Why We Fight: A Study of U.S. Government War-Making Propaganda

The article of record as published may be found at http://www.jstor.com/stable/26591800In this paper, we examine the extent to which officials within the U.S. government employ propaganda to influence the American public's opinion regarding going to war. We begin with a definition of propaganda as "the deliberate attempt to persuade people to think and behave in a desired way" (Taylor 1995, 6, emphasis in original), to which we add, "using means that involve either selective information or outright deception." We concentrate primarily on the public statements or actions of the president, secretary of defense, and high-ranking members of the military, though we also allow for the products of various other agencies insofar as they relate to foreign policy