Elmer Daviss Strategy of Truth & The Fight

to See Images of 1940s War Dead

Michael Faust, Butler University
 Faust 1

Image from Life Magazine, Issue 20 September 1943.

 Faust 2

"We are going to use the truth, and we are going to use it
toward the end of winning the war; and we know what
would happen to the American people if we lose it.1

Elmer Davis, Office of War Information, Director

In the late summer of 1943, no American citizen had seen a dead soldier from World War

II. Images of American casualties had long been banned from release during any active war. It

was not like the newsreels of the Vietnam era, where Agent Orange or napalm could be seen

dropped on jungles and villages. It was not like today, where images of flag-draped coffins line

the front pages of newspapers. It was, instead, an altogether different time. The photo above,

captioned Three dead Americans on the beach at Buna, was accompanied by a full-page

editorial in LIFE Magazine on September 20, 1943,2 the first release of American dead nearly

two years into the conflict. Until then, a lack of visual evidence of the horrors and tragedy of was

the reality of propaganda3 and censorship. Enter Elmer Davis, a middle-aged Hoosier reporter,

member of the Washington press corps. In 1942, he was selected by Franklin D. Roosevelt to

become the Director of the Office of War Information (OWI). It was in this office, as head of the

OWI, where Davis would forever change the face of United States history. His efforts, amidst a

1
Bernhard, Nancy E. U.S. Television News and Cold War Propaganda, 1947-1960. Cambridge Studies in the
History of Mass Communication. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press (1999): 18-21.
2
Roeder, George H. The Censored War: American Visual Experience during World War Two. New Haven: Yale
Univ. Press (1993): 14, 35.
3
Various studies of modern propaganda, ranging from the 1920s into the 2000s, define propaganda differently.
Harold Lasswell discusses it in The Theory of Political Propaganda (1927) as the management of collective
attitudes by the manipulation of significant symbols [as] gestures of the face and body, [or] gestures of the pen
and voice. Clayton Laurie, in his book, The Propaganda Warriors (1993), offered his definition: propaganda is
defined as any organized attempt by an individual, group, or government verbally, visually, or symbolically to
persuade a population to adopt its views and repudiate the view of an opposing group. David Welch, in
Propaganda and Mass Persuasion: A Historical Encyclopedia, 1500 to the Present (2003), defined the term as
information consciously designed to serve the interests, either directly or indirectly, of the propagandists and their
political masters. The aim of propaganda is to persuade its subject that there is only one valid point of view and to
eliminate all other options. For this papers purpose, I will use a combined definition: propaganda, through
photographs and other print and visual media, is the deliberate persuasion of a population to adopt the viewpoint that
serves the interest of the state, eliminating possible opposition and views contrary to the end goal of the state.
 Faust 3

complicated and intricate wartime administration, brought a change in propaganda policy,

allowing for photos, such as the Americans at Buna, to be published. Through implementing his

strategy of truth, loosening the restricted flow of images and information to the American

public, and countering the sense of complacency among citizens in mid-1943, Elmer Davis

effectively won the American home front in World War II.

Davis was a native of Aurora, Indiana, twenty miles west of Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1914,

just before World War I, he joined the New York Times reporting team, only after completing his

duties as a Rhodes Scholar. Despite the prestige of his academic achievements, it was not until

1915, when Davis published a full-length novel, The Princess Cecilia, that he began to gain more

publicity and fame as a talented literature writer. Then, in 1916, he began to cover Billy Sunday,

making his first mark on the news world. In covering a high-profile figure like Sunday, Davis,

according to his colleague Samuel T. Williamson, temporarily struck gold,4 and by no

coincidence, as Davis began to write articles about World War I, readers paid attention to his

criticism of Germany and the Axis powers.

Writing stories such as these, however, required a great deal of patience from a reporter,

as the Committee on Public Information (CPI), headed by the infamous George Creel, in

partnership with the Secretaries of Navy, War, and State,5 restricted much of the information one

could receive from the battlefields of Europe. As a censorship and propaganda agency, the CPI

had no interest in telling the public about the intricacies of the war in Europe. Instead, the

Committee worked to release only items that mobilized and expressed the thoughts and

4
In Burlingame, Roger. Dont Let Them Scare You: The Life and Times of Elmer Davis. J. B. Lippincott
Company (1961): 72.
5
Mock, James R, and Cedric Larson. Words That Won the War: The Story of the Committee on Public
Information, 1917-1919. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1939. 4. The CPI was created on April 13, 1917 via
an Executive Order of President Woodrow Wilson.
 Faust 4

emotions supporting [the] extraordinary dislocations of peaceful life that come with war.6 As

Creel would later comment, I had the conviction that our hope must lie in the aroused patriotism

of the newspaper men of America.7 Thus, his desires were to motivate the workforce through

what they would read in the papers, rather than what the government would or would not tell

them. But, Creel would not abandon the idea of censorship. Instead of having the government be

the censor, Creel wished to make every paper in the land its own censor, putting it up to the

patriotism and common sense of the individual editor to protect purely military information of

tangible value to the enemy.8 Thus, it would not be a surprise to a writer if his or her story was

turned down by an editor, even if it did not risk national security or lowering morale.

Amid the CPIs overarching control on information, Davis was still able to publish

several articles; but, his time at the Times was short-lived, as with the conclusion of American

involvement in the war in Europe, Davis moved into a quieter, post-war life as a freelance writer.

The influence of Creels policies, however, had a lasting effect on Davis, and they would not

soon go away. The Hoosier continued to invest himself in the news and reporting information to

the American people, refusing to allow what he saw in the Great War to take a common place in

society. As World War II approached in the late 1930s, Davis was asked to join the Columbia

Broadcasting System (CBS) radio team, giving him an opportunity to share with the public the

true information from Europe and the Pacific. Though he was originally asked to be at Columbia

temporarily, the positive reception he received from the public and the executives brought him a

job offer. By early 1939, the Hoosier hosted his own nightly five-minute news summary [that]

6
Ibid., 5.
7
Creel, George. How We Advertised America: The First Telling of the Amazing Story of the Committee on Public
Information That Carried the Gospel of Americanism to Every Corner of the Globe. New York: Harper & Brothers
(1920): 16.
8
Ibid., 18.
 Faust 5

became a standard of the profession. 9 Davis was not given the position to simply fill a hole in

the daily lineup or replace a low-quality broadcaster, however. Rather, he was asked to stay

because of his tremendous ability to be efficient with words, or as his rivals conceded, his

ability to condense effectively more information into less time was better than any other

newscaster.10 Since he was on each day, his audience began to grow wider, and it was not long

before he would be noticed by the White House.

After Davis had entered the wartime news service with CBS, American involvement in

the war steadily increased. As American involvement transitioned from Lend-Lease to boots on

the ground in late 1941, the amount of information circulating through the government and

military offices began to grow. To solve this, President Roosevelt created several offices to

streamline the information processes. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the President opened the

Office of Censorship, which focused on restricting the release of anything deemed dangerous to

national security interests. The Office of Emergency Management (OEM), too, would have an

office: their Division of Information, handling the inflow and outsourcing of documents relevant

to the war effort to other areas of government. The Office of Government Reports, established

well before the war, also became a coordinator of information, focusing on motion pictures, both

the production of them and the relationship between the industry and the government. The Office

of Facts and Figures (OFF) also handled a fair amount of data, as reports from the battlefield and

the home front would be sifted through in their offices.

Though each office had its own job, they would often send either repeated or conflicting

messages, often to the same recipients. As Davis noted in his post-war Report to the President

9
Jones, Alfred Haworth. The Making of an Interventionist on the Air: Elmer Davis and CBS News, 1939-
1941. Pacific Historical Review 42, no. 1 (1973): 82.
10
Ibid.
 Faust 6

[Truman], the conflict and confusion in government statements increased, and brought

increasing protests from the press and public.11 At the time, Davis noted this same sentiment

on-air, discussing how a reduction in the complexity of all the offices may help: Under one

head, with real power, they might get somewhere12 This broadcast, however, had E. B.

Andy White of the New Yorker listening. White commented in his next column how he would

have liked to see a unification of the information bureaus and the appointment of Elmer Davis

to head them up In our opinion not only is he [on his broadcast] right but he is the man to sit at

the desk.13 Though no one could confirm Roosevelt was listening to Daviss broadcast or

reading Whites column, someone was. Two months later, Davis was brought down to

Washington and told that [he] had been drafted as Director of the [Office of War Information],14

an agency which would combine the efforts of the various information offices into a single,

cohesive unit. Thus, Davis departed CBS and headed into wartime service as head of the OWI.

The OWI was officially created on June 13, 1942 by Executive Order 9182. Its mission

was summarized in one line near the beginning of the document:

Formulate and carry out, through the use of press, radio, motion picture, and other
facilities, information programs designed to facilitate the development of an informed
and intelligent understanding, at home and abroad, of the status and progress of the war
effort end of the war policies, activities, and aims the government.15

While the Order was short and direct in the responsibilities of the OWI, it purposefully left out

how the OWI was supposed to interact with other federal offices. There was no control to be had

by the OWI and Davis, specifically, over any other office. While suggestions could be made to

11
Davis, Elmer. The Office of War Information Report to the President. 13 June 1942 15 September 1945.
Box 10, folder 10, Elmer Davis Papers, Library of Congress (LC): 4.
12
Winkler, Allan M. The Politics of Propaganda: The Office of War Information, 1942-1945. New Haven: Yale
University Press (1978): 33.
13
White, E. B. Talk of the Town, The New Yorker. New York, 14 March 1942. Found in Burlingame, 187.
14
Davis, Report to the President, 6.
15
Roosevelt, Franklin D., and Samuel Irving Rosenman. The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D.
Roosevelt. 1st ed. Vol. 1942. New York: Random House (1950): 275.
 Faust 7

publish one document or withhold another, no direct order could be given from Daviss seat.

Though this would later become problematic, it worked for Davis for the time being. He had

seen first-hand the effects George Creel had on the information front in World War I. When

Creel headed the CPI twenty-five years earlier, not one photo of soldiers was shown to the

American public, and little-to-no information regarding battles or military gains was shared.

Furthermore, the Committee was using propaganda to gain support for a war that some citizens

felt the United States had no part in. It was Creels superior control of information, across

various government agencies, which Roosevelt was directly looking to avoid. Thus, Davis would

have to work alongside these other agencies, not above them.

Further conflicting functions would come from Executive Order 9182.16 First, the goal of

the OWI was to provide the American people with truthful information. But, when developing

campaigns to make sure the public was adequately performing their duties at home was also a

priority, propaganda or propaganda-like strategies may have to be used. Secondly, while the

OWI was supposed to provide accurate information to audiences overseas, the reports needed to

be manipulated enough as to not tip off the enemy to American activities. Thus, because of the

conflicting functions, Davis and his colleagues were overwhelmed. The Hoosier commented,

with his characteristic humor, that he felt like a man who had married a wartime widow and was

trying to raise her children by all her previous husbands.17

Davis, drawing on his comments before becoming Director of the OWI, worked to

simplify the issue of distributing information. Rather than employing propaganda and

censorship, he felt that it would be altogether better and easier for both the government and the

16
Winkler, 35. Also in Weinberg, Sydney. What to Tell America: The Writers Quarrel in the Office of War
Information. The Journal of American History 55, no. 1 (1968): 82.
17
Davis, Elmer. Formulation of OWI Charter, from Role of Information in World War II, lecture. 16 November
1951: 16-17. Found in Winkler, 35.
 Faust 8

American public to tell as much of the truth as possible, only deceiving or withholding comment

for reasons of national security or military interest.18 Even several of Daviss predecessors

agreed, such as Robert Horton, the Director of the Division of Information in the OEM. He

acted on the premise that an information agency must tell the truth about the activities of

government agencies with or without their approval,19 though his actions would not be as

intertwined with the military offices as Davis. Archibald MacLeish, Director of the OFF, also

agreed, telling Roosevelt in a letter that A full knowledge of what we are fighting for [would

be] a positive weapon in winning the war.20 Davis, therefore, had support in his endeavor. It

would be through the giving out the honest facts about the struggle 21 that the American public

would be more productive and further support the war at home.

Because Davis wanted to use this strategy of truth in a specific way, and because the

Executive Order 9182 gave the OWI conflicting functions and brought in workers from the

merged offices, Davis soon realized that not all staffers would be able to perform their roles as

directed. Gardner Cowles, Jr., thankfully, was one of Daviss most trusted subordinates, directing

the Domestic Branch of the OWI. Like Davis, Cowles was from the Midwest, and would be, as

the OWI Director wrote, a guarantee of the non-partisan character which [Davis] was

determined to give the agency.22 With no objection from the Director, Cowles decided to

reorganize his branch to make it more efficient. He delegated some of the large responsibilities to

William Lewis, a former vice-president at CBS, and James Allen, a former press agent for the

Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).23 Not long after taking office, however Lewis and

18
Roeder, 9.
19
Weinberg, 74.
20
Ibid., 75.
21
Winkler, 13.
22
Davis, Report to the President, 7.
23
Winkler, 63.
 Faust 9

Allen began to struggle with keeping the directions of their staffs; thus, the conflict over different

ideas culminated in an uproar from the lower-level writers in the OWI in April of 1943.

The writers under Lewis and Allen were brought into the OWI from the OFF. Henry

Pringle, the copy editor who also considered himself a writer, and the rest of the writing staff

thought that they would be formulating policy for the office, just as they had in the OFF. 24 But,

with pressure from Congress and other sources who believed the OWI was pushing out

propaganda over truth, the writers were forced to take a backseat role. The publications,

pamphlets, and editorials they wished to push out would not be allowed to surface. Instead, their

efforts would have to focus on other Washington agencies, and in turn [terminating] all

controversial or extraneous functions of the OWI, even if it meant not publishing stories of

truth.25 Thus, the writers attention turned toward other offices, beginning the slow revocation

of freedoms within their assigned responsibilities.

In preparing the to-be-published reports of different government offices, Pringle and

the staff began to feel threatened. W. McNeil Lowry, one of the writers, prepared a report on the

Department of Agricultures proposed food quotas the public needed to fulfill in order to

adequately support their troops on the battlefield. As Lowry noted, the quotas would not be filled

because of the acute shortage of farm labor and machinery, and the Office of Economic

Stabilization (OES) was worried that the report, if published, could hurt the relationship between

farmers and the government in a time of war.26 When Lowry refused, along with Pringle, to

change the content of the report to fit the OESs desires, Allen was forced to cancel it. Without

telling his staff that the OWI had no authority to dispute a governmental policy or to create one

24
Weinberg, 82.
25
Ibid., 84.
26
Ibid., 86-87.
 Faust 10

if none existed, the writers felt distrusted by Allen, believing he attempted to change the true

story to fit the needs of the government.27 Pringle and his colleagues thought they had no choice

but to resign. Demanding they be directly responsible to Davis, whom they respected, they

wanted to work with his strategy of truth to serve the American people.28 Davis felt it was unwise

to overstep the role of those he hired into the OWI, however, and he thus reluctantly accepted the

resignations.

The public perception of the writers en masse exit was less than desirable in the eyes of

Davis and those in the OWI. As Davis later wrote to President Truman, the writers initiative,

their imagination, their passionate conviction (if only it could be channeled) were all qualities

that [the] OWI needed, and was the poorer without. Nonetheless, he argued, it was a necessary

resignation on the part of the writers, because In an organization that is going to get any work

done you cannot do much with people who are convinced that they are the sole authorized

custodians of Truth, and that whoever differ from them is ipso facto wrong.29 Though Davis felt

he had to force out naysayers within the OWI, the publics reaction was most severe, especially

after a press conference several of the writers gave. Davis then had to fight against the backlash,

telling the press that the writers were mistaken, and that the OWI would continue to deal in one

commodity, [the] facts that the American people needed.30 While this may have been enough

for some members of the press to forget the circumstances, congress would not soon let the issue

dissipate. On June 18, the House of Representatives voted 218-114 to abolish the Domestic

Branch of the OWI, a follow up to the already publicized Appropriations Committee cuts to take

affect over the office in the following year. Luckily for Davis, the Senate would not sustain the

27
Ibid., 87.
28
Ibid.
29
Davis, Report to the President, 43.
30
Davis on the Griddle. LIFE. 3 May 1943, 25. Found in Winkler, 65.
 Faust 11

overall closure of the Domestic Branch; but, it did rule on June 30 that the OWIs publications,

motion pictures, and field operations would cease, leaving only the radio broadcasts, the news

division, and other special services behind, in addition to the massively cut three-million-dollar

budget.31 Davis commented on the latter in a note to his friend Bernard DeVoto, writing,

Congress allocated just enough money to relieve them[selves] of the odium of having put us

out of business, and carefully not enough to let us accomplish anything much.32 Thus, Davis

was forced to be efficient in the work his organization would conduct over the next year,

attempting to prove to the public that the Directors strategy of truth was still intact.

As the writers quarrel departed from the headlines of magazines and papers, the OWI

continued its struggle to publish documents and information relating to the war. While the issues

between Daviss office and the OES subsided, as well as with the Department of Agriculture,

newer disputes arose over the overseas activities of the war, such as results of battles and troop

advancement. The OWI, however, struggled to bring these reports to the American people, as the

Departments of War and Navy obstructed many of the processes set in place for the office to do

its job. George Creel, in a letter to Davis on August 4, 1942, predicted Daviss lack of say in

military issues: your control over Army, Navy and State is not real in any sense of the

word and while you may think you have established an arrangement that will permit a free

flow of the news, just wait until an issue arises.33 Davis, who later agreed with Creel in his

assessment, ran into those issues frequently, especially after the fallout of the writers debacle

earlier in 1943.

31
Burlingame, 217.
32
Davis, Elmer to Bernard DeVoto. 4 July 1943, Bernard DeVoto Papers (Stanford University). Found in
Weinberg, 89.
33
Creel, George to Elmer Davis. 4 August 1942. Box 1, Folder 5. Davis Papers, LC. Davis later remarked that
Creel was about right on all points.
 Faust 12

While some believed the OWI was not telling the entire story, other offices, such as the

Department of War, believed Davis and his staff was saying too much, causing security concerns

abroad. Secretary of War Henry Stimson was the biggest skeptic. The press was highly critical of

the recent North Africa campaign, and Stimson was quick to fire the criticism back. Reporters

and newsmen, he said, simply sat behind a desk with their feet on the desks in Algiers and their

tentacles in the cesspool of gossip.34 When the OWI sent Edgar Ansel Mowrer to the area,

Stimson intervened, blocking him from even leaving the United States.35 In the Department of

Navy, Admiral Ernest J. King, chief of naval operations, did not restrict the OWI as Stimson had,

but he made it known to the office that it was not welcome to publish naval information or

intelligence. Instead of blocking writers and correspondents from entering combat zones like

Stimson had, King put forth his strategy of withholding all information until the end of the war,

then announce who won.36

Neither Kings or Stimsons strategies, however, were new to Davis in 1943. A year

before, in the summer of 1942, four Germans essentially invaded the United States.37 Landing

with a collapsible dingy on the coast of Long Island, the men left their U-boat in hopes of

sabotaging cities and towns on the East Coast. In a similar manner, another group of four

Germans landed near Jacksonville, Florida. The FBI managed to foil the plan, catching all eight

men within two weeks of landing on American sand. Davis, seeing the story as an opportunity to

tell the intricacies of war, even in an FBI victory, to the public, he attempted to send an OWI

representative to cover the trials. But, the army general in charge of the trials, Brigadier General

F. R. McCoy, refused any releases [of information], nor would the general permit representatives

34
Stimson, Henry L. Personal diary entry, c. February 1943. Found in Winkler, 100.
35
Winkler, 100-101.
36
Roeder, 10.
37
Burlingame, 198-199.
 Faust 13

of the news services or of [the] OWI to attend any sessions of the trial.38 When Davis took the

concern to Stimson, the Secretary refused to change the decision. Upon Stimsons denial, Davis

went to the President, who forced a compromise between the parties, allowing press coverage of

the event. Though a victory for Davis and the press, the Director knew what challenges laid

ahead for him. When commenting on the status of the war later, he discussed how issues outside

the battlefield could cause a loss:

We could lose this war. We have never lost a war; but it has been remarked that this
means only that our ancestors never lost a war; and our ancestors were never up against a
war like this. To win a total war we must fight it totally, and we are not yet fighting it that
hard. Many individual Americans have made great sacrifices but as a nation we are not
yet more than ankle deep in the war.39

Davis believed that this total war was one of the people, not the military. In his 1945 Report, he

more explicitly stated the reason why a loss could have been imminent: he felt War and Navy

acted with ignorance.

[The Departments of War and Navy] appeared to be less aware that a democracy fighting
a total war will fight it more enthusiastically and effectively if it knows what is going on,
if it feels that its leaders trust it with as much information as can possibly be given
without giving aid and comfort to the enemy.40

In Daviss mind, without giving the public the proper information, the United States may end up

losing the War, bringing with it formidable consequences.

Even before the time of the OWI, the Navy had been notoriously difficult to garner

information from. Beginning after Pearl Harbor, the Navy repeatedly denied mass-losses and

delayed the true reports from surfacing. Newsweek caught wind of the issue after Japanese radio

stations began to publish different statistics. Ernest K. Lindley wrote, on November 2, 1942, that

there was a case against the Navy regarding censorship, although it cannot be fully

38
Ibid., 199.
39
Ibid., 200.
40
Davis, Report to the President, 13.
 Faust 14

documents. . . But the Navy has toned down, withheld or delayed disclosure of so much bad

news that it rests under the heavy suspicion of trying to protect itself from public examination

and criticism.41 Thankfully, since Franklin Knox, Secretary of Navy, had some press

experience, he managed to control some of the outcry, working with Davis and others to limit the

censorship and obstruction from his own office. But, Knox failed to help much. His battered and

beaten Navy, who had lost its fair share of battles through much of the first year of the war,

remained the first symbol of war news obstruction,42 a stigma which failed to leave the

Department throughout the war.

Thus, come mid-1943, it was no surprise that OWI staffers routinely complained of

issues in dealings with both the Army and Navy. As many within the OWI became further

disgruntled, memos began to circulate through the office discussing how to appropriately deal

with the issue. One of these memos mentioned how the Army Signal Corps began to further

restrict the material presented to them, that the Marines were no longer giving any information to

the OWI and were publishing photos without going through the office first, and how the Navy

would not even let them see pictures from overseas, as its picture files had been absolutely

closed to our Photographic Section for a long time.43 No longer were issues of obstruction and

censorship segmented by weeks or months of cooperation in between. Instead, the restrictions

seemed endless, and the OWIs struggle began to take a toll on the American people, who were

ignorant of what was happening to their boys overseas.

Amidst the struggles with the military in the late spring of 1943, an unsigned memo

circled the OWI, reporting the publics attitude toward the war and what common beliefs were

41
Burlingame, 201.
42
Roeder, 13.
43
Allen, Charles (OWI news bureau) to Palmer Hoyt (Director, OWI Domestic Branch), 16 August 1943. Public
Information Division, Record Group (RG) 165, entry 499, box 25, National Archives (NA). Found in Roeder, 11.
 Faust 15

held throughout the country. It warned of the impression among citizens that soldiers fights, that

some of them get hurt and ride smiling in aerial ambulances, but that none of them get badly shot

or spill any blood.44 Around that time, the Allies had success in North Africa, countering the

Desert Fox, Erwin Rommel, promptly moving toward Italy. On the horizon was a negotiation of

an Italian surrender a few months later. German U-boats, which often terrorized east coast

American and Canadian cities, had successfully been countered, finally asserting Allied naval

dominance in the Atlantic theater. Even a survey taken of public opinion indicated that

although dissatisfaction with official information was not as great as it had been the previous

winter [before the congressional disapproval of the office], it seemed to be on the rise again.45

Thus, a fear of complacency set in on many of the government offices. With so many victories

and an ignorance of the horrors taking place overseas with American lives, some OWI staff

members predicted a loss of production for the war effort unless something was to change.

Because of multiple failed attempts to work with the Departments of Army and Navy,

Davis could not afford to waste time in trying to work out a compromise with Knox or Stimson.

Instead, Davis took a chance, proceeding directly to the President. On July 14, he wrote to

Roosevelt, telling him of the struggle: The Office of War Information is at present under heavy

attackmostly partisan, malicious, and unjustified; but partly due to our failure to attain the

standing contemplated by, and to perform all the duties assigned to us in, Executive Order

9182.46 While conceding the fact that congressional backlash of the writers resignations had

hurt the reputation of the OWI, Davis felt that other areas of government had no reason to be

44
OWI memo, unsigned and undated, but c. spring 1943, in file Memo to Staff, RG208, entry E-79, box 241,
NA. Found in Roeder, 10. For an example of an aerial ambulance, see photograph in Appendix A from Life
Magazine, 11 October 1943.
45
Roeder, 11.
46
Memorandum, Davis to the President. 14 July 1943. Box 64, Records of OWI. Found in Winkler, 103.
 Faust 16

uncooperative. The Director did not give up, and instead, as Allan Winkler wrote, he

underscored the necessity of changes in [the] OWIs relationship to the State, War, and Navy

departments. [The] OWI should have authority to determine what news to release and should be

supplied with the information it needed to formulate appropriate propaganda policies.47 On

August 30, Davis sat in a meeting with Roosevelt, discussing in person the issues the Director

raised in his letter a month earlier. It was here, in the Oval Office, where Davis restated his

ultimatum to the President: if Roosevelt would not tell the Departments of War and Navy to

cooperate with the OWI in trying to release the true stories of the war, Davis would submit his

resignation and leave public service.48 But, the Director did not believe his job was the only

position that should be restructured in such a case. He realized that many others in the OWI had

the same aims as him; thus, Davis stated that the President [should] drastically reorganize the

Office of War Information, changing its name, its Director, and its assigned functions; otherwise

its enemies and his are likely to cripple it or even destroy it.49 After a meeting which may have

lasted up to two hours,50 Davis had made his point, and Roosevelt chose to support the OWIs

efforts.

The next day, Roosevelt brought Davis back to the White House, calling on Secretary

Knox and the Assistant War Secretary John McCloy (filling in for Stimson) to attend so that

together, they could formulate the new plan for the OWI-military relationship.51 The brief

47
Ibid.
48
Roeder, 11. Also Winkler, 103-104.
49
Memorandum, Davis to the President. 30 August 1943. Box 64, Records of the OWI. Found in Winkler, 104.
50
According to Roosevelts stenographers diary, Daviss meeting began at 2:30p, and the Presidents next
meeting was not scheduled until 4:30p. Though the meeting unlikely took two hours, it was a rather large amount of
time open compared to most of Roosevelts schedule. From the Pare Lorentz Center at the FDR Presidential Library.
August 30th, 1943. Franklin D. Roosevelt Day by Day. 2011. Accessed March 5, 2017.
http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/daybyday/daylog/august-30th-1943/.
51
The Pare Lorentz Center at the FDR Presidential Library. August 31st, 1943.
 Faust 17

meeting was then followed the next day by formal letters to the Secretaries of War and Navy,

that

directed that news in the possession of the services, which the Director of [the] OWI
felt should be released, was to be released at such a time and in such a form as the
Director shall determine; that in the event of disagreement as to the form of phraseology
of a news release, the decision of the Director shall be binding; and that in case of an
irreconcilable difference on security issues the matter should be referred to the
President.52

Daviss ultimatum, and the new instructions from Roosevelt thereafter, did not change the

structure of the relationship between the Departments and the OWI, however; rather, it changed

the nature of it, fostering cooperation and conference between the two sides.53 Finally, Davis and

his staff could begin the work to release the true information of the war that the public had been

anticipating.

Following the letters sent from Roosevelt to the Secretaries, a radiogram was sent to the

commanding generals in all theaters of operations of the war, informing them that Roosevelt

and Stimson54 remained unhappy with visual coverage of the war.55 Specifically, it asked the

generals to support photographic divisions below them, especially in sending to Washington

images that vividly portray the dangers, horrors, and grimness of War.56 The desired visual

evidence began to flow into the OWI. Rather than the generals or their close subordinates telling

photographers what they could or could not take pictures of, the images would be quickly sent to

Washington for almost immediate release. Final review took place in the OWI before the photos

52
Davis, Report to the President, 22.
53
Ibid., 23. According to Davis, over the course of the rest of the war, there would be no appeal from an OWI
decision ever taken to the President by either of the services; with the improvement in service news policies,
incidents that might have evoked such an appeal were few.
54
Despite much of Stimsons disapproval of the OWIs efforts, he realized the threat complacency had in the
war, and seemingly became Roosevelts partner in a push for more visual coverage of the war.
55
Roeder, 12. The radiogram was sent from the Army Chief of Staff, George C. Marshall.
56
Marshall radiogram draft, 1 September 1943. Army Adjutant General (AG), in file marked AG 062 1
September 1943, in RG407, entry 360, box 1103, NA. Found in Ibid.
 Faust 18

released to the press, who could choose to run the photographs [or not] in their newspapers and

magazines. For the first time, Davis and his staff could access the War Departments chamber

of horrors, run by its Bureau of Public Relations (BPR), which housed some of the darkest,

heaviest, and most violent photographs of American soldiers from the beginning of the war.57

Davis and the War staff, reviewing well over 200 photos, chose to clear release for only half of

the grim photos from the chamber.58 Yet, contrary to what the Director believed would have

been the case, almost all newspapers and magazines chose to not publish the images. One editor

from the New York Daily News commented on his reasoning behind not using many of the

images, summing up most the concerns the press had: I personally try to select pictures that will

go down well when I have my coffee in the morning.59

While this decision was consistent in most press outlets, LIFE magazine was different.

Instead of shielding its viewers, it decided to release the first image of war dead: George Strocks

Dead Americans at Buna Beach (see page 1). Though LIFE accompanied the photo with the

full-page editorial (see Appendix B)60 to subdue the impact it would bring its readers at their own

kitchen tables or desks, the image was nonetheless published. Thus, Davis and the OWI to

achieved one of its most defining political victories of the war. Unfortunately, it would also be

the last time the OWI would see their efforts in the magazine for nearly three months. Some were

quick to praise LIFE for its success in bringing the visual evidence to the American people, but

57
Roeder, George H. A Note on U.S. Photo Censorship in WWII. Historical Journal of Film, Radio and
Television 5, no. 2 (September 1985): 192. Roeder commented in his Censored War endnotes that his 1985 article,
to his knowledge, was the first reference to the Chamber in any historical scholarship.
58
Ibid.
59
Quoted in Newsweek, Issue 20 September 1943, 98. Found in Roeder, The Censored War, 13-14.
60
This editorial was used to guide the readers personal reflection on the photo. It offered comparisons of the
soldiers to halfback[s] carrying the ball down a football field, mixing beauty and metaphor together to prevent
feelings of discomfort. Though crediting Davis and Roosevelt for their decision to release the image, the editorial
had the potential to produce contrary outcomes to the desires of the OWI, as it continued to portray the war as
beautiful even in violent death. To Daviss delight, however, the desired effects took place instead.
 Faust 19

no photo taken from the battlefield portraying dead Americans would be put into the magazine

until December 13, 1943.

Despite the editorials attempt to soften the blow the photo was set to deliver on the

American people, the desired effects of reversing complacency and stimulating the home front

efforts came in response. One OWI survey found that shortly before the photo, most Americans

believed that war was next to being all over; but it was the photographs, showing some of our

boys killed in action, [that] had a sobering effect on people and brought the realities of war closer

to home.61 While the image from Buna brought about these effects, struggles to show the gore

that took place on the front lines existed. The December 13 image (Appendix C), however,

changed that, depicting the true horrors of war for the first time in LIFE. The photograph was

published, along with a dozen other images, showing the Battle for Tarawa, one of the single

bloodiest days in the war. An American soldier, whose face is partially visible, lies next to a

Japanese soldier, both sharing the same fate. Americans in the background, pensive, somber, and

exhausted, captured accurately how much of the public would feel at home upon seeing the

struggle in the pages of their weekly magazine. Other citizens, however, took little time to

reflect, becoming angry, instead, at the Nazis and Japanese, whom they felt responsible for the

dead American troops. Thus, coupled by recruiting and motivational posters to increase yields in

the factories and in the boot camps, these photographs brought an increased productivity the

American home front.

The fall of 1943 became a time for Davis and the OWI to implement their strategy of

truth by using another strategy, named in an OWI memo as Over-the-Hump Psychology.62

61
OWI Current Surveys, no. 24 (6 October 1943), United States Information Service (USIS), Bureau of
Special Services(BSS), RG44, entry 149, box 1710, NA. Found in Roeder, The Censored War, 14.
62
Ibid., 15.
 Faust 20

Once these few images were released, it opened the door for hundreds more throughout the war

to make their way into the public eye. Multiple times in the following two years, the office found

itself releasing more images, while the military garnering more support fiscally through bonds,

physically through volunteers, and economically through the highest production rates of any

state involved in the war. So frequent became the desire to release photographs that come D-Day

in June of 1944, combat photographers would be deployed at various points to capture the

realities of the battles. The final pushes into Germany and assaults on islands toward Japan

would bring about the same results: hundreds and thousands of photos were slated for release.63

From only a few months before, when the OWI had no published visual evidence of the toll

being taken on American lives, to early 1944, when the stock pile of images seemed to be

unmanageable, the quick transition came directly as a result of Daviss efforts, effectively

winning the World War II home front.

In some ways, after World War II, it was more difficult to see how Daviss actions

affected the daily interactions between the military and the American public. Newsreels of dead

and wounded Americans filled the television screens of millions of homes across the United

States, leaving Daviss work unnoticed because of how the photos, both still and moving,

became such a commonplace. The idea that a public can hold its government accountable, shared

explicitly by many American citizens during the Vietnam War, directly came about because of

the work of Davis. In utilizing his strategy of truth, the OWI Director allowed Americans,

whether he knew it or not, to see what was happening to their boys in faraway lands, giving the

people an opportunity to voice their satisfaction or dissatisfaction, whichever they saw fit, with

wars both in the 1940s and after. When President George H.W. Bush reinforced a ban on

63
Roeder points out in The Censored War that over two-thirds of all Americans killed in World War II died in
1944 and 1945 (15), another reason for the increase in the number of images flowing into Washington.
 Faust 21

releasing images of flag-draped coffins of fallen soldiers, the outcry and feelings of betrayal, and

ultimately the change in that policy under President Barack Obama early in his presidential

career, would come because of the effect Davis produced in his work. The families of the men

and women fighting in combat, who would be damned if they could not see the valiant effort

their child, sibling, or parent gave, would need to worry no more. They did not have to wonder

why a war was being fought, what the soldiers were doing in these foreign nations, or how they

would be treated upon being brought back to the United States. Daviss work stretches long past

World War II, as he managed to give comfort to Americans in wartime over the course of the

next seventy years.

 Faust 22

Appendix A

From LIFE Magazine, Issue 11 October 1943, page 26.

 Faust 23

Appendix B

From LIFE Magazine, Issue 20 September 1943, page 34.

 Faust 24

Appendix C

From LIFE Magazine, Issue 13 December 1943, page 33.

 Faust 25

Appendix D

Elmer Davis, in LIFE Magazine, Issue 22 March 1943, page 11.

 Faust 26

Bibliography

Archival Records

Davis, Elmer. Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

Office of War Information. Records, RG208, National Archives Annex, Federal Records Center,
Suitland, Maryland (selected records available online).

Primary Sources

Books

Davis, Elmer Holmes. But We Were Born Free. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1954.
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11 October 1943
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25 October 1943
1 November 1943
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15 November 1943
22 November 1943
29 November 1943
6 December 1943
13 December 1943
The New York Times
Newsweek
 Faust 27

In Elmer Davis Papers, Library of Congress, Washington D.C.

Article in Saturday Review. May 30, 1942. Box 5, Folder 4.

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Personal Diary Entry. Specimen Day in Washington. January 5, 1943. Box 10, Folder 8.
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Lippincott Company, 1961. http://archive.org/details/dontletthemscare013583mbp.
Creel, George. How We Advertised America: The First Telling of the Amazing Story of the
Committee on Public Information That Carried the Gospel of Americanism to Every Corner
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Mock, James R, and Cedric Larson. Words That Won the War: The Story of the Committee
 Faust 28

on Public Information, 1917-1919. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1939.

Roeder, George H. The Censored War: American Visual Experience during World War Two.
New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1993.
Sproule, J. Michael. Propaganda and Democracy: The American Experience of Media and
Mass Persuasion. Cambridge Studies in the History of Mass Communications. Cambridge,
U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Welch, David and Nicholas John Cull. Propaganda and Mass Persuasion: A Historical
Encyclopedia, 1500 to the Present, 2003.
Winkler, Allan M. The Politics of Propaganda: The Office of War Information, 1942-1945. New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1978.

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Bernhard, Nancy E. U.S. Television News and Cold War Propaganda, 1947-1960.
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02664.
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war-ii-dead-americans-at-buna-beach-1943/.
Dunlap, David W. Cal Whipple Dies at 94; Won 1943 Fight to Print Photo of War Dead. The
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 Faust 29

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