ABSTRACT
Compared with Britain, the United States was reluctant to set up propaganda and information-gathering services similar to the Ministry of Information. Opposition to propaganda was also part of isolationist thinking, and the prevailing view was that the media could inform the country more credibly than any government agency. The notion of presenting the American political position in a positive light overseas, as Britain sought to do, had no currency in the early years of the war.1 Congressional and public antipathy toward information gathering for any purpose, however, did not prevent Roosevelt from letting Indian nationalists leaders know of his interest in their struggle for self-government. Roosevelt achieved this goal in three ways: through the new American Mission in New Delhi and his representative there, Louis Johnson, who opened channels of communication with political parties and business leaders, through the American Technical Mission, and through direct contact with the nationalist leaders by his “unoffi cial informants.” They were journalists and writers working in India, including Fischer and Snow, who let the President know their impressions of the political situation, drawn from research and interviews undertaken for books and articles subsequently published in the United States. The information they gathered enabled Roosevelt to recognise the misinformation contained in the British propaganda message, reminiscent of his pleasure in secrecy, illustrated in his early career and in the secret meeting with Churchill at Placentia Bay in August 1941.
