Perhaps my expectations were too great at the outset but this book revealed itself to be an unsatisfying read. The approach chosen by the author - organizing the material by theme rather than a chronological account - made it an even more confusing study of covert psychological warfare activities and their relationship to the Marshall Plan. To begin with, the title is somewhat puzzling: covert psychological warfare as it related to the Marshall Plan was done through the OPC (Office of Policy Coordination). It is not until 1952 that the Office, until then an autonomous entity, came under CIA control and was merged with the Office of Special Operations to form the Office of Special Plans. Also the Marshall Plan ended in 1951. Therefore, the title does not seem quite appropriate. It is somewhat misleading, in my opinion.
The book contains a few interesting nuggets about psychological warfare in Western Europe in the early post-war years but these are few and far between. The book is more about the major individual players and their involvement in the bureaucratic struggle to organize and wage covert psychological warfare against communism in post-war Western Europe. Despite its title, there are quite a few pages concerning Iran and even about the 1968 presidential transition (from the Johnson to the Nixon administration). Since the book is only 138 pages long (excluding the appendix), these extraneous passages only added to my frustration. Furthermore, the narrative tends to get lost in irrelevant details. For example, there is a page worth of text devoted to Carmel Offie, an American agent who happened to be openly homosexual. He is described as the "Wild Man". In other works - such as "Operation Rollback", by Peter Grose - Offie is portrayed as a valuable agent rather than an example of "out-of-control" operatives. The reader is often left wanting for more information. For example, Pisani writes about a co-management structure (a committee composed of representatives of workers, supervisory personnel, engineers and technical staff) to administer the Berliet truck manufacturing company in France (page 88 ). This is presented as an alternative to outright nationalization of companies. Pisani then writes: "And the Berliet case was not the only one." That's it. No examples either in the following text or even in a footnote, the more appropriate place to expand on the subject. At page 108, Pisani mentions Allen Dulles "orchestrating Operation Sunrise". There is no footnote reference to give details about this operation. On page 117, the author talks about the "showboat ECA propaganda efforts, extravaganzas of the Hollywood type" (ECA = Economic Cooperation Administration, the U.S. government agency set up to administer the Marshall Plan). No examples follow that tantalizing bit of information. On the next page (p. 118), Pisani says that propaganda films covertly sponsored by the U.S. "were not detected by Communist propagandists and were reviewed favorably by their publications". Still no example is given. The book could also have used better editing. Pisani's use of the expression "as such" is annoyingly ubiquitous. I generally got the impression that the author tried to make a book out of what should have been (and perhaps was) a doctoral thesis.
In other words, I do not recommend this book.
