November 22: The Propagandist

Edward Louis Bernays, the pioneer of the public relations field who invented the press release, the third-party authority, the “front group,” and other tools of the manipulative trade, was born in Vienna on this date in 1891. Bernays was the nephew of Sigmund Freud and harnessed some of his uncle’s insights to serve what Bernays called “the engineering of consent.” Among his best-known public relations campaigns were the promotion of cigarette smoking by women in the 1920s for the American Tobacco Company; the promotion of bacon and eggs as the all-American breakfast; the branding of the Arbenz government of Guatemala as “communist,” justifying its overthrow by the U.S. on behalf of United Fruit; the promotion of disposable cups as “sanitary” on behalf of Dixie Cups; and the launching of the 1939 Worlds Fair in New York. Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter described Bernays and his associate Ivy Lee as “professional poisoners of the public mind, exploiters of foolishness, fanaticism and self-interest.”

“If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, is it not possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing about it? The recent practice of propaganda has proved that it is possible, at least up to a certain point and within certain limits.” —Edward Bernays