Only weeks after the D-Day invasion of June 6, 1944, a surprising
cargo--crates of books--joined the flood of troop reinforcements,
weapons and ammunition, food, and medicine onto Normandy beaches. The
books were destined for French bookshops, to be followed by millions
more American books (in translation but also in English) ultimately
distributed throughout Europe and the rest of the world. The British
were doing similar work, which was uneasily coordinated with that of the
Americans within the Psychological Warfare Division of General
Eisenhower's Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force, under
General Eisenhower's command.
Books As Weapons tells the little-known story of the vital partnership
between American book publishers and the U.S. government to put
carefully selected recent books highlighting American history and values
into the hands of civilians liberated from Axis forces. The government
desired to use books to help "disintoxicate" the minds of these people
from the Nazi and Japanese propaganda and censorship machines and to win
their friendship. This objective dovetailed perfectly with U.S.
publishers' ambitions to find new profits in international markets,
which had been dominated by Britain, France, and Germany before their
book trades were devastated by the war. Key figures on both the trade
and government sides of the program considered books "the most enduring
propaganda of all" and thus effective "weapons in the war of ideas,"
both during the war and afterward, when the Soviet Union flexed its
military might and demonstrated its propaganda savvy. Seldom have books
been charged with greater responsibility or imbued with more
significance.
John B. Hench leavens this fully international account of the programs
with fascinating vignettes set in the war rooms of Washington and
London, publishers' offices throughout the world, and the jeeps in which
information officers drove over bomb-rutted roads to bring the books to
people who were hungering for them. Books as Weapons provides context
for continuing debates about the relationship between government and
private enterprise and the image of the United States abroad.
