Abstract

"Edward Bernays and His Indian Clients: Race, Nation and the Failures of International Public Relations in the 1950s"

Erika Rappaport, University of California, Santa Barbara (rappaport@ucsb.edu)

In 1951 Chester Bowles, the American Ambassador to India, convinced the Indian government to hire Edward Bernays, the founding father of public relations, to “bring about a better mutual understanding between the United States and India.” During the Cold War and decolonization, many states began to employ public relations to attract investment and forge strategic alliances. India hoped that hiring the very expensive Bernays would help attract dollars and thus minimize reliance on British assistance. Bernays, who touted the fact that he was Sigmund Freud’s nephew, had famously sold cigarettes, bacon, an unpopular war and much more to the American public. He had excellent connections to the press, big business and politicians, but he utterly failed his new client. Yet he made very little effort to cultivate a good working relationship with his client. After six months, Bernays abruptly broke his contract and explained to the British and American governments that Indian politicians were corrupt and did not share the “proper” ideals of free speech and a free press. Bernays failed to respect client confidentiality, and he strategically used Orientalism when labeling Indian diplomats as duplicitous to protect his own reputation. Instead of producing good will Bernays produced international resentments. His actions illuminate the subtle and often invisible way the new and developing PR industry favored Western capitalists and nations over those in the Global South. The entangled histories of race, empire and hard power weakened India’s ability to wield soft power during the first decade after Independence. This account of Indian PR and nation building raises new questions about the racial and global dynamics that shaped the emergence of the public relations industry and by extension our contemporary culture of misinformation.