An elite where are found including John d

Iraq, first the Gulf war, 1991. Relayed by the media in the world, awful rumors are acts of savagery on the part of Saddam Hussein's troops in a maternity hospital of the Kuwait: pulled out of the incubators infants and throws on the ground, trampled pregnant women, nursing raped and summarily executed, looting in no detail is spared.

Iraq, second the Gulf war, 2003. Opinion and media across the Atlantic are flooded analysis on the threat posed by Saddam Hussein, his supposed link with Al-Qaida and its efforts to acquire nuclear weapons, the importance of its chemical weapons stock, his willingness to destroy large oil monarchies of the Middle East and shaving Israel of the surface of the Earth. Saturated with information, the public can only support the great offensive that George Bush is poised to launch in ancient Mesopotamia.

The common point of two wars The information disseminated to the media were for some completely invented - the episode of maternity - and other largely mounted Hairpin, by two major U.S. public relations firms. Their name Hill & Knowlton and Rendon Group. One and the other spent the contracts with the Royal family Kuwait, the Pentagon and the CIA for "load" the image of Saddam Hussein - and improve the crossing of the small Emirate oil - but also justify the sanctions and the war against the dictator. "You remember the Kuwaitis welcomed the American liberators in 1991" And with American flags they waved Have you wondered who had provided the flags It was Rendon! ", is also promoting John w. Rendon, founder of the Rendon Group and former aide de camp of Jimmy Carter. He could have added to the request of the CIA, which had made available $ 12 million from his secret Fund, his firm had organised systematic propaganda actions against Saddam Hussein, in liaison with the members of the Iraqi national Congress, themselves coachee Rendon teams.

A scenario that would have delighted the top point Edward Bernays, he had the marketing policy an art full. Human is today almost totally fallen into oblivion. It was however the true inventor of public relations, the first "spin doctor" - Advisor communication - history, and was, during the interwar period and into the 1960s, of considerable influence. Most of the major American companies appealed to its services: General Motors, Procter & Gamble, American Tobacco, United Fruit Company, Mack Trucks... For them, it shaped attitudes, changed the habits of consumption, all without ever out of the shadows. He advised also several Presidents of the United States, which he promoted the re-election, and ventured even in the field of foreign policy.

Born in New York in 1891 in a Jewish family originally from Vienna and rather easily, frail, Edward Bernays married, had three children, and died in 1895 more than a century after his long career as a professor. Most notable are his family origins. His mother, Anna, was the sister of Sigmund Freud and his father, Ely, the brother of the wife of the inventor of psychoanalysis. Edward Bernays never had the opportunity to meet with its prestigious parent. But he was an assiduous reader of his works, which greatly influenced his design of public relations, and spent unreservedly to translate in the United States. Determined to popularize the ideas of Freud, which he had himself so brilliantly take advantage, Bernays proposed to his uncle to sign, in the women's press transatlantic, a series of papers devoted to "the place of women in the American home." A proposal that the great Freud, outraged, rejected with disdain.

Edward Bernays should have been an agricultural engineer. Thus had decided his father, who, not knowing what to do with the sickly boy had registered it in the section "agriculture" from Cornell University. He was a journalist, and it is journalism that he began his fabulous career. His fate switches in 1912, while working for a small medical journal founded by a comrade of promotion. A reader sent him a critic virulent of the text of a piece of a French Theatre - "Damaged", Eugène Brieux. "Damaged Goods", in its English translation - tells the story of the love of a syphilitic couple. The subject is scandal but interested a famous actor, Richard Bennett, who wishes to put on stage the piece. Bernays, supported by his newspaper takes fact and issue for the project. But how do when the newspaper made it clear that he did not spend a cent in the case and that he himself earns just $ 25 per week! Is there an idea of genius that will change his life. To make acceptable exhibit and attract donors, it goes up a foundation for the sociological study of diseases, satisfies, in relying on the reputation of Richard Bennett, hundreds of celebrities join and launches a major campaign for the promotion of "Damaged Goods", presented as an informative and educational purpose on the dangers of syphilis and the means to prevent. Scandalous subject, it is a Honourable subject endorsed by any of the American elite. An elite where are found including John d. Rockefeller and the Roosevelt husband. The play won a real triumph. Without having really conscious yet, Bernays comes to understand that communication, everything is matter of perception

Building on this success, Bernays think has found its way: it will be the celebrity press officer. In the years that followed, it launches in the United States the famous opera singer Caruso, dancer Nijinsky, the ballets russes. Little by little, his ideas take form: hard drive from Freud, he wants to go beyond the simple promotion of the quality of its customers, as would any advertising, to change the image that the public has, as required by playing on unconscious desires. Thus, to launch the main dancer of the ballets russes, then unknown, it requires to be in public a boa wrapped around the neck, ensuring the passage of the whole commendation advertising pages. Very effective, this kind of process required as one of the leading press officers of the East coast of the United States. These skills, he is now ready to service large American firms, and even politicians.

Propaganda and manipulation

In 1919 Edward Bernays creates its own public relations agency in New York. It is

one of the first in the world or to be more precise, the second. A man, in fact, preceded it: Ivy Lee. Born in 1877, the son of a Methodist Minister, a graduate of Princeton founded in 1904, with a partner, the Agency Parker & Lee, the first agency of public relations was. Working for the major American companies, he notably invented crisis communication. At the Standard Oil of Rockefeller, quietly making mater blood strike occurred on one of its production sites, he thus advised to play the card of transparency. "Tell the truth because, sooner or later, the public will learn and you can no longer control nothing.".

In the 1920s, Edward Bernays, he goes much further: it is the time, the United States, to the development of the production and mass consumption. The industry sells now its products and services to millions of people. To do this, he has to invent ever new arguments. Clients, Bernays proposes a method directly inspired by the ideas of Freud and Gustave Le Bon on the psychology of the crowd: "if we understand the desires and motivations secret from the crowd, why would it not be possible provide guidance based on our needs, without even the crowds have conscience", he thus wrote in his book "Propaganda".published in the 1930s. The propaganda. Bernays, who has studied closely the Stalin's USSR, the Italy of Mussolini and later Hitler's Germany, it is the keyword. Useful in the political sphere, the manipulation of signs and the ideas it is as much, in his eyes, in the economic sphere. One of the ways in which it has recourse to shape minds is to join what he calls the "third party authorities", scholars, doctors, expert of any kind, that will influence to turn the public. "If you can influence the leaders of a group, with or without their conscious consent, then it becomes very easy to bring the entire group to join your cause", he wrote especially. Already used for the promotion of the exhibit "damaged goods", but the scope in the 1920s and 1930s almost industrial stage, this method made the wonders in the economic sphere.

The torches of freedom

Illustrations by the example. In 1928, the American Tobacco, the American tobacco giant, used Edward Bernays to impose smoking female public. At this time, the tobacco is a male attribute and society, women who smoke are very poorly perceived. The subject is taboo. Change the perception of the public: this is the task which is splint Bernays. To achieve this, it consults psychoanalyst Abraham Brill, who explained that the cigarette is the symbol of the penis, and that, to be accepted by women, it should be seen as a challenge to the masculine power. Bernays knows which remains it to be done. The summer 1928 he organized in New York a giant parade of young women who, at a given signal, turn on all their cigarettes. Previously, Bernays took care to discreetly notify feminist journals and associations "sufragettes": far from being a simple parade, the parade, he explained, will be a strong act for the right of women to smoke in public. The event is the "a" journals of the East Coast. Cleverly nicknamed "torches of freedom", cigarettes became the symbol of women's freedom and the end of male domination. A few weeks hardly sufficient to drop the taboo and cause a substantial increase in sales for the greater satisfaction of Tobacco. The process was to be later taken up by Marlboro, having recourse to the character of the lone cowboy, managed to make its cigarettes the embodiment of perfect manhood.

This is a similar process that will use Bernays to acclimate to the United States consumption of bacon at breakfast. When the Beechnut Packing Company consult, in the early 1930s, bacon sales are in free fall. Bernays imagine to make small slices of pork unavoidable standard and good for the health of traditional American and this breakfast, then even that Americans, for ages, just a bowl of coffee, toasted bread and fruit juice. Under the guise of scientific investigation, more than 500 physicians will be consulted on the benefits of the bacon in the morning. Distributed to the press, - all positive - leads to an increase of 100 of the sales of bacon. In the same vein, Bernays succeed to convince the public that sank is part of the defence of the American Way of Life, thus promoting the growth of people's ownership and rewarding customers bankers.

The political world might miss sooner or later to use the skills of Bernays. In the 1920s and 1930s, it thus promotes the election of many elected officials - including President Coolidge - making their image consistent with the expectations of the public. But his real achievement date of 1951. That year, Jacobo Arbenz Guzman was elected democratically President of the Guatemala. The country is the preserve of the United Fruit Company, which operates to huge banana fields. However Arbenz Guzman decided to carry out an ambitious land reform which directly affects the interests of the firm. With the agreement of the CIA, Bernays - who has already, in the past is the promotion of the United Fruit banana - mounts a massive disinformation campaign, with Guzman as a dangerous Communist, going so far as to create in the country a false riot anti-American. Objective of this campaign, funded by the United Fruit: prepare opinion for the coup which, in 1954, reversed Guzman.

Manipulation Bernays to defend always him who presented himself as a mere public relations officer. In his book "propaganda", he nevertheless did not mystery of opinions. "The conscious and organized handling habits and opinions of the masses is an essential element of democratic societies, he wrote." Those who handle constitute an invisible Government. Our ideas are led by people whom we do not even know the existence. Almost all the acts of our daily lives are conditioned by a small group of people who understand how behave in the masses. "Little known to the general public, in the shade, Edward Bernays was although one of these manipulators. He was, as such, one of the most influential men of the 20th century.

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