The Realities of the Shrewd Propaganda 1: Delegated Propaganda

Following sentences are quoted and extracted from

The Nanking Massacre: Fact versus Fiction: A Historian’s Quest for the Truth

by Higashinakano Shudo (Author)

Timperley’s What War Means was not identified as propaganda for more than half a century. That is how shrewd was the method in which the Nationalist Party’s Central Information Department edited and produced it.

 
Zeng details the story in his Memoirs. China, which was militarily inferior to Japan, propagated the accounts of their heroic warriors and the enemy’s atrocity as a national policy. In doing so, the Chinese Nationalist Party did not appear in the forefront; rather, they preferred an indirect method of propaganda, which was to ask their “international friends” (so-called third persons) to speak on their behalf. This was their method of “delegated propaganda.” Zeng contacted Timperley in Shanghai and asked him to fly to Hankou, where he consulted with him for many hours in a “closed room”. Zeng recounts:

What was just good in timing was that two foreigners were staying in Nanking, and watching the course of this tragedy. One of them was Timperley, a special correspondent for the Manchester Guardian in England, and the other was Professor Lewis S.C. Smythe from the U.S.

 
Conveniently, Timperley was one of the three important members who were attending the “resistance committee” in Shanghai as we were promoting anti-Japanese international propaganda. He is an Australian. So as soon as he came to Shanghai, we contacted him immediately. Then we asked him to fly from Hong Kong to Hankou to consult with him on everything. When he came, we talked with him in a closed room for many hours, and decided the early plan for the overseas propaganda network of the International Information Division.

 
In the current international propaganda, we talked to each other: We Chinese ourselves should never go to the fore, but find our international friends who can understand the real situation of our resistance and our policy; and that we should ask them to speak on our behalf. Timperley was an ideal person for this. For the first step, we decided to pay money to Timperley asking him and Smythe (whom he introduced us to) to write two books on the “Nanking Massacre” as the witnessed records, and to print and publish them.

 
After that, Timperley wrote Rijun Baoxing Qizhen (Records of Japanese Atrocities), and Smythe wrote Real Records of War Damage in Nanking. They sold well and spread widely. Thus they attained the propaganda purpose. At the same time, we consulted with Timperley again. We asked him to become a secret person who would be in charge of our International Information Division and living in the U.S. It was registered there as the Trans Pacific News, and published his manuscripts in the U.S. At the same time, Earl Leaf became responsible for the clerical work in New York, Henry Evans was in charge of that of Chicago, and Malcolm Rosholt was in charge of that of San Francisco. They were all experienced American journalists, and we completed the whole U.S. propaganda network. Our propaganda was focused on the U.S., but simultaneously they were compelled to represent the openings for England and Hong Kong, and a contingency station for the enemy’s policy in Shanghai.

 

Zeng recounts that Timperley executed everything as decided, and the International Information Division of the Nationalist Party’s Central Information Department achieved their propaganda goal. But what did he secretly discuss with Timperley for so many hours? Zeng did not specify, but it must have concerned the editing and production of What War Means. These closed-room discussions indicate how careful members of the Information Division, including Zeng, were in keeping secrets.

 
Timperley was no exception. Two months after the fall of Nanking, an exchange of opinions began between Timperley in Shanghai and Miner Bates of the University of Nanking, a contributor of articles, over the editing of What War Means. On March 14, 1938, Timperley told Bates:

50% (instead of the whole) of the profits derived from the sale of the book will be given to the Shanghai International Red Cross Committee and the balance will be used to meet the cost of production and of translation into various languages. I find that the whole thing is costing a great deal more than I have bargained for; especially in the way of photographs, which will run me into something like Mex. $1,000. Gollancz [the English publisher] asked for 200 photographs, though of course he will not use anything like that number in the book. I have had four typists and two other assistants at work on the preparation of the manuscript for the past fortnight and there have been numerous other expenses. It has been suggested to me that the manuscript ought to be translated into Japanese and perhaps into Hindustani, among other languages.

 

From this letter, it seems as if Timperley had been editing the book but is having a hard time paying the various costs. It also seems as if he had been translating the manuscript into several languages, collecting photographs and editing by himself with the help of his “assistants.” We see no obvious sign of his connections with the Nationalist Party’s Central Information Department.

 

Timperley’s letter was carefully camouflaged. to achieve the purpose of producing a propaganda book. First, as the top-secret document of the Nationalist Party’s Central Information Department and Zeng’s Memoir make clear, it was the Nationalist Party’s Central Information Department that decided to “pay money to Timperley … to write two books on the ‘Nanking Massacre’…” One of those books was What War Means. They then printed and published it. Any financial burden on him was out of the question.

 

Despite the fact that he did not have to worry about the costs of production, translation, or photography, to say nothing of “four typists” and “two assistants,” he referred to the finances to make the pretense that he had edited the book (and that he had had nothing to do with the Nationalist Party’s Central Information Department).

 
Second, Victor Gollancz in England did not print even a single photograph, when they published What War Means, even though Timperley said Gollancz asked him to send them 200 photos for inclusion in the book. In contrast, the Chinese edition, published simultaneously with the English edition, had approximately 30 photos in it. Therefore, the one who really asked him to send them photos had to have been the Central Information Department. To give an impression that he had nothing to do with them, he needed to write as if the British publisher had made the request.

 
Third, Timperley wrote that Gollancz suggested that “the manuscript ought to be translated into Japanese and perhaps into Hindustani.” Nothing is so absurd as to suggest publishing books in foreign countries where no distribution channel existed. The one who actually suggested he translate the book into Japanese was the Central Information Department, which had abundant funds. After they published the English, Chinese, and Japanese versions, they also published a French version in Paris next year.

 
Fourth, Timperley said, “I am thinking of using Gollancz for the publisher,” but in London, New York City, Hong Kong, and Shanghai, where What War Means was published, the International Information Division’s overseas offices had also been established.

 
Thus, Timperley paid careful attention such that his connection to the Nationalist Party’s Central Information Department would not be discovered. Also, he did so to make What War Means receive wide acceptance, even if his correspondence should be made public in the future. This was the extent to which the editing of What War Means was carefully disguised.

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The Realities of the Shrewd Propaganda 2: Concealing Lies in a Fact

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If you want to read full text, visit (the Web site: Society for the Dissemination of Historical Fact) http://www.sdh-fact.com/book-article/242/