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The Conflict Within: Sir Stephen Tallents and Planning Propaganda Overseas Before the Second World War*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 July 2014

C. Robert Cole
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Extract

Propaganda overseas was vital to Britain in the Second World War. She could not easily confront her enemies alone and survive, much less win. It was imperative to keep her allies united, her empire and the commonwealth loyal, and neutrals benevolent—or perhaps, even, to get them committed to her side. These were the objectives of British propaganda overseas in war time. Despite foreign-office objections, the Committee of Imperial Defense (CID) in the mid-1930s gave responsibility for this work to the Ministry of Information (MOI), which was to be established on the outbreak of war. Meanwhile, ministry machinery had to be planned, and the policies which would govern its work had to be determined. These responsibilities were given in 1936 to Sir Stephen Tallents, public relations controller for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and Britain's leading expert on advertising publicity. Yet, neither the machinery nor a policy was ready when the war began in September 1939. The ministry and the country, as Phillip M. Taylor has indicated, was inarticulate, if not quite speechless, at the start of the “war of words.” Britain was able only to conduct propaganda to enemy countries, because plans for that work earlier had been removed from MOI control.

Conflicts in the planning process created this situation in which two factors stand out. MOI planners were hampered at the start by departmental and personal feuding, which was permitted because no war emergency existed, and, after 1937, by the adherents of appeasement policy who dominated Whitehall. Stephen Tallents stood on the firing line most visibly as the government, led by an economy-minded treasury, discouraged planning any propaganda machinery for war time which might even hint at serious propaganda deployment in peace time.

Type
Research Article
Information
Albion , Volume 14 , Issue 1 , Spring 1982 , pp. 50 - 71
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference on British Studies 1982

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Footnotes

*

A version of this article was presented to the Rocky Mountain Conference on British Studies on October 10, 1980.

References

1 Taylor, Philip M., “‘If War Should Come:’ Preparing the Fifth Arm for Total War,” The Journal of Contemporary History 16 (1981): 48.Google Scholar

2 Scholarship on MOI planning for propaganda overseas is limited to Cruickshank, Charles, The Fourth Arm: Psychological Warfare, 1938-1945 (London, 1977)Google Scholar, McLaine, Ian, Ministry of Morale (London, 1979)Google Scholar, Balfour, Michael, Propaganda in War, 1939-1945 (London, 1979)Google Scholar, and Philip M. Taylor, “If War Should Come,” and idem., The Projection of Britain, (Cambridge, 1981). Except for Taylor's these works only touch on the problem in passing, and only in the context of later ministry failures. Taylor is better, but having not seen the Tallents papers suffers from looking at everything through foreign-office eyes. In fact, Sir Stephen Tallents's views and Whitehall's attitudes towards them, were the central issues in the planning conflict, especially after Munich when controversy over Ministry of Information planning centered on getting Tallents out of the picture. Also, Taylor inadequately discusses the influence of appeasement on propaganda planning.

3 Committee of Imperial Defense (CID) Minutes, May 17, 1934, CAB 21/415, Public Record Office (PRO), London.

4 Sir Herbert Samuel, to the CID, June 5, 1935, Ibid. Two days later Samuel was replaced as home secretary by Sir John Simon. There is no apparent connection with his disagreement over propaganda arrangements.

5 C. Howard Smith to Sir Robert Vansittart, September 18, 1935, FO 371/19626 W8843/263/50, PRO. The War Book was a device created by CID chairman Sir Maurice Han-key for updating preparations for meeting a war emergency.

6 CID Minutes, October 12, 1923, FO 371/9405 W8762/293/50 PRO. Foreign-office hostility to the MOI is further illuminated by this early CID ruling. Foreign-office recommendations on the MOI were set aside in 1935, as if they had not been made.

7 Smith to Sir Maurice Hankey, September 23, 1935, FO 371/19626 W8843/263/50, PRO.

8 CID Minutes, October 14, 1935, CAB 2/6; Prime Minister to the CID, October 18, 1935, CAB 16/127, PRO.

9 C.P. Robertson, “Memorandum on Propaganda in the First World War,” September 1935, Ibid. In “If War Should Come” (pp. 32-33, 35-36) Philip M. Taylor discussed this meeting, drew some wrong conclusions and got some facts wrong in the bargain. He claimed that the air ministry through Robertson “took the initiative” in stumping for an MOI. Actually, Robertson's wartime propaganda work inspired his memorandum and the MIC use of it; it was incidental that he was air-ministry press attaché. Taylor is influenced too much by air-ministry support later for MOI plans for leaflet deployment. Also, Taylor confused Leeper, Gaselee, and Vansittart, and the MIC and MIC subcommittee under Leeper. Warren Fisher clearly understood that Gaselee expressed Vansittart's views, and not merely his own. It was Vansittart whom Fisher called “narrow and parochial,” not Leeper as Taylor says. In The Projection of Britain, Taylor corrected himself on Robertson, but incorrectly gives Leeper credit for speaking on Vansittart's behalf.

10 Ministry of Information Committee (MIC) Minutes, October 31,1935, CAB 16/128, PRO.

11 Reginald (Rex) Leeper, Memorandum on propaganda, MIC Planning Subcommittee, Annex B. November7, 1935, Ibid.

12 MIC Planning Subcommittee Minutes, November 7,1935, Ibid.

13 First Draft of the MIC Planning Subcommittee Report, July 3, 1936, CAB 16/128, PRO. These provisions were included in the final draft of July 27,1936.

14 CID Minutes, July 30, 1936, CAB 2/6, PRO; Sir Warren Fisher to Sir John Reith, October 27, 1936, Tallents Paper (TP) in possession of Tallents's son, T.W. Tallents.

15 See SirTallents, Stephen, Man and Boy (London, 1943)Google Scholar; DNB, 1941-1950, col. 952.

16 Leeper to Sir Stephen Tallents, November 23, 1937, INF 1/442, PRO.

17 Tallents to Leeper, November 30, 1937; Tallents to G.C. North, December 14, 1937, Ibid.

18 Sir Alexander Cadogan to Sir James Rae, March 22, 1938, FO 395/618A, PRO.

19 Dilks, David, ed., The Diaries of Sir Alexander Cadogan, 1938-1945 (London, 1941), p. 358Google Scholar. Cadogan “blasted” the British Council in 1940, but indications are that he felt the same in 1938. Certainly, at that time he found Leeper most trying.

20 Balfour, , Propaganda in War, pp. 88–89Google Scholar. These broadcasts were in response to Italian anti-British broadcasts in Arabic, which had begun in 1937.

21 W.P. Hildredto Leeper, February 4,1938, F0395/618A, PRO.

22 First Report of the Ministry of Information (MOI) Planning Subcommittee, February 28, 1938, INF 1/1, PRO.

23 Ibid.

24 Sir Horace Wilson to Neville Chamberlain, January 19, 1938, PREM 1.272, PRO.

25 MIC Minutes, March 18, 1938, CAB 16/127, PRO.

26 DNB, 1951-1960, p. 1106.

27 Dilles, , Diaries of Cadogen, January 21, 1938, p. 34Google Scholar; February 16, 1938, pp. 47-48.

28 Anthony Eden to Chamberlain, January 18, 1938, PREM 1/272, PRO; Dilks, , Diaries of Cadogan, January 10, 1938, p. 34.Google Scholar

29 Wilson to Chamberlain, January 19, 1938, PREM 1/272. PRO.

30 Sir Nevile Henderson to Joachim von Ribbentrop, March 4, 1938, FO 371/21711, PRO.

31 Report of the Vansittart Committee on Overseas Publicity, May 28, 1938, PREM 1/272, PRO.

32 Chamberlain, Minutes of the Vansittart Committee Report, May 29, 1938, Ibid.

33 SirHale, Edward, “Report on the Vansittart Committee Report,” July 2, 1938Google Scholar, Ibid. This statement seems too precise to support Cruickshank's contention that it was Vansittart's style alone which turned the treasury against the report (The Fourth Arm, p. 11 ). Taylor also did not go far enough when he suggested that the treasury was merely burying its head in the sand (“If War Should Come,” p. 48). The treasury was fully and certainly determined to prevent any interference with the working of appeasement, a fact Taylor recognizes in The Projection of Britain, p. 242.

34 Tallents, Memorandum on the Collecting and Publicity Divisions, May 1938, TP.

35 Leeper to Tallents, May 26, 1938, INF 1/715; F.P. Robinson to Leeper, July 18, 1938, FO 395/618B, PRO; Sir Robert Vansittart to Sir Warren Fisher, July 15, 1938, TP; Sir James Rae to Vansittart, August 2, 1938, FO 395/618B, PRO.

36 Tallents to Cadogan, August 2, 1938, FO 395/618B, PRO.

37 Ibid.

38 CF. Warner to Cadogan, August 24, 1938, TP.

39 E.E. Bridges to Wilson, September 2, 1938, PREM 1/388, PRO.

40 Tallents, Notes from September 1938, TP.

41 Warner, Notes on Meeting with Leeper and Tallents, September 25, 1938, FO 395/618B; Notes on Meeting, Tallents, Leeper, Sir Hughe Knatchbull-Huggessen and Wing-Commander A.L. Fiddament, September 27, 1938, FO 898/1, PRO./

42 Warner, Notes on Meeting with Leeper and Tallents, September 25, 1938, FO 395/618B, PRO.

43 Leeper to Tallents, October 6, 1938, Ibid.

44 Tallents to Leeper, October 11, 1938; Leeper to Tallents, October 14, 1938, Ibid.

45 Cadogan, quoted in Knatchbull-Hugessen to Tallents, September 27, 1938, FO 809/1, PRO.

46 “The British Council and the Maintenance of British Influence Abroad,” September 1938, CAB 16/130. Authorship is not specified, but it surely was produced by Lord Lloyd and Leeper. It expressed Leeper's view perfectly; Leeper to Cadogan, September 30, 1938, FO 800/396, PRO.

47 Leeper to Cadogan, October 10, Ibid.

48 Byron, Robert, “The Dissemination of Ideas Among the German People to Weaken their Fighting Powers in War,” September 19, 1938Google Scholar, CAB 16/127, PRO.

49 Tallents to Sir Donald Banks, October 4, 1938, FO 898/1, PRO.

50 Banks to Tallents, October 6, 1938, Ibid.; Lord Stanhope to Tallents, October 6, 1938, TP.

51 Tallents, Private Notes, October 28, 1938, Ibid.

52 Wilson to Fisher, October 20, 1938, PREM 1/388, PRO.

53 Tallents, , “Ministry of Information: Information to Enemy Countries,” November 7, 1938, TP.Google Scholar

54 Air Vice-Marshal R.E.C. Pierce to the MIC, November 28, 1938, CAB 16/127, PRO; Lord Macmillan to Tallents, November 22, 1938, TP.

55 Leeper, Memorandum to the Central Department, the Foreign Office, November 14, 1938, FO 395/618B, PRO.

56 Leeper to Gladwyn Jebb, November 30, 1938, PRO.

57 Wilson, Memorandum, December 2, 1938, PREM 1/388, PRO.

58 Tallents to Lord Macmillan, November 24, 1938, TP.

59 Sir Frederick Ogilvie to Fisher, November 22, 1938, Ibid.

60 Fisher to Ogilvie, November 24, 1938, Ibid.

61 Tallents, Notes on Interview with Rae, December 5, 1938, Ibid.

62 Rae, Notes on Interview with Tallents, December 5, 1938, PREM 1/388, PRO.

63 Tallents, Notes on Interview with Rae, December 5, 1938, TP; Rae, Notes on Interview with Tallents, December 5, 1938, PREM 1/388, PRO.

64 Tallents, Private Notes, December 8-10, 1938, TP.

65 Leeper to C.N. Ryan, December 7, 1938, CAB 16/127, PRO.

66 Ryan to Leeper, December 12, 1938, FO 395/618B, PRO.

67 MIC Minutes, December 14, 1938, CAB 16/127, PRO.

68 Tallents, Notes on MIC Meeting, December 14, 1938, TP.

69 Tallents to Rae, December 21, 1938, Ibid.

70 Tallents to Fisher, December 21, 1938, Ibid.

71 Ibid.

72 Tallents, Notes on Interview with Rae, December 22, 1938, Ibid.

73 Rae to Tallents, January 2, 1938, Ibid.

74 Tallents, Notes on Interview with Rae, January 5, 1939, Ibid.

75 Reith to Tallents, October 8, 1947, Ibid.

76 Tallents, Man and Boy, p. 164.

77 Dilks, , Dianes of Cadogan, January 10, 1938, p. 34.Google Scholar

78 Cruickshank, (The Fourth Arm, p. 177)Google Scholar, concludes that the foreign office was concerned more with building an empire for itself than with the national interest.

79 Taylor, , “If War Should Come,” p. 48Google Scholar. He did not alter this conclusion in The Projection of Britain, p. 290.

80 Ibid., p. 15. Taylor notes that the treasury economic arguments againset propaganda had been going on since early in the post World War I.