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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 March 2022
This article analyses the distinctive characteristics of how the League of Nations sought to publicly legitimise itself from 1919 to 1939. Discussing the work of the Information Section of the League Secretariat, it traces the organisational development of this section throughout the interwar years and argues that a preference of ‘collaboration’ through liaison with influential members of the public in the League's member states permeated this section's work, and that this strategy was, in the eyes of League officials, necessitated by the tight political constraints the Secretariat was subjected to rather than the result of an inherent ‘elitism’ of the officials.
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7 Tomoko Akami, ‘The Limits of Peace Propaganda: The Information Section of the League of Nations and its Tokyo Office’, in Jonas Brendebach, Martin Herzer and Heidi Tworek, eds., Exorbitant (New York: Routledge, 2018), 70–90.
8 Walter Lippman, Public Opinion (New York: Macmillan, 1922).
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18 See Emil E. Seidenfaden, Nikolai Schulz and Helle Strandgaard Jensen, ‘Film-splaining the League of Nations’, in Karen Gram-Skjoldager and Haakon A. Ikonomou, eds., The League of Nations – Perspectives from the Present (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2019); Emil E. Seidenfaden, ‘Legitimizing International Bureaucracy – Press and Information Work from the League of Nations to the UN’, in Karen Gram-Sjoldager, Haakon A. Ikonomou and Torsten Khalert, eds., Organizing the 20th Century World – International Organizations and the Emergence of an International Public Administration, 1920–1960 (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2020), 129–44.
19 ‘Memo: Comert to Drummond’, 8 Dec. 1919, League of Nations Archives (LONA, hereafter), 2396, R1332, 8.
20 Memo: Unsigned, ‘Memorandum of Publicity by the Information Section,’ 21 July 1919, LONA, 419, R1332, 1; Drummond, Eric, ‘The Secretariat of the League of Nations’, Public Administration, 9, 2 (1931), 228–35, 231CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
21 Note: Fosdick to Drummond, 14 July 1919, LONA, 305, R1332, 1.
22 Bruce Lannes-Smith, ‘Propaganda’, Encyclopedia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/topic/propaganda, 2021 (accessed 18 Jan. 2021).
23 Risso, Linda, Propaganda and Intelligence in the Cold War. The NATO Information Service (New York: Routledge, 2014), 8CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
24 Emil E. Seidenfaden, ‘Message from Geneva: The Public Legitimization Strategies of the League of Nations 1919–1946’, PhD Thesis, Aarhus University, 2019, 95–96.
25 Letter: Jean Monnet to Comert, 7 July 1919, LONA, S745.
26 Sweetser, Arthur, The League of Nations at Work (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1920), 187Google Scholar.
27 ‘Article by M. Comert’, attached to note by Drummond, 29 Mar. 1921, LONA, Minutes of the Directors meetings MDM hereafter.
28 Sweetser, The League of Nations at Work, 187.
29 John Higley, ‘Elites’, Encyclopedia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/topic/elite-sociology (01 Feb. 2021).
30 Raw data of the complete staff of the League Secretariat generously provided by the LONSEA project, Heidelberg University: LONSEA – League of Nations Search Engine, a Database Developed by the Projects A3 and A13, Cluster of Excellence “Asia and Europe in a Global Context”, Heidelberg University, 2010–2016, since 2017 continued by the Institute for European Global Studies, University of Basel (Project Leader: Prof. Dr. Madeleine Herren). LONSEA, hereafter.
31 Seidenfaden, ‘Message’, 41.
32 Memo: Sub-Committee of Technical Advisory Committee on Information, ‘Observations on Branch-Offices’, 28 Jan. 1946, Arthur Sweetser Papers, Library of Congress, (A.S.P, L.O.C, hereafter), Box 69, 2.
33 Letter: Sweetser to Pelt, 2 Dec. 1943, A.S.P, L.O.C, Box 34, 3; Ranshofen-Wertheimer, 189.
34 MDM, 13 Aug. 1919, LONA. 3.
35 Barros, James, Office without Power (Oxford: Clarendon, 1979), 394Google Scholar.
36 Memo: Arthur Sweetser, ‘League of Nations Publicity’, 27 May 1919, LONA, 272, R1332, 4.
37 Daniel Laqua, ‘Activism in the “Students League of Nations”: International Students Politics and the Confédération Internationale des Étudiants, 1919–1939’, English Historical Review, CXXXII, 556 (2017), 605–37; Francisca de Haan, ‘Writing Inter/Transnational History: The Case of Women's Movements and Feminisms’, in Barbara Haider-Wilson, William D. Godsey and Wolfgang Mueller, eds., International History in Theory and Practice (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2017), 501–36; Glenda Sluga, ‘Women, Feminisms and Twentieth Century Internationalisms’, in P. Clavin and G. Sluga, eds., Internationalisms – A Twentieth Century History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017).
38 Pickard, Bertram, ‘The Greater League of Nations – A Brief Survey of the Nature and Development of Unofficial International Organizations’, Contemporary Review, 850, 150 (1936), 460–65, 465Google Scholar. My italics.
39 Report: Committee to Examine the Organisation of the Information Section, Annex to ‘Commission de Controle – Réorganization de la Section d'Information. Note du Secrétaire general’, 21 Sep. 1933 (Adrianus Pelt Papers), LONA, P191, 3; Davies, ‘A Great Experiment’, 408.
40 Memo: Information Section, ‘Liaison with International Organisations’, 21 Sep. 1933, LONA, P191, 3.
41 Report: ‘Report of the Information Section to the 8th Assembly, 1927’, Sep. 1926, 1927, LONA, 62097, R1354, 15–18.
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44 Davies, ‘Internationalism’, 229.
45 Circular: Secretariat, Special Circular 88, 11 Nov. 1921, LONA, 3. Translated from French.
46 LONSEA; Letter: Radziwill to Drummond, 22 Apr. 1931, LONA, S861.
47 Minutes of Information Section meeting (MIS, hereafter), 6 Feb. 1934, LONA, P191; MIS, 8 May 1934; MIS, 22 Feb. 1935.
48 Memo: Pelt, ‘Information Section – Liste des associations privée avec lesquelles la Section d'information est en rapport et analyse de chacune de ces liaisons’, nd, 1933, LONA, P191, 1–2; Table: Information Section, ‘Representation du Secretariat aux divers congress, conferences etc. auquels il a eté invite en 1924’, [sic] 8 Sep. 1924, LONA, 38568, R1600, 2.
49 Report: Radziwill, ‘Meeting of the International Federation of League of Nations Societies’, 30 July 1926, LONA, 52102, R1336, 3.
50 Theodore Ruyssen, ‘La propagande pour la Société des Nations’, in Peter Munch, ed., Les Origines et l’œuvre de la Société des Nations, vol. II (Copenhagen: Rask-Ørstedfonden/Nordisk Forlag, 1924), 237–8.
51 Ruyssen, ‘La propagande’, 239.
52 Heidi Tworek analyses these conferences as an example of League ‘moral disarmament’. Seidenfaden shows how the initiative for the conferences came from the Information Section, which camouflaged it as a proposal from a national delegation. Tworek, Heidi, ‘Peace through Truth – The Press and Moral Disarmament through the League of Nations’, Medien & Zeit, 25, 4 (2010), 16–28Google Scholar; Emil E. Seidenfaden, ‘From the Gallery to the Floor – the League of Nations and the Combating of “False Information”’, in Gram-Skjoldager and Ikonomou, The League of Nations – Perspectives (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2019), 188–200.
53 Herren, Madeleine and Löhr, Isabella, ‘Gipfeltreffen im Schatten der Weltpolitik: Arthur Sweetser und die Mediendiplomatie des Völkerbunds’, Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft, 62, 5 (2014), 411–24Google Scholar; Madeleine Herren and Isabella Löhr, ‘Being International in Times of War: Arthur Sweetser and the Shifting of the League of Nations to the United Nations’, European Review of History, 25, 3–4 (2018), 535–52; Seidenfaden, ‘Message’, 87–91.
54 Ibid.
55 Plà, note to Comert, ‘Temporary Collaborators’, 9 Dec. 1926, LONA, 53149, R1347, 2; Seidenfaden, ‘Message’, 84.
56 Plà, ‘Temporary Collaborators’, 9 Dec. 1926; the 1931 number is from LONSEA data.
57 Sweetser, ‘League of Nations publicity’, 27 May 1919, LONA, 272, R1332, 3.
58 Working paper: Information Section, ‘Draft. Questions’, 14 Aug. 1919, LONA, 743, R1332.
59 The Monnet nowadays remembered for his role in founding the European Coal and Steel Community.
60 Working paper: Information Section, ‘Draft. Questions’, 14 Aug. 1919.
61 Memo: Comert, ‘Associations nationales – Bureau de liaison, Plan general’, 20 Aug. 1919, ASP-LOC, Box 13, 1.
62 Report: ‘Information Section’, 16 Apr. 1921, 1921, LONA, Secretariat de la Société des Nations – Commission d'enquete, CE/1-27, 12.
63 Ibid., 13.
64 Report: ‘Report of the Information Section to the 8th Assembly, 1927’, Sep. 1926, LONA, 15–18.
65 Letter: George H. Mair to Drummond, 27 Jan. 1920, LONA, 2849, R1332.
66 Akami, ‘The Limits’, 74, 86.
67 Salvador de Madariaga, Morning Without Noon (Farnborough: Saxon House, 1973), 279.
68 Assembly Document: League of Nations, A.10.1933.X: Technical Concentration of the Activities of the League of Nations and Rationalisation of the Services of the Secretariat and the International Labour Office, Report by the Supervisory Commission to the Assembly July 20th, 1933, LONA, 8; See also Gram Skjoldager, ‘Taming the Bureaucrats: The Supervisory Commission and Political Control of the Secretariat’, in Gram Skjoldager and Ikonomou, The League of Nations – Perspectives, 40–50.
69 Seidenfaden argues that the news and information material released by the section in the period stuck to a 'dogma of neutrality’ to mimick the tone of a national civil service. Seidenfaden, ‘Message’, 129.
70 Potter, Pitman B., ‘League Publicity: Cause or Effect of League Failure?’, The Public Opinion Quarterly, 2, 10 (1938), 399–412, 406CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
71 Ibid.
72 Standing Instructions: Secretariat Standing Instructions no. 22, 1934, LONA, Standing Instructions, 1934.
73 Memo: Pelt, ‘Memorandum on the reduction of staff and the reorganisation of the Information Section’, nd, LONA, P191, 6.
74 Report: Sub-Committee of the Technical Advisory Committee on Information, ‘Report to the Secretary-General’, 11 Feb. 1946, ASP-LOC, Box 69, 1. Giles Scott-Smith explores the ancestry of the UNDPI in the United Nations Information Office (UNIO), which arose out of the Inter-Allied Information Committee (IAIC). Scott-Smith, Giles, ‘Competing Internationalisms: The United States, Britain and the Formation of the United Nations Information Organization during World War II’, International Journal for History, Culture and Modernity, 6, 1 (2018)Google Scholar, Sweetser was a key player in the UNIO.
75 Seidenfaden, ‘Message’, 201–2.
76 Letter: Pelt, ‘Outline of an Information Section in a Post-War League of Nations Secretariat’, attached to: Pelt to Sweetser, 10 Mar. 1943, ASP-LOC, 5.
77 Akami, ‘The Limits’, 86.
78 Ibid., 74.
