What could a commander do if a delegation called on him, right out in a zone of operations, and demanded a right to be heard? Suppose that he knew their complaints about food, rotation, danger, etc., to be justified, and knew at the same time that the enemy had subverted some of his men into being either dupes or traitors. Suppose his men protested a lack of deep lead-lined shelters the day after enemy leaflets instructed the American soldiers to ask for such shelters. Should he treat all such enlisted men as traitors? Suppose he is faced with the specter of political treason, subversion, and revolution? American officers have not faced such problems since the days in which George Washington was Commander in Chief. War after war, we have gone into the fight with a profound confidence in our ability to win. Future war may hold forth no such assurance. If America is injured, her troops decimated, their homes exploded or poisoned by foreign atomic attack, brand-new questions of psychological warfare will be posed. No living American has ever had to face such problems. This is no assurance that they will never occur. Upon the manhood, the fairness, the sheer intelligence of small-unit commanders there may fall the unexpected task of holding their units together in the face of disastrous psychological attack.
=Surrender Leaflets.= Surrender leaflets are the infantry of the propaganda war. They go in and finish the job to which the preceding years of radio broadcasts, the demoralization of the home front, the campaigns of news and morale materials to troops, and the actual air, ground, and sea attacks have led up.
Sudden use of surrender leaflets on a victorious or unprepared enemy is not likely to take effect. The Japanese surrender leaflets dropped on the Americans in Southwest Pacific were issued without previous materials readying the Americans. Furthermore, they were dropped when the American situation was plainly improving, and when American soldiers were not likely to be thinking about surrender in order to get individual escape from the war.
The preparation of surrender leaflets calls for the tactical use of printing facilities. This is the job of the combat propaganda unit, with its high-speed press, its liaison with both ground and air forces, its up-to-the-minute intelligence on enemy movements, situation, and order of battle. The enemy should be given leaflets showing him how clearly he is pinned down, identifying him, generally stripping him of the sense of secrecy and the trust in his commanders that make it possible for him to go on fighting. When surrender can be effected, he should be given the simplest, plainest command the circumstances allow. In the case of the Japanese, there were difficulties on the American side about letting the Japanese come over to surrender; too many of them were suspected of having tucked hand grenades into their _fundoshi_. Many a Japanese started out for the Allied lines and failed to make his peaceful intentions plain enough. The result was a strong deterrent to other Japanese who may have been trying to decide whether they wanted to surrender or not.