmen, ministers, other people

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who were respected authorities within a local area,

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would get up and give a speech on behalf of the war.

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Before the movie starts, some man,

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just almost spontaneously, gets up and gives a 4-minute talk

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about why we should go to war.

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To orchestrate this immense machine,

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Wilson set up a special department, the Creel Commission.

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It was up of the professionals of the PR world,

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journalists, admin, and press agents.

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Among them was a young man of 26,

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who had already earned a solid reputation as a press agent,

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in the entertainment business.

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His name, Edward Bernays.

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Along with most members of the commission,

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he shared a vision of the crowd,

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which was wide-spread among the leaders

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of the major Western democracies.

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It rested on theories, expended on barely 20 years earlier,

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by the French polymath, Gustave Le Bon,

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who\'s book \"The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind\"

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established the ground rules of crowd psychology.

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It basically makes an argument

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that these people are incapable of rational thought.

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They\'re incapable of being approached and reasoned with.

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They have become microbes.

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They are driven, they\'ve become like a virus,

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animals driven by their spinal cord.

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He lays out an anatomy of the crowd,

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as a group of people who can\'t understand reason.

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And sense reason has no effect on crowds,

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governments appeal to their instincts and emotions.

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It very quickly moves to using psychological approaches,

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that try to bypass in fact, critical thought,

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and touch people in the gut.

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Well, the war demonized the German Hun.

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And that\'s how you got the stories of,

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the fictitious stories of all the bayoneting babies

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in Belgium and all this kind of stuff.

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A lot of has to do with using symbols

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that are very powerful and deeply ingrained,

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which in many ways degrade

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the meaning of what\'s actually being said,

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and instead promote and focus on the level of feeling.

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It succeeded in converting a pacifist public

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into raving anti-German fanatics.

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The Boston Symphony Orchestra couldn\'t play Beethoven,

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for example, \'cause we don\'t want to touch

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this hideous monstrosity.

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And the Creel Commission was very effective.

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In less than a year,

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the Creel Commission managed to turn public opinion around,

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without the use of force,

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and without changing the system of governments.

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For the great captains of industry, like the Rockefellers,

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the Carnegies, and the J.P. Morgans,

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the success of these propaganda methods

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opened up perspectives, which came at just the right moment.

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Since the late 19th century, a succession of strikes,

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protests, and riots had been rocking the whole country.

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With the rise of industrial capitalism,

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not just in the United States,

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but throughout the industrializing world,

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caused a level of immiseration.

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In the coal fields, and the industrial plants,

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the steel mills, lived a little better than serfs.

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Unions were broken and outlawed.

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So, it was a real battle between, let\'s call,

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the masses and the oligarchs.

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The people who were at the top of these corporations

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were regarded simply as robbing the rest of society

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of the resources, by accumulating profits for themselves,

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as personal wealth.

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In 1914,

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the situation had reached a breaking point.

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Rockefeller was suspected of being responsible

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for the massacre of 66 strikers,

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at one of his local coal mines in Ludlow.

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He narrowly escaped an assassination attempt

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carried out by an anarchist.

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The corporate sector were totally freaked out

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about the possibility of their world being taken over.

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They saw the Creel Commission\'s methods

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as ideal solutions for putting an end to social demands.

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If it was possible to convince Americans

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to whole-heartedly back the war effort,

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without questioning the principles of democracy,

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then it was clearly be possible

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to persuade the working classes to adhere to a system,

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they had until then always rejected, capitalism.

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After experiencing this world situation

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and recognizing the importance of ideas as weapons,

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I decided to see whether we could not apply

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what I had learned in the war to peace-time pursuits.

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In 1919,

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Edward Bernays opened his first office in New York,

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one of the country\'s main seats of power.

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To define his role for his future clients,

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he styled himself as a public relations council.

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Propaganda came to have a bad name,

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so they invented other terms for it,

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and Edward Bernays was very clear about that.

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He took credit, himself,

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for coming up with the term public relations council,

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in order to give what was propaganda a new lease of life,

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by calling it something different.

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And that\'s a time-honored technique of public relations,

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of propaganda, is if something\'s unpopular,

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just call it something else and then no one will know.

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Edward Bernays was influenced

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by one of the most renowned American intellectuals

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of the day, journalist and author Walter Lippmann.

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This former advisor to Woodrow Wilson saw propaganda

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as the only true tool for controlling the crowd.

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A theory to which consecrated a book,

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which would revolution the principles

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of democratic governance, \"Public Opinion\".

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The responsible men, which is us, have to take charge,

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and we have to be protected from the trampling

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and the roar of the bewildered herd.

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And the best way, we can\'t do it by force,

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and the best way to do it is by

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what Lippmann called manufacture of consent,

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a new art in the practice of democracy.

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And what he means is that skillful propaganda can,

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in essence, get the masses to support policies

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that are against their own interest.

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These new specialists in public relations,

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most of them former members of the Creel Commission,

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were hired by the biggest companies of the day.

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Their mission?

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To convince public opinion

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that the prosperity of private enterprises

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would benefit the entire population.

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To do so, a radical change was required.

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Turn the citizen into a consumer.

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Buying should no longer be a question of necessity,

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but of desire.

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We were going crazy as an economy,

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and we were building big companies,

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and we were trying to bring the public along,

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to buy all the things that these,

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the products these companies were anxious to produce.

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Business needed to sell itself to the people

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and also to sell the idea that business,

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rather than socialism, will provide the good life.

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Edward Bernays would become

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an expert on the subject.

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One of his first successes was a campaign carried out

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for the Beech-Nut Packing Company,

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a famous producer of bacon.

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They wanted to be the biggest bacon maker in America.

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And the normal way a company would have done that,

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was to go out and compete and say we have a better bacon

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than the other competing bacon makers.

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Eddie Bernays said, \"That\'s not the way to do it.

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\"We want to enlarge the market for everybody.\"

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Edward Bernays would rely on a concept

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which had brought success to the Creel Commission,

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opinion leadership.

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He decided to use the powerful influence of one of the most

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respected professions in society, doctors.

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And so, he went out and had a survey commissioned,

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asking lots of doctors and other trusted people

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in the field of nutrition and health,

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what do you think, do you think that notion of an all,

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of a hearty breakfast is a useful thing.

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Should we be eating, what he called, a hearty breakfast?

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The study concluded that a hearty breakfast

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was good for your health.

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Edward Bernays sent the results

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to 4,000 doctors across the country.

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Unwittingly, they would pass onto their patients,

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a message whose purpose was purely commercial.

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If you don\'t like bacon

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and you\'re interested in your health,

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and there\'s 4,000 doctors saying that you better eat bacon,

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you\'ll do it.

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Mmm-mmm!

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Bacon and eggs and buttered toast.

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There\'s nothing like a good healthy breakfast

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to start the day off right,

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and a meal like this should satisfy anyone.

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He\'ll have to learn that food has a lot to do

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with the way you look and the way you feel.

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The American breakfast became an institution,

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a cultural reference,

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that would enjoy a long and healthy life.

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A breakfast without bacon and eggs is like, I don\'t know,

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a dog without a bone.

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The idea of following a trusted leader,

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taking advice from an authority figure,

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is the foundation of everything that we do

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in public relations.

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In a repeated national survey,

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doctors in all branches of medicine,

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doctors in all parts of the country were asked,

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\"What cigarette do you smoke, Doctor?\"

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Doctors in every branch--

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Scientific backing, given by doctors,

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00:15:56.910 --> 00:15:59.331
became a PR tool much-used by advertisers.

266
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Nationwide survey of general practitioners,

267
00:16:01.870 --> 00:16:03.640
surgeons--
Going as far as promoting

268
00:16:03.640 --> 00:16:06.336
the cigarette, as product for health and well-being.

269
00:16:06.336 --> 00:16:07.830
Try Camels yourself.

270
00:16:07.830 --> 00:16:09.763
The cigarette so many doctors enjoy.

271
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Edward Bernays was constantly on the lookout

272
00:16:22.290 --> 00:16:25.760
for innovative tools to improve his powers of persuasion.

273
00:16:25.760 --> 00:16:28.313
He was particularly drawn to psychoanalysis.

274
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So much so, that he oversaw the translation

275
00:16:31.850 --> 00:16:34.320
of the first works of the father of psychoanalysis,

276
00:16:34.320 --> 00:16:36.970
Sigmund Freud, into English.

277
00:16:36.970 --> 00:16:37.900
But the bond between them

278
00:16:37.900 --> 00:16:39.910
was more than strictly professional.

279
00:16:39.910 --> 00:16:43.103
Edward Bernays was the double nephew of Sigmund Freud.

280
00:16:44.950 --> 00:16:47.300
Bernays had a very close relationship,

281
00:16:47.300 --> 00:16:51.630
both familial and also emotional relationship,

282
00:16:51.630 --> 00:16:52.933
with Sigmund Freud.

283
00:16:53.930 --> 00:16:56.557 line:15%
Bernays\'s mother was Sigmund Freud\'s sister.

284
00:16:56.557 --> 00:17:00.210 line:15%
Bernays\'s father\'s sister was married to Sigmund Freud.

285
00:17:00.210 --> 00:17:03.610 line:15%
So, it was a lot of genetic material from Freud,

286
00:17:03.610 --> 00:17:05.353 line:15%
inside of Bernays.

287
00:17:07.620 --> 00:17:11.520
And as a child, he would sit at the dinner table,

288
00:17:11.520 --> 00:17:13.930 line:15%
night after night, while his parents would be talking

289
00:17:13.930 --> 00:17:15.963 line:15%
about Uncle Siggy.

290
00:17:16.960 --> 00:17:20.040 line:15%
Well, I heard about my uncle\'s

291
00:17:20.040 --> 00:17:23.300
theory of dream interpretation.

292
00:17:23.300 --> 00:17:28.300
I heard about psychology as being an important force

293
00:17:28.850 --> 00:17:31.920
in evaluating human behavior.

294
00:17:31.920 --> 00:17:36.920
I heard of repression and regression and suppression.

295
00:17:37.800 --> 00:17:39.640
Eddie Bernays is what I like to call

296
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a professional nephew.

297
00:17:41.640 --> 00:17:43.350
And he used his connection,

298
00:17:43.350 --> 00:17:45.690
in the first 10 minutes that you met him,

299
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you learned that he was the double nephew of Sigmund Freud,

300
00:17:49.060 --> 00:17:50.650
because that somehow gave him

301
00:17:50.650 --> 00:17:53.960
not just a sense of being associated with a famous person,

302
00:17:53.960 --> 00:17:58.960
but being associated with a smart, opinion-changing,

303
00:18:00.230 --> 00:18:02.640
revolutionary character like Sigmund Freud.

304
00:18:02.640 --> 00:18:07.140
The concepts that Bernays took from Freud was that people,

305
00:18:07.140 --> 00:18:10.130
they think they\'re ruled by their own judgment

306
00:18:10.970 --> 00:18:13.350
and rational thinking, but they\'re not.

307
00:18:13.350 --> 00:18:17.030
They\'re ruled by their unconscious or their subconscious,

308
00:18:17.030 --> 00:18:18.820
and they don\'t even know it,

309
00:18:18.820 --> 00:18:21.814
so you have to bypass their logic.

310
00:18:26.310 --> 00:18:28.040
Edward Bernays would put this concept

311
00:18:28.040 --> 00:18:30.910
into practice, for the first time, for one of his clients,

312
00:18:30.910 --> 00:18:32.563
the American Tobacco Company.

313
00:18:35.900 --> 00:18:38.530
The company felt it was the victim of a social taboo,

314
00:18:38.530 --> 00:18:41.090
which prevented it from doubling its profits.

315
00:18:41.090 --> 00:18:43.483
Women were not allowed to smoke in public.

316
00:18:44.750 --> 00:18:47.290
So, the company entrusted Edward Bernays with the task

317
00:18:47.290 --> 00:18:51.293
of turning women into open tobacco consumers, just like men.

318
00:18:54.160 --> 00:18:59.160
He went to see one of his Uncle Sigmund\'s disciples here,

319
00:18:59.340 --> 00:19:02.883
this guy named A.A. Brill, and he goes to see Brill,

320
00:19:04.328 --> 00:19:07.297
and he says, \"Brill, I\'m trying to sell cigarettes to women.

321
00:19:07.297 --> 00:19:09.290
\"What do they represent?\"

322
00:19:09.290 --> 00:19:11.967
And Brill says, \"Well, this is simple.

323
00:19:11.967 --> 00:19:14.067
\"They represent the penis.

324
00:19:14.067 --> 00:19:16.747
\"And all women, they have penis envy.

325
00:19:16.747 --> 00:19:21.747
\"So, in fact, if you can get them to have a penis,

326
00:19:23.007 --> 00:19:25.387
\"or at least a symbolic penis,

327
00:19:25.387 --> 00:19:27.650
\"this is something that they will respond to.\"

328
00:19:27.650 --> 00:19:31.960
And since this was during the time of suffrage,

329
00:19:31.960 --> 00:19:36.630
the Suffrage Movement, which was 1919 and through the 20s,

330
00:19:36.630 --> 00:19:38.860
women were still galvanized,

331
00:19:38.860 --> 00:19:42.090
by trying to fight for their rights.

332
00:19:42.090 --> 00:19:43.670
So, he goes and recruits

333
00:19:43.670 --> 00:19:46.730
some of the leading socialites of the day.

334
00:19:46.730 --> 00:19:48.180
He convinces these women

335
00:19:48.180 --> 00:19:49.550
that they\'re gonna be striking a blow,

336
00:19:49.550 --> 00:19:51.600
not for American Tobacco Company,

337
00:19:51.600 --> 00:19:54.590
which they don\'t know is his true client,

338
00:19:54.590 --> 00:19:56.623
but for women\'s liberation.

339
00:19:59.270 --> 00:20:01.030
To launch is PR campaign,

340
00:20:01.030 --> 00:20:03.530
Edward Bernays decided to use a popular event

341
00:20:03.530 --> 00:20:05.330
as a springboard.

342
00:20:05.330 --> 00:20:08.023
The famous, annual Easter parade in New York.

343
00:20:12.470 --> 00:20:15.540
He has these women marching down Fifth Avenue,

344
00:20:15.540 --> 00:20:17.120
lighting up a cigarette,

345
00:20:17.120 --> 00:20:20.190
that he calls their torches of freedom.

346
00:20:20.190 --> 00:20:23.080
And to ensure that this event isn\'t missed,

347
00:20:23.080 --> 00:20:26.050
he recruits all the photographers,

348
00:20:26.050 --> 00:20:28.030
from all the leading newspapers

349
00:20:28.030 --> 00:20:29.940
and wire services around the world,

350
00:20:29.940 --> 00:20:31.390
to take a picture of that.

351
00:20:50.120 --> 00:20:54.800
The next morning, the New York Times had carried the story

352
00:20:54.800 --> 00:20:57.040
on its first page.

353
00:20:57.040 --> 00:21:00.353
They treated it as news, which it indeed was.

354
00:21:10.730 --> 00:21:15.730
Within five weeks, the smoking rooms of theaters in New York

355
00:21:18.030 --> 00:21:21.330
opened their smoking rooms to women smoking,

356
00:21:21.330 --> 00:21:23.360
which had never happened before.

357
00:21:23.360 --> 00:21:26.760
So, an age-old custom was broken down.

358
00:21:26.760 --> 00:21:27.633
By one action.

359
00:21:34.370 --> 00:21:38.300
The role of PR is creating circumstances

360
00:21:38.300 --> 00:21:42.050
that jut out from the normal society

361
00:21:42.930 --> 00:21:45.913
and therefore, which become newsworthy.

362
00:21:46.850 --> 00:21:51.340
And so, part of the role of the public relations agent

363
00:21:51.340 --> 00:21:55.610
is the need to understand what looks like news,

364
00:21:55.610 --> 00:21:58.410
what tastes like news, what smells like news.

365
00:21:58.410 --> 00:22:02.770
To this day, creating news is the number one thing

366
00:22:02.770 --> 00:22:04.280
that we try to do.

367
00:22:04.280 --> 00:22:06.620
And part of being newsworthy, of course,

368
00:22:06.620 --> 00:22:09.290
is doing something new and being the first.

369
00:22:09.290 --> 00:22:12.360
Nobody remembers the second guy who landed on the moon.

370
00:22:20.290 --> 00:22:21.640
Within 10 years,

371
00:22:21.640 --> 00:22:24.610
the consumption habits of Americans had deeply changed,

372
00:22:24.610 --> 00:22:26.030
thanks to the work carried out

373
00:22:26.030 --> 00:22:27.480
by public relations councils.

374
00:22:43.416 --> 00:22:44.730
They even managed to change

375
00:22:44.730 --> 00:22:47.610
and promote the image of the captains of industry.

376
00:22:47.610 --> 00:22:50.720
John D. Rockefeller, himself, was no longer seen

377
00:22:50.720 --> 00:22:54.240
as a hated figure of capitalism, as he once was,

378
00:22:54.240 --> 00:22:56.313
but as a generous philanthropist.

379
00:23:04.770 --> 00:23:08.710
PR agencies prospered, especially on Madison Avenue,

380
00:23:08.710 --> 00:23:10.890
which would become the epicenter of advertising

381
00:23:10.890 --> 00:23:12.163
in the United States.

382
00:23:13.962 --> 00:23:16.900
♪ The blues jumped a rabbit ♪

383
00:23:16.900 --> 00:23:18.080
Edward Bernays had become

384
00:23:18.080 --> 00:23:21.410
the most sought after expert in public relations.

385
00:23:21.410 --> 00:23:23.230
He moved into a luxury hotel suit,

386
00:23:23.230 --> 00:23:25.420
where he received all of the country\'s wealthiest

387
00:23:25.420 --> 00:23:27.320
and most influential men.

388
00:23:27.320 --> 00:23:30.930
♪ Run him a solid mile ♪

389
00:23:30.930 --> 00:23:34.853
My father was immensely social.

390
00:23:36.920 --> 00:23:39.190
He gave parties all the time.

391
00:23:39.190 --> 00:23:42.050
High-achievers came to his parties.

392
00:23:42.050 --> 00:23:46.200
They were architects and artists, lawyers

393
00:23:46.200 --> 00:23:50.320
and politicians, magazine editors.

394
00:23:50.320 --> 00:23:52.220
Always people at the top.

395
00:23:52.220 --> 00:23:54.793
Most people had no idea who he was,

396
00:23:55.770 --> 00:23:58.030
but the people who needed to know him

397
00:23:58.030 --> 00:24:01.953
and who he needed to know him, knew him.

398
00:24:04.410 --> 00:24:08.500
In 1929, Edward Bernays published \"Propaganda\",

399
00:24:08.500 --> 00:24:11.080
the fruit of 10 years experience.

400
00:24:11.080 --> 00:24:12.910
In it, he laid out, with precision,

401
00:24:12.910 --> 00:24:14.790
the main principles and techniques

402
00:24:14.790 --> 00:24:17.600
of manipulating the masses in democracies.

403
00:24:17.600 --> 00:24:20.563
The work elevated him to the status of visionary.

404
00:24:33.710 --> 00:24:38.710
That kind of confession is evidence of the fact

405
00:24:39.780 --> 00:24:43.780
that the power of propaganda is so immense,

406
00:24:43.780 --> 00:24:46.843
that even when the puppet masters are confessing,

407
00:24:47.700 --> 00:24:50.360
those who are being manipulated can\'t resist.

408
00:24:50.360 --> 00:24:52.460
The Nazis, incidentally, were very impressed

409
00:24:52.460 --> 00:24:55.330
with U.S. commercial propaganda,

410
00:24:55.330 --> 00:24:59.120
the kind that Bernays and the PR industry was developing.

411
00:24:59.120 --> 00:25:00.860
Goebbels studied it carefully.

412
00:25:00.860 --> 00:25:01.880
He refers to it.

413
00:25:01.880 --> 00:25:04.370
They adapted it to their purposes

414
00:25:04.370 --> 00:25:07.068
and very successfully, unfortunately.

415
00:25:23.103 --> 00:25:26.080
55,000 homeless in Evansville.

416
00:25:26.080 --> 00:25:28.333
Food and medicine needed in Aurora.

417
00:25:29.377 --> 00:25:30.210
Food and medicine--

418
00:25:30.210 --> 00:25:33.760
The Wall Street crash on October 24th, 1929,

419
00:25:33.760 --> 00:25:35.310
tore apart the apparent balance

420
00:25:35.310 --> 00:25:38.930
of the 1920s\' model of the capitalist society.

421
00:25:38.930 --> 00:25:42.270
The United States plunged into the Great Depression,

422
00:25:42.270 --> 00:25:44.480
which left tens of millions of Americans

423
00:25:44.480 --> 00:25:46.303
jobless and homeless.

424
00:25:47.529 --> 00:25:50.170
The corporate system that public relations

425
00:25:50.170 --> 00:25:54.670
had been selling so hard throughout the 1920s,

426
00:25:54.670 --> 00:25:59.670
was now considered to be the embodiment of evil.

427
00:25:59.940 --> 00:26:01.533
We face that crisis.

428
00:26:02.560 --> 00:26:05.563
We face it with singleness of purpose

429
00:26:05.563 --> 00:26:08.300
and above all with faith.

430
00:26:08.300 --> 00:26:09.810
Keep that faith constant.

431
00:26:09.810 --> 00:26:12.190
Elected president in 1932,

432
00:26:12.190 --> 00:26:14.400
Franklin D. Roosevelt came across as the man

433
00:26:14.400 --> 00:26:16.450
who could change everything.

434
00:26:16.450 --> 00:26:18.060
But to earn the people\'s trust,

435
00:26:18.060 --> 00:26:21.283
the manufacture of consent would be a determining factor.

436
00:26:23.050 --> 00:26:26.143
So he too called upon experts in public relations.

437
00:26:31.060 --> 00:26:33.960
Sitting down here next to me, is Mrs. Roosevelt, my wife,

438
00:26:33.960 --> 00:26:37.850
and my granddaughter, Anna Roosevelt--

439
00:26:37.850 --> 00:26:39.170
On their advice,

440
00:26:39.170 --> 00:26:40.670
Roosevelt took the leading role

441
00:26:40.670 --> 00:26:42.982
in an unprecedented PR campaign.

442
00:26:42.982 --> 00:26:44.897
What\'s are campaign slogan, Sissy?

443
00:26:47.264 --> 00:26:48.097
Happy days are here--

444
00:26:48.097 --> 00:26:49.930
To appear as a man of the people,

445
00:26:49.930 --> 00:26:52.040
he was systematically seen with his family,

446
00:26:52.040 --> 00:26:53.620
going about his daily life,

447
00:26:53.620 --> 00:26:56.470
like no other president had been before him.

448
00:26:56.470 --> 00:27:01.470
That is pure PR, ala Bernays, I mean, absolutely pure.

449
00:27:02.630 --> 00:27:06.600
The way he sat in his car and waved to people,

450
00:27:06.600 --> 00:27:10.253
Mrs. Roosevelt, as if he was a hearty, young man.

451
00:27:11.190 --> 00:27:12.693
It\'s all symbols.

452
00:27:13.590 --> 00:27:16.340
But for Roosevelt, symbols weren\'t enough,

453
00:27:16.340 --> 00:27:19.250
and he opted for another method, pedagogy.

454
00:27:19.250 --> 00:27:21.920
Explaining to his follow citizens, in simple terms,

455
00:27:21.920 --> 00:27:24.803
how he planned to put right the country and it\'s economy.

456
00:27:27.030 --> 00:27:31.450
He and his advisors developed the so-called fireside chats.

457
00:27:31.450 --> 00:27:34.870
A series of 28 radio addresses given by the president,

458
00:27:34.870 --> 00:27:36.493
spread over 10 years.

459
00:27:37.850 --> 00:27:39.860
It is three months, my friends,

460
00:27:39.860 --> 00:27:41.850
since I have talked with the people of this country

461
00:27:41.850 --> 00:27:43.730
about our national problems.

462
00:27:43.730 --> 00:27:47.440
I am going to establish a government market

463
00:27:47.440 --> 00:27:49.593
for gold in the United States.

464
00:27:50.760 --> 00:27:52.500
He had a very calming voice.

465
00:27:52.500 --> 00:27:55.700
He talked to the listeners

466
00:27:55.700 --> 00:27:58.660
like people he respected like an equal,

467
00:27:58.660 --> 00:28:03.083
and I think the public was given faith by that.

468
00:28:04.760 --> 00:28:05.840
I am authorizing

469
00:28:05.840 --> 00:28:10.770
the Reconstruction Finance Corporation to buy or sell gold.

470
00:28:10.770 --> 00:28:15.770
One after another, the fireside chats are designed

471
00:28:16.160 --> 00:28:21.160
to make an inscrutable system legible to people.

472
00:28:22.240 --> 00:28:23.073
City streets,

473
00:28:23.073 --> 00:28:24.370
pounded by ever-increasing traffic,

474
00:28:24.370 --> 00:28:26.230
are modernized, resurfaced.

475
00:28:26.230 --> 00:28:29.160
Thousands of blocks, which means huge saving, vital to the--

476
00:28:29.160 --> 00:28:30.700
The president launched the production

477
00:28:30.700 --> 00:28:32.330
of a series of documentaries,

478
00:28:32.330 --> 00:28:36.130
aimed at explaining his flagship program, the New Deal.

479
00:28:36.130 --> 00:28:39.310
It\'s basic principles rested on government interventionism

480
00:28:39.310 --> 00:28:41.030
to kickstart the economy.

481
00:28:41.030 --> 00:28:42.400
Permanent improvements have been undertaken.

482
00:28:42.400 --> 00:28:44.600
New modern-housing developments will be erected,

483
00:28:44.600 --> 00:28:46.190
providing better living conditions

484
00:28:46.190 --> 00:28:47.851
for workers in the low-income groups.

485
00:28:48.870 --> 00:28:51.690
But to get the intent of his program across,

486
00:28:51.690 --> 00:28:53.790
the Roosevelt administration went a step further,

487
00:28:53.790 --> 00:28:54.870
by putting together a group

488
00:28:54.870 --> 00:28:57.000
of renowned photographers and writers,

489
00:28:57.000 --> 00:28:59.280
in order to show Americans the terrible effects

490
00:28:59.280 --> 00:29:01.430
of the depression inside their own country.

491
00:29:03.570 --> 00:29:05.110
It wasn\'t a bunch of flacks

492
00:29:05.110 --> 00:29:08.360
who came out of the advertising industry

493
00:29:08.360 --> 00:29:10.610
or the public relations industry.

494
00:29:10.610 --> 00:29:15.610
It was people who had really thought about using images

495
00:29:15.830 --> 00:29:18.653
in a way that leave people smarter than they were.

496
00:29:21.691 --> 00:29:22.840
The American people

497
00:29:22.840 --> 00:29:26.420
discovered an America they had no idea existed.

498
00:29:26.420 --> 00:29:28.840
The emotional and symbolic force of these pictures

499
00:29:28.840 --> 00:29:30.493
moved hearts and minds.

500
00:29:35.560 --> 00:29:39.430
So, that there is this resurgence of an idea,

501
00:29:39.430 --> 00:29:40.690
that emotion and reason

502
00:29:40.690 --> 00:29:43.301
don\'t need to separated from each other.

503
00:29:46.080 --> 00:29:49.033
To some extent, it\'s the manufacture of consent,

504
00:29:50.020 --> 00:29:55.003
but it\'s, I think, an attempt to create informed consent.

505
00:29:58.790 --> 00:30:02.040
There\'s nothing wrong with being persuasive,

506
00:30:02.040 --> 00:30:07.040
as long as your persuasion is not interested in deception,

507
00:30:10.723 --> 00:30:13.483
in turning people away from seeing things as they are.

508
00:30:23.340 --> 00:30:26.190
Triumphantly re-elected in 1936,

509
00:30:26.190 --> 00:30:28.150
Roosevelt sought to deploy new reforms,

510
00:30:28.150 --> 00:30:30.343
to limit the power of companies and banks.

511
00:30:33.050 --> 00:30:37.280
The decision is to create an alliance

512
00:30:37.280 --> 00:30:40.480
between working people

513
00:30:41.350 --> 00:30:46.170
and a completely dismantled middle class,

514
00:30:46.170 --> 00:30:49.020
against great wealth and business.

515
00:30:49.020 --> 00:30:52.230
It is true, that the toes of some people

516
00:30:52.230 --> 00:30:56.830
are being stepped on and are going to be stepped on.

517
00:30:56.830 --> 00:31:01.510
The business system views the New Deal as a catastrophe.

518
00:31:01.510 --> 00:31:05.000
Almost every big corporation in America

519
00:31:05.000 --> 00:31:08.640
was engaged in the National Association Manufacturers,

520
00:31:08.640 --> 00:31:12.020
and their biggest program, at the time,

521
00:31:12.020 --> 00:31:13.940
was a public relations program.

522
00:31:13.940 --> 00:31:17.660
They decide that they need to sell the idea,

523
00:31:17.660 --> 00:31:22.660
that private enterprise is the, privately held industry,

524
00:31:24.000 --> 00:31:27.100
is the key to the good life,

525
00:31:27.100 --> 00:31:29.580
that Roosevelt is now suggesting

526
00:31:29.580 --> 00:31:32.820
the government can now help be an advocate for.

527
00:31:32.820 --> 00:31:34.120
Hello, everybody.

528
00:31:34.120 --> 00:31:35.800
This is Lowell Thomas.

529
00:31:35.800 --> 00:31:38.930
And I need to ask one or two questions,

530
00:31:38.930 --> 00:31:41.460
which you have probably asked.

531
00:31:41.460 --> 00:31:43.310
And then I intend to answer them.

532
00:31:43.310 --> 00:31:46.110
To what new horizons can we look now?

533
00:31:46.110 --> 00:31:48.130
Where are tomorrow\'s opportunities?

534
00:31:48.130 --> 00:31:51.310
The National Association of Manufactures, NAM,

535
00:31:51.310 --> 00:31:53.630
set out to reestablish, as quickly as possible,

536
00:31:53.630 --> 00:31:55.870
the people\'s trust in the capitalist system.

537
00:31:55.870 --> 00:31:58.960
To do so, they would fight the president\'s campaign

538
00:31:58.960 --> 00:32:00.310
with a number of their own.

539
00:32:08.440 --> 00:32:11.120
For 20 years, NAM campaigns sought to sell

540
00:32:11.120 --> 00:32:13.200
an idealized version of society,

541
00:32:13.200 --> 00:32:14.763
for which Americans clamored.

542
00:32:17.310 --> 00:32:21.510
Wherever Roosevelt was selling reality, NAM sold dreams.

543
00:32:21.510 --> 00:32:23.930
Wherever Roosevelt was speaking to citizens,

544
00:32:23.930 --> 00:32:26.110
NAM spoke to consumers.

545
00:32:26.110 --> 00:32:26.943
It had to get out

546
00:32:26.943 --> 00:32:28.900
and see them many different way.

547
00:32:28.900 --> 00:32:30.650
It\'s part of American DNA.

548
00:32:30.650 --> 00:32:32.350
We don\'t like government.

549
00:32:32.350 --> 00:32:34.880
We live private business.

550
00:32:34.880 --> 00:32:36.960
They talked about free enterprise

551
00:32:36.960 --> 00:32:39.080
in the same way you would talk about freedom

552
00:32:39.080 --> 00:32:41.260
and democracy and justice.

553
00:32:41.260 --> 00:32:42.580
Yes, they were selling a dream,

554
00:32:42.580 --> 00:32:46.050
but they tied the dream into American values.

555
00:32:46.050 --> 00:32:47.584
This is a machine.

556
00:32:48.688 --> 00:32:49.646
In the factory.

557
00:32:52.590 --> 00:32:54.524
This is the workman.

558
00:32:54.524 --> 00:32:56.067
Who tends the machine.

559
00:32:56.920 --> 00:32:57.801
In the factory.

560
00:32:59.830 --> 00:33:00.990
To make Americans aware

561
00:33:00.990 --> 00:33:05.500
of the benefits of industry, NAM also turned to pedagogy,

562
00:33:05.500 --> 00:33:09.473
notably, by addressing the consumers of tomorrow, children.

563
00:33:11.060 --> 00:33:12.740
Here\'s a farmer.

564
00:33:12.740 --> 00:33:14.440
He needs a widget on his farm,

565
00:33:14.440 --> 00:33:16.213
and he\'s in a hurry to buy one.

566
00:33:17.500 --> 00:33:19.440
Here\'s your money, Mr. Widget Maker.

567
00:33:19.440 --> 00:33:21.800
And here\'s your widget, Mr. Farmer.

568
00:33:21.800 --> 00:33:24.910
And all the customers take their widgets home,

569
00:33:24.910 --> 00:33:27.153
to all parts of the country.

570
00:33:30.370 --> 00:33:32.040
And to reach the greatest number,

571
00:33:32.040 --> 00:33:34.280
large enterprises set out to meet Americans

572
00:33:34.280 --> 00:33:37.053
where they most liked to be, at home.

573
00:33:42.660 --> 00:33:45.400
Until the 1950s, a traveling exhibition,

574
00:33:45.400 --> 00:33:49.250
promoting industrial engineering, crisscrossed America.

575
00:33:49.250 --> 00:33:51.717
General Motors\' \"Parade of Progress\".

576
00:33:53.000 --> 00:33:54.170
Hey, hold on there!

577
00:33:54.170 --> 00:33:55.940
It\'s absolutely free.

578
00:33:55.940 --> 00:33:57.783
Come see the big tent show.

579
00:33:59.520 --> 00:34:02.020
This device has a duel personality.

580
00:34:02.020 --> 00:34:05.180
It will actually freeze and fry at the same time.

581
00:34:05.180 --> 00:34:06.970
And even a telenews machine,

582
00:34:06.970 --> 00:34:10.620
to bring your daily paper right to your easy chair.

583
00:34:10.620 --> 00:34:11.710
Fantastic?

584
00:34:11.710 --> 00:34:12.543
Maybe.

585
00:34:15.380 --> 00:34:17.340
Through the \"Parade of Progress\",

586
00:34:17.340 --> 00:34:19.440
capitalism and the benefits of consumption

587
00:34:19.440 --> 00:34:21.040
were sold for over 20 years,

588
00:34:21.040 --> 00:34:24.123
as the foundations of the American dream.

589
00:34:27.070 --> 00:34:30.473
These people, who were engaged in these activities,

590
00:34:32.050 --> 00:34:33.653
played the long game.

591
00:34:34.920 --> 00:34:37.910
That is to say, even though many of them knew

592
00:34:38.800 --> 00:34:43.800
that they would not live to see their desires

593
00:34:44.360 --> 00:34:47.433
and their goals met, that didn\'t matter.

594
00:34:49.310 --> 00:34:53.293
They were willing to do it over generations.

595
00:35:00.890 --> 00:35:03.960
In 1939, it was the city of New York,

596
00:35:03.960 --> 00:35:07.700
which became the showcase of the American way of life.

597
00:35:07.700 --> 00:35:09.660
Our camera sweeps the horizon,

598
00:35:09.660 --> 00:35:11.580
turning in the direction of a new world

599
00:35:11.580 --> 00:35:13.680
that symbolizes man\'s dreams,

600
00:35:13.680 --> 00:35:16.530
prophecies, hopes, and aspirations.

601
00:35:16.530 --> 00:35:17.363
The New York World\'s Fair of--

602
00:35:17.363 --> 00:35:19.010
For the first time,

603
00:35:19.010 --> 00:35:20.700
the city hosted the World\'s Fair.

604
00:35:20.700 --> 00:35:21.940
Is the greatest show on Earth.

605
00:35:21.940 --> 00:35:24.700
The event was one of the biggest PR operations

606
00:35:24.700 --> 00:35:26.570
in industrial history.

607
00:35:26.570 --> 00:35:29.260
Come visitors from all over the world.

608
00:35:29.260 --> 00:35:30.313
But let us skim the surface--

609
00:35:30.313 --> 00:35:31.877
The director of public relations

610
00:35:31.877 --> 00:35:35.340
was none other than Edward Bernays.

611
00:35:35.340 --> 00:35:38.330
Bernays\'s role was, besides promoting it

612
00:35:38.330 --> 00:35:40.630
and talking about the different exhibits

613
00:35:40.630 --> 00:35:42.890
and getting companies to exhibit there,

614
00:35:42.890 --> 00:35:44.850
such as General Motors,

615
00:35:44.850 --> 00:35:47.270
which had been his client in the 30s,

616
00:35:47.270 --> 00:35:50.223
he called it Democracity.

617
00:35:51.790 --> 00:35:53.520
So, what he was trying to do then,

618
00:35:53.520 --> 00:35:58.520
was merge together democracy and capitalism, as one.

619
00:35:59.930 --> 00:36:03.640
You have all of these companies creating pavilions,

620
00:36:03.640 --> 00:36:05.560
which are not about the present,

621
00:36:05.560 --> 00:36:07.113
but are all about the future.

622
00:36:08.180 --> 00:36:10.000
And people love the future.

623
00:36:10.000 --> 00:36:13.520
Because the minute you start talking about the future,

624
00:36:13.520 --> 00:36:16.043
you can invent it any way you want.

625
00:36:22.960 --> 00:36:27.050
The World\'s Fair has a famous documentary,

626
00:36:27.050 --> 00:36:30.380
which is about a family in the Midwest.

627
00:36:30.380 --> 00:36:31.213
Hello, Mr. Middleton.

628
00:36:31.213 --> 00:36:32.046
How are you?

629
00:36:32.046 --> 00:36:33.180
Put \'er there, Jim.

630
00:36:33.180 --> 00:36:35.740
The son is a socialist.

631
00:36:35.740 --> 00:36:38.170
The daughter, who lives in New York,

632
00:36:38.170 --> 00:36:41.340
is having an affair with her art teacher, who\'s a communist.

633
00:36:41.340 --> 00:36:43.611
Isn\'t it wonderful, Nick?

634
00:36:43.611 --> 00:36:44.590
Beautiful.

635
00:36:44.590 --> 00:36:45.877
And so, it\'s a story called

636
00:36:45.877 --> 00:36:47.270
\"The Middletons Go to the Fair\",

637
00:36:47.270 --> 00:36:48.780
which takes them to the fair,

638
00:36:48.780 --> 00:36:51.500
and particularly to the Westinghouse exhibit,

639
00:36:51.500 --> 00:36:54.040
because Westinghouse Electric Company

640
00:36:54.040 --> 00:36:56.683
was the sponsor of the film.

641
00:37:03.820 --> 00:37:05.458
I guess we\'re a little early.

642
00:37:05.458 --> 00:37:06.380
What do you want to do?

643
00:37:06.380 --> 00:37:08.790
Anything but inspect this temple of capitalism.

644
00:37:08.790 --> 00:37:10.354
Oh, Nick.

645
00:37:10.354 --> 00:37:11.430
Look at them.

646
00:37:11.430 --> 00:37:13.140
Their eyes popping out of their heads.

647
00:37:13.140 --> 00:37:14.230
Drooling over the very things

648
00:37:14.230 --> 00:37:15.870
that are taking away their jobs.

649
00:37:15.870 --> 00:37:18.100
Now, Nick, don\'t get all excited.

650
00:37:18.100 --> 00:37:20.150
The grandmother sees all the wonders

651
00:37:20.150 --> 00:37:22.020
that are gonna be coming into the kitchen,

652
00:37:22.020 --> 00:37:24.850
and is convinced that the old way of life was nothing

653
00:37:24.850 --> 00:37:26.850
compared to what\'s gonna happen.

654
00:37:26.850 --> 00:37:28.820
It\'s a paradise!

655
00:37:28.820 --> 00:37:31.240
No one who hasn\'t cooked over a wood stove,

656
00:37:31.240 --> 00:37:33.150
by the light of kerosene lamp,

657
00:37:33.150 --> 00:37:35.898
can really appreciate what it all means.

658
00:37:35.898 --> 00:37:39.090
And everybody\'s gonna be having robots,

659
00:37:39.090 --> 00:37:41.320
you know, wash the dishes.

660
00:37:41.320 --> 00:37:43.010
And the good life is on its way.

661
00:37:43.010 --> 00:37:44.250
Just wait.

662
00:37:44.250 --> 00:37:45.260
The contest is over

663
00:37:45.260 --> 00:37:48.400
in exactly seven minutes and 58 seconds.

664
00:37:48.400 --> 00:37:50.800
In that time, Ms. Modern has washed 50 dishes

665
00:37:50.800 --> 00:37:52.700
and 40 pieces of silverware.

666
00:37:52.700 --> 00:37:54.150
As I.

667
00:37:54.150 --> 00:37:55.700
Well, it\'s all over Ms. Drudge.

668
00:37:55.700 --> 00:37:56.779
You may as well rest now.

669
00:37:59.070 --> 00:38:00.360
And so, ladies and gentlemen,

670
00:38:00.360 --> 00:38:02.373
I give you the winner, Ms. Modern.

671
00:38:04.920 --> 00:38:08.630
And it\'s all about how, in the process of going through

672
00:38:08.630 --> 00:38:12.440
the fun of the new industrial future,

673
00:38:12.440 --> 00:38:16.350
the kid abandons his anti-capitalist values

674
00:38:16.350 --> 00:38:17.733
and becomes a sort of,

675
00:38:19.374 --> 00:38:21.800
a drum major for the business system.

676
00:38:21.800 --> 00:38:23.630
Do you honestly believe that industry

677
00:38:23.630 --> 00:38:25.291
can make enough jobs, in the future,

678
00:38:25.291 --> 00:38:28.030
to take care of the young people that are coming along?

679
00:38:28.030 --> 00:38:30.670
I think the problem is going to be the other way around.

680
00:38:30.670 --> 00:38:32.290
Industry will make so many jobs,

681
00:38:32.290 --> 00:38:34.632
there won\'t be enough people to fill \'em.

682
00:38:34.632 --> 00:38:39.632
It left people, I think, without a vision of democracy,

683
00:38:41.210 --> 00:38:43.920
apart from a capitalist democracy.

684
00:39:00.400 --> 00:39:02.420
Omnipresent and effective,

685
00:39:02.420 --> 00:39:03.960
these PR campaigns, nonetheless,

686
00:39:03.960 --> 00:39:05.563
raised a number of questions.

687
00:39:06.700 --> 00:39:08.140
Some people openly denounced

688
00:39:08.140 --> 00:39:10.253
the manipulation of minds through PR.

689
00:39:11.210 --> 00:39:14.573
An accusation sometimes pointed directly at Edward Bernays.

690
00:39:16.750 --> 00:39:20.050
Modern science gives our opinion leaders

691
00:39:20.050 --> 00:39:24.450
weapons of mass impression, which can slay our minds.

692
00:39:24.450 --> 00:39:27.750
The responsibility for averting such disaster

693
00:39:27.750 --> 00:39:30.030
rests squarely on the shoulders of those

694
00:39:30.030 --> 00:39:32.723
who now undertake opinion leadership.

695
00:39:33.700 --> 00:39:35.470
Freedom of propaganda

696
00:39:35.470 --> 00:39:38.120
is as important to our democracy

697
00:39:38.120 --> 00:39:40.500
as our other civil liberties,

698
00:39:40.500 --> 00:39:43.370
freedom of religion, press, speech.

699
00:39:43.370 --> 00:39:45.580
The usefulness of propaganda

700
00:39:45.580 --> 00:39:49.220
makes it a vital asset to the democracy.

701
00:39:49.220 --> 00:39:52.100
Most people would have been outraged

702
00:39:52.100 --> 00:39:54.010
at that kind of charge and taken real offense.

703
00:39:54.010 --> 00:39:55.240
Eddie Bernays liked it.

704
00:39:55.240 --> 00:39:59.300
It was something suggesting he had real power

705
00:39:59.300 --> 00:40:01.210
in reshaping the way people thought,

706
00:40:01.210 --> 00:40:03.110
and Eddie Bernays thought that wasn\'t a bad thing.

707
00:40:03.110 --> 00:40:06.330
He thought also, and he deceived himself in lots of ways,

708
00:40:06.330 --> 00:40:07.620
by thinking that what he was doing

709
00:40:07.620 --> 00:40:09.610
was generally for the pubic good.

710
00:40:09.610 --> 00:40:13.910
Part of this system is a competitive battle,

711
00:40:13.910 --> 00:40:18.910
and part of that competitive battle is competing propaganda,

712
00:40:19.420 --> 00:40:23.270
competing advertising, competing for market,

713
00:40:23.270 --> 00:40:24.790
in the marketplace,

714
00:40:24.790 --> 00:40:28.663
that is based on a free and open competition.

715
00:40:29.530 --> 00:40:30.900
It\'s not free competition.

716
00:40:30.900 --> 00:40:32.620
It\'s a paid-for competition,

717
00:40:32.620 --> 00:40:33.990
and in that paid-for competition,

718
00:40:33.990 --> 00:40:35.950
the people with the most resources, the corporations,

719
00:40:35.950 --> 00:40:38.700
sometimes government, win, in every circumstance.

720
00:40:38.700 --> 00:40:40.770
They win, because they have the most resources.

721
00:40:40.770 --> 00:40:42.620
Doesn\'t mean they win in terms of outcomes,

722
00:40:42.620 --> 00:40:45.690
but they have the most advantages going into that struggle.

723
00:40:45.690 --> 00:40:48.840
And the ordinary person wanted to make their own propaganda,

724
00:40:48.840 --> 00:40:51.800
in free competition, is systematically outgunned

725
00:40:51.800 --> 00:40:54.890
and out-paid for by the big people.

726
00:40:54.890 --> 00:40:56.443
Okay.
Bernays.

727
00:40:56.443 --> 00:40:59.960
I--

728
00:40:59.960 --> 00:41:04.280
I happen to be a technician on propaganda,

729
00:41:04.280 --> 00:41:08.400
and I am not a person who can solve your difficulties,

730
00:41:08.400 --> 00:41:12.513
as to which ideology you prefer or don\'t prefer.

731
00:41:23.560 --> 00:41:25.710
The United States\' entry into World War II,

732
00:41:25.710 --> 00:41:29.690 line:15%
in 1941, suspended the debate on public relations.

733
00:41:29.690 --> 00:41:32.970 line:15%
In fact, there was a nationwide return to mass propaganda,

734
00:41:32.970 --> 00:41:34.790 line:15%
to support the war effort,

735
00:41:34.790 --> 00:41:36.490 line:15%
employing the exact same techniques,

736
00:41:36.490 --> 00:41:39.173 line:15%
invented by the Creel Commission, 20 years earlier.

737
00:41:40.320 --> 00:41:42.370
Bernays advised the U.S. government

738
00:41:42.370 --> 00:41:45.510
on how to use public relations and propaganda,

739
00:41:45.510 --> 00:41:48.230
but he never played quite the central role

740
00:41:48.230 --> 00:41:50.280
that he did during World War I.

741
00:41:50.280 --> 00:41:53.700
In part, because public relations and propaganda

742
00:41:53.700 --> 00:41:55.330
were much better understood by then,

743
00:41:55.330 --> 00:41:58.583
and the government had its own propaganda agencies.

744
00:42:01.090 --> 00:42:03.130
As for the major industrial companies,

745
00:42:03.130 --> 00:42:05.350
they saw the war as a wonderful PR tool,

746
00:42:05.350 --> 00:42:08.633
for relaunching their campaign on the American way of life.

747
00:42:12.150 --> 00:42:14.740
The advertisements are filled with pictures

748
00:42:14.740 --> 00:42:17.580
of what we will come home to after the war.

749
00:42:17.580 --> 00:42:20.675
Sometimes it\'s in a crystal ball,

750
00:42:20.675 --> 00:42:22.620
a tool for seeing the future.

751
00:42:22.620 --> 00:42:25.810
And it\'s a future which is filled with the bounty

752
00:42:25.810 --> 00:42:30.810
and abundance and commodification of your future,

753
00:42:32.110 --> 00:42:35.270
as soon as we\'ve gotten rid of this war.

754
00:42:35.270 --> 00:42:37.473
Immediately after the second World War,

755
00:42:37.473 --> 00:42:41.260
the business world launched an enormous offensive,

756
00:42:41.260 --> 00:42:44.518
to try to beat back the progressive elements

757
00:42:44.518 --> 00:42:45.733
of the New Deal.

758
00:42:55.380 --> 00:42:57.620
The offensive, backed by the PR industry

759
00:42:57.620 --> 00:43:01.240
and Edward Bernays himself, was justified by the resurfacing

760
00:43:01.240 --> 00:43:03.273
of workers\' demands after the war.

761
00:43:05.170 --> 00:43:08.760
In 1945 and 46, almost 10 million workers

762
00:43:08.760 --> 00:43:09.880
took to the streets,

763
00:43:09.880 --> 00:43:11.973
paralyzing a large part of the country.

764
00:43:14.270 --> 00:43:17.620
In reaction, leading industrialists used their influence,

765
00:43:17.620 --> 00:43:19.870
to have the new president, Harry Truman,

766
00:43:19.870 --> 00:43:22.217
push through a law, restricting the powers of the unions

767
00:43:22.217 --> 00:43:23.593
and the right to strike.

768
00:43:24.450 --> 00:43:27.090
They then called on PR agencies to paint protestors

769
00:43:27.090 --> 00:43:30.353
as citizens who are against true American values.

770
00:43:33.260 --> 00:43:36.640
In the 1950s, it was enormous effort,

771
00:43:36.640 --> 00:43:39.720
it\'s pretty well studied, incidentally, of the,

772
00:43:39.720 --> 00:43:43.820
to try to take over schools, universities,

773
00:43:43.820 --> 00:43:47.630
sports leagues, churches, factories,

774
00:43:47.630 --> 00:43:51.190
with forced sessions to teach people

775
00:43:51.190 --> 00:43:55.163
what was called it, Americanism, harmony,

776
00:43:56.770 --> 00:43:58.190
get the bad guys out.

777
00:43:58.190 --> 00:44:02.251
Anti-Communism was, of course, used for this purpose.

778
00:44:02.251 --> 00:44:03.864
Read all about it!

779
00:44:03.864 --> 00:44:05.987
Get your latest edition here!

780
00:44:09.904 --> 00:44:13.390
Communism controls 1/3 of the world\'s area.

781
00:44:13.390 --> 00:44:16.010
What are the facts behind the faces?

782
00:44:16.010 --> 00:44:20.230
The whole United States was afraid of,

783
00:44:20.230 --> 00:44:23.540
was afraid of nuclear war.

784
00:44:23.540 --> 00:44:26.850
I remember getting under the desk in school.

785
00:44:26.850 --> 00:44:28.540
We had to do that.

786
00:44:28.540 --> 00:44:29.990
Tony knows the bomb can explode

787
00:44:29.990 --> 00:44:31.090
any time of the year.

788
00:44:31.090 --> 00:44:33.580
Day or night, he is ready for it.

789
00:44:33.580 --> 00:44:35.310
Duck and cover!

790
00:44:35.310 --> 00:44:36.380
American society

791
00:44:36.380 --> 00:44:38.730
was overcome with acute paranoia.

792
00:44:38.730 --> 00:44:39.630
Duck and cover!

793
00:44:39.630 --> 00:44:40.630
People lived in fear

794
00:44:40.630 --> 00:44:42.360
of the Russians invading the country

795
00:44:42.360 --> 00:44:43.963
or sparking a nuclear war.

796
00:44:45.619 --> 00:44:46.930
Duck and cover!

797
00:44:50.420 --> 00:44:53.060
This national climate of distress and fear

798
00:44:53.060 --> 00:44:54.850
was used directly by PR experts,

799
00:44:54.850 --> 00:44:57.103
to defend strictly private interests.

800
00:45:02.810 --> 00:45:06.210
In the early 1950s, it was a small, peaceful country,

801
00:45:06.210 --> 00:45:07.800
which would embody, on it\'s own,

802
00:45:07.800 --> 00:45:10.513
the Communist enemy that needed to be shot down.

803
00:45:11.530 --> 00:45:14.970
On March 15th, 1951, Jacobo Arbenz

804
00:45:14.970 --> 00:45:17.633
was democratically elected President of Guatemala.

805
00:45:18.980 --> 00:45:20.260
One of his first decisions,

806
00:45:20.260 --> 00:45:22.990
was to nationalize and return for compensation,

807
00:45:22.990 --> 00:45:24.880
the country\'s uncultivated land,

808
00:45:24.880 --> 00:45:26.913
and to redistribute it to poor peasants.

809
00:45:28.470 --> 00:45:31.240
But 3/4 of this land belonged to one of the largest

810
00:45:31.240 --> 00:45:33.730
multi-nationals in the United States,

811
00:45:33.730 --> 00:45:34.980
the United Fruit Company.

812
00:45:41.669 --> 00:45:45.129
♪ I\'m Chiquita Banana and I\'ve come to say ♪

813
00:45:45.129 --> 00:45:47.865
♪ Bananas have to ripen in a certain way ♪

814
00:45:47.865 --> 00:45:49.182
♪ And when they\'re flecked with brown ♪

815
00:45:49.182 --> 00:45:51.092
♪ And have a golden hue ♪

816
00:45:51.092 --> 00:45:52.294
♪ Bananas taste the best ♪

817
00:45:52.294 --> 00:45:55.570
♪ And are the best for you ♪

818
00:45:55.570 --> 00:45:57.360
For the United Fruit Company,

819
00:45:57.360 --> 00:45:59.440
president Arbenz\'s agrarian reform

820
00:45:59.440 --> 00:46:01.703
posed a serious threat to its interests.

821
00:46:03.160 --> 00:46:05.940
A media-based counterattack was deemed necessary

822
00:46:05.940 --> 00:46:08.740
and was entrusted to one of the company\'s main advisors,

823
00:46:08.740 --> 00:46:09.743
Edward Bernays.

824
00:46:11.800 --> 00:46:15.060
Eddie Bernays, on behalf of United Fruit Company,

825
00:46:15.060 --> 00:46:17.780
managed to convince much of America

826
00:46:17.780 --> 00:46:20.220
and a big enough part of Guatemalans,

827
00:46:20.220 --> 00:46:23.580
that the leftest government, which was coming in

828
00:46:23.580 --> 00:46:27.480
and trying to reform archaic economic systems there,

829
00:46:27.480 --> 00:46:29.510
that that was a beachhead for the Soviet Union.

830
00:46:29.510 --> 00:46:30.930
And what Eddie Bernays did,

831
00:46:30.930 --> 00:46:34.140
was waged a campaign of psychological warfare,

832
00:46:34.140 --> 00:46:37.560
that was even more profound and much more effective,

833
00:46:37.560 --> 00:46:40.370
then the one he had waged on behalf of the U.S. government

834
00:46:40.370 --> 00:46:41.470
during World War I.

835
00:46:45.030 --> 00:46:45.863
Edward Bernays

836
00:46:45.863 --> 00:46:47.610
would define his propaganda campaign,

837
00:46:47.610 --> 00:46:52.250
with a term borrowed from World War I, the media blitz.

838
00:46:52.250 --> 00:46:54.070
A media blitz generally means

839
00:46:54.070 --> 00:46:56.910
that you\'re going to be on the phone, constantly,

840
00:46:56.910 --> 00:47:00.910
with different reporters, who are influential,

841
00:47:00.910 --> 00:47:05.910
and you\'re providing copy to them on a very regular basis.

842
00:47:07.050 --> 00:47:12.050
By creating his own news bureau and wire service,

843
00:47:12.350 --> 00:47:14.163
just to talk about Guatemala.

844
00:47:15.970 --> 00:47:16.980
Although the press office

845
00:47:16.980 --> 00:47:18.100
set up by Edward Bernays,

846
00:47:18.100 --> 00:47:20.860
was officially considered to be independent,

847
00:47:20.860 --> 00:47:24.333
it was, in reality, financed by the United Fruit Company.

848
00:47:26.610 --> 00:47:29.180
It spoonfed the press, the major part of its information,

849
00:47:29.180 --> 00:47:31.713
on the supposed Communist leanings of Guatemala.

850
00:47:32.940 --> 00:47:35.760
Edward Bernays organized free trips for reporters,

851
00:47:35.760 --> 00:47:36.883
to visit the country.

852
00:47:40.480 --> 00:47:44.423
That was effective, in the reporters carrying the stories.

853
00:47:48.690 --> 00:47:50.740
And a number of journalists who were involved with this

854
00:47:50.740 --> 00:47:55.540
told me, decades later, that they realized after the fact,

855
00:47:55.540 --> 00:47:57.920
unfortunately, most of them, not at the time,

856
00:47:57.920 --> 00:47:59.990
that they were being used and manipulated

857
00:47:59.990 --> 00:48:02.860
by Eddie Bernays on behalf of the United Fruit Company,

858
00:48:02.860 --> 00:48:06.000
and none of that was apparent to them at the time.

859
00:48:06.000 --> 00:48:07.380
Guatemala falls under

860
00:48:07.380 --> 00:48:09.880
a Communist-dominated regime.

861
00:48:09.880 --> 00:48:12.930
Following a reign of terror, manipulated by such Communists

862
00:48:12.930 --> 00:48:17.040
as the Argentinian, Che Guevara, who later goes to Cuba,

863
00:48:17.040 --> 00:48:19.700
the common people of this tiny nation rise up.

864
00:48:19.700 --> 00:48:21.910
Eddie Bernays, convincingly,

865
00:48:21.910 --> 00:48:26.240
made that part of this fear of the Soviets

866
00:48:26.240 --> 00:48:29.080
and fear of encroaching Communism,

867
00:48:29.080 --> 00:48:31.570
in a way that I don\'t think it really was,

868
00:48:31.570 --> 00:48:33.760
and in a way that helped convince the U.S. government

869
00:48:33.760 --> 00:48:36.503
that it had to step in and do something in Guatemala.

870
00:48:42.790 --> 00:48:45.350
On June 18th, 1954,

871
00:48:45.350 --> 00:48:46.930
president Arbenz was overthrown

872
00:48:46.930 --> 00:48:49.460
by the rebel forces of Castillo Armas,

873
00:48:49.460 --> 00:48:52.060
with the decisive backing of the CIA.

874
00:48:52.060 --> 00:48:54.770
His arrival in power marked the beginning of a civil war,

875
00:48:54.770 --> 00:48:56.520
which would last 40 years,

876
00:48:56.520 --> 00:48:59.593
and leave up to 200,000 people dead or missing.

877
00:49:00.800 --> 00:49:02.890
We know you like bananas.

878
00:49:02.890 --> 00:49:05.110
Edward Bernays\' propaganda campaign

879
00:49:05.110 --> 00:49:06.648
lasted three years.

880
00:49:11.524 --> 00:49:15.310
He helped undermine the legitimacy

881
00:49:15.310 --> 00:49:18.530
of the duly elected leftest government.

882
00:49:18.530 --> 00:49:19.500
And this was dangerous,

883
00:49:19.500 --> 00:49:22.210
not because of what it did only in Guatemala,

884
00:49:22.210 --> 00:49:24.640
but it set a pattern for the United States.

885
00:49:24.640 --> 00:49:26.860
Convincing us that it was okay

886
00:49:26.860 --> 00:49:29.460
and that we could actually achieve success,

887
00:49:29.460 --> 00:49:32.450
in a way that helped dictate American policy,

888
00:49:32.450 --> 00:49:34.300
failed policy, in Cuba,

889
00:49:34.300 --> 00:49:35.770
where we thought we could do the same thing

890
00:49:35.770 --> 00:49:39.270
to the Castro regime, and years later in Vietnam,

891
00:49:39.270 --> 00:49:41.220
where we thought we could do the same thing,

892
00:49:41.220 --> 00:49:44.460
in imposing a government that was friendly to us,

893
00:49:44.460 --> 00:49:45.510
in the South Vietnam.

894
00:49:52.530 --> 00:49:55.090
One year after the Guatemalan coup d\'etat,

895
00:49:55.090 --> 00:49:58.400
Edward Bernays published \"Engineering of Consent\",

896
00:49:58.400 --> 00:50:01.410
a theoretical and practical guide to public relations,

897
00:50:01.410 --> 00:50:02.913
aimed at the new generation.

898
00:50:06.710 --> 00:50:09.250
In 40 years, Edward Bernays succeeded

899
00:50:09.250 --> 00:50:12.890
in turning a concept of people governance into a reality,

900
00:50:12.890 --> 00:50:15.853
firmly routed in all spheres of society.

901
00:50:20.240 --> 00:50:23.630
In 1990, five years before his death,

902
00:50:23.630 --> 00:50:26.000
Life Magazine named Edward Bernays

903
00:50:26.000 --> 00:50:28.790
as one of the most influential Americans

904
00:50:28.790 --> 00:50:30.100
of the 20th century.

905
00:50:30.100 --> 00:50:31.343
There, you see.

906
00:50:33.580 --> 00:50:37.043
I don\'t think my father ever willingly told a lie.

907
00:50:38.450 --> 00:50:39.643
Maybe he did.

908
00:50:40.870 --> 00:50:45.870
But truth is made up of a whole lot of different elements,

909
00:50:49.180 --> 00:50:53.253
and you can\'t separate one out.

910
00:50:54.820 --> 00:50:59.820
When you have people who view their role,

911
00:51:01.530 --> 00:51:05.983
as Bernays put it, as being an engineer of consent,

912
00:51:07.970 --> 00:51:11.860
then democracy becomes a sham.

913
00:51:11.860 --> 00:51:13.480
So, that\'s not just a question of arguments

914
00:51:13.480 --> 00:51:16.270
and winning hearts and minds, it\'s about changing society.

915
00:51:16.270 --> 00:51:19.050
And that\'s what propaganda was about, originally,

916
00:51:19.050 --> 00:51:20.590
and that\'s what public relations is about now.

917
00:51:20.590 --> 00:51:22.580
It\'s about enforcing a particular set

918
00:51:22.580 --> 00:51:25.150
of agendas and interests, by those who use it.

919
00:51:25.150 --> 00:51:27.670
And those who use it, overwhelmingly,

920
00:51:27.670 --> 00:51:29.250
are powerful interests in society.

921
00:51:29.250 --> 00:51:32.200
Big business, predominantly, but also government.

922
00:51:32.200 --> 00:51:34.323
One of the goals that we serve is are,

923
00:51:35.430 --> 00:51:37.183
are we working for a client?

924
00:51:38.570 --> 00:51:41.533
And if that client is not the people,

925
00:51:42.710 --> 00:51:46.350
the population at large, then we have a problem,

926
00:51:46.350 --> 00:51:49.910
because that means that private interests,

927
00:51:49.910 --> 00:51:54.910
are small numbers of people, are shaping public fictions,

928
00:51:56.240 --> 00:51:59.460
and investing them with a sense of private urgency,

929
00:51:59.460 --> 00:52:04.460
which allows them to fuck with our heads.