Bureaucratic conflict and chaos prevented the Roosevelt administration from devising a coherent propaganda campaign during Wo
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Bureaucratic conflict and chaos prevented the Roosevelt administration from devising a coherent propaganda campaign during World War II.' Discuss.
An examination of Franklin D. Roosevelt's leadership style and management of his administration conjure up images of disorganisation and inter-departmental rivalry. It can be argued that competing war aims and approaches to propaganda within the various departments prevented a cohesive message of government war policies reaching the public. Roosevelt's view on propaganda and war-time information agencies had developed as a reaction to the overuse of propaganda and centralised censorship of news during World War I and a fear of public uproar if a return to old methods was perceived.
Although Roosevelt was reluctant to adopt the use of a central information agency events at Pearl Harbour forced him to rethink the importance of public opinion and the need for alignment with administration aims. After Pearl Harbour, the call for structures to coordinate information, public education and morale became apparent and Roosevelt established a number of agencies often with overlapping jurisdictions. A look at the Office of War Information and its predecessor, the Office of Facts and Figures, and their attempts to inform the public of the war effort reveals an operation hindered by a lack of Presidential support. The President's unclear direction of the OWI's remit resulted in little cooperation from the inter-governmental departments, specifically the Army, Navy and State Departments who differed on the issue of war information...