Edward Hunter (journalist)

For other people with the same name, see Edward Hunter.

Edward Hunter (1902–1978) was an American journalist, author, and intelligence agent who was noted for his anticommunism.

Background

Hunter's career in journalism began at the Newark Ledger in New Jersey before he moved on to the Chicago Tribune's Paris edition. Hunter worked in Japan and in China from the mid-1920s to mid-1930s, during the Japanese invasion of Manchukuo and its detachment from China. He covered the Second Italo-Abyssinian War between Italy and Ethiopia and took note of the psychological warfare methods used in all those instances as well as during the preparations by Germany for World War II.

According to Hunter's 1958 testimony, he served for two years during World War II as a "propaganda specialist" for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the Central Intelligence Agency's predecessor.

He was active in the Newspaper Guild, the journalists' trade union, which he felt was dominated by communist sympathizers.

Testimony before Congress

In March 1958, he testified before the US House of Representatives' House Committee on Un-American Activities.

Hunter described the US and NATO as losing the Cold War because of the communists' advantage in propaganda and psychological manipulation. He felt that the West lost the Korean War for being unwilling to use its advantage in atomic weapons.

He saw no difference between the various communist countries and warned that both Yugoslavia and China were as bent on communist world domination as was the Soviet Union.

References

• Seed, David (2004). Brainwashing: The Fictions of Mind Control : a Study of Novels and Films. Ohio: Kent State University Press. ISBN 0-87338-462-8.
• Hunter, Edward (1951). Brain-washing in Red China: the calculated destruction of men’s minds. New York: Vanguard Press.
• Hunter, Edward. "Communist psychological warfare". Retrieved 2008-02-06.
• Marks, John (1979). The Search for the 'Manchurian Candidate:' The CIA and Mind Control. NY: Times Books.

External links

• The Center for Research Libraries has digitized Hunter's collection of Chinese propaganda (leaflets and comic books): "Political Communications and Mass Education in China in the Early Years of the People’s Republic"
• Association of Research Libraries on the Hunter Collection
• Testimony before Congress