The Arts of War: “Visual Presentation” and National Intelligence

Abstract

The great conflicts that have scarred the twentieth century are rightly called wars, but the meaning of this term has shifted over time. In the most obvious sense, the geographic scope of World Wars I and II was unprecedented: never had the soldiers of so many nations taken up arms, never had so much of the earth been aflame at once. The wars of the twentieth century have been in another sense, however. Although warfare has never left noncombatant populations unscathed, the logistics of permanent mobilization-the condition described by the French urbanist Paul Virilio as pure war'-have drawn upon industry, science, agriculture, education, medicine, and other spheres of civilian life to a wholly unprecedented degree. That war in the nuclear age threatens to be total in yet another sense is a truism that requires no elaboration. This essay concerns the mobilization of the artistic community during World War II, not as expressed in the outraged imagery of a Guernica or a Heartfield montage, but through the direct recruitment of the applied arts-architecture, industrial design, and graphic design-by the Office of Strategic Services, America's wartime intelligence agency. The artists drawn into the of OSS entered the secret war with boundless enthusiasm, a determination to support the anti-Fascist campaign, and -like most other units of the fledgling intelligence service-no particular idea of how they were supposed to do it. Their early campaigns reveal the bravado of infinite possibilities. Gradually, as their ambitions became adjusted to reality, a series of theoretical principles evolved which enabled them to apply the scienza nuova of design to the ancient art of war. Through their pioneering experiments in the visual display of information in the propaganda war, in service of the War Crimes trials at Nuremberg and, finally, in the waning months of the organization, in preparation for the founding conference of the United Nations in San Francisco; they left a small but indelible mark on history. Armed with this extraordinary wartime experience, they went on to make a much larger mark on their respective professions. The contentious history of the Presentation Branch offers a compelling insight into the politics of both art and intelligence. We begin by recalling the situation that prevailed at the beginning of the war. Acknowledgments: I have greatly benefited from interviews and correspondence with the following alumni of the Presentation Branch, OSS, to whom I express my gratitude: Edna Andrade, Robert Konikow, Oliver Lundquist, Carl Marzani (dec.), Benjamin (and Jane) Thompson, and the tireless Donal McLaughlin. Thanks also are due the embattled National Endowment for the Humanities for research support.