ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Uncovering the metaphysics of psychological warfare: The social science behind the Psychological Strategy Board's operations planning, 1951–1953
Gabrielle Kemmis,
Corresponding Author
Gabrielle Kemmis
Australian Centre of Public History, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, School of Communication, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia
Correspondence Gabrielle Kemmis, Australian Centre of Public History, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, School of Communication, University of Technology, Sydney, Broadway NSW 2007, Australia.
Email: Gabrielle.Kemmis@uts.edu.au
Search for more papers by this authorGabrielle Kemmis,
Corresponding Author
Gabrielle Kemmis
Australian Centre of Public History, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, School of Communication, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia
Correspondence Gabrielle Kemmis, Australian Centre of Public History, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, School of Communication, University of Technology, Sydney, Broadway NSW 2007, Australia.
Email: Gabrielle.Kemmis@uts.edu.au
Search for more papers by this authorAbstract
In April 1951 president Harry S. Truman established the Psychological Strategy Board to enhance and streamline America's sprawling psychological warfare campaign against the USSR. As soon as the Board's staff began work on improving US psychological operations, they wondered how social science might help them achieve their task. Board Director, Gordon Gray, asked physicist turned research administrator Henry Loomis to do a full review of America's social science research program in support of psychological operations. Loomis willingly accepted the task. This paper documents Loomis's investigation into America's social science research program. It uncovers the critical role that government departments had in the creation of research in the early 1950s and thus highlights that the government official is an important actor in the history of social science and the application of social science to psychological operations at the beginning of the Cold War.
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