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Every day, millions of
messages invade our screens.

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Their aim: to direct our choices in
purchasing, voting or adhering to an idea.

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They are omnipresent and shape
our vision of the world.

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They rely on persuasion techniques invented
a century ago in the United States.

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They were developed in less than 50
years by a small group of thinkers

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in order to control the masses.

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To impose their power,
authoritarian regimes used force;

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Western democracies
invented public relations.

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One of the group's leading
theoreticians was Edward Bernays.

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Public relations embraces

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what I call the
engineering of consent

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based on Thomas
Jefferson’s principles :

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that in a democratic society

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everything depends on the
consent of the people.

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On April 6th 1917, the United
States declared war on Germany.

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Within weeks, huge numbers of Americans
had enlisted in the military.

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Their president, Woodrow Wilson,

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had convinced them to shed blood
in the defense of democracy.

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And yet, one year earlier,

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this same president had
promised Americans

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they would not enter
into World War One.

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When the President of
the United States,

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Woodrow Wilson ran
for office in 1916,

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he ran under the slogan,
"He kept us out of war. "

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There was this idea that this
war was a European matter,

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it had nothing to do with
American democracy, so to speak.

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So, as the United States began to
prepare to enter into the war,

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there was a big problem.

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The debate within the
Wilson White House was:

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how do we control the masses
in order to prosecute the war?

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Wilson wanted to impose
his choices by force,

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but inside the White House, others
advocated a different solution.

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Several Wilson advisers argued:

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We can create a system
through the government

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of mass propaganda

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that will in essence
seduces the masses

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into supporting the war effort.

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We need to build up an
armament of the mind.

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We need to build up a machinery

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that will sell the war to the American
people, that will advertise the war.

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A huge propaganda
campaign was deployed,

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based on the codes of the advertising
and entertainment industries.

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The biggest stars of the day,

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like Charlie Chaplin
and Douglas Fairbanks,

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were called on to
stir up the crowds.

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Thousands of other influential
people were specially selected

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to carry the government's
message across the country.

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Businessmen, ministers,

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other people who were respected
authorities within a local area

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would get up and give a
speech on behalf of the war.

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Before the movie starts some man

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just almost spontaneously
gets up and

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gives a 4-minute talk about
why we should go to war.

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To orchestrate this
immense machine,

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Wilson set up a
special department:

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the Creel Commission.

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It was made up of the
professionals of the PR world:

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journalists, admen
and press agents...

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Among them was a young man of 26

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who had already earned a solid
reputation as a press agent

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in the entertainment business.

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His name: Edward Bernays.

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Along with most members
of the commission,

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he shared a vision of the crowd

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which was widespread among the leaders
of the major Western democracies.

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It rested on theories expanded
on barely 20 years earlier

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by the French polymath
Gustave le Bon

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whose book, The Crowd, a
Study of the Popular mind,

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established the ground-rules
of crowd psychology.

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It basically makes an argument

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that these people are incapable
of rational thought,

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they're incapable of being
approached and reasoned with.

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They have become microbes.

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They are driven, they
become like a virus.

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Animals driven by
their spinal cord.

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He lays out an
anatomy of the crowd

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as a group of people who
can't understand reason.

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And since reason has
no effect on crowds,

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governments appealed to their
instincts and emotions.

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It very quickly moves to using
psychological approaches

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that try to bypass, in
fact, critical thought

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and touch people in the gut.

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Well, the war demonized
the German hun.

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And that’s how you
got the stories of…

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the fictitious stories of all

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the bayoneting babies in Belgium
and all this kind of stuff.

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A lot of it has to do
with using symbols

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that are very powerful
and deeply ingrained,

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which in many ways degrade

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the meaning of what's
actually being said

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and instead promote and focus
on the level of feeling.

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It succeeded in converting
a pacifist public

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into raving anti-German fanatics

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The Boston Symphony Orchestra

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couldn’t play Beethoven
for example because

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we don’t want to touch
this hideous monstrosity.

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And the Creel Commission
was very effective.

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In less than a year,

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the Creel Commission managed
to turn public opinion around,

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without the use of force and without
changing the system of governance.

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For the great
captains of industry,

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like the Rockefellers, the
Carnegies and the JP Morgans,

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the success of these propaganda
methods opened up perspectives

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which came at just
the right moment.

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Since the late 19th century,

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a succession of strikes,

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protests and riots had been
rocking the whole country.

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The rise of industrial capitalism,
not just in the United States,

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but throughout the
industrializing world,

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caused a level of immiseration.

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In the coal fields and
the industrial plants,

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the steel mills lived a
little better than serfs.

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Unions were broken and outlawed…

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So, it was a real
battle between…

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let’s call the masses
and the oligarchs.

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People who were at the top
of these corporations

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were regarded as simply as robbing
the rest of society of the resources

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by accumulating profits for
themselves as personal wealth.

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In 1914,

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the situation had
reached crisis point.

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Rockefeller was suspected of being
responsible for the massacre of 66 strikers

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at one of his coal
mine in Ludlow

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and narrowly escaped an assassination
attempt carried out by an anarchist.

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The corporate sector
were totally freaked out

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about the possibility of their
world being taken over.

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They saw the Creel
Commission's methods

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as ideal solutions for putting
an end to social demands.

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If it was possible to convince Americans
to wholeheartedly back the war effort

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without questioning the
principles of democracy,

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it would clearly be possible to persuade
the working classes to adhere to a system

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they had until then
always rejected:

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capitalism.

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After experiencing

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this world situation

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and recognizing the importance
of ideas as weapons,

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I decided to see whether
we could not apply

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what I had learned in the
war to peace time pursuits.

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In 1919,

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Edward Bernays opened his
first office in New York,

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one of the country's
main seats of power.

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To define his role for his future
clients, he styled himself

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as a "Public Relations Counsel".

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Propaganda came to have a bad name so
they invented other terms for it and

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Edward BERNAYS was
very clear about that,

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he took credit himself

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for coming up with the term
Public Relations counsel

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in order to give

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what was propaganda a new lease of life
by calling it something different.

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And that's the time-honoured technique
of Public Relations of propaganda,

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if something is unpopular

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just call it something else
so then no one will know.

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Edward Bernays was influenced

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by one of the most renowned
American intellectuals of the day,

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journalist and author,
Walter Lippmann.

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This former advisor to Woodrow
Wilson saw propaganda

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as the only true tool for
controlling the crowd;

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a theory to which he
consecrated a book

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which would revolutionize the
principles of democratic governance:

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"Public Opinion".

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The responsible
men, which is us,

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have to take charge and

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we have to be

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protected from the trampling and
the roar of the bewildered herd.

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We can’t do it by force,

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the best way to do it is by what
Lippmann called "Manufacture of Consent"

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a new art and the
practice of democracy.

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And what he means is
that skilful propaganda

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can, in essence, get the masses

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to support policies that are
against their own interests…

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These new specialists
in public relations -

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most of them former members
of the Creel Commission -

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were hired by the biggest
companies of the day.

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Their mission:

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to convince public opinion that the
prosperity of private enterprises

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would benefit the
entire population.

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To do so,

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a radical change was required:

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turn the citizen
into a consumer.

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Buying should no longer be a
question of necessity but of desire.

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We were going crazy
as an economy

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and we were building
big companies

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and we were trying to
bring the public along

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to buy all the
things that these –

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the products these companies
were anxious to produce.

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Business needed to sell
itself to the people

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and also to sell the
idea that business,

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rather than socialism, will
provide the good life.

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Edward Bernays would become
an expert on the subject.

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One of his first
successes was a campaign

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carried out for the
Beech-nut Packing Company,

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the famous producer of bacon.

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They wanted to be the biggest
bacon maker in America.

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And the normal way a company
would have done that

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was to go out and
compete and say

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we have a better bacon than the
other competing bacon makers.

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Eddie Bernays said that’s
not the way to do it.

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We want to enlarge the
market for everybody.

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Edward Bernays would
rely on a concept

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which had brought success
to the Creel Commission:

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opinion leadership.

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He decided to use the
powerful influence

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of one of the most respected
professions in society:

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doctors.

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And so, he went out and
had a survey commissioned

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asking lots of doctors
and other trusted people

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in the field of
nutrition and health,

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"Do you think that the notion of an all
of a hearty breakfast is a useful thing?

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Should we be eating what he
called a hearty breakfast?"

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The study concluded that a hearty
breakfast was good for the health.

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Edward Bernays sent the result to
4000 doctors across the country.

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Unwittingly, they would pass
on to their patients a message

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whose purpose was
purely commercial.

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If you don’t like bacon

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and you’re interested
in your health,

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and 4000 doctors say

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“you better eat
bacon”, you’ll do it.

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Mmmm!

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Bacon and eggs, and
buttered toast.

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There’s nothing like a good healthy
breakfast to start the day off right.

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And a meal like this
should satisfy anyone.

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You have to learn that
food has a lot to do

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with the way you look
and the way you feel.

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The American breakfast
became an institution,

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a cultural reference that would
enjoy a long and healthy life!

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A breakfast without
bacon and eggs

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is like, I don't know,

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a dog without a bone.

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The idea of following a trusted leader,
taking advice from an authority figure,

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is the foundation of everything
that we do in public relations.

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In a repeated national survey,

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doctors and all
branches of medicines,

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doctors in all parts of
the country were asked :

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What cigarette do
you smoke Doctor?

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Scientific backing,
given by doctors,

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became a PR tool much
used by advertisers...

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...going as far as
promoting the cigarette

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as a product for
health and well-being.

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"The cigarette so
many doctors enjoy."

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Edward Bernays was constantly on
the lookout for innovative tools

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to improve his
powers of persuasion.

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He was particularly drawn
to psychoanalysis.

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So much so that he
oversaw the translation

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of the first works of the father
of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud

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into English.

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But the bond between them was
more than strictly professional:

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Edward Bernays was the double
nephew of Sigmund Freud!

247
00:17:00,226 --> 00:17:02,932
Bernays had a very close
relationship both

248
00:17:03,125 --> 00:17:08,131
familial and also emotional
relationship with Sigmund Freud.

249
00:17:08,914 --> 00:17:11,400
Bernays'mother was
Sigmund Freud's sister.

250
00:17:11,769 --> 00:17:15,341
Bernays' father's sister was
married to Sigmund Freud.

251
00:17:15,570 --> 00:17:20,549
So there's a lot of genetic material
from Freud inside of Bernays.

252
00:17:22,950 --> 00:17:24,723
And as a child

253
00:17:24,943 --> 00:17:27,599
he would sit at the dinner
table night after night

254
00:17:27,623 --> 00:17:29,645
while his parents
would be talking about

255
00:17:30,300 --> 00:17:31,365
Uncle Siggy

256
00:17:32,298 --> 00:17:38,114
Well, I heard about my uncle’s
theory of dream interpretation,

257
00:17:38,611 --> 00:17:43,704
I heard about psychology
as being an important force

258
00:17:44,168 --> 00:17:46,655
in evaluating
human behaviour.

259
00:17:47,263 --> 00:17:53,083
I heard of repression and
regression and suppression.

260
00:17:53,157 --> 00:17:56,635
Eddie Bernays was what I like to
call, a professional nephew.

261
00:17:56,986 --> 00:18:00,787
and he used his connection in the
first 10 minutes that you met him,

262
00:18:01,058 --> 00:18:04,105
you learned that he was the
double nephew of Sigmund Freud

263
00:18:04,428 --> 00:18:07,796
because that somehow gave him not
just the sense of being associated

264
00:18:07,822 --> 00:18:09,124
with the famous person

265
00:18:09,332 --> 00:18:11,457
but being associated
with a smart

266
00:18:13,015 --> 00:18:17,780
opinion-changing, you know, revolutionary
character like Sigmund Freud.

267
00:18:17,977 --> 00:18:22,449
The concepts that Bernays took
from Freud was that people

268
00:18:22,569 --> 00:18:27,796
They think they're ruled by their
own judgment and rational thinking

269
00:18:28,041 --> 00:18:32,109
but they're not, they're ruled by their
unconscious or their subconscious

270
00:18:32,408 --> 00:18:33,371
and they don't even know it.

271
00:18:34,123 --> 00:18:37,058
So you have to
bypass their logic.

272
00:18:41,676 --> 00:18:44,030
Edward Bernays would put
this concept into practice

273
00:18:44,056 --> 00:18:46,002
for the first time for
one of his clients,

274
00:18:46,224 --> 00:18:48,018
the American Tobacco Company.

275
00:18:51,230 --> 00:18:53,626
The Company felt it was the
victim of a social taboo

276
00:18:53,854 --> 00:18:55,992
which prevented it from
doubling its profits:

277
00:18:56,404 --> 00:18:58,656
Women were not allowed
to smoke in public.

278
00:19:00,055 --> 00:19:03,499
So the Company entrusted Edward Bernays
with the task of turning women

279
00:19:03,619 --> 00:19:06,570
into open tobacco
consumers, just like men.

280
00:19:09,431 --> 00:19:16,593
He went to see one of his uncle's Sigmund's
disciples here, this guy named A. A. Brill.

281
00:19:16,821 --> 00:19:18,150
He goes to see Brill.

282
00:19:19,575 --> 00:19:22,286
He says: "Brill, you know I'm
trying to sell cigarettes to women,"

283
00:19:22,312 --> 00:19:23,884
"what do they represent?"

284
00:19:24,598 --> 00:19:28,935
And Brill says: "Well this is simple.
They represent the penis".

285
00:19:29,429 --> 00:19:31,858
And all women, they
have penis envy.

286
00:19:32,157 --> 00:19:37,198
So in fact if you can get
them to have a penis,

287
00:19:38,403 --> 00:19:40,659
or at least a symbolic penis,

288
00:19:40,779 --> 00:19:42,727
this is something that
they will respond to.

289
00:19:42,982 --> 00:19:47,214
And since this was during
the time of suffrage,

290
00:19:47,334 --> 00:19:51,690
the suffrage movement which
was 1919 and through the 20s,

291
00:19:51,998 --> 00:19:57,069
women were still galvanized by
trying to fight for their rights.

292
00:19:57,406 --> 00:20:01,788
So he goes and recruits some of the
leading socialites of the day,

293
00:20:02,271 --> 00:20:04,380
he convinces these women
that they’re going to be striking

294
00:20:04,512 --> 00:20:06,792
a blow not for American
Tobacco Company,

295
00:20:06,962 --> 00:20:09,689
which they don’t know
is his true client

296
00:20:09,935 --> 00:20:11,660
but for women’s liberation.

297
00:20:14,607 --> 00:20:16,233
To launch his PR campaign,

298
00:20:16,353 --> 00:20:19,715
Edward Bernays decided to use a
popular event as a springboard:

299
00:20:20,664 --> 00:20:23,286
the famous annual Easter
Parade in New York.

300
00:20:27,777 --> 00:20:30,610
He has these women
marching down Fifth Avenue

301
00:20:30,865 --> 00:20:35,018
lighting up a cigarette that he
calls their "torches of freedom"

302
00:20:35,537 --> 00:20:41,150
and to ensure that this event isn’t
missed, he recruits all the photographers

303
00:20:41,449 --> 00:20:45,202
from all the leading newspapers and
wire services around the world

304
00:20:45,246 --> 00:20:46,680
to take a picture of that.

305
00:21:05,313 --> 00:21:11,497
The next morning the New York Times had
carried the story on its first page.

306
00:21:12,405 --> 00:21:15,493
They treated it as news
which it indeed was.

307
00:21:26,010 --> 00:21:27,901
Within 5 weeks

308
00:21:28,587 --> 00:21:32,766
the smoking rooms of
theatres in New York

309
00:21:33,351 --> 00:21:36,351
opened their smoking
rooms to women smoking,

310
00:21:36,650 --> 00:21:38,550
which had never happened before.

311
00:21:38,806 --> 00:21:41,824
So an aged old custom
was broken down..

312
00:21:42,088 --> 00:21:42,844
...by one action.

313
00:21:49,486 --> 00:21:57,430
The role of PR is creating circumstances
that jut out from the normal society

314
00:21:58,239 --> 00:22:01,317
and therefore which
become newsworthy.

315
00:22:02,152 --> 00:22:06,490
And so, part of the role of
the public relations agent,

316
00:22:06,610 --> 00:22:10,373
is the need to understand
what looks like news,

317
00:22:10,934 --> 00:22:13,781
what tastes like news,
what smells like news.

318
00:22:13,864 --> 00:22:19,236
To this day, creating news is the
number one thing that we try to do.

319
00:22:19,644 --> 00:22:22,959
And part of being newsworthy of
course was doing something new

320
00:22:23,079 --> 00:22:24,360
and being the first.

321
00:22:24,656 --> 00:22:27,487
Nobody remembers the second
guy who landed on the moon.

322
00:22:35,619 --> 00:22:36,767
Within 10 years,

323
00:22:36,957 --> 00:22:39,856
the consumption habits of
Americans had deeply changed

324
00:22:39,976 --> 00:22:42,915
thanks to the work carried out
by public relations counsels.

325
00:22:58,690 --> 00:23:02,153
They even managed to change and promote
the image of the captains of industry.

326
00:23:02,924 --> 00:23:04,853
John D. Rockefeller himself

327
00:23:04,973 --> 00:23:08,907
was no longer seen as a hated figure
of capitalism as he once was,

328
00:23:09,600 --> 00:23:11,479
but as a generous
philanthropist.

329
00:23:20,093 --> 00:23:21,719
PR agencies prospered,

330
00:23:21,944 --> 00:23:23,654
especially on Madison Avenue,

331
00:23:23,908 --> 00:23:27,421
destined to become the epicentre of
advertising in the United States.

332
00:23:32,213 --> 00:23:35,971
Edward Bernays had become the most
sought-after expert in public relations.

333
00:23:36,738 --> 00:23:38,519
He moved into a
luxury hotel suite

334
00:23:38,587 --> 00:23:42,167
where he received all of the country's
wealthiest and most influential men.

335
00:23:46,261 --> 00:23:50,068
My father was immensely social.

336
00:23:50,777 --> 00:23:54,272
He gave parties all the time.

337
00:23:54,502 --> 00:23:57,388
High achievers came
to his parties.

338
00:23:57,408 --> 00:24:05,118
They were architects and artists,
lawyers, politicians, magazine editors,

339
00:24:05,635 --> 00:24:07,338
always people at the top.

340
00:24:07,568 --> 00:24:10,023
Most people had no
ideas who he was.

341
00:24:11,078 --> 00:24:13,148
But the people who
needed to know him

342
00:24:13,219 --> 00:24:17,218
and who he needed to
know him knew him.

343
00:24:19,718 --> 00:24:20,976
In 1929,

344
00:24:21,257 --> 00:24:23,325
Edward Bernays
published Propaganda,

345
00:24:23,694 --> 00:24:25,691
the fruit of 10
years' experience.

346
00:24:26,404 --> 00:24:29,943
In it, he laid out with precision
the main principles and techniques

347
00:24:30,139 --> 00:24:32,224
of manipulating the
masses in democracies.

348
00:24:32,919 --> 00:24:35,822
The work elevated him to
the status of visionary.

349
00:24:49,035 --> 00:24:53,768
That kind of
confession is evidence

350
00:24:54,691 --> 00:24:58,754
of the fact that the power
of propaganda is so immense

351
00:24:59,085 --> 00:25:02,024
that even when the puppet
masters are confessing,

352
00:25:02,939 --> 00:25:05,357
those who are being
manipulated can’t resist.

353
00:25:05,662 --> 00:25:07,732
The Nazis incidentally
were very impressed

354
00:25:07,758 --> 00:25:10,341
with US commercial propaganda

355
00:25:10,668 --> 00:25:14,174
the kind that Bernays and the
PR industry was developing.

356
00:25:14,438 --> 00:25:17,112
The Goebbels studied it
carefully, refers to it.

357
00:25:17,156 --> 00:25:22,153
They adapted it to their own purposes
and very successfully unfortunately.

358
00:25:38,194 --> 00:25:40,517
35000 homeless in Heaven’s ville…

359
00:25:45,433 --> 00:25:48,864
The Wall Street Crash
on October 24th 1929

360
00:25:49,102 --> 00:25:53,307
tore apart the apparent balance of the
1920s model of the capitalist society.

361
00:25:54,508 --> 00:25:57,218
The United States plunged
into the Great Depression

362
00:25:57,640 --> 00:26:01,585
which left tens of millions of
Americans jobless and homeless.

363
00:26:02,896 --> 00:26:07,238
the corporate system, the public
relations had been selling

364
00:26:07,358 --> 00:26:09,507
so hard throughout the 1920s,

365
00:26:09,991 --> 00:26:14,834
was now considered to be
the embodiment of evil.

366
00:26:15,274 --> 00:26:16,954
We face that crisis.

367
00:26:17,843 --> 00:26:22,837
We face it with singleness of
purpose and above all with faith.

368
00:26:23,597 --> 00:26:27,257
Elected president in 1932,

369
00:26:27,518 --> 00:26:31,152
Franklin D. Roosevelt came across as
the man who could change everything.

370
00:26:31,785 --> 00:26:33,113
But to earn the people's trust,

371
00:26:33,316 --> 00:26:36,536
the manufacture of consent
would be a determining factor.

372
00:26:38,335 --> 00:26:41,379
So he too he called upon
experts in public relations.

373
00:26:46,193 --> 00:26:49,695
Sitting down here next to me
is Mrs Roosevelt, my wife, and

374
00:26:50,266 --> 00:26:52,835
my granddaughter,
Anna Roosevelt Dale.

375
00:26:53,087 --> 00:26:54,117
On their advice,

376
00:26:54,499 --> 00:26:58,062
Roosevelt took the leading role
in an unprecedented PR campaign.

377
00:26:58,292 --> 00:27:00,096
What’s our slogan campaign?

378
00:27:03,388 --> 00:27:05,174
To appear as a man
of the people,

379
00:27:05,294 --> 00:27:08,736
he was systematically seen with his
family, going about his daily life,

380
00:27:08,987 --> 00:27:10,962
like no other president
had been before him.

381
00:27:11,783 --> 00:27:15,675
That is pure PR Bernays.

382
00:27:15,720 --> 00:27:20,023
I mean absolutely pure,
the way he sat in his car

383
00:27:20,420 --> 00:27:22,793
and waved to people,
this is Roosevelt,

384
00:27:23,343 --> 00:27:27,909
as if he was a hearty young
man, it’s all symbols.

385
00:27:29,260 --> 00:27:31,485
But for Roosevelt,
symbols weren't enough,

386
00:27:31,605 --> 00:27:34,234
and he opted for another
method: pedagogy -

387
00:27:34,586 --> 00:27:37,053
explaining to his fellow
citizens in simple terms

388
00:27:37,273 --> 00:27:40,009
how he planned to put right
the country and its economy.

389
00:27:42,385 --> 00:27:46,360
He and his advisers developed
the so-called "fireside chats",

390
00:27:46,721 --> 00:27:49,888
a series of 28 radio addresses
given by the president

391
00:27:50,187 --> 00:27:51,638
spread over ten years.

392
00:27:53,087 --> 00:27:54,961
It is 3 months my friends

393
00:27:55,154 --> 00:27:58,700
since I have talked to the people of this
country about our national problems.

394
00:27:59,025 --> 00:28:05,006
I am going to establish a government
market for gold in the US.

395
00:28:06,059 --> 00:28:07,809
He had a very calming voice,

396
00:28:07,929 --> 00:28:13,418
he talked to the listeners like
people he respected, like an equal.

397
00:28:13,972 --> 00:28:18,639
And I think the public
was given faith by that.

398
00:28:20,064 --> 00:28:25,319
I’m authorizing the Reconstruction
finance corporation to buy or sell gold.

399
00:28:26,095 --> 00:28:30,282
One after another,
"The Fireside Chats"

400
00:28:30,604 --> 00:28:37,170
are designed to make an inscrutable
system legible to people.

401
00:28:37,290 --> 00:28:40,368
City streets damaged by increasing
traffic are modernized,

402
00:28:40,394 --> 00:28:43,732
resurfaced, which
means huge savings….

403
00:28:44,451 --> 00:28:47,495
The president launched the production
of a series of documentaries

404
00:28:47,615 --> 00:28:50,908
aimed at explaining his
flagship program, the New Deal,

405
00:28:51,392 --> 00:28:54,558
the basic principles of which rested
on government interventionism

406
00:28:54,678 --> 00:28:56,013
to kick-start the economy.

407
00:28:57,675 --> 00:28:59,853
...New modern housing
developments will be erected,

408
00:28:59,973 --> 00:29:03,030
providing better living conditions for
workers in the low income groups.

409
00:29:04,396 --> 00:29:06,559
But to get the intent
of his program across,

410
00:29:07,091 --> 00:29:09,697
the Roosevelt administration went a
step further by putting together

411
00:29:09,755 --> 00:29:11,972
a group of renowned
photographers and writers

412
00:29:12,306 --> 00:29:13,665
in order to show Americans

413
00:29:13,691 --> 00:29:16,492
the terrible effects of the
depression inside their own country.

414
00:29:18,886 --> 00:29:21,429
It wasn't a bunch of
flacks who came out of

415
00:29:22,045 --> 00:29:25,426
the advertising industry or the
public relations industry,

416
00:29:25,954 --> 00:29:28,417
it was people who had
really thought about

417
00:29:29,994 --> 00:29:33,997
using images in a way that leave
people smarter than they were.

418
00:29:37,261 --> 00:29:39,355
The American people
discovered an America

419
00:29:39,475 --> 00:29:41,288
they had no idea existed.

420
00:29:41,781 --> 00:29:45,757
The emotional and symbolic force of
these pictures moved hearts and minds.

421
00:29:50,860 --> 00:29:53,736
So that there is this resurgence

422
00:29:53,856 --> 00:29:58,232
of an idea that emotion and reason don't
need to be separated from each other.

423
00:30:01,173 --> 00:30:04,296
To some extent it's
manufacture of consent

424
00:30:05,325 --> 00:30:10,344
but it's I think an attempt
to create informed consent.

425
00:30:13,986 --> 00:30:16,959
There’s nothing wrong
with being persuasive,

426
00:30:17,302 --> 00:30:24,140
as long as your persuasion is
not interested in deception,

427
00:30:24,260 --> 00:30:28,956
in turning people away from
seeing things as they are.

428
00:30:38,692 --> 00:30:41,305
Triumphantly re-elected in 1936,

429
00:30:41,534 --> 00:30:45,593
Roosevelt sought to deploy new reforms to
limit the power of companies and banks.

430
00:30:48,382 --> 00:30:53,467
The decision is to create
an alliance between

431
00:30:54,566 --> 00:31:00,706
working people and a completely
dismantled middle class

432
00:31:01,480 --> 00:31:03,846
against great wealth
and business.

433
00:31:04,313 --> 00:31:09,041
It is true that the toes of some
people are being stepped on,

434
00:31:09,587 --> 00:31:11,963
and are going to be stepped on.

435
00:31:12,083 --> 00:31:16,180
The business system views the
New Deal as a catastrophe.

436
00:31:16,814 --> 00:31:18,512
Almost every big corporation

437
00:31:19,224 --> 00:31:23,973
in America was engaged in the National
Association of Manufacturers,

438
00:31:24,000 --> 00:31:25,053
and their biggest

439
00:31:26,230 --> 00:31:29,182
program at the time was a
public relations program.

440
00:31:29,302 --> 00:31:32,244
They decide that they
need to sell the idea

441
00:31:32,993 --> 00:31:41,971
that private enterprise is
the key to the good life

442
00:31:42,455 --> 00:31:47,263
that Roosevelt is now suggesting the
government can help be an advocate for.

443
00:31:48,090 --> 00:31:50,738
Hello everybody, this
is Lowell Thomas

444
00:31:51,117 --> 00:31:53,853
and I have to ask one
or two questions

445
00:31:54,253 --> 00:31:55,974
which you have probably asked.

446
00:31:56,493 --> 00:31:58,112
And then I intend
to answer them.

447
00:31:58,622 --> 00:32:00,945
To what new horizons
can we look now?

448
00:32:01,450 --> 00:32:03,307
Where are tomorrow’s
opportunities?

449
00:32:03,494 --> 00:32:06,480
The National Association
of Manufacturers, NAM,

450
00:32:06,600 --> 00:32:08,916
set out to re-establish
as quickly as possible

451
00:32:08,960 --> 00:32:10,966
the people's trust in
the capitalist system.

452
00:32:11,209 --> 00:32:13,937
To do so, they would fight
the president's campaign

453
00:32:14,331 --> 00:32:15,530
with a number of their own.

454
00:32:23,716 --> 00:32:24,890
For 20 years,

455
00:32:25,059 --> 00:32:28,218
NAM campaigns sought to sell an
idealized version of society

456
00:32:28,556 --> 00:32:29,911
which Americans clamoured for.

457
00:32:32,613 --> 00:32:34,640
Wherever Roosevelt
was selling reality,

458
00:32:34,997 --> 00:32:36,378
NAM sold dreams.

459
00:32:36,862 --> 00:32:38,894
Wherever Roosevelt was
speaking to citizens,

460
00:32:39,211 --> 00:32:40,830
NAM spoke to consumers.

461
00:32:41,278 --> 00:32:44,097
It has to get out and see
the many different ways.

462
00:32:44,217 --> 00:32:47,441
It’s part of American DNA,
we don’t like government,

463
00:32:47,722 --> 00:32:49,983
we like private business.

464
00:32:50,186 --> 00:32:52,942
They talked about free
enterprise in the same way

465
00:32:53,013 --> 00:32:56,125
you would talk about freedom
and democracy and justice.

466
00:32:56,604 --> 00:33:00,965
Yes they were selling a dream, but they
tied to dream into American values.

467
00:33:01,350 --> 00:33:02,761
This is a machine.

468
00:33:03,946 --> 00:33:04,981
In the factory.

469
00:33:07,761 --> 00:33:09,050
This is the workman

470
00:33:10,044 --> 00:33:13,246
who turns the machine,
in the factory.

471
00:33:15,155 --> 00:33:17,760
To make Americans aware of
the benefits of industry,

472
00:33:18,323 --> 00:33:20,021
NAM also turned to pedagogy,

473
00:33:20,848 --> 00:33:23,382
notably by addressing the
consumers of tomorrow:

474
00:33:24,059 --> 00:33:24,869
children.

475
00:33:26,373 --> 00:33:27,323
Here is a farmer.

476
00:33:28,023 --> 00:33:31,542
He needs a widget on his farm and
he is in a hurry to buy one.

477
00:33:32,808 --> 00:33:34,628
Here’s your money
Mr “Widget maker”.

478
00:33:34,748 --> 00:33:36,794
And here’s your
widget Mr Farmer.

479
00:33:37,106 --> 00:33:41,865
And all the customers take the widgets
home to all parts of the country.

480
00:33:45,681 --> 00:33:47,089
And to reach the
greatest number,

481
00:33:47,344 --> 00:33:51,039
large enterprises set out to meet
Americans where they most liked to be:

482
00:33:51,681 --> 00:33:52,464
at home.

483
00:33:57,914 --> 00:33:59,409
Until the 1950s,

484
00:33:59,529 --> 00:34:03,739
a traveling exhibition promoting cars
and technologies crisscrossed America:

485
00:34:04,610 --> 00:34:06,739
General Motors'
"Parade of Progress".

486
00:34:08,261 --> 00:34:10,883
Hey hold on there
it’s absolutely free.

487
00:34:11,261 --> 00:34:12,985
Come see the big time show.

488
00:34:14,671 --> 00:34:17,073
This device has a
dual personality.

489
00:34:17,372 --> 00:34:20,126
He could actually freeze
and fry at the same time.

490
00:34:20,451 --> 00:34:25,387
And this machine brings your daily
paper right to your easy chair.

491
00:34:25,671 --> 00:34:27,624
Fantastic? Maybe.

492
00:34:30,730 --> 00:34:32,331
Through the "Parade
of Progress",

493
00:34:32,674 --> 00:34:36,349
capitalism and the benefits of
consumption were sold for over 20 years

494
00:34:36,409 --> 00:34:39,409
as the foundations of
the American dream.

495
00:34:42,401 --> 00:34:45,733
These people who were
engaged in these activities

496
00:34:47,394 --> 00:34:48,955
played the long game.

497
00:34:50,269 --> 00:34:53,310
That is to say even
though many of them knew

498
00:34:54,146 --> 00:34:57,467
that they would not live to see

499
00:34:58,548 --> 00:35:02,716
their desires and their goals
met, that didn't matter.

500
00:35:04,431 --> 00:35:09,418
They were willing to do
it over generations.

501
00:35:16,203 --> 00:35:17,502
In 1939,

502
00:35:17,820 --> 00:35:22,307
it was the city of New York which became
showcase of the American way of life.

503
00:35:22,988 --> 00:35:24,758
Our cameras sweep the horizon,

504
00:35:25,031 --> 00:35:28,822
turning in the direction of a new
world that symbolizes man’s dreams,

505
00:35:29,078 --> 00:35:31,215
prophecy’s, hopes
and aspirations.

506
00:35:32,890 --> 00:35:34,017
For the first time,

507
00:35:34,255 --> 00:35:35,873
they city hosted
the World's Fair.

508
00:35:37,140 --> 00:35:41,368
The event was one of the biggest PR
operations in industrial history.

509
00:35:45,529 --> 00:35:49,845
The director of public relations was
none other than Edward Bernays.

510
00:35:50,592 --> 00:35:52,171
Bernays's role was,

511
00:35:52,232 --> 00:35:55,906
besides promoting it and talking
about the different exhibits,

512
00:35:55,977 --> 00:35:58,018
and getting companies
to exhibit there,

513
00:35:58,212 --> 00:35:59,786
such as General Motors,

514
00:36:00,182 --> 00:36:02,496
which had been his
client in the 30's.

515
00:36:03,015 --> 00:36:05,707
He called it DemocraCity.

516
00:36:07,141 --> 00:36:09,402
So what he was trying
to do then was

517
00:36:09,622 --> 00:36:13,842
merge together democracy
and capitalism as one.

518
00:36:15,239 --> 00:36:18,380
You have all of these
companies creating pavilions

519
00:36:18,987 --> 00:36:22,347
which are not about the present
but are all about the future

520
00:36:23,525 --> 00:36:24,810
and people of the future.

521
00:36:25,311 --> 00:36:27,643
I mean, because the minute you
start talking about the future

522
00:36:28,830 --> 00:36:31,251
you can invent it
any way you want.

523
00:36:38,298 --> 00:36:45,099
The World's Fair has a famous documentary,
which is about a family in the Midwest,

524
00:36:48,490 --> 00:36:50,768
the son is a socialist,

525
00:36:51,103 --> 00:36:54,431
the daughter, who lives in New
York, is having an affair

526
00:36:54,501 --> 00:36:56,723
with her art teacher
who was a communist.

527
00:36:59,946 --> 00:37:02,565
And so it's a story called The
Middletons go to the Fair,

528
00:37:02,629 --> 00:37:04,067
which takes them to the fair,

529
00:37:04,105 --> 00:37:07,447
and particularly to the
Westinghouse exhibit, because

530
00:37:07,933 --> 00:37:11,989
Westinghouse Electric Company
was the sponsor of the film.

531
00:37:19,067 --> 00:37:20,326
I guess we’re a little early.

532
00:37:20,651 --> 00:37:21,575
What do you want to do?

533
00:37:21,695 --> 00:37:24,012
Anything but inspect this
temple of capitalism.

534
00:37:24,064 --> 00:37:26,259
- Oh Nick…
- Look at them.

535
00:37:26,702 --> 00:37:27,925
Their eyes popping
out of their heads,

536
00:37:28,427 --> 00:37:30,547
drowning on the very things that
are taking away their jobs.

537
00:37:31,172 --> 00:37:33,068
No Nick, don’t get all excited.

538
00:37:33,446 --> 00:37:35,430
The grandmother sees
all the wonders

539
00:37:35,456 --> 00:37:37,260
that are going to be coming
into the kitchen

540
00:37:37,330 --> 00:37:40,150
and is convinced that
the old way of life was nothing

541
00:37:40,176 --> 00:37:41,775
compared to what's
going to happen.

542
00:37:42,112 --> 00:37:43,740
It’s a paradise.

543
00:37:44,162 --> 00:37:48,077
No one who hasn’t cooked over a woodstove
by the light of a kerosene lamp

544
00:37:48,517 --> 00:37:50,919
can really appreciate
what it all means.

545
00:37:51,358 --> 00:37:56,205
Everybody’s going to have
robots wash the dishes.

546
00:37:56,496 --> 00:37:58,994
And, the good life in on his way.
Just wait.

547
00:37:59,531 --> 00:38:03,550
The contest is over in exactly
7 minutes and 58 seconds.

548
00:38:03,608 --> 00:38:07,693
In that time Mrs modern has washed 50
dishes and 40 pieces of silverware.

549
00:38:09,482 --> 00:38:12,056
It’s all over Mrs. You
may as well rest now.

550
00:38:14,398 --> 00:38:16,554
And so Ladies and Gentlemen,
I give you the winner:

551
00:38:16,878 --> 00:38:17,638
Missus Modern.

552
00:38:20,059 --> 00:38:23,503
And it's all about how
in the process of going through

553
00:38:23,529 --> 00:38:26,899
the fun of the new
industrial future,

554
00:38:27,775 --> 00:38:32,910
the kid abandons his anti-capitalist
values and becomes a sort of

555
00:38:33,337 --> 00:38:36,958
you know, a drum major
for the business system.

556
00:38:37,179 --> 00:38:39,818
Do you honestly believe that
industry can make enough jobs

557
00:38:39,881 --> 00:38:42,851
in the future for the young
people that are coming along?

558
00:38:43,345 --> 00:38:45,588
I think the problem is going
to be the other way around.

559
00:38:46,017 --> 00:38:49,162
Industry will make so many jobs, there
won’t be enough people to fill them.

560
00:38:49,928 --> 00:38:55,716
It’s left people without
a vision of democracy

561
00:38:56,451 --> 00:39:00,881
without a vision of
capitalist democracy

562
00:39:15,734 --> 00:39:17,458
Omnipresent and effective,

563
00:39:17,771 --> 00:39:20,736
these PR campaigns nonetheless
raised a number of questions.

564
00:39:22,029 --> 00:39:25,408
Some people openly denounced the
manipulation of minds through PR;

565
00:39:26,516 --> 00:39:29,768
an accusation sometimes pointed
directly at Edward Bernays.

566
00:39:32,045 --> 00:39:34,685
Modern science gives
our opinion leaders

567
00:39:35,406 --> 00:39:39,580
weapons of mass impression
which can slay our mind.

568
00:39:39,818 --> 00:39:42,651
The responsibility for
avoiding such disaster

569
00:39:43,073 --> 00:39:47,990
rest on the shoulders of those who
now undertake opinion leadership.

570
00:39:49,060 --> 00:39:53,229
Freedom of propaganda is as
important to our democracy

571
00:39:53,467 --> 00:39:55,526
as are other civil liberties.

572
00:39:55,860 --> 00:39:58,262
Freedom of religion,
press, speech…

573
00:39:58,675 --> 00:40:04,345
The usefulness of propaganda makes
it a vital asset to the democracy.

574
00:40:04,547 --> 00:40:08,286
Most people would have been
outraged at that kind of a charge

575
00:40:08,314 --> 00:40:09,305
and taken real offense.

576
00:40:09,351 --> 00:40:10,614
Eddie Bernays liked it.

577
00:40:10,993 --> 00:40:14,603
It was something suggesting
he had real power

578
00:40:14,688 --> 00:40:16,446
in reshaping the
way people thought

579
00:40:16,509 --> 00:40:18,444
and Eddie Bernays thought
that wasn’t the bad thing.

580
00:40:18,523 --> 00:40:21,421
He thought also and he deceived
himself in lots of ways

581
00:40:21,716 --> 00:40:24,388
by thinking that what he was doing
was generally for the public good.

582
00:40:24,957 --> 00:40:28,946
Part of this system is
a competitive battle,

583
00:40:29,263 --> 00:40:34,484
and part of that competitive
battle is competing propaganda,

584
00:40:34,778 --> 00:40:39,684
competing advertising, competing
for markets in the market place

585
00:40:40,127 --> 00:40:43,866
that is based on a free
and open competition.

586
00:40:44,846 --> 00:40:47,773
It's not free competition
it's a paid for competition

587
00:40:47,805 --> 00:40:50,502
and in that paid for competition,
the people with the most resources,

588
00:40:50,622 --> 00:40:53,911
the corporations, sometimes government,
win in every circumstance.

589
00:40:54,031 --> 00:40:55,967
They win in the sense that
they have the most resources.

590
00:40:56,087 --> 00:40:59,440
Doesn't mean they win in terms of
outcomes but they have the most advantages

591
00:40:59,663 --> 00:41:00,737
going into that struggle.

592
00:41:01,018 --> 00:41:03,921
And the ordinary person wanting
to make their own propaganda

593
00:41:04,185 --> 00:41:08,109
is free competition is systematically
outgunned and outpaid for

594
00:41:08,166 --> 00:41:09,682
by the big people.

595
00:41:10,187 --> 00:41:11,471
Okay Bernays…

596
00:41:11,591 --> 00:41:19,231
I-I happened to be a
technician on propaganda

597
00:41:19,565 --> 00:41:23,470
and I’m not a person who can
solve your difficulties

598
00:41:23,734 --> 00:41:27,851
as to which ideology you
prefer or don’t prefer.

599
00:41:38,884 --> 00:41:42,152
The United States' entry
into World War 2 in 1941

600
00:41:42,218 --> 00:41:44,390
suspended the debate
on public relations.

601
00:41:45,000 --> 00:41:49,613
In fact, there was a nationwide return to
mass propaganda to support the war effort,

602
00:41:50,123 --> 00:41:53,303
employing the exact same techniques
invented by the Creel Commission

603
00:41:53,329 --> 00:41:54,503
20 years earlier.

604
00:41:55,601 --> 00:42:00,519
Bernays advised the US government on how
to use public relations and propaganda,

605
00:42:00,880 --> 00:42:05,234
but he never played quite the central
role that he did during World War I.

606
00:42:05,616 --> 00:42:08,810
In part because public
relations and propaganda

607
00:42:09,074 --> 00:42:10,879
were much better
understood by then,

608
00:42:10,905 --> 00:42:13,764
and the government had its
own propaganda agencies.

609
00:42:16,380 --> 00:42:18,122
As for major
industrial companies,

610
00:42:18,474 --> 00:42:20,646
they saw the war as
a wonderful PR tool

611
00:42:20,700 --> 00:42:23,787
for re-launching their campaign
on the American way of life.

612
00:42:27,700 --> 00:42:29,644
The advertisements are
filled with pictures

613
00:42:30,084 --> 00:42:32,134
of what we will come
home to after the war.

614
00:42:32,547 --> 00:42:35,129
Sometimes it’s in
a crystal ball,

615
00:42:36,026 --> 00:42:37,636
which is a tool for
seeing the future,

616
00:42:37,944 --> 00:42:42,264
and it’s a future which is filled
with the bounty and abundance,

617
00:42:42,631 --> 00:42:49,915
and commodification of your future as
soon as we have gotten rid of this war.

618
00:42:50,566 --> 00:42:52,773
Immediately after the
Second World War,

619
00:42:52,820 --> 00:42:56,179
the business world launched
an enormous offensive

620
00:42:56,602 --> 00:43:00,825
to try to beat back the progressive
elements of the New deal.

621
00:43:10,757 --> 00:43:14,619
The offensive, backed by the PR
industry and Edward Bernays himself,

622
00:43:14,962 --> 00:43:18,490
was justified by the resurfacing
of workers' demands after the war.

623
00:43:20,505 --> 00:43:22,502
In 1945 and 1946,

624
00:43:22,713 --> 00:43:24,983
almost 10 million workers
took to the streets,

625
00:43:25,241 --> 00:43:27,194
paralyzing a large
part of the country.

626
00:43:29,587 --> 00:43:30,431
In reaction to this,

627
00:43:30,845 --> 00:43:34,927
leading industrialists used their influence
to have the new president, Harry Truman,

628
00:43:35,173 --> 00:43:38,908
push through a law restricting the powers
of the unions and the right to strike.

629
00:43:39,753 --> 00:43:43,144
Then they called on PR agencies
to paint protestors as citizens

630
00:43:43,223 --> 00:43:45,530
who were against true
American values.

631
00:43:47,651 --> 00:43:52,349
And in the 1950s, there
were enormous efforts,

632
00:43:52,419 --> 00:43:54,587
it’s pretty well
studied incidentally

633
00:43:55,060 --> 00:44:01,856
to try to take over schools,
universities, sports leagues, churches,

634
00:44:02,120 --> 00:44:10,747
factories were forced sessions to teach
people what’s called Americanism, harmony,

635
00:44:11,924 --> 00:44:17,195
get the bad guys, anti-Communism was,
of course, used for this purpose.

636
00:44:25,010 --> 00:44:27,957
Communism controls 1/3
of the world area.

637
00:44:28,650 --> 00:44:30,992
What are the facts
behind the faces?

638
00:44:31,311 --> 00:44:38,290
The whole United States was
afraid of nuclear war.

639
00:44:38,862 --> 00:44:43,514
I remember getting under the desk
in school, we had to do that.

640
00:44:43,866 --> 00:44:46,428
Tony knows a bomb can explode
anytime of the year,

641
00:44:46,486 --> 00:44:47,257
day or night.

642
00:44:47,377 --> 00:44:48,122
He’s ready for it.

643
00:44:48,899 --> 00:44:49,920
Duck and cover!

644
00:44:50,425 --> 00:44:53,953
American society was overcome
with acute paranoia.

645
00:44:54,983 --> 00:44:57,446
People lived in fear of the
Russians invading the country

646
00:44:57,727 --> 00:44:59,191
or sparking a nuclear war.

647
00:45:00,792 --> 00:45:01,777
Duck and cover!

648
00:45:05,728 --> 00:45:08,244
This national climate
of distress and fear

649
00:45:08,364 --> 00:45:12,247
was used directly by PR experts to
defend strictly private interests.

650
00:45:18,107 --> 00:45:19,708
In the early 1950s,

651
00:45:19,919 --> 00:45:23,078
it was a small peaceful country
which would embody, on its own,

652
00:45:23,136 --> 00:45:25,715
the communist enemy that
needed to be shot down.

653
00:45:26,821 --> 00:45:28,877
On March 15th 1951,

654
00:45:29,229 --> 00:45:32,770
Jacobo Arbenz was democratically
elected President of Guatemala.

655
00:45:34,296 --> 00:45:37,925
One of his first decisions was to
nationalize - in return for compensation

656
00:45:38,342 --> 00:45:39,904
- the country’s
uncultivated land

657
00:45:40,190 --> 00:45:42,059
and to redistribute it
to the poor peasants.

658
00:45:43,819 --> 00:45:45,163
But three-quarters of this land

659
00:45:45,189 --> 00:45:48,444
belonged to one of the largest
multinationals in the United States,

660
00:45:49,046 --> 00:45:50,575
the United Fruit Company.

661
00:45:56,818 --> 00:46:00,128
I'm Chiquita banana
and I've come to say

662
00:46:00,248 --> 00:46:03,011
Bananas have to ripen
in a certain way

663
00:46:03,074 --> 00:46:06,058
When they are fleck'd with
brown and have a golden hue

664
00:46:06,223 --> 00:46:09,646
Bananas taste the best
and are best for you.

665
00:46:10,907 --> 00:46:12,167
For the United Fruit Company,

666
00:46:12,660 --> 00:46:14,648
President Arbenz'
agrarian reform

667
00:46:14,768 --> 00:46:16,874
posed a serious threat
to its interests.

668
00:46:18,484 --> 00:46:20,859
A media-based counter-attack
was deemed necessary

669
00:46:21,281 --> 00:46:24,956
and it was entrusted to one of the
company's main advisers: Edward Bernays

670
00:46:27,103 --> 00:46:30,077
Eddie Bernays, on behalf
of United Fruit Company,

671
00:46:30,384 --> 00:46:33,064
managed to convince
much of America

672
00:46:33,184 --> 00:46:35,317
and a big enough
part of Guatemalans

673
00:46:35,584 --> 00:46:40,344
that the leftist government which
was coming in and trying to reform

674
00:46:40,464 --> 00:46:44,800
archaic economic systems there that that
was a beachhead for the Soviet Union.

675
00:46:44,920 --> 00:46:49,179
And what Eddie Bernays did was waged
a campaign of psychological warfare

676
00:46:49,495 --> 00:46:52,654
that was even more profound
and much more effective

677
00:46:52,909 --> 00:46:56,856
than the one he had waged on behalf of
the US government during World War I.

678
00:47:00,331 --> 00:47:02,916
Edward Bernays would define
his propaganda campaign

679
00:47:02,987 --> 00:47:06,958
with a term borrowed from World
War One: the Media Blitz.

680
00:47:07,413 --> 00:47:10,623
A media blitz generally
means that you're going to be

681
00:47:10,701 --> 00:47:13,514
on the phone constantly
with different reporters

682
00:47:14,363 --> 00:47:15,797
who are influential

683
00:47:16,233 --> 00:47:21,071
and you were providing copy to
them on a very regular basis.

684
00:47:22,417 --> 00:47:25,206
By creating his own news bureau

685
00:47:25,773 --> 00:47:29,240
and wire service just to
talk about Guatemala.

686
00:47:31,404 --> 00:47:33,333
Although the press office
set up by Edward Bernays

687
00:47:33,357 --> 00:47:35,569
was officially considered
to be independent,

688
00:47:36,186 --> 00:47:39,854
it was in reality financed
by the United Fruit Company.

689
00:47:41,869 --> 00:47:44,401
It spoon-fed the press the
major part of its information

690
00:47:44,448 --> 00:47:46,847
on the supposed communist
leanings of Guatemala.

691
00:47:48,247 --> 00:47:52,109
Edward Bernays organized free trips
for reporters to visit the country.

692
00:47:55,715 --> 00:47:59,550
That was effective in the
reporters carrying the stories.

693
00:48:04,067 --> 00:48:08,360
A number of journalists who were
involved with this told me decades later

694
00:48:08,738 --> 00:48:10,677
that they realized
after the fact,

695
00:48:10,797 --> 00:48:13,018
unfortunately most of
them not at the time,

696
00:48:13,273 --> 00:48:16,395
that they were being used and
manipulated by Eddie Bernays

697
00:48:16,440 --> 00:48:17,989
on behalf of the
United Fruit Company.

698
00:48:18,214 --> 00:48:20,684
And none of that was apparent
to them at the time.

699
00:48:21,304 --> 00:48:24,337
Gautemala falls under a
communist dominated regime.

700
00:48:25,217 --> 00:48:26,467
Following a reign of terror,

701
00:48:26,493 --> 00:48:30,359
manipulated by such communists
as the Argentinian Che Guevara

702
00:48:30,580 --> 00:48:31,854
who later goes to Cuba,

703
00:48:32,502 --> 00:48:34,919
the common people of this
tiny nation rise up….

704
00:48:35,039 --> 00:48:39,461
Eddie Bernays convincingly
made that part of

705
00:48:39,487 --> 00:48:44,261
this fear of the Soviets and fear
of encroaching communism

706
00:48:44,466 --> 00:48:46,646
in a way that I don't
think it really was

707
00:48:46,672 --> 00:48:48,945
and in a way that helped
convince the US government

708
00:48:49,114 --> 00:48:51,683
that it had to step in and
do something in Guatemala.

709
00:48:58,086 --> 00:49:00,312
On June 18th 1954,

710
00:49:00,699 --> 00:49:04,412
President Arbenz was overthrown by
the rebel forces of Castillo Armas

711
00:49:04,759 --> 00:49:06,677
with the decisive
backing of the CIA.

712
00:49:07,425 --> 00:49:11,561
His arrival in power marked the beginning
of a civil war which would last 40 years

713
00:49:11,890 --> 00:49:14,925
and leave up to 150,000
people dead or missing.

714
00:49:16,148 --> 00:49:17,692
We know you like bananas

715
00:49:18,246 --> 00:49:21,827
Edward Bernays' propaganda
campaign lasted 3 years.

716
00:49:26,826 --> 00:49:28,999
He helped undermine

717
00:49:29,333 --> 00:49:33,547
the legitimacy of the duly
elective this government

718
00:49:33,855 --> 00:49:37,505
and this was dangerous not because
of what it did only in Guatemala,

719
00:49:37,566 --> 00:49:39,852
but it set a pattern
for the United States

720
00:49:39,972 --> 00:49:44,429
convincing us that it was okay and
that we could actually achieve success

721
00:49:44,828 --> 00:49:49,482
in a way that helped dictate American
policy, failed policy in Cuba

722
00:49:49,656 --> 00:49:52,362
where we thought we could do the
same thing to the Castro regime

723
00:49:52,711 --> 00:49:54,557
and years later in Vietnam,

724
00:49:54,624 --> 00:49:56,156
where we thought we
could do the same thing

725
00:49:56,612 --> 00:50:00,916
in imposing a government that was
friendly to us in South Vietnam.

726
00:50:07,829 --> 00:50:10,056
One year after the
Guatemalan coup d'état,

727
00:50:10,427 --> 00:50:12,860
Edward Bernays published
Engineering of Consent,

728
00:50:13,724 --> 00:50:16,647
a theoretical and practical
guide to public relations

729
00:50:16,767 --> 00:50:18,157
aimed at the new generation.

730
00:50:22,011 --> 00:50:23,132
In 40 years,

731
00:50:23,363 --> 00:50:26,674
Edward Bernays succeeded in turning
a concept of people governance

732
00:50:27,142 --> 00:50:31,039
into a reality firmly rooted
in all spheres of society.

733
00:50:35,586 --> 00:50:38,458
In 1990, five years
before his death,

734
00:50:38,993 --> 00:50:41,169
Life magazine named
Edward Bernays

735
00:50:41,349 --> 00:50:45,384
as one of the most influential
Americans of the 20th century.

736
00:50:48,895 --> 00:50:52,239
I don’t think my father
ever willingly told a lie.

737
00:50:53,317 --> 00:50:54,911
Maybe he did,

738
00:50:56,166 --> 00:51:01,906
but the truth is made up

739
00:51:02,350 --> 00:51:08,493
of a whole lot of different elements,
and you can’t separate one out.

740
00:51:10,171 --> 00:51:13,099
When you have people

741
00:51:13,995 --> 00:51:15,282
who view their role,

742
00:51:16,864 --> 00:51:18,468
as Bernays put it,

743
00:51:18,919 --> 00:51:21,346
as being an engineer of consent,

744
00:51:23,314 --> 00:51:26,840
then democracy becomes a sham.

745
00:51:27,200 --> 00:51:29,704
That's not just a question of arguments
and winning hearts and minds,

746
00:51:29,824 --> 00:51:34,270
it's about changing society, that's
what propaganda was about originally

747
00:51:34,320 --> 00:51:35,980
and that's what Public
Relations is about now.

748
00:51:36,021 --> 00:51:37,130
It’s about enforcing

749
00:51:37,281 --> 00:51:40,461
a particular set of agendas and
interests by those who use it.

750
00:51:40,515 --> 00:51:42,692
And those who use
it overwhelmingly

751
00:51:43,002 --> 00:51:45,896
are powerful interest in
society predominantly

752
00:51:46,169 --> 00:51:47,225
but also government.

753
00:51:47,446 --> 00:51:52,390
What are the goals that we serve?
Are we working for a client?

754
00:51:53,886 --> 00:51:56,719
And if that client
is not the people,

755
00:51:58,039 --> 00:51:59,790
the population at large,

756
00:52:00,432 --> 00:52:04,391
then we have a problem, because
that means that private interests,

757
00:52:05,253 --> 00:52:07,453
or small numbers of people,

758
00:52:08,031 --> 00:52:10,978
are shaping public fictions

759
00:52:11,559 --> 00:52:14,137
and investing them with a
sense of private urgency,

760
00:52:14,840 --> 00:52:19,727
which allows them to
fuck with our heads.