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a kind of cold war. We didn't have that name for it at that time, though. But that propaganda was a form of warfare became clear.
We went on with this committee from the spring through the summer of 1941, I think. Theoretically Ickes and McCloy were putting together what we discussed into a recommendation for the President. The idea was to make a recommendation for ways to overcome this. And then, all of a sudden, we never met again. There either had been a leak and the President said, “Oh, cut it out,” or it wasn't possible to accomplish anything in that kind of a committee, which is what I really think.
As time went on I thought to myself, “This is nothing that a committee can do. If anything is to be done in the way of counter propaganda, the cards have got to be held very close to somebody.” Whereas a large committee, representing different points of view and different experiences is a fine, democratic institution for doing perfectly open things, it's nothing for carrying on secret operations. I remember thinking that and even on one occasion saying it in a committee meeting. I said that it seemed to me that we were approaching a series of recommendations for counter-propaganda, which, if they were to be of any value at all, ought not to be known to
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