Editing Edward Bernays (section)

===Third parties===
Bernays argued that the covert use of third parties was morally legitimate because those parties were morally autonomous actors.<ref>{{harvnb|Marks|1957|p=82}}: "Bernays once spoke directly to the question of the ethics of a propagandist's speaking through a 'front.' There is no evidence that, at the time, he convinced anyone; but his position is worth considering as contrast to the prevailing judgment. While he readily admitted that a propagandist may not ethically <u>buy</u> the cooperation of a third party, he argued that it is perfectly legitimate for him to enlist the aid of a third party and conceal the relationship. The third party becomes a new advocate, not a subsidiary of the first. He continued:

{{blockquote|That individual or organization may then propagandize it [the original client's point of view] through its own channels because it is interested in it. In such a case, the point of origin then becomes that individual or organization. The public relations counsel, having made the link between the interest of his client and the interest of the third party, no longer need figure in the resulting expression to the public. [Bernays, 'This Business of Propaganda,' p. 199.]}}</ref>

{{blockquote|"If you can influence the leaders, either with or without their conscious cooperation, you automatically influence the group which they sway", he said. In order to promote sales of bacon, for example, he conducted research and found that the American public ate very light breakfast of coffee, maybe a roll and orange juice. He went to his physician and found that a heavy breakfast was sounder from the standpoint of health than a light breakfast because the body loses energy during the night and needs it during the day. He asked the physician if he would be willing, at no cost, to write to 5,000 physicians and ask them whether their judgment was the same as his—confirming his judgment. About 4,500 answered back, all concurring that a more significant breakfast was better for the health of the American people than a light breakfast. He arranged for this finding to be published in newspapers throughout the country with headlines like '4,500 physicians urge bigger breakfast' while other articles stated that bacon and eggs should be a central part of breakfast and, as a result of these actions, the sale of bacon went up.<ref name="Edward L. Bernays tells the story of making bacon & eggs all-American Breakfast">{{cite AV media| url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vFz_FgGvJI | archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211118/6vFz_FgGvJI| archive-date=November 18, 2021| url-status=live| title=Edward L. Bernays tells the story of making bacon & eggs all-American Breakfast | via=[[YouTube]]|publication-date=September 12, 2014}}{{cbignore}}</ref>}}

Describing the response to his campaign for Ivory Soap, Bernays wrote: "As if actuated by the pressure of a button, people began working for the client instead of the client begging people to buy."{{sfn|Marks|1957|p=73}}

Businesses found these covert methods irresistible. Strother Walker and Paul Sklar wrote in ''Business Finds Its Voice'' (1938) that Bernays had offered a solution to popular skepticism of business which arose in the depression: better "to implant an idea in a group leader's mind and let him spread it than to write up an idea and send it to the papers as a release, in the old-fashioned way&nbsp;...".<ref>Quoted in {{harvnb|Olasky|1984|p=10}}</ref>