Anthony Leviero, who summarized American PsyWar in The New York Times in a series of articles between 9 December and 14 December 1951, is both an experienced general staff officer and a first-class newspaper man. His comment in 1953 on the new Operations Coordinating Board was encouraging or ominous. He stated in his Times dispatch of 4 September 1953 that the William Jackson committee had found that "psychological warfare did not exist as such." If this meant that the new OCB was to sweep aside the limitations of top-secret pedantic definitions and move toward a refreshingly concrete manipulation of the world scene, the news was encouraging indeed. If the new Board was, however, to be dedicated to the manufacture of new, complicated and secret definitions of its own, the news was bad. Given the time-lag on the declassification of Government materials, it may be twenty-five years, or 1978, before the precise definitions of 1953 are available to the public. The tendency of the Board to succeed or to fail will be evident by the time this material is in print; given the personalities involved, the prognosis appeared optimistic. |