Psychological Strategy Board organization
also: Psychological Strategic Board, PSB, Psychological Board, strategy board
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Related entities (most co-mentioned)
CIAintelligence service · 29Gordon Grayperson · 27Harry S. Trumanperson · 15Frank Wisnerperson · 14Walter Bedell Smithperson · 9Tracy Barnesperson · 7Dwight D. Eisenhowerperson · 6United Wa State Armyorganization · 6Allen Dullesperson · 6National Security Councilorganization · 6West Germanycountry · 5United Statescountry · 5Koreacountry · 4Soviet Unioncountry · 4Office of Policy Coordinationorganization · 3U.S. State Departmentorganization · 3Guatemalacountry · 3Washington, D.C.place · 3Henry Kissingerperson · 3Italycountry · 3Vietnamcountry · 2William Harding Jacksonperson · 2Korean Warevent · 2Francecountry · 2
Claims (19)
Dwight D. Eisenhower removed_from_power
Psychological Strategy Board documented
“Eisenhower abolished the PSB, the Psychological Strategy Board, in the summer of 53, making the Truman directive obsolete. With the OPC, Frank Wisner's, merging into the CIA, the Iran and Guatemala covert operations were approved in ad hoc …”
▶ The Colonel’s Corner Safe for Democracy Part 12 (13) @ 5:43
CIA covered_up
Psychological Strategy Board book_quoted
“The CIA sent a plane with a team of armed guards to Kansas City. The team went to the Truman Presidential Library in Independence, Missouri, seized the Psychological Strategy Board's records and returned them to Washington. It became the fi…”
▶ The Colonel’s Corner Safe for Democracy Part 7 @ 5:48
Psychological Strategy Board founded
Harry S. Truman documented
“all of its ambitious aims, the PSB encountered bureaucratic opposition to psychological warfare planning at just about every turn. Truman had previously established the PSB, and they often found it difficult to get the interagency cooperati…”
▶ The Colonels corner president’s secret wars chapter 5 @ 37:15
Cortland Dixon Barnes headed
Psychological Strategy Board host_asserted
“He served as the deputy director of the Psychological Strategy Board during the Korean War. He was, let's see, what else? We just talked about the paramilitary psychological operations. So he basically brought that into the CIA.…”
▶ The Colonel’s Corner safe for Democracy Part 9 @ 1:15:51
Henry Kissinger appointed
Psychological Strategy Board book_quoted
“And it talks about his affiliation with Nazi partisans, his involvement in CIA clandestine. He became the consultant to the director of the Psychological Strategy Board in 1952, the one we were just talking about. So when I find these.…”
▶ The Colonel’s Corner- Presidents Secret Wars Chap 7a @ 1:13:07
Gordon Gray headed
Psychological Strategy Board host_asserted
“The Psychological Strategy Board staff under Gordon Gray constituted a central planning authority. In effect, the staff aimed to become the U.S. command center for all psychological operations. But something went wrong along the way. Genera…”
▶ The Colonel’s Corner Safe for Democracy Part 5 (6) @ 54:19
Harry S. Truman founded
Psychological Strategy Board host_asserted
“When that didn't happen, the president took psychological warfare off the NSC's action list. He would settle the matter himself, and he did. On April 4th, he issued orders establishing the Psychological Strategy Board, a subcommittee of the…”
▶ The Colonel’s Corner Safe for Democracy Part 5 (6) @ 53:24
Harry S. Truman established
Psychological Strategy Board documented
“so to speak, okay? Concerns over the OPC's autonomy and potential to overshadow the CIA's primary intelligence role led to reforms. In April 51, President Truman established the Psychological Strategy Board to better coordinate U.S. psychol…”
▶ The Colonel’s Corner The Devil’s Chessboard Part 7 @ 53:03
Gordon Gray headed
Psychological Strategy Board book_quoted
“Gordon Gray's staff had orders to assemble overall regional country and subject plans that the board could review. Planning for propaganda and psychological warfare and later monitoring national efforts in this regard became the job of the …”
▶ The Colonel’s Corner Safe for Democracy Part 7 @ 7:13
Henry Kissinger member_of
Psychological Strategy Board book_quoted
“PSB consultant, compiled an advisory report on Germany used in developing the psychological war plan in Germany. From Italy to Thailand, from Sweden to Southeast Asia, from the potential role of wealthy individuals in foreign countries to, …”
▶ The Colonel’s Corner Safe for Democracy Part 7 @ 15:55
Tracy Barnes member_of
Psychological Strategy Board host_asserted
“with two personal assistants, one Tracy Barnes, two Richard Bissell Jr. Barnes had been in the OSF in Switzerland working for Dulles. He later worked for Gordon Gray on the psychological strategy board that we talked about a couple of chapt…”
▶ The Colonels Corner President’s Secret Wars chapter 6 @ 33:00
Psychological Strategy Board funded
Peace and Freedom Organization host_asserted
“Notably, these funds served to mask the provision of aid from the United States via the CIA and the Marshall Plan counterpart funds. All starting to make sense? Support given to these peace and freedom networks fell under the clandestine op…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner Transnational AntiCommunism&Cold War Part 5 @ 27:32
Harry S. Truman appointed
Psychological Strategy Board book_quoted
“The former DCI supported the recommendation to which Truman responded by setting up a Psychological Strategy Board, PSB, under the NSC in the spring of 51. That fall, in approving the NSC 10-5, the president gave the PSB membership on the 1…”
▶ The Colonels corner president’s secret wars chapter 5 @ 34:23
Gordon Gray headed
Psychological Strategy Board host_asserted
“had approved covert operations informally, but the NSC directives merely gave it authority to regulate the Office of Planning. That was Wisner's group. These procedures was dismantled by Eisenhower. Also gone was the Psychological Strategy …”
▶ The Colonel’s Corner- Presidents Secret Wars chap 7 @ 5:51
Dwight D. Eisenhower removed_from_power
Psychological Strategy Board host_asserted
“had approved covert operations informally, but the NSC directives merely gave it authority to regulate the Office of Planning. That was Wisner's group. These procedures was dismantled by Eisenhower. Also gone was the Psychological Strategy …”
▶ The Colonel’s Corner- Presidents Secret Wars chap 7 @ 5:51
CIA covered_up
Psychological Strategy Board host_asserted
“The documents on relations with the agency filled just one file. The CIA held back everything. It wouldn't allow them access to its library, upon which the PSB staff depended to encourage the board staff to acquiesce to their demands. In th…”
▶ The Colonel’s Corner Safe for Democracy Part 5 (6) @ 58:36
Psychological Strategy Board funded
Operation PBSUCCESS documented
“The Psychological Strategy Board, in its capacity as arbiter of America's secret war, approved the concept on August 12th, 1953. And two weeks later, PSB, the Psychological Board, gathered together to give Guatemala the next highest priorit…”
▶ The Colonel’s Corner safe for Democracy Part 9 @ 35:34
Psychological Strategy Board targeted_for_regime_change
Guatemala documented
“The Psychological Strategy Board, in its capacity as arbiter of America's secret war, approved the concept on August 12th, 1953. And two weeks later, PSB, the Psychological Board, gathered together to give Guatemala the next highest priorit…”
▶ The Colonel’s Corner safe for Democracy Part 9 @ 35:34
Psychological Strategy Board funded
CIA host_asserted
“because he had left so suddenly. So he's not even there half the time. And they were using funds drawn away from the Pentagon and the CIA basically to set up this unit. Gray was later able to get the PSB into its own building around the cor…”
▶ The Colonels corner president’s secret wars chapter 5 @ 43:13
Mentions (76)
▶ 5:51
had approved covert operations informally, but the NSC directives merely gave it authority to regulate the Office of Planning. That was Wisner's group. These procedures was dismantled by Eisenhower. Also gone was the Psychological Strategy …
▶ 1:13:07
And it talks about his affiliation with Nazi partisans, his involvement in CIA clandestine. He became the consultant to the director of the Psychological Strategy Board in 1952, the one we were just talking about. So when I find these.…
▶ 1:13:29
like the one that I'm reading from, The President's Secret Wars, I go to this site and some of these, like the psychological board and some of the others, all I do is put that in the search engine on this website, this ISGP website, and it …
▶ 34:23
The former DCI supported the recommendation to which Truman responded by setting up a Psychological Strategy Board, PSB, under the NSC in the spring of 51. That fall, in approving the NSC 10-5, the president gave the PSB membership on the 1…
▶ 34:49
The creation of PSB marked a significant milestone in the escalation of secret warfare, which now would include propaganda. But those operations were conducted on a more or less ad hoc basis with little formal interagency coordination. Now …
▶ 35:17
Planning for propaganda and psychological warfare and later monitoring national efforts in that area was the job of a PSB staff office. The first staff director that Truman chose was Gordon Gray, G-R-A-Y, Gordon. And I would love to know wh…
▶ 36:41
The first comprehensive plan was for Germany. It was completed and sent to the PSB in the summer of 1952. Now, keep in mind, this is still the time when Reinhard Galen is the chief of intel at the BND for West Germany. So, they also set up …
▶ 37:15
all of its ambitious aims, the PSB encountered bureaucratic opposition to psychological warfare planning at just about every turn. Truman had previously established the PSB, and they often found it difficult to get the interagency cooperati…
▶ 37:45
vigorously. In late December 51, Gray was forced to appeal to Walter Bedell Smith to send CIA representatives to the PSB office for meetings. Gray also sent Smith copies of his informational briefings on what their psychological warfare obj…
▶ 38:11
the DCI Smith was still reacting angrily to continued claims that the CIA support for the PSB remained inadequate. In particular, some PSB planners felt the CIA had not developed sufficient information on political differences among Soviet …
▶ 40:37
Frank Wisner, and representing the Joint Chiefs of Staff was Rear Admiral Leslie Stevens, S-T-E-V-E-N-S, who had also handled military participation in covert operations at the Pentagon. Rather than restraining and coordinating propaganda a…
▶ 41:29
A North Carolina state senator, both before and after the war, an assistant secretary at the Pentagon and then secretary of the Army, Gray left government service in 1950 to preside over the University of North Carolina. A few short months …
▶ 43:13
because he had left so suddenly. So he's not even there half the time. And they were using funds drawn away from the Pentagon and the CIA basically to set up this unit. Gray was later able to get the PSB into its own building around the cor…
▶ 43:45
association in the intelligence field for Gordon Gray. His discretion and ability became legend, but in the early period, they could not field him from the interagency struggle between all of the different players. Gray thought the PSB had …
▶ 44:16
refused, while PSB was still at their original office, to make the short walk from his office to attend any of Gray's meetings. As for the State Department, Paul Nitz, N-I-T-Z-E, chief of the policy planning staff there, told Gray, look, yo…
▶ 52:23
And that's why like in the olden days, like if you go like, well, you were in Europe and stuff. That's why they used to eat on sterling silver, because silver was really important for us to have. I was blown away. So now I have copper utens…
▶ 52:53
Him being part of that whole operation was Merrill's marauders during Burma, which we talked about. At first, even the interest of senior generals like Dwight D. Eisenhower was insufficient to recreate such capabilities. Some senior officer…
▶ 53:22
PSYOP wars were then assisted by the appearance of a NSC 10-A memorandum, which demonstrated presidential interest in the area of psychological warfare. Well, well, my gosh, then let's just have it. The Army began a staff study in January o…
▶ 54:19
effort to enter the psyops warfare arena himself, argued that the Army possessed the greatest capacity for propaganda in the form of outlets and audience than even the State Department did. And Assistant Secretary of the Army, Gordon Gray, …
▶ 54:47
which was the province of the Army G2 staff. The paramilitary side had been viewed with some distaste by the Army Secretary Kenneth Royal, who said at a June 1948 meeting that he wished his service to know nothing about covert operations. P…
▶ 55:17
to his boss that we are actually participating in Europe in the psychological warfare arena. Meanwhile, the Army planning staff acquired a special warfare section within its psychological warfare area. Manned by veterans from Merrill's Maro…
▶ 1:00:50
At Army headquarters in Washington, the increased need for coordination arising from the war, combined with continuing interest in the possibilities of psychological warfare, led to the creation of the Office of the Chief of Psychological W…
▶ 1:03:04
Before the end of the conflict, the CIA and the military possessed paramilitary resource out the yin-yang. They had covert legions ready to undertake any type of operation anywhere, and operators like Frank Wisner and managers like Gordon G…
▶ 1:03:35
in the buildup and the creation of the psychological warfare capability that we see present in the United States today. While it occurred in secret, in public, the political perception developed that Truman's foreign policy of quote-unquote…
▶ 33:00
with two personal assistants, one Tracy Barnes, two Richard Bissell Jr. Barnes had been in the OSF in Switzerland working for Dulles. He later worked for Gordon Gray on the psychological strategy board that we talked about a couple of chapt…
▶ 47:01
The first real crisis of the Eisenhower era erupted in Middle Europe, Germany specifically. One catalyst of events was Stalin's death in March of 1953, while Radio Free Europe, then Radio Liberty, busied itself with saturating the airwaves …
▶ 51:19
In this fast-moving situation, Washington had little possibility of acting in time. Wisner rejected Bill Harvey's suggestion. A paper prepared for the Psychological Strategy Board on June 17th noted that John Foster Dulles at State Departme…
▶ 52:44
About 10,000 of them were actually from West Berlin. Over the following weeks, about 10,000 East Germans fled to the West. Almost 3,000 were arrested and 100 were killed in street clashes. During the summer and fall, the Psychological Strat…
▶ 55:54
where participants discussing solarium results explicitly raised the possibility for actions in Guatemala, Iran, and Albania. Alan Dulles noted that he had already sent a CIA paper on Albania to the Psychological Strategy Board. Dulles also…
▶ 5:14
Security Council order, which prescribed the procedures for approval. Truman's 10-5 panel, the Psychological Strategy Board, had endorsed covert operations informally, but Truman's directive merely gave the group authority to regulate the O…
▶ 5:43
Eisenhower abolished the PSB, the Psychological Strategy Board, in the summer of 53, making the Truman directive obsolete. With the OPC, Frank Wisner's, merging into the CIA, the Iran and Guatemala covert operations were approved in ad hoc …
▶ 53:15
Cater rushed to see the president. Johnson was impatient. Cater argued they ought to use the week left before Ramparts hit the newsstand to prepare a response. Cater made private inquiries and determined that the National Student Associatio…
▶ 40:37
Guy that would have been in charge was Gordon Gray. General Walter Bedell Smith and William Jackson brought the word. Jackson, a Gray associate since 1930s, represented the token of trust. General Smith told Gray that he, Smith, wanted Gray…
▶ 44:49
that he had had high expectations for the effectiveness of the psychological strategy board until he learned who Truman had picked to lead it, making out that Gray's appointment was a patronage. Sowers recalled complaining to the president,…
▶ 45:18
Basically, what was the precursor to what was embedded in the CIA as the Psychological Strategy Board. He's running a media company domestically while he's doing this. Anybody that doesn't think all of that stuff is connected is crazy. The …
▶ 53:24
When that didn't happen, the president took psychological warfare off the NSC's action list. He would settle the matter himself, and he did. On April 4th, he issued orders establishing the Psychological Strategy Board, a subcommittee of the…
▶ 53:52
At the initial meeting on July 2nd, members agreed that the CIA would chair the group, which means it's just an extension of the CIA. They would direct agencies regarding all psychological warfare issues, coordinate and evaluate operations.…
▶ 54:19
The Psychological Strategy Board staff under Gordon Gray constituted a central planning authority. In effect, the staff aimed to become the U.S. command center for all psychological operations. But something went wrong along the way. Genera…
▶ 54:44
of the NSC 10-2 directive, he wanted the Psychological Strategy Board to replace the 10-2 panel as the approval authority. Psychological warfare experts wanted a larger entity that actually planned these operations within a more rarefied se…
▶ 55:14
The best the Psychological Strategy Board finally achieved was to help prevent interagency rivalries from crippling ongoing field efforts. Gray brought an OSS veteran, Tracy Barnes, as his deputy director. By 1952, the Psychological Strateg…
▶ 55:45
than the NSC itself. The CIA viewed this board as a paper mill. Gordon Gray tried to make the PSB work. Starting from three small buildings across Jackson Square from the White House, within months, Gray moved the Psychological Strategy Boa…
▶ 56:15
That put his people right in with the spooks and could have encouraged cooperation. Better than that, Gray had been Frank Wisner's colleague at the Wall Street firm. Deputy Tracy Barnes had also been with Wisner on Wall Street, as well as A…
▶ 56:44
Psychological Strategy Board as a command or operating agency. He wanted it under his control. He refused to go to their meetings, even though Gray held them next door. Wisner encouraged Beadle Smith, as the director of the CIA, to form a c…
▶ 57:13
of their business. It was referred to as a murder board, which is kind of ironic. The Psychological Strategy Board never established itself as a nerve center for covert actions. The members were essentially a 10-2 panel. An early representa…
▶ 57:38
Representative of the SECDEF, John McGruder, safeguarded defense interests. The State Department repeatedly construed the Psychological Strategy Board inquiries as infringements. General Smith was CIA's delegate. Frank Wisner, the alternate…
▶ 58:02
Stevens represented the Joint Chiefs of Staff and also handled military participation in covert operations. But the CIA consulted the board only when they had to. When the agency needed psychological strategy board help to get other agencie…
▶ 58:36
The documents on relations with the agency filled just one file. The CIA held back everything. It wouldn't allow them access to its library, upon which the PSB staff depended to encourage the board staff to acquiesce to their demands. In th…
▶ 59:07
Memo 10-5 came to a head. The CIA won. The Truman administration approved 81, 81, Truman, the guy who says that he regrets creating the CIA, 81 covert operations during this period. Few of them with more than cursory input from the Psycholo…
▶ 59:35
If Frank Wisner needed to know anything from the board, he would go to Tracy Barnes, who became something of a CIA spy at the board. Thus, Director Smith arranged through the board for other agencies to assist CIA in their expanded program …
▶ 1:00:05
but only made Beadle Smith more angry. In November of 1951, Gray began to host private luncheons of the Psychological Strategy Board members where differences could be thrashed out before the monthly meeting. In December, Gray held a briefi…
▶ 1:00:33
Gray appealed to Smith to ensure the CIA's representatives would attend the meetings, but Smith refused. In January of 52, Gray resigned. He would be succeeded by Raymond Allen, president of the University of Washington. Allen's background …
▶ 1:01:03
agency had not cooperated with the board the final director of the psychological strategy board was admiral alan kirk who with his background in naval intelligence might have improved the cia relationship but by that time the white house ha…
▶ 1:01:29
as the U.S. high command on covert actions due to the opposition primarily of the CIA. Not because Gordon Gray necessarily, just because they were not going to give up any turf. The close relation between the psychological warfare and cover…
▶ 1:01:56
Rather than restraining and coordinating propaganda and covert activities, the psychological strategy board that Harry Truman created instead became a stimulant for an intensification of the Cold War because of it generating the propaganda.…
▶ 4:48
Okay. Oh my gosh. All right. Now somehow I'm going to have to concentrate on this book. Okay. So I want to read a footnote that's on the bottom of page 82 in our book. We're still on covert legions and safer democracy because I think it's v…
▶ 5:20
perhaps to shield its very success at avoiding subordination to the National Security Council 10-5 system, the CIA has very jealously guarded the records of the Psychological Strategy Board. In December of 1988, after the author of this boo…
▶ 5:48
The CIA sent a plane with a team of armed guards to Kansas City. The team went to the Truman Presidential Library in Independence, Missouri, seized the Psychological Strategy Board's records and returned them to Washington. It became the fi…
▶ 6:19
had been withdrawn from public view. The CIA held on to the records for months, extracting several hundreds of documents from the set and then returned them to the Truman Library. It cannot have been the quality of the Psychological Strateg…
▶ 6:48
That just needs to hang in the air for a minute. Returning to the text of the book, the Psychological Strategy Board had a second problem, just as big as the one we discussed the day before yesterday. In the nature of its task of evaluating…
▶ 7:13
Gordon Gray's staff had orders to assemble overall regional country and subject plans that the board could review. Planning for propaganda and psychological warfare and later monitoring national efforts in this regard became the job of the …
▶ 9:43
that it could not think strategically, much less write long-range concept papers. Gray finally gave up and concentrated on his university work, a job he kept through 1955. The first comprehensive plan was for Germany, completed and sent to …
▶ 10:48
ideological warfare against the Soviet Union. Some PSB planners felt the CIA did not know enough about the political differences among Soviet leaders for a sound psychological warfare plan. They weren't interested. The CIA's use of the Sovi…
▶ 12:53
Linebarger never moved psychological warfare techniques beyond a crude level. Linebarger, something of a guru in the field, had written a standard text on the subject and had been a top consultant to Wisner's Far East Division. He ran an or…
▶ 15:22
Freedom of speech was lost. Now, freedom of silence, unquote. I just, I put in the margins of my book, ha ha ha. In Truman's era alone, the Psychological Strategy Board accumulated more than 33,000 pages of records. Much of them were minuti…
▶ 16:23
Another subject, forest problems in Africa, Near East and Southeast Asia. That was just the name of a few of them. The PSB tried to build global influence. Plan Torrential concerned psychological operations during the nuclear war, as if it …
▶ 16:52
to end the Korean War. Another stuffed file concerned, quote, doctrinal warfare, unquote. There was a project called Engross, which specified educating escapees from behind the Iron Curtain, while at the same time, the PSB crafted a plan to…
▶ 17:23
particular purpose. For example, the contingency paper for spinning the Korean truce negotiations involved a group of seven, three people from state, one from CIA, and one from the military. Several of these people had temporary duties assi…
▶ 17:53
the Psychological Strategy Board set up 36 of these panels to draft 44 different plans. When approached by groups like geographically aligned groups, there were all, this part here is talking about the overwhelming, basically there was an e…
▶ 23:52
by consultants like Paul Leinbarger that argued for better articulation of capabilities. Appeals for help from Frank Wisner at the CIA also had their uses within the Army hierarchy. Gray went further, knocking heads together, demanding prog…
▶ 35:34
The Psychological Strategy Board, in its capacity as arbiter of America's secret war, approved the concept on August 12th, 1953. And two weeks later, PSB, the Psychological Board, gathered together to give Guatemala the next highest priorit…
▶ 39:41
as a special assistant to the Secretary of the Army. Gray left his position as secretary just as Barnes arrived. But Barnes stayed on under Clifford Alexander. A year later, Gray reappeared as director of the Psychological Strategy Board. H…
▶ 40:17
It shone so bright that Barnes sought out the CIA official soon to be its boss. Tracy could see that the strategy board led nowhere in terms of power and influence. The nation's premier Cold War agency was calling his name. Barnes moved ove…
▶ 1:15:51
He served as the deputy director of the Psychological Strategy Board during the Korean War. He was, let's see, what else? We just talked about the paramilitary psychological operations. So he basically brought that into the CIA.…
▶ 53:03
so to speak, okay? Concerns over the OPC's autonomy and potential to overshadow the CIA's primary intelligence role led to reforms. In April 51, President Truman established the Psychological Strategy Board to better coordinate U.S. psychol…
▶ 27:32
Notably, these funds served to mask the provision of aid from the United States via the CIA and the Marshall Plan counterpart funds. All starting to make sense? Support given to these peace and freedom networks fell under the clandestine op…
▶ 28:01
to combat communism influence. It was referred to as the Psychological Strategy Board, PSB. PSB D-14 was set up for France. PSB D-15 was set up for Italy. PSB D-21 was set up for Germany.…