ABSTRACT
In 1950, two years after Britain launched its anti-communist propaganda policy, the US Government launched its own coordinated global response to communist propaganda entitled the ‘Campaign of Truth’. This propaganda offensive was part of a new global strategy for resisting communist expansion and undermining the Soviet monolith. It was the product of a fundamental reassessment of US national security objectives which began in mid-1949. This review was prompted by the Berlin blockade and the Soviet detonation of an atomic bomb, and given added impetus by the communist victory in China and, in 1950, the outbreak of the Korean war. The resulting policy document, NSC-68, recommended a dramatic military rearmament, increased support for America’s allies and a programme of psychological warfare and covert action designed to ‘roll back’ communist power.1
