Editing Edward Bernays (section)

== Notable clients and campaigns ==
{{Further|Public relations campaigns of Edward Bernays}}

Bernays used ideas of his uncle [[Sigmund Freud]] to help convince the public, among other things, that bacon and eggs was the true all-American breakfast.<ref>Alix Spiegel. [https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4612464 "Freud's Nephew and the Origins of Public Relations"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180421162917/https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4612464 |date=2018-04-21 }}, [[Morning Edition]], 2005-04-22.</ref>

In the 1930s, his [[Dixie Cup]] campaign was designed to convince American consumers that only [[disposable cup]]s were sanitary, by linking the imagery of an overflowing cup with subliminal images of genitalia and [[venereal disease]].<ref name="Alan Bilton 2013 16">{{cite book|author=Alan Bilton|title=Silent Film Comedy and American Culture|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fqYJ6uYbBHEC&pg=PA16|year=2013|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|page=16|isbn=978-1-137-02025-3|access-date=2017-08-26|archive-date=2020-05-07|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200507105352/https://books.google.com/books?id=fqYJ6uYbBHEC&pg=PA16|url-status=live}}</ref>

He was publicity director for the [[1939 New York World's Fair]].<ref>See "[http://brbl-dl.library.yale.edu/vufind/Record/4161671 The New York world's fair, a symbol for democracy] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170406201752/http://brbl-dl.library.yale.edu/vufind/Record/4161671 |date=2017-04-06 }}", address by Bernays to the Merchant's Association of New York, April 7, 1937.</ref>

===Light's Golden Jubilee===
{{Main|Light's Golden Jubilee}}

===Political clients===
In 1924 Bernays set up a vaudeville "pancake breakfast" for [[Calvin Coolidge]] to change his stuffy image prior to the [[1924 United States presidential election|1924 election]]. Entertainers including [[Al Jolson]], [[Raymond Hitchcock (actor)|Raymond Hitchcock]], and the [[Dolly Sisters]] performed on the White House lawn. The event was widely reported by American newspapers, with ''[[The New York Times]]'' running the story under the headline "President Nearly Laughs".<ref>{{harvnb|Tye|1998|pp=77–79}} See "[http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=cool&itemLink=D?coolbib:13:./temp/~ammem_nePo::&hdl=amrlm:me02:0001 Breakfast With Coolidge] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210224080021/http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=cool&itemLink=D%3Fcoolbib%3A13%3A.%2Ftemp%2F~ammem_nePo%3A%3A&hdl=amrlm%3Ame02%3A0001 |date=2021-02-24 }}" typescript, prepared 8 February 1962.</ref>

A desperate [[Herbert Hoover]] consulted with Bernays a month before the [[1932 United States presidential election|1932 presidential election]]. Bernays advised Hoover to create disunity within his opposition and to present an image of him as an invincible leader.{{sfn|Tye|1998|pp=79– 80}}

Bernays advised [[William O'Dwyer]], in his candidacy for mayor of New York City, on how to appear in front of different demographics. For example, he should tell Irish voters about his actions against the [[Italian mafia]]—and Italian voters about his plans to reform the [[New York Police Department|police department]]. To Jews he should appear as a committed opponent of the Nazis.{{sfn|Tye|1998|pp=81–83}}

He helped to name the [[President's Emergency Committee for Employment]], suggesting this name as preferable to the "Committee for Unemployment".{{sfn|Tye|1998|pp=84–85}}

During [[World War II]], Bernays advised the [[Office of War Information]], as well as the [[United States Army|Army]] and [[United States Navy|Navy]]. He was chairman of the National Advisory Committee of the Third U.S. War Loan, co-chairman of the Victory Book campaign, and part of the New York State Defense Council.  During the [[Cold War]] he advised the [[United States Information Agency]].{{sfn|Tye|1998|pp=84–85}}

Bernays reported turning down the [[Nazi]]s, [[Nicaragua]] under the [[Somoza family]], [[Francisco Franco]], and [[Richard Nixon]] as clients.{{sfn|Tye|1998|p=89}}

===Nonprofit clients===
Bernays also worked on behalf of many nonprofit institutions and organizations. These included, to name just a few, the [[Committee on Publicity Methods in Social Work]] (1926–1927), the [[Jewish Mental Health Society]] (1928), the [[Book Publishers Research Institute]] (1930–1931), the [[New York Infirmary for Women and Children]] (1933), the [[Committee for Consumer Legislation]] (1934), and the [[Friends of Danish Freedom and Democracy]] (1940).<ref>{{harvnb|Bernays|1965|p=606}}: "I offered to help organize the Friends of Danish Freedom and Democracy, made up for the most part of Americans of Danish ..."</ref><ref name="Hasselriis1959">{{cite book|last=Hasselriis|first=Caspar Henrik Wolffsen|title=Helligdag: erindringer|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zGjXAAAAMAAJ|year=1959|publisher=Udgivet af Dansk samvirke hos E. Munksgaard|language=da|page=143|quote=... at han vilde engagere den kendte Public Relations Ekspert Edward L. Bernays til at være Raadgiver. ... Resultatet blev Dannelsen af "American Friends of Danish Freedom and Democracy", et Navn foreslaaet af Mr. Bernays, som mente, ...|access-date=2016-04-18|archive-date=2016-05-24|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160524083328/https://books.google.com/books?id=zGjXAAAAMAAJ|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="JensenJensen2003">{{cite book|last1=Jensen|first1=Mette Bastholm|last2=Jensen|first2=Steven L. B.|title=Denmark and the Holocaust|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ur8wAQAAIAAJ|year=2003|publisher=Institute for International Studies, Department for Holocaust and Genocide Studies|isbn=978-87-989305-1-8|quote=The "Father of Public Relations and Spin" and nephew of Sigmund Freud Edward L. Bernays (1890–1995), was also hired by the Friends of Danish Freedom and Democracy as a ...|access-date=2016-04-18|archive-date=2016-04-24|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160424075921/https://books.google.com/books?id=ur8wAQAAIAAJ|url-status=live}}</ref>

===Freud===
In 1920, Bernays organized the publication of Freud's ''[[Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis]]'' in the U.S., sending royalty money to his uncle in Vienna. Freud turned down further offers at promotion, such as a possible lecture tour and an invitation to write 3,000-word newspaper columns, for $1,000 each, on topics such as "The Wife's Mental Place in the Home" and "What a Child Thinks About."{{sfn|Tye|1998|pp=185–190}}

===Tobacco===
In 1927, Bernays worked briefly for [[Liggett Group|Liggett and Myers]], makers of [[Chesterfield (cigarette)|Chesterfield]] cigarettes. He pulled a stunt against the competing brand, [[Lucky Strike]], which involved mocking the endorsements of opera singers who said Lucky Strikes were "kind to your voice". [[George Washington Hill]], head of the [[American Tobacco Company]], which made Lucky Strike, promptly hired Bernays away from Liggett and Myers.{{sfn|Tye|1998|p=35–36}}

[[File:LUCKY STRIKE, GIRL IN RED.jpg|thumb|"Girl in Red" advertisement for Lucky Strike; shot by [[Nickolas Muray]], a photographer enlisted by Bernays to help popularize feminine thinness and cigarette smoking <ref name=Tye23-26 />]]

When he started working for American Tobacco Company, Bernays was given the objective of increasing Lucky Strike sales among women, who, for the most part, had formerly avoided smoking. The first strategy was to persuade women to smoke cigarettes instead of eating. Bernays began by promoting the [[The Thin Ideal|ideal of thinness]] itself, using photographers, artists, newspapers, and magazines to promote the special beauty of thin women. Medical authorities were found to promote the choice of cigarettes over sweets. Home-makers were cautioned that keeping cigarettes on hand was a social necessity.<ref name=Tye23-26>Tye (1998), pp.&nbsp;23–26. "Bernays launched the campaign against sweets with his tried-and-true tactic of enlisting 'experts', in this case convincing Nickolas Muray, a photographer friend, to ask other photographers and artists to sing praises of the thin. 'I have come to the conclusion', Muray wrote, 'that the slender woman who, combining suppleness and grace with slenderness, who instead of overeating sweets and desserts, lights a cigarette, as the advertisements say, has created a new standard of female loveliness. . .  I am interested in knowing if my own judgment concurs with that of others, and should be most happy to have your opinion on the subject.'"</ref>

====Torches of Freedom====
{{main|Torches of Freedom}}

The first campaign succeeded; women smoked more cigarettes; American Tobacco Company brought in more revenue; and Lucky Strike led the market in growth. But a taboo remained on women smoking in public. Bernays consulted with psychoanalyst [[Abraham Brill]], a student of Freud's, who reported to him that cigarettes represented "torches of freedom" for women whose feminine desires were increasingly suppressed by their role in the modern world.<ref>{{harvnb|Tye|1998|pp=27–28}}: "Bernays understood they were up against a social taboo that cast doubt on the character of women who smoked, but he wasn't sure of the basis of the inhibition or how it could be overcome. So he got Hill to agree to pay for a consultation with Dr. A. A. Brill, a psychoanalyst and disciple of Bernays's uncle, Dr. Sigmund Freud. <br />"'It is perfectly normal for women to want to smoke cigarettes', Brill advised. 'The emancipation of women has suppressed many of their feminine desires. More women now do the same work as men do. Many women bear no children; those who do bear have fewer children. Feminine traits are masked. Cigarettes, which are equated with men, become torches of freedom.'<br />"That rang a bell for Bernays. Why not organize a parade of prominent women lighting their 'torches of freedom'? And do it on Easter Sunday, a holiday symbolizing freedom of spirit, on Fifth Avenue, America's most prestigious promenade?"</ref>

Bernays wrote:{{sfn|Tye|1998|p=29}}
{{blockquote|Because it should appear as news with no division of the publicity, actresses should be definitely out. On the other hand, if young women who stand for feminism—someone from the Women's Party, say—could be secured, the fact that the movement would be advertised too, would not be bad. . . While they should be goodlooking, they should not be too 'model-y.' Three for each church covered should be sufficient. Of course they are not to smoke simply as they come down the church steps. They are to join in the Easter parade, puffing away.}}

The march went as planned, as did the ensuing publicity, with ripples of women smoking prominently across the country.<ref>{{harvnb|Tye|1998|pp=30–31}}: "The actual march went off more smoothly than even its scriptwriters imagined. Ten young women turned out, marching down Fifth Avenue with their lighted 'torches of freedom,' and the newspapers loved it. <br />[...] Miss Hunt issued the following communiqué from the smoke-clouded battlefield: 'I hope that we have started something and that these torches of freedom, with no particular brand favored, will smash the discriminatory taboo on cigarettes for women and that our sex will go on breaking down all discriminations.'<br />Go on they did. During the following days women were reported to be taking to the streets, lighted cigarettes in hand, in Boston and Detroit, Wheeling and San Francisco."</ref><ref>"[https://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9A05E0D61F31E33ABC4953DFB2668382639EDE&legacy=true Group of Girls Puff at Cigarettes as a Gesture of 'Freedom'] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170916183329/https://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9A05E0D61F31E33ABC4953DFB2668382639EDE&legacy=true |date=2017-09-16 }}" (part of a headline), ''The New York Times'', 1 April 1929.</ref>

====Green Ball====
In 1934, Bernays was asked to deal with women's apparent reluctance to buy Lucky Strikes because their green and red package clashed with standard female fashions. When Bernays suggested changing the package to a neutral color, Hill refused, saying that he had already spent millions advertising the package. Bernays then worked to make green a fashionable color.{{sfn|Tye|1998|p=38}}

The centerpiece of his efforts was the Green Ball, a social event at the [[Waldorf Astoria]], hosted by [[Narcissa Cox Vanderlip]]. The pretext for the ball and its unnamed underwriter was that proceeds would go to charity. Famous society women would attend wearing green dresses. Manufacturers and retailers of clothing and accessories were advised of the excitement growing around the color green. Intellectuals were enlisted to give highbrow talks on the theme of green. Before the ball had taken place, newspapers and magazines (encouraged in various ways by Bernays's office) had latched on to the idea that green was all the rage.<ref>{{harvnb|Tye|1998|p=39}}: "Vogelman signed up and invited fashion editors to the Waldorf for a Green Fashions Fall Luncheon with, of course, green menus featuring green beans, asparagus-tip salad, broiled French lamb chops with haricots verts and olivette potatoes, pistachio mousse glacé, green mints, and crème de menthe. The head of the Hunter College art department gave a talk entitled "Green in the Work of Great Artists," and a noted psychologist enlightened guests on the psychological implications of the color green. The press took note, with the ''New York Sun'' headline reading, "It looks like a Green Winter." The ''Post'' predicted a "Green Autumn," and one of the wire services wrote about "fall fashions stalking the forests for their color note, picking green as the modish fall wear."</ref>

====Modus operandi====
Throughout the job, Bernays concealed the fact that he was working for the American Tobacco Company, and succeeded in keeping his own name out of the affair as well. Staff were instructed never to mention his name. Third parties were used, and various notable people received payments to promote smoking publicly as if on their own initiative.<ref>{{harvnb|Tye|1998|pp=31–32}}: "One way he found citizens and specialists was by offering money. Sometimes it came as an honorarium, like the $100 he proposed paying 'a dietician [who] talks on diet as the best means to produce moderate curves' and a 'physiologist induced to comment on benefits of modern trend to reasonable figure.' Then there was the $5000 he offered to donate to the favorite charity of Mrs. Charles Dana Gibson, wife of the creator of the renowned Gibson Girl illustrations, if she would agree to sign a statement saying 'she smoked Luckies and that they were kind to her throat.'"</ref> Decades later, however, Bernays boasted about his role.<ref>{{harvnb|Tye|1998|pp=33–34}}: "If he began by disguising his role in the battle to get women smoking, Bernays more than made up for that in later years. The parade story in particular became part of his repertoire on the speaking circuit and in scores of interviews until his death in 1995, and with each retelling the tale got more colorful and his claims more sweeping. In his 1965 memoirs, for instance, he discussed the slow process of breaking down conventions like the taboo against women smoking. But by 1971 he was telling an oral historian at Columbia University that 'overnight the taboo was broken by one overt act,' the 1929 Easter Sunday march."</ref>

Bernays did not smoke cigarettes himself, and persistently tried to induce his wife Doris to quit.<ref>{{harvnb|Tye|1998|pp=27}}, [https://books.google.com/books?id=hv6gBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA48 48] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200507034315/https://books.google.com/books?id=hv6gBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA48 |date=2020-05-07 }}. "Whatever his attitude in public, at home he did all he could to persuade his wife, Doris, to give up her pack-a-day habit."</ref>

===United Fruit and Guatemala===
{{see also|1954 Guatemalan coup d'état}}

The [[United Fruit Company]] (today's [[Chiquita Brands International]]) hired Bernays in the early 1940s for the purpose of promoting banana sales within the United States, which he did by linking bananas to good health and to American interests and by placing them strategically in the hands of celebrities, in hotels, and other conspicuous places. Bernays also argued that United Fruit needed to put a [[Spin (public relations)|positive spin]] on the banana-growing countries themselves, and for this purpose created a front group called the Middle America Information Bureau, which supplied information to journalists and academics.<ref>{{harvnb|Tye|1998|pp=160–164}}. Tye notes: "The bureau even renamed the region, explaining that 'Middle America' was 'a rational and timely expansion of the phrase 'Central America,' which by long usage includes only the republics of Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Panama, and the colony of British Honduras.' Middle America would include those countries, along with Mexico and the Caribbean island republics of Cuba, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic."</ref>

United Fruit shut down the Middle America Information Bureau in 1948 under the new presidency of [[Thomas Dudley Cabot]]. Bernays resented this change but stayed on with the company, for a reported annual fee of more than $100,000<ref>{{harvnb|Tye|1998|pp=164–165}}: Tye's source for Bernays's $100,000 fee is probably Thomas McCann, whom he quotes on p. 178 as saying: "My estimate is we were spending in excess of $100,000 a year for Edward L. Bernays, just for his consulting services, which was an enormous amount of money in 1952."</ref> (equivalent to nearly $1.27 million in 2023).<ref>{{cite web|title=CPI Inflation Calculator – $100,000 in 1948|publisher=CPI Inflation Calculator|url=https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1948?amount=100000#:~:text=%24100%2C000%20in%201948%20is%20equivalent,cumulative%20price%20increase%20of%201%2C168.43%25.|access-date=4 September 2023}}</ref> Bernays worked on the national press and successfully drummed up coverage of Guatemala's 'Communist menace'.<ref name=Immerman>Richard H. Immerman, ''The CIA in Guatemala: The Foreign Policy of Intervention''; University of Texas Press, 1982; 9th printing, 2004; {{ISBN|0-292-71083-6}}; pp. [https://books.google.com/books?id=hPGlIqDU_nAC&pg=PA112 112] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170406203807/https://books.google.com/books?id=hPGlIqDU_nAC&pg=PA112 |date=2017-04-06 }}–114.</ref>

He recommended a campaign in which universities, lawyers, and the U.S. government would all condemn expropriation as immoral and illegal; the company should use media pressure "to induce the President and State Department to issue a policy pronouncement comparable to the Monroe Doctrine concerning expropriation." In the following months, ''[[The New York Times]]'', the ''[[New York Herald Tribune]]'', ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'', ''[[Newsweek]]'', and the ''[[Atlantic Monthly]]'' had all published articles describing the threat of Communism in Guatemala. A Bernays memo in July 1951 recommended that this wave of media attention should be translated into action by promoting:

{{blockquote|(a) a change in present U.S. ambassadorial and consular representation, (b) the imposition of congressional sanctions in this country against government aid to pro-Communist regimes, (c) U.S. government subsidizing of research by disinterested groups like the Brookings Institution into various phases of the problem.{{sfn|Tye|1998|p=167–170}}}}

Per Bernays's strategy, United Fruit distributed favorable articles and an anonymous ''Report on Guatemala'' to every member of Congress and to national "opinion molders".{{sfn|Tye|1998|p=175}}<ref name=Kirch /> They also published a weekly ''Guatemala Newsletter'' and sent it to 250 journalists, some of whom used it as a source for their reporting.<ref name=Kirch />
Bernays formed close relationships with journalists including ''The New York Times'' reporter Will Lissner and columnist [[Walter Winchell]].<ref name=Immerman />{{sfn|Tye|1998|p=167–170}} In January 1952 he brought a cohort of journalists from various notable newspapers on a tour of Guatemala, sponsored by the company. This technique proved highly effective and was repeated four more times.<ref name=Kirch>John Kirch, "[http://imerrill.umd.edu/johnkirch/files/2010/03/Covering-a-Coup-John-Kirch.pdf Covering a Coup: The American Press and Guatemala in 1954] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120623103539/http://imerrill.umd.edu/johnkirch/files/2010/03/Covering-a-Coup-John-Kirch.pdf |date=2012-06-23 }}", Paper presented at AEJMC National Convention, Washington DC; August 2007.</ref>
In June, 1954, the U.S. [[Central Intelligence Agency]] effected a coup d'état code-named [[Operation PBSuccess]]. The CIA backed a minimal military force, fronted by [[Carlos Castillo Armas]], with a [[psychological warfare]] campaign to portray military defeat as a foregone conclusion. During the coup itself, Bernays was the primary supplier of information for the international [[newswire]]s [[Associated Press]], [[United Press International]], and the [[International News Service]].<ref>Étienne Dasso, "[https://orda.revues.org/2667 Aux origines du coup d'État de 1954 au Guatemala : le rôle de la United Fruit Company dans la préparation du soulèvement contre Jacobo Arbenz] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170406201457/https://orda.revues.org/2667 |date=2017-04-06 }}", ''L'Ordinaire des Amériques'' 210 (2010), pp. 175–192.</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Tye|1998|p=176}}: "His Library of Congress files show he remained a key source of information for the press, especially the liberal press, right through the takeover. In fact, as the invasion was commencing on June 18, his papers indicate hew as giving the 'first news anyone received on the situation' to the Associated Press, United Press, the International News Service, and ''The New York Times'', with contacts intensifying over the next several days."</ref>

Following the coup, Bernays built up the image of Guatemala's new president [[Carlos Castillo Armas]], giving advice for his public appearances both in Guatemala and in the U.S. In 1956, Bernays produced a pamphlet comparing the Communist way and the Christian way.<ref>{{harvnb|Tye|1998|p=179}}: "And in 1956 Bernays came up with the idea of widely disseminating a comparison of the teachings of the Communists with those of the church. 'Hate is the driving force of communism,' the report concluded, whereas 'charity is the impelling motive of Christianity.' And under communism 'there is no moral law' and 'no personal liberty,' whereas in Christianity 'the moral law is the way which man is created to follow' and 'free will means liberty is possible, the liberty of the sons of God to do the right.'"</ref>

In 1959, United Fruit dispensed with all external advisors including Bernays.{{sfn|Tye|1998|p=180}}