Foreign Propaganda, Perceptions & Policy

It's time for us to re-learn what foreign disinformation and propaganda are about

The words “disinformation” and “propaganda” have become so misused that they’re often meaningless. Which is a shame, because disinformation and propaganda are all around us, and most of the public - and most in our central government - no longer really understand what it is. And what it is not.

Long ago, my old mentor and friend Herb Romerstein and I co-taught a graduate course at the Institute of World Politics called “Foreign Propaganda, Perceptions, and Policy.” It proved to be a popular course.

Herb, who was a full generation older than me, brought his unparalleled knowledge of propaganda from the view of the perpetrator (he had been a Communist Party member back in the 1950s) and the target. He had been a professional staff member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and stayed friends when he went to direct the Office to Counter Soviet Active Measures at the U.S. Information Agency. He was the United States’ top fighter against Soviet active measures.

The purpose of the course was to teach graduate students, most of whom were either in government or planned to be, about how to recognize and counter foreign disinformation and propaganda. It was NOT how to create disinformation and propaganda.