British propaganda during World War I, particularly the exaggerated Belgian atrocity stories, became a model for future propaganda efforts, including those of Nazi Germany.
The American media, especially the Times, Herald Tribune, and Henry Luce’s magazines, acted as volunteer propagandists for the interventionist agenda during the Cold War, employing calculated deceptions and censorship.
Hollywood was subtly infiltrated by British propagandists during World War II, permeating American culture and manufacturing consent for foreign intervention.
Classical liberals like Richard Cobden and Frederick Bastiat opposed standing armies and war, viewing them as destructive to freedom and economic progress.
Herbert Spencer, influential in the US, considered warfare retrograde and attributed wars to the uncurbed ambition of the aristocracy seeking taxes and tariffs.
Ludvig von Mises directly contradicted Heracitus, stating that “peace, not war, is the father of all things.”
Ralph Reiko of the Mises Institute endorsed historical revisionism as crucial for countering state war propaganda and foreign policy claims.
William Graham Sumner warned in 1899 that the US had abandoned laissez-faire liberalism for empire, leading to war, debt, taxation, and lavish expenditures.
The US government’s first propaganda agency, the Committee on Public Information, was established in 1917 to promote American involvement in World War I through nationwide repression and censorship.
The Truman administration’s campaigns for an international presence relied heavily on media cooperation to succeed in launching a global interventionist agenda.
