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This material contains, information affecting the national defense of the United States within the meaning of the espionage laws. Title 18 USX., Sees. 793 and 794, the trans¬ mission or the revelation of which in any manner to an unauthorized person is prohibited

This research is sponsored by the Department of Defense, under Contract SB-79, monitored by the Assistant Secretary oí Defense (.International Security Affairs). Views or conclusions contained in the Memorandum should not he interpreted as representing the official opinion or policy of the Department of Defense,

DOC AVAILABILITY NOTICE Quail.lied requesters may obtain copies of this report from the Defense .Documentation Center iDDCC

SPECIAL HANDLING REQUIRED: NOT RELEASABLE TO FOREIGN NATIONS The information contained in this document will not: he disclosed to foreign nationals or their representatives.

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DOWNGRADING AND DECLASSIFICATION i»».iiiiiii<ii —ox ■ >.>iI»' ' I...I nW«* imK». !i^,i«wi

J i1!:. III;!' !|ii lir.::i!¡! ;Ü ¡ü'lüriii ¡¡¡¡i! Hj! I¡¡il¡i¡ !!ti: ■'.* i.i:!¡hN¡ :i{! iliUtil ilíü .¡!l¡¡ Mií.; ir ¡üüh^ifMdiiii¡i:: U 1-::11111:11111- iiiiii ;mí»I! ¡tiUili ;}!!¡:ü- i¡¡ i’lülltüi; :is?!¡¡ ¡¡¡¡¡iilil !l(ji i¡Ní!H 'i»l.i¡¡l ¡ii<!|;]ji ?!' n¡¡; f¡i i:> !i!:!i¡¡:¡ un i;>ii¡íií> hh >*! ¡'¡H.'tüí :*!!: aii:i: ¡ÜIíü ¡i¡<!-! I uüm :in Iiaou: .füll« i 1 un M¡uu-> >;j¡: »f|: ijiWjiiiiJM

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(¡i'-¡i 'i.H ;i!i!.:i«i'!J¡i • i' h. i -vi * - !i

,;.:i1 -J ¡h;! - s.'fji'i'i! }ii¡i- í ¡ h’‘¿f ¡¡ü ¡ ¡ -m i ! •• bT1! Ij i 1' : «I-, : ■ N

í i¡; -I '■’ti 'íi

UUii ! • riRiil:

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• j ‘-¡/l! • l! ! !'*.=: Vi ¡'i i:

= !! . -:1:,311 V •dilili «:

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‘ v i°;! i.'v. ^ ^ ...ff1«*«* ::- ■**'

i" i!

I .' • «i

the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense, inter to

s in

: I.’. 1 i. '

national Security Affairs. The RM is the last in a series

of five, which cover different aspects of the British

campaign against the communist terrorists in Malaya

between 1947 and 1960. RM-4170-1SA,

, 1947-1960(11), dealt with the military side of the

campaign, thus providing the background for the subse¬

quent, more specialized analyses. RM-4171-ISA,

Counterinsurgency in Malaya, 1947-1960(U), a detailed

description of the organization of antiterrorist activi

ties at all levels of administration, was followed by

RM-4172-ISA, Antiguerrilla Intelligence in Malaya, 1948

iqftOiin. Anri RM-4173-ISA, Resettlement and Food Control »I

in Malaya(U). The present and final study concerns the t--r-wnn ftttmTf**' ,É> ' in—'»

campaign of public information, civic action, and other

persuasive measures by which the government won the

crucially important support of the populace.

The papers in this series are independent treatments

of separate topics, which together form a comprehensive

picture, for it was the combination and interaction of

the practices and policies described in all five that

!l!k!!l I :|i! ¡lililí! Ill in- ¡¡üliNl,ü|. |! ' :;tl ID ¡I lililí' iff! mil ¡liilhil ¡ II |i»lilH!HMl¡ «llül I h Hlli'HI ' 11 I lüM- liülfilM !M. i:illlll!!H i; in :iin!iiiFiiii:i in 1 'i'i i i|!ii!| i 'Ill 1 !ll!l!l|!l!iii!l!l! Ml :

Il I :|||(|| ...1.1 !• ... in 11 IW I'll..

defeated the Communists The studies do not, however,

aim throughout is to discern and evaluate the methods

used by the British.

For the bulk of his information, the author is

indebted to the War Office and other British government

archives, where, between April and November 1962, he was

enerously given access to records of the Emergency.

also interviewed a number of British and Australian

participants in the campaign, whose contributions of

views and factual data are acknowledged individually in

the footnotes, and he has drawn extensivaly on the regi¬

mental records and professional journals of the British

army. In this country, the author has used relevant

{ : lass ifled materials in the custody of the Assistant

Chief of Staff, Intelligence (U.S. Army), and the Research

Analysis Corporation.

Though the majority of written sources cited in this

Memorandum are secret, titles and descriptive subject

headings are unclassified throughout.

'Híii: • lililí! I MHlIil ININII |i||M llllillll I klkilii. MU H'lM 4 : HHIIHI IIUNH H • ..HI.'ll ip I I III! II : III: ..HI

IN %\ ..... ¡ III I ¡HHIIIIIHIIIIMIM'I II" ..I .limillUli'HiIMM . I ii||i|r u>l i i li I il K 'i i < M i ni HUN

41«

The victory over the

was :ii • • achieved between 1947 and 1960 largely through the

interaction of several factors: the Security Forces

mastery of jungle warfare; the resettlement in policed

villages of the Chinese squatters and mine and estate 4

workers on whom the terrorists depended for supplies and

recruits; an improved intelligence organization that

exploited the guerrillas' need to seek support among the

people; and a well-functioning command and control system

for the over-all effort. By its success in these areas,

together with a vigorous civic action program, the

government convinced the people of its strength as well

as its concern for the public welfare, and gained

credibility for its public information campaign, which

was aimed at winning the popular support cnat leading

officials knew to be essential to victory over the

insurgents.

Initially, the guerrillas had certain advantages

over the defenders in their appeal to the populace, as

they capitalized on the racial, social, and economic

division within the country. The Malays, slightly less

than half the population, were the ruling and favored

M him .. .inun mini •mil • ii:m ■ hhiim m ' ... ' ""H 11'' , um I • I hihi« ••"'M • • • i . ..in ni i i.i ■■ i Hii III11 mu HI 11 n i| Ml HNirli i ill* 111)11 11111111111111111111111111111 III I 11111111111111111111)11 .'I I Ml II ! • I: |I| 11'llll-11(1111 M • riM>|i:l: i|ilitili|li|iil|i-l>'|i;|iii|i||4

•liJMlJIMilir Mill'll mil lllhllll llllllMl IIIU III- .Mill ilMlHII Ml iMHllHMHC : .III 111(-11(-1 > ... Ml • "

group; they made up

to latid, and occu

Ü!«!

r V : i!

.1:' ...I ..:,

i ' ¡'-.j : ' Ü. !, i Üîlrj ;

¡' 'l'llftt

.¡i i ¡

that were not reserved to the British, The Chinese of

Malaya, who made up 38 per cent of the population, were

for the most part excluded by law or the circumstances of

their cultural isolation from citizenship, land ownership,

and economic and political opportunities. Moreover,

about half of them lived in great poverty on the edge of

the jungle, outside the framework of society and without

ttie benefits of its protective and civil institutions.

and thus were easy prey to communist demagoguery and the

promise of a better life. The predominantly Chinese

membership of the Malayan Communist Party and the example

of the successful communist revolution in China contributed

to the Chinese community's identification with and faith

in the communist cause, though by the same token they

tended to deter the Malays from joining the movement.

In competing with the appeals of the Communists for

the support of the people, Britain, in turn, could point

to its past performance (most recently in India and

Pakistan) in helping former colonies become self-governing

states and to the importance it attached to the adminis¬

tration of Malaya, as reflected, for example, in the

SECRET 11111(11 • '!i*iailii»ilil< 1-111 I IHM I II I lall I III III H- 11 Ml ' ' '■HII • M"MiI M HIM* IIP* •'

I I ||| !;| ||i|;

!'li i|i ;'¡!¡

I!;:- illlllllili rlllllllillll lilllll miniNHIlMlUllllhill ... ill.. i»1

ii'l '1:1: 'iílili' i i: ¡1«! ji¡|;¡| ¡¡i.; ■^ü' ¡!¡¡;!;| ... .

¡; ii| i|!i¡|i;|)i|r jj ''...Ill. i:;.

|¡:

Civil Service. The British chose to

in the struggle against the insurgents by appealing to

the prevailing local sentiment and supporting the

nationalist striving for independence. They officially

acknowledged their commitment to this end and proved

their sincerity through a succession of political, eco¬

nomic, and social measures designed to prepare the

general populace as well as the elite of Malaya tor sel

government. The five-and-a-half years between General

Templet’s inauguration as High Commissioner in 1952 and

the day of Independence in 1957 were marked by rapid

political developments, which included the liberalization

of citizenship rights and their extension to the Chinese;

the establishment of local government by popular election;

creation of a federal Legislative Council; the first

national, elections; and an extensive revision of the

governmental structure,

Closely allied to these political advances and vital

to the success of all military and propagandistic endeavors

were efforts that could be summed up as civic action.

The major step here was the resettlement program, which

not only placed about a million people under government

SECRET

SECRET -viii-

flurveillatice and thus isolated the guerrilla from this

important source of support but also permitted the

communication of problems and needs that is the prerequi¬

site of a sound welfare program. Governmental prestige

rose as the public witnessed the amenities of life in

the new villages with their well-organized after-care

program and felt the effects of such new developments as

irrigation and drainage projects; farm loans and other

agricultural support measures; regulation of the formerly

backward labor conditions, work hours, and money-lending

practices ; the encouragement of consumers and producers

cooperatives; the growth of labor unions; a greatly

improved education system with a concomitant rise in

student enrolment; the opening up of the diplomatic,

military, and civil services to all Malayan citizens under

liberalized conditions of admission; and the opportunities

for direct acquaintance with the workings of government

through the week-long "civics courses" attended by repre¬

sentatives of all racial, and economic communities.

The civics courses fitted well into the public

information program, which from 1952 on, when General

Templer appointed A.D.C. Peterson head of the information

services, became a major part of the counterinsurgent

SECRET

'lin III lili lililí ill lili ill Pili Muni! Illllllllll! ..... .Ml iiniini mu mu.mil mill Ni ihllllilHlllMllillllilllliillll iMlH i MNII HUI i mini Mill.mil' iiiimi 'II;;.'

I

effort. To detach the anticolonialist from co

convince him of the merits of the democratic way, Peterson

centered his campaign around a positive theme -- nationalism

-- and succeeded in attracting young idealists willing to

propagate it. Well-trained "field officers" went out

into the villages, their mobile vans equipped with

projectors, recording machines, radios, and special films,

and often accompanied by disillusioned former guerrillas,

who told or dramatized their story and satirized guerrilla

life.

The information campaign consistently played on the

government's willingness and ability to punish those who

supported the terrorists and reward those who helped the

authorities. Punishments ranged from the inconvenience

of food and gate control and curfews to the destruction

of villages and detention of their Inhabitants. The

greatest reward for support in a given area was for the

government to declare the area "white," i.e., free of

guerrillas, and to lift all Emergency restrictions on

food and personal movement, a prospect that provided the

strongest incentive to cooperation.

Another aim of the campaign was to exploit all evi¬

dence of counterinsurgent strength as well as of insurgent

' ti ' Mil iiil ¡¡iiiiiliii üiiii iliiiii ¡;:¡¡¡¡ !¡¡¡i

Qi Trim SÜmI JEmI JC wJmJ JL

Ml ill! Il. lili liiiiiilliti lililí mu i nil mi Ni iwii mili iiiiiimii u i. i >' IMMIl III IIMOTII' 'III 111 Hll lliliinilll III illilliMill It . i III lllllilli.ill i

SECBET -X- ■

weakness (e.g., the conamunist peace offers of 1955) and

to turn to the government's advantage such potentially

adverse developments as the truce in Indochina by stressing

their négative consequences for the insurgents in Malaya.

The information services acquired the cooperation of

local newspapers by supplying them free of charge with

ready-made copy in the various languages spoken in Malaya.

In addition, they operated a press of their own, with

weeklies and monthlies in Chinese, Malay, and several

other languages, and a large output of books, pamphlets,

and leaflets.

The substance of the information program and its

impact on the public, which seeped through to the

guerrillas, lent weight to the claims of propaganda

leaflets, voice aircraft, and rumors spread by go-betweens

-- the instruments of psychological warfare -- and added

to the demoralizing effects of food denial and improved

government intelligence. A great many of those who

surrendered in large numbers in 1957 and 1958 stated that

information from the government had played a major part in

their decision to give themselves up.

'!|l|l|l"!l!'"! »l“|l !|'!:'

Cl TSlfT* OfjIs/tEtiJSJ »I*

.riiiiii muir iik.i i lili I If ||||l II I HI.I.Hill I I INI I 'll 1-11111111- ‘■iH«»1 ••••■• ,rM .lUhNil ( MJ .

I I

I

>•

r i! 1' i! -! ¡i :«

i ij ji :| .1 .! 1

i I;

mill -Hltllll llllji Illlifliiillliill-iilliiiiiillli illiüilüijil- ÜIII HUH.. uiiii iitli fM : 1-11111111111 linn ..rim:.ill.in.mi ni mili min iij lll!l|l!-i III : i¡illii li;i i I III .-,

PREFACE ......m*

SUMMARY .... • • V

SecCion I. THE IMPORTANCE OF POPULAR SUPPORT . 1

II. THE RACIAL COMPOSITION OF MALAYAN SOCIETY AS A FACTOR IN THE INSURGENCY ... 4

III. POLITICAL STEPS TOWARD INDEPENDENCE . 13

IV. CIVIC ACTION IN MAIAYA . 20

V. THE PUBLIC INFORMATION CAMPAIGN . 29

VI. PUNISHMENTS AND REWARDS . 36

VII. THE TASK OF PERSUASION . 43

VIII. TECHNIQUES AND DEVICES . 50

1

ji' !j

1'

i

I I

i !

I

I

i

.. ..NI i ; Ml iHi'iuiri I. i in i nil 11 iiiu|IM Hifii -IIIIIII mil 11(111111 Illlll'i Mini iiHIHII III mu III:.urn 111: .Ill NIMH .. •111'- lili' I (Mil I III I UM II II • •um. .. i-iir 11- <im| 'ijii ■ -;i'¡ : j| ^¡'| i " i *|| ]iiij um iiiiiii

• H III Mll'l MIM I I'll .ni' .h ..... ¡'il- Mri ..d in i - ¡mi in

IHM! Iliiül I'll!!? IH'i '.

J

itllil IKi! lÜIII Ülll Hüll! .lil|iiiil<lilillilii!!i-i M Hllil'l ' il'l IflIilDlIl! • |i 11 il II Hi Mill I'llllH 111.1=1 Ml-: rlnliiuill >11111111 lllMI illi* IIJMIJII i >111 P" ‘kINIHI • IiHII»> Il M lIlHJI Hl'l ••> 'I'1 ‘ ÜJII HHlH

MUI lili H II hl II i Illlll IHi IIH ‘ liillH n*(l> ihimii IM1I' il Pim .. «i iuii>i:i!in ► .hími.mui ■ «Il II » IMJiMIHiH II M mil H I *1 *H I ! 1 'fl MI'WluHI II

1

«1 THE Sr,.'.!

¡ : ¡‘ü •: ■ iji i' _Ll'IL li

ni i-

A senior British officer in Malaya once defined the

government's most important objective as the winning of

popular support against the guerrillas> or» to use his

own catchy phrase, "winning the hearts and minds of the

people." Another official, who was most successful in

developing intelligence of the guerrillas, remarked that

one could not win without a positive political policyi

In Malaya, the hearts and minds of the people were

won by words and deeds based on a positive political

policy. The opportunity for winning popular support arose

from the interaction of several factors. First, the

Commonwealth forces proved capable of conducting sustained

jungle operations with units of any desired size, and thus

succeeded in preventing the communist guerrillas from

building up within the jungle a strength that might have

allowed them to progress from acts of terror and sabotage

to large-scale military operations. Second, the resettle¬

ment of the Chinese squatters and mine and estate laborers,

on whom the guerrillas had counted for food, drugs.

Information, and recruits, separated the guerrillas from

their supporters and forced them to spend most of their

time and manpower on efforts to obtain food. Ihird, the

|K| mili 'lili uru i iiiiiriüi 1 U'il!ii - ii ni'i i 11 Gü'Witi1 • i ' *' .. .. ... IIIIIIII'li 11 noil Hill'll H'll nllllli Hill ''HIM !I|i:h WH IHIIWH ■! H'Wlll 'N" ' W'111 11,11

... »• i... ’ ..! n. 1 r .«.hirrrj |¡ |

.•! 1-1.:1 .!

If,.

M •¡I !!)!!! |J| !►] l!l|i|¡j|i(i liilÜIlilIJilMUM] ¡lllllÜI !lí ¡lltll! :!:!!!liü l!)l! ülmr |Hi||i;iH)> ni fti'lllIflifiHII1 !1 i t !!•!!! üülfMílü ¡H’IIIH1 HMIlMIIHiili HH" 11*11 Minin*: ¡Wi: ; 11*11 lililí il« Hiiih iHl )h • I IHM h*!'i iii'Miii m'üMimi i» U. -«nf i mili r »hiiiiiiiJiiin»iiiiiin i 1 "iÍimm ■‘fililí i ni . i.ii:n. i 11‘iiiiiuihh mihihi • *,,,i"l,l! i hipiii imiip« MHHif.inin

i

I a • |||* 4»4 • ... fct fkablii

2“

.■•i! . .

attempts to I ’; * .* i.I*

'TTr I •. i:

profitable targets for a reorganised

Finally, the effective coordination and direction of

military action, resettlement and food control, and

intelligence was due to an ingenious system of command

and control. The people had to be persuaded to support

the government's measures, yet their support was the more

easily won because of them. Had the Security Forces been

defeated in the jungle, people might well have rushed to

the side of the victor; had the population been hostile

to the government, food control probably would not have

succeeded. Though the stress in the present series of

studies is on the interaction of these several factors in

the communist defeat in Malaya, it. may be significant that

the officer quoted above placed popular support first in

the order of their importance 1

This account of how the people of Malaya were won

over to the support of the Federation and, through it, the

Commonwealth will treat several topics in turn: the

explicit acceptance of national independence and triracial

^Compare the emphasis on the importance of winning the people with that of Mao Tse-tung (Mao Tse-tung, On Guerrilla Warfare, Frederick A. Praeger, Inc., New York

imiiiwnwmiiM»iniim»MMiMi«f h nim h w^1111^11114^111^^1^111 <nmff 'irrn"- *m -“tr *

1961).

TTiffi ¡OJPjV/JPbJCl JL * I .1* Mill'll *1 ■ « I* * • • »1 "PÜHMIII 9 IHtl'IIMIIHIlllMltlHiMiJl

-3-

concepts; social and economic reforms;: and the manipu¬

lation and exploitation of certain concepts by the public

information and psychological warfare media in response

to changes in the military and political situation. The

discussion will conclude with some comments on the means

used.

I’fU ’ll«:! I|!l: ! J: . -üíl

In 1948, communist terrorism in Malaya rose to such

a level that on June 17, under pressure of public opinion,

the government of the Federation of Malaya formally I

declared the existence of what came to be called "the I : Emergency." The Federation then was a federal union of j

i

I nine Malay states and two British colonies. The latter !

were British possessions, and, in retrospect, their i

j »

political evolution seems to have offered no difficult

; problems. The nine Malay states were another matter.

Being only protectorates of the British Crown, not

possessions, they were semisovereign states whose legal

position was based on an agreement between two contracting

powers. Moreover, members of their ruling aristocracy

enjoyed the confidence and support of the people. This

became particularly evident in 1946/47, when the British

Labour Cabinet's attempt to set up a more nearly repre¬

sentative mission, in which the rulers were little more

than pensioned figureheads, aroused such resentment among

the Malays that it was hastily abandoned. In its place,

the Federation of Malaya went into effect on February l,

1948. Its internal political structure was designed to

CE IP10*0 TPTP ÖJCLiWJdiHi J»

►•i» i i»in* nk Mil«*** •' i • irnwiw 'Him mum him i.

::¡$!ij!;!!ji¡! IR| ¡¡Ülüijij. ih;l! üüüm .... ....... miwiiüsüi! xt Hiiiiœ:!^ il*«®* ¡ :ii?' ..... ......... ... ... ¡"ÜH ! !• 1.1:1 .íUXí:¡:í|:'!|: ■ !«:(■{ ■» ¡PUMHlJl' .Pi:

w ÜP! !1; ¡i; li! |j!¡! ill »H • 1’ ¡I >1

( '¡»i» M !¡b ¡ .

!l! B' ! •t; .r|-

!|! p' IPP iil- ií ¡!

■■'líi!

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ip $' ¡Jl i»'!

|í!i ’>.i

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MNP» 5-

ft -!:

representatives of the principal departments -. . Ijft - : j: • . . . . •

of the public, and of the individual states.

The federal government itself had certain limited

, the rest being reserved to the states. Thus, the

Federation had responsibility for defense, foreign

the coordination of police activity, the judiciary,

commerce, communications, and most tax revenue. The states

controlled local government, health, education,

and land. The bulk of the states' revenue came from

federal grants upon approval of their budgets. In opera

tion, the system required continual, consultation between

federal and state governments 2

Though the structure and machinery of the new

Federation showed an attempt to express the will of the

governed (a step, moreover, taken in response to a

considerable body of local opinion), the society within

the Federation was racially so divided as to offer grave

problems. In 1943, about 38 per cent of the roughly six

important group consisted of Europeans, Anglo-Indians,

and Eurasians, and the remaining 49 per cent were Malay.

The racial problem was compounded by the 500,000

Chinese squatters, whom the pressures of hunger and

Japanese brutality during World War II had driven from

their homes to the relative freedom of the jungle's edge.

There they had built bamboo huts and learned to support

themselves by subsistence farming and truck gardening.

As squatters, they were outside the framework of Malayan

society, away from policemen, doctors, and magistrates,

and in many squatter areas the Malayan Communist Party 3

was the actual governing authority.

The large Chinese minority that remained within the

society was, generally speaking, energetic, commercially-

minded, and astute. The Malay majority, most of them

farmers and fishermen who prized leisure, had no desire

to have to compete with the Chinese on even terms. This

was one of the reasons that in vast areas title to land

'iwnnillMI m iwiiii 1

3'rne problem of the squatters is discussed at greater length in R. Sunderland, Resettlement and Food Control in Malaya(U), The RAND Corporation, RM-4173-ISA, September 1964, SECRET.

»

SECRET .7.

was reserved for the Malay, and that the Chinese, except

for members of a few long-established families, were not

granted citizenship. For their part, the Chinese were

unassimilated. Most of them spoke neither Malay nor

English. They seemed principally interested in their own

economic affairs and, except for the contacts necessary

to conduct these, seemed eager to keep apart from other

communities. Communication suffered also from the fact

that few public employees and almost no policemen spoke

Chinese.^

Precedent and example for the process of winning

the hearts and minds of disparate racial communities

might have been found in Canada, which in 1867 had become

a federal union within the British Empire, bound to Great

Britain only by common loyalty to the Crown. In Malaya,

one step toward that goal was perhaps the manner in wh ich

the British Crown had exercised its responsibilities there.

The few hundred British subjects who served in the Malayan

Civil Service were an elite group, so carefully chosen as

to be known locally as "the heaven-born." It was clear

/+For a more detailed treatment of the above subject see R. Sunderland, Organizing Counterinsurgency in Malaya, 1947-1960(11), The BAND Corporation, RM-4171-ISA, September 1964, pp. 1-14, SECRET.

SECRET

-8

that Britain bad discarded the eighteenth-century

mercantilist notion that colonies and protectorates were

meant to provide jobs for citizens of the mother country;

no longer was there a large group of foreign officeholders

with a vested interest in the status quo. The independence

of India and Pakistan in 1947, moreover, had demonstrated

that Great Britain was prepared to acknowledge Asian

nationalism; it had done so in a manner that created an

appreciable goodwill and convinced the populace of the

sincerity of British soldiers and administrators who were

fostering local patriotism in Halaya.

As noted above, the ability of the Security Forces

to conduct sustained and successful operations in the

jungle may have been a major political asset. If the

guerrillas had managed to take political and military

control of an entire area, to organize regular military

forces in it, and to win a series of victories in the field

-- as they did in Indochina and had planned to do in Malaya

-- it is very possible that so many people in Malaya would

have rushed to join their bandwagon as to make their

victory certain. Only a few years before, Malaya had seen

the Japanese defeat the British in a stunningly brief

campaign. The communist guerrillas of 1948 expected to

Sip oto TOnp JoljrJOb'Jtal JL

SECRET -9-

duplicate this feat. But, as the years went by and the

guerrillas were the bunted, harried, and ambushed, they

found it even harder to pose as the inevitable victors.5

The composition of the communist movement in Malaya

offered political opportunities to its opponents. The

Malayan Communist Party, including its military forces,

was about 95 per cent Chinese. It never succeeded in

winning important support from either the Malays or the

Indians. The Chinese community was able to provide a

flow of recruits, food, and money to the communist

guerrillas in 1948, 1949, and 1950 large enough to keep

the insurrection alive, but not large enough to let the

Communists create the impression that they had virtually

won Malaya. To end this support, the Federation authori¬

ties between 1950 and 1952 resettled and regrouped a

little over one million squatters, mine workers, and

estate laborers/’

Resettlement offered the prospect of a fundamental

change in the situation. But this hopeful development was

temporarily overshadowed by the assassination, on

5ihe writer is indebted to Dr. Harvey A. DeWeerd of The FAND Corporation for pointing cut to him some of the political implications of the Commonwealth's military successes.

6C£. Sunderland, Resettlement.

IKh7 iliiiij JL1/ Jr»

C! "ci rrDüinn

-10-

October 6, 1951, of the High Commissioner of Malaya,

Sir Henry Gurney, by a guerrilla task force. General

Sir Gerald W. R. Templer, who succeeded Gurney, was given

the dual post of High Commissioner and Director of Opera¬

tions. Resolved to win popular support, he had, as he

later put it, "a carrot" to balance the stick of his

sweeping powers. The carrot was independence for Malaya,

so that Templer and his successors could in good faith

present themselves as fighting for a greater Malaya and

against the new imperialism. That Templer intended from

the beginning to make Malaya aware of the incentive be

was prepared to offer is suggested by his action in reading

aloud, during his inauguration as High Commissioner in

February 1952, the directive he himself had received.

Thus dramatized, the directive announced that Malaya

would be in due course "a fully self-governing nation,"

which would, so the British Cabinet hoped, remain In the

Commonwealth. Citizenship in this new Malaya would be

open to all, Chinese as well as Malays. Templer was being

directed to foster progress in democracy and political

activity; the Malays would be encouraged to become more

active in commerce and industry.?

/'interview with Field Marshal Sir Gerald W. R. Templer, London, 1962; see Federation of Malaya, "Weekly News Summary," February 8, 1952, for the full text of the directive

C! mwo «iirfi

Hill i . lililí!: I IlHill 111 lllii . i in.um.

üiFrioiFnp JCi y/JTViJPi ' JL

-ii-

Lookiag back on his work in Malaya, Templer rated

the information program as almost on a par with intelli¬

gence in combating guerrillas, and compared the two

together to the right and left hands of a boxer. As will

be seen, Templer made the people aware that he was offer¬

ing them independence and a good life.^

John H. Morton, who served as Templer's Director of

Intelligence, once said, in analyzing the techniques of

counterinsurgency in Malaya, that the government could

not have won without a positive political policy, a theme.

This theme was a greater Malaya, and it was fully recog¬

nized by the men directing the effort in Malaya, who saw

their job as bringing the nationalist movement to the

fore and educating it for its tasks.^

Templer's successor. General Sir Geoffrey K. Bourne,

believed that many of the Chinese community had, as he

put it, a foot in each camp, and that they might just have

waited passively for the outcome of the insurrection if

they had not been won over to the idea of a multiracial

Malaya. Bourne, therefore, spent a great deal of his time

®Interview with Templer. 9Interview with Mr. John H. Morton, London, 1962.

Morton was Director of Intelligence under Templer, when Templer was Director of Operations in Malaya.

"iTirrt ¡O JCj JL

I NiltllllHIlH'l

OJSilIrJCliIii-JL'"

- 12-

in quiet personal conversation with Chinese leaders, trying

to win their support for a better and a free Malaya and to

persuade them that Britain would persevere until the

Communisu were defeated and a viable nation established.10

Independence and 'nationalism, then, were early recog

nized as powerful appeals to the public, through which the

government could hope to win the people's support in its

fight with the guerrillas. A series of steps, taken over

the years 1952 to 1956, indicated that Malaya was, in

fact, being prepared for independence.

”“ 10interview with General Sir Geoffrey K. Bourne.

SECRET

SECRET -13-

III. POLITICAL STEPS TOWARD INDEPENDENCE

Templer benefited by two political developments toward

an independent Malaya that preceded his tenure. In

February 1949, at the prospect of trouble between the

Malayan and Chinese communities provoked by attacks of

Chinese communist terrorists on their Malay neighbors,

leaders in the Chinese community had formed the Malayan

Chinese Association. This was a break with the tradition

of what Westerners regarded as the apolitical attitude of

the Chinese. The association's initial aims were to build

goodwill among the several communities and to promote law

and order. By the end of 1949, it had about 100,000

members. Regarded by some as the first group that could

fairly claim to speak for all Malayan Chinese, the

association gradually entered Malayan politics in the full

Western sense. The Communists took it seriously and made

several attempts to assassinate its leaders.11

—

Department of Information, Federation of Malaya, "Communist Banditry in Malaya: The Emergency June 1948 - June 1951," Kuala Lumpur, p. 17; "Goodwill in Malaya,” Asiatic Review. October 1949; "Area Handbook on Malaya," Subcontractor^ Monograph prepared by members of the University of Chicago faculty (Norton S. Ginsburg, gen. ed.) for the Human Relations Area Files, Inc., New Haven, Conn., prelim ed., 1955, p. 530, mimeographed.

tsivi

I

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t-

SÊCÏRET -14-

Another change that presaged responsible cabinet

government and paved the way for Templer occurred In March

1951, when the major departments of the Federation

government, theretofore beaded by senior civil servants,

were put in charge of ministers responsible to the High

Commissioner. These ministers sat in the Legislative

i Council.

Templer took office in February 1952. In May,

legislation for setting up elected local governments was I

introduced in the Legislative Council. The Chinese were

to be associated with this development, for Malayan

citizenship requirements were greatly broadened, and, at

midnight of September 14, 1,100,000 Chinese together with

2,650,000 Malays became what were called "federal"

citizens.13 Templer may well have seen himself as build¬

ing democracy from the grassroots, and doing so as a

matter of urgency, for already in November 1952 he told

the federal Legislative Council that the time had come

to elect councils for the states and the two British

colonies. The next step in the process was the election

™ ^Federation of Malaya, "Weekly News Su,salary," March 16, 1951*

13lbid*, May 9 and September 19, 1952.

p "iarifi JZilh/JdiJo X

CS HP áy *o "Ki'i ifi S3r Jmv JEwi ''iJli

-15-

of the Legislative Council itself, which was offered for

consideration in May 1953, about fifteen months after

Templer's arrival. With it, there would be an elected

legislative body at every level of government in Malaya.14

To help make the nationalist movement equal to its

tasks -- one of the functions of leadership in Malaya as

John Morton had described it -- the government created an

ingenious device, the civics courses. In each of these,

members of the different communities spent a week together

as guests of the Federation and observed government at

first hand. They visited government departments in Kuala

Lumpur, talked with senior civil servants, heard lectures,

and watched such spectacular demonstrations of government

power as RAF fly-pasts and artillery shoots. In 1953

alone, some 3,600 students attended civics courses. Of

these students, 1,700 were ¡Malays, 1,400 Chinese, and 500

Indians. They included, among others, 340 Indian

laborers, 300 Malay headmen, 670 representatives of

resettled Chinese, and more than 500 schoolteachers.1-*

14Russell H. FifieLd, The Diplomacy of Southeast Asia, 1945-1958, Harper & Bros., New York, 1958, p. 401; "Weekly News Summary," May 9, 1953.

15 "Federation of Malaya, Annual. Report (hereafter.

Federation Report), 1953, pp. 317-318.

SECRET

î

SECRJÍ3T -16-

The public's interest In political participation was

evident in the fact that 78 per cent of eligible voters

turned out for the first town-council election in the

history of the big east-coast town of Kota Bharu.16

With elected governments beginning to function

locally, the time seemed ripe to prepare for the election

of a national government. On April 27, 1954, a Federation

White Paper announced the creation of a legislative

council, to be composed of fifty-two members elected from

single-member constituencies and forty-six appointed from

various categories of public life. (The majority of

elected members reflected the sharp criticism that had

followed an earlier plan, under which the majority was

to have been appointed.) The first elections to the

council were held in July 1955.17

The winning party in the elections was an interesting

combination of the Malayan Chinese Association, mentioned

above, and the United Malay National Organization. This

coalition, running as the UMNO-MCA Alliance, took 79.6

per cent of the votes, far outrunning a party closely

associated with the Malay sultans. The alliance was a

16"Weekly News Summary," July 4, 1953. 17Fi£ield, Diplomacy, p. 402*

SECRET

ï

■i Hill !¡n I lililí llllllllll III i i liillill « "»i I * ... .....

-17*-

farsighted tactical move on the part of those who wanted

to associate the Chinese with the government, as only

18 11 per cent of the registered electorate was Chinese.

On November 30, 1955, a few months after the elections,

the then High Commissioner, Sir Donald McGillivray, told

the Legislative Council that, with the Federation of

Malaya and the United Kingdom cooperating to maintain

security against communist aggression and subversion, and

with the number of terrorist incidents being held down to

the current level, the U.K. government did not regard the

19 Emergency as a bar to self-government.

After this statement, the remaining political problems

were the orderly phasing-out of institutionalized British

influence and the final changes to be made in the system

of government. At a conference that lasted from January

18 to February 6, 1956, representatives of Malaya and the

United Kingdom agreed to make every effort to have an

independent Malaya in the Commonwealth by August 1957.

The monarchic principle was preserved, and Malay pride

bolstered, in the decision to elect a Yang di-Pertuan Agong,

or paramount ruler, from among the Malay rulers. At the

ÏBlMdT •^Commonwealth Survey, Vol» 2, No. 2.

Jiil/lvEi JL

¿¡¡i ^ "Ejft Tjinn

-18-

expiration of a five-year term, he would be succeeded by

another elected Yang di-Pertuan Agong. The incumbent

would be a sovereign ruler In every sense, and would be

addressed as "Your Majesty."20

Among other innovations was the creation of an

Emergency Operations Council, specifically concerned with

the fight against the guerrillas. There would be a Chief

Minister, who would in effect be the Prime Minister, a

post made to order for Tunku Abdul Rahman, who bad emerged

as the dominant political figure in Malaya. The conference

of early 1956 decided further that the portfolios of

internal security, finance, and commerce and industry were

to go to Malay ministers at once, and that British

advisers to the Malay sultans would leave after a year.

In the interim, the United Kingdom would be responsible

for external defense and foreign affairs. Finally, the

Federation government was to be recast, with a bicameral

legislature. Malayan would remain the national language,

but the privileges of the Malays over the Chinese would

gradually be abrogated.

On August 31, 1957, Malaya joined the Commonwealth

of Mations as one of its sovereign members, five-and-a-half;

20The Federation of Malaya Yearbook, 1961.

iss Trr»r«T> iipi'Itpi rjJTlfiiijJ JL

SECRET -19-

years after Templer bad read out the directive, instruct¬

ing him to prepare Malaya for that day of independence.21

The pace at which Britain moved had been such that

every year had had its political development: Widened

citizenship, 1952; local elections, 1953; elected

legislative council, 1954; national elections, 1955;

pledge of independence, 1.955; caretaker government, 1956;

independence, 1957.

Presumably, both the politicians and the people had

been fully occupied with these fast-moving events.

Moreover, the various stages in this development were not

only understandable to the public but permitted the

people to take an active part and contribute to the

outcome by voting.

21FifleId, Diplomacy, pp. 404, 408.

SUIítu uim JCiwtlXt J¿j X

mnri

-20-

IV, CIVIC ACTION IN MALAYA

Retrospective statements by senior British officials

about their conscious acceptance and positive fostering

of nationalism in Malaya may suggest that the Colonial

Office and the Federation government may have had an

actual program for helping these officials prepare the

Malayan society and economy for independence. But it is

equally possible that Malay and British administrators,

trained as they both were in the pragmatic British

tradition, improvised and introduced such institutions

and practices as they thought appropriate. Whichever the

explanation, the measures they took constituted a compre¬

hensive civic-action program.

The most important step, without which all else

might well have been futile, was the resettlement of

squatters and of mine and estate laborers between 1950

and 1952, each group representing about 10 per cent of

the population. Gathering one.fifth the people of Malaya

into livable settlements of about one thousand people

each, with running water, electricity, clinics, schools,

individual garden plots, and shops, may have removed

some causes of discontent and unrest. But, above all,

it permitted the government to protect and inform, these

Ip ill oJSjviriiJo J.

SECRET -21-

people, who, in turn, were now able to convey to the

government their needs and feelings» Such two-way

communication between government and populace had been

virtually impossible when so many were scattered in rural

slums along the jungle's edge.22 Opening this channel

was a necessary prerequisite to winning the support of

these one million people.

When the Emergency was only a few years old, several

measures were introduced that might be thought to fall

between social reform and preparation for independence.

In March 1951, the Federation government successfully

suggested to the Foreign Office that Malayan officers be

attached to British embassies and consular posts,2-' a

first step toward the creation of a Malayan diplomatic

service. By March 1952, as a result of a similar

liberalization in regard to the armed services, a dozen

Malay cadets bad entered Sandhurst. In July 1952, the

raising of the first company of the Federation Regiment,

open to all communities, was announced. Also, a cadet

corps was created in schools that taught in English, to

be open to all communities within them. Possibly, this

22sunderland, Resettlement.

^"Weekly News Summary," March 22, 1951.

emrin-cirri öJailto/JtliJEj JL

SECRET -22-

limitation of the corps to the English-language ichools

reflected apprehensions about the students in Chinese

schools, many of whom were responsive to communist propa¬

ganda and, moreover, tended to stay in secondary school

even when in their twenties . Giving them military train¬

ing may well have appeared as merely-inviting trouble*^

The Malayan Civil Service itself was modified. Like

Its prototype, the Indian Civil Service, it had been a

prestige career, most readily available and inviting to

the highly talented*^5 Making it a career open to all

promised to remove a source of serious discontent- In

late 1952, therefore, changes were introduced that would

open the service to able people without university degrees

(this suggests the previous standards) and would broaden

its racial composition, which had been almost entirely

Malay, Pay and bousing for civil servants were also

improved

24Englisb has been used as a vehicle of instruction in some secondary schools. The availability of texts in English, and the fact that members of four communities (Malay, Punjabi- aod Tamil-speaking Indians, and Chinese) presented themselves to these same secondary schools, make the use of English as a lingua franca an understandable expedient.

25Both Indian and Malayan civil servants enjoy a prestige in their society far beyond that- of the American civil servant,

26iiyeekly News Summary," November 21, 1952.

SECRET

JgJLjíL— '

C3 ftpfl ^ L# Ijlrlll C# J3i v/JCwJCj JL

-23-

Direct attacks on some of the oldest ills of Asian

society began in 1951. Hours of work were regulated by

the provision that all shops with a staff (i.e., all. but

the traditional one-man stall) were to close either on

Friday or on Sunday without loss of pay to the employees.

Other commercial employees, such as hotel staff, also

were entitled to a day off.27 Another evil, usury, was

attacked through the regulating of rates, terms, and

contracts.

The control of working hours in shops and of the

lending of money was obviously desirable and indeed

belated. But by acting in these spheres the government

was cutting into the profits and short-term interests of

the Indian and Chinese commercial communities. The

Indians seem not to have flirted with the Communists, but

the Chinese had tended to insure themselves with the side

that, tor ail they knew, might one day rule Malaya. The

government tnus risked adding to their hostility in

exchange for the goodwill of the workingman.2d

Unions were enjoying a vigorous growth, as shown by

these membership figures tor selected years: 54,579 (1.950)

27 28

Ibid., September 23, 1951. Ibid., September 21 and 28, 1951.

Hi X

MI lililí illllllllllllllll I llllliil II il. I lllliilll iiilM iniiiiin mili- i h li i mi...... ..

SECRET - -24-

1.07,171 (1951); 129,014 (1952); 110,598 (1953);

119,985 (1954); and 323,924 (1956). Membership was

heavily weighted toward the Indians, perhaps because the

Chinese in Malaya tended to be smallholders and shop¬

keepers.^

In the countryside, the government took advantage of

the resettlement of Chinese squatters and mine and estate

workers to introduce a range of social services. The

program as a whole was known as "after-care." Since it

directly benefited the people of the countryside, the

very element on which the guerrillas planned to base

themselves, it was a heavy weight in the scales against

the Communists. The Red Cross and the Order of St. John

of Jerusalem-)!) recruited teams of trained nurses and

2%ata from Federation Report, 1953 and 1956. Accord¬ ing to the same sources, the membership was distributed as follows: Indian, 62X; Malay, 21%; Chinese, 16%: other, 1%. Labor was divided among:: estates, 317,418; miscellaneous, 68,505; government civilian, 62,661; mines 37,515; commerce, 6,320. The unions maintained frequent contacts with British, Asian, and international unions. With their growth went developments familiar in other countries, i.a, old-age pensions, workmen's compensation, and government control of working conditions.

3 O'See the comment in the Britannic a on this latter order, which, in the United Kingdom, Is "a revival of the English branch of the Knights of Malta, the name given popu larly to the last expression of the old crusading order. What began, according to the Britannica, as a sham-Gothic revival of the romantic period came to receive the direct patronage of the Throne, and did distinguished work in

SECRET

1

¡IhilllllllilIJIlilll! Illlilllll!ll!|!||ill i I ! Ill IIINlililll UNI I llimillillllllll Mil l-IHil ilillllii1 IllililiimilMINIÜ!1« I- ‘IIMI-iKIM lll< lllllllll I : |||ll¡:ll|lllllll IIIIM iIKII HiUllll I lili lllllll: llllllll him MHll .l||h|l|l|:ll| illlhlll inilllll lllllllillMlMUI'IIIMilHIriNI .111 III IIIIIIIIIHMM .... ... .

SECREfT' -25-

welfare workers. So, too, did the missionary groups,

many of whom had been expelled from Communist China.

Women's institutes, known in England and Scotland as

organizations for self-help, community improvement, and

companionship, were introduced to Malaya in 1952, with

devoted support from Lady Templer. Given the previous

position of women in the Orient, this was a revolutionary

development.W

The physical improvements in the countryside were

considerable. Water was piped into a great many Malay

villages and, as a matter of course, into Che resettled

new villages. Major irrigation and drainage programs

were launched. Though title to land was one of the

features of the resettlement program and thus benefited

principally the Chinese squatter, the estate worker of

wartime with its hospitals and ambulance association. The appearance of the order in Malaya in 1952, in company with the reinforcements, ¡lowers, and support given Templer, may have been construed as a sign of British resolve and the wholehearted coiraiitmer-t of British prestige.

^Federation Report, 1952, p. 5- Speaking at the Comtaand" and General Staff College, Brigadier Richard Miers, author of Shoot To Kill, suggested that the Chinese girl tapper joined une comunist organization partly out of boredom and partly because of the indifference of society toward her. For the first time in her life, someone would listen to what she had to say. In such a milieu, the existence of a women's Institute, and the presence of the High Commissioner's wife to show that it was thought important, may have had a surprising influence in moving support from the guerrillas to the government.

OlSIfTP tSIIT» Eüür Jo J#

SECRET -26-

Indian origin'was not forgotten; a program was initiated

to alienate land from the rubber estates and give it to

him.32

As amenities of another sort, the government encouraged

cooperatives of every form. The first of these had been

organized in 1923, possibly as a means of introducing the

Malay to commerce and banking. By 1947 there were 841;

by the end of 1954, 1,761; and by 1956, 2,123. The

government saw them as teaching the Malays "democratic

business organization."33 About half of them were

profitable by 1954. Stock control and teaching the

customer to ask for receipts were among the cooperatives’

serious operating problems, and lack of auditing and field

staff in adequate numbers had remained an administrative

handicap.

In the 1950s, a great variety of cooperatives were

operating in the countryside. They included: rural credit

societies; fishermen's societies; seasonal cooperative

credit societies (to finance seasonal crops); rural unions;

producers' marketing and processing societies; rice-milling

32"Weekly News Summary," February 20 and March 20, 1953.

Federation Report, 1354, p* 387 *

SECBET -27-

societies; land-purchase societies; farming societies;

pineapple growers' cooperative marketing societies; and

Chinese shops in the new villages. Some of these rural

cooperatives were also grouped into larger, regional

organizations. In the towns and cities, there were:

laborers' cooperative credit societies; cooperative

thrift and loan societies; general-purpose societies; a

consumers' movement; housing societies; and the Malayan

cooperative wholesale society

To attack problems of the countryside directly, the

government created the Rural Development Authority, which

extended loans against crops and sponsored such varied

enterprises as cooperatives of small rubber planters,

fisheries, animal husbandry, road-building, domestic water

supply, and community centers.35

Finally, the government devoted itself to improving

Malayan education. The total number of students in the

country increased from 263,400 in 1941 to 759,831 in 1953,

which suggests that the Federation had been coping

successfully with an emergency in education, even as it

34ibidT, 1950, pp. 45-53; 1956, Chapter XV. 35ibe activities of the EDA are described in detail

in the several annual reports of the Federation..

fpfT* JPu JCLt JL

SECRET -28-

was dealing with the better-publicized and more aerious

political emergency.36

In the light of these tangible efforts for the

general welfare, the government’s appeals to the people

for their support in building a better Malaya could carry

conviction. When to appeal and what to stress were

significant tactical problems. It was not enough for the

government to do, and be, good; to be persuasive, it had

also to appear good in the eyes and minds of the people.

36Ibld.

air»rnQ irinr* S3 JoI*/JC1iJEj JL

IliiliiHH 'll' !i" 11 mil: mill lliiiliiimiti 1111111:11111 iiiiiiiiin hiiiiiih mi mmi imiiiiiiii iiiiMiii. il 11 in mini ui'1

SECRET -29-

V. THE PUBLIC INFORMATION CAMPAIGN

Several years of the Emergency passed before the

Federation of Malaya had an effective system of public

information. But once the need for it had been grasped

and the organization created, it was used with boldness

and confidence. As the public acceptance of such measures

as food control suggests, it was successful.

In early 1949, a battalion commander wrote that

there was virtually no propaganda on the government's

side. Indeed, for the first two years of the insurgency,

there was no emergency information service and no co¬

ordinated antiguerrilla publicity campaign.37 Not until

June 1930 was a public information service organized.

It was established with a chief and bis staff at the

Federation level, and with representatives in every state

and settlement, and, where available, also in individual

districts. Its mission was to raise public morale, show

the advantages of the democratic way, and undermine the

guerrillas1 morale.38

^Appendix C to "Quarterly Historical Report," 1st Battalion, 2nd King Edward VII's Own Gurkha Rifles, December 31, 1948, SECRET. See also Director of Opera¬ tions, Malaya, Review of the Emergency In Malaya from June 1948 to August.Ï.937, pp. 13, 15-16, SECRET.

38 ibid.'

csic*rn»ir*»p JC^iii JCLt JL

SECRET -30-

On becoming Director of Operations* General Templer

appointed Mr. A.D.C. Peterson to head the information

services. Peterson, who had worked in psychological

warfare in the Southeast Asia Command of World War II,

ascribed his appointment In Malaya to Templer's policy

of bringing in men with useful previous experience in

Southeast Asia. His approach was pragmatic; working in

a field that was largely uncharted, he was willing to

experiment with devices and approaches that had been useful

in analogous situations .39

Looking back on his conduct of the information

campaign, Peterson said that his aim had been to detach

the honest anticolonialist from the Communists, an

objective that in no sense conflicted with the program's

over-all mission as quoted above. He believed that an

information campaign had to have something to sell, and

that nationalism filled this need. By making it one of

the main themes of his campaign, Peterson was able to

attract and recruit young, progressive men, who in turn

would go out into the villages and preach nationalism.

Interview with Mr. A.D.C. Peterson (1962), director of the Department of Education, Oxford University, England.

SECRET

'Mjiiiiilhlli i i h liiiiimii

i

-31-

In retrospect, Peterson assigned to the information

program a more important place In the counterinsurgent

effort than to psychological warfare. To distinguish

between the two would seem not always to be possible. So

long as the guerrilla succeeds in maintaining close contact

with the population, a skillful information campaign not

only will affect people's thoughts of him, but will also

reach the guerrilla himself, thereby fulfilling the

function of psychological warfare. Peterson probably

meant that one could not have had effective psychological

warfare in the Malayan situation without a strong public

information program, whereas the content of an information

program, even in the absence of psychological warfare,

was bound to seep into the guerrilla organization through

innumerable channels.

Peterson thought that he benefited by the Communists1

dilemma as to the use of terror, a problem they never

solved» Terror was a most effective means of attracting

attention and exacting obedience among the people. Yet

the Communists also wanted and needed popular support.

If they used terror, they risked alienating the people;

if they did not; use terror, they risked being ignored.

iSSJuj wJClf JSj JL

I

-32-

Fetersan cited the case of the Red Cross nurses to illus¬

trate his point. The Red Cross had set up a network of

clinics. These clinics were undefended, and the nurses

were helpless as they traveled about in their cars. The

clinics were winning popular support for the government,

yet the guerrillas were most careful not to attack the

nurses, lest by so doing they alienate the people/»0

To control the information campaign, Peterson issued

broad directives, which he disseminated through the organi¬

zational channels of the Emergency information services.

He found himself hampered by the tendency of too many

people to regard themselves as experts on public informa¬

tion, a problem that argued for centralized direction of

the over-all campaign. However, Peterson was helped by

the fact that, although organizationally the information

services were under the Home Ministry of the Federation,

they actually worked most closely with the Director of

Operations.

All media were under the one department. Local

newspapers became cooperative as a result of the govern¬

ment's furnishing them ready-made copy in the several

^°Idem.

SECRET

nui hihi.

-33-

languages spoken in Malaya, They were not rich, and this

was a welcome supplement to their own resources- This

use of vernacular material was an innovation.^

Criticism of the information and psychological

campaign, as expressed to the author by a Malayan civil

servant of long experience focused on several areas. One

of these was the Chinese matriarch, whose great influence,

che critic cnought, the campaign had failed to exploit.

Fifty Red Cross nurses wno were in contact with these

matriarchs exercised through them an influence on the

Chinese community that was out of all proportion to their

number

Another weakness, in the observer's opinion, was the

government's failure to engage to equal degrees the

assistance of all the faiths represented in Malaya.

Templer had sent an emissary to the Vatican, who obtained

from the Church the services of some three hundred

Chinese-speaking priests. Because the Malays were Moslems

and as such violently anticommunist, the Islamic leaders

had thrown their full weight behind the government. The

Protestants, on the other hand, apparently had had no

Idem

o uirrratuirp

-34-

impact on the local situation, and, so tdr as

inforraanh knew, no attempt was made to obtain the support

of the Chinese religions.

The same observer criticized the government for

vacillating in its attitude on paying guerrilla leaders

to leave the movement. When first suggested, "buying

out" was rejected as immoral (an objection apparently not

offered against killing the same men). Ultimately,

however, the government in effect did buy out guerrillas

through its reward campaign, for the citizen who nominally

received the reward for having brought about the capture

of a guerrilla leader was in many cases serving only as

agent between the surrendering guerrilla and the govern¬

ment. The senior guerrilla leader in North Johore put

himself on the market in 1952, but his initial offers

were rejected on moral grounds. He was bought out some

years later at. a much higher price than he bad originally

asked. When Malaya became independent, its Chief

Minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman, bought out guerrilla

leaders with enthusiasm.

Interview with Mr. Richard West, former district officer in Malaya and at one time secretary to Six Malcolm J. 'MacDonald, P.C., Commissioner-General of the United Kingdom to Southeast Asia.

STprnoinnr'

SECRET -35-

A final criticism concerned the government's failure

to seek an alliance with the Chinese secret societies so

as to make the Home Guard more effective. Entering such

an alliance, however, might well have seemed to the

Malayan leadership like opening a Pandora's box. The

societies had long been a problem in Malaya, and, so long

as the campaign was progressing without their help, there

may have been good arguments against becoming indebted

to them.

STT1 lîirfi JßiwÄIsj A

!0®l jT'l *0 '9SVIVV iSJSiw

-36-

Vi;.. PUNISHMENTS AW REWAEOS

The government repeatedly demonstrated to the public

that it was both willing and able to punish communities

that supported the guerrillas and to reward those which

supported the government. Regrouping the countryfolk in

new villages naturally helped to make this possible.

On March 25, 1952, the Communists blew up a watermain

in the district of Tanjong Malim. This bait drew a party

of civil engineers under police escort, whom the guerrillas

ambushed, killing four engineers and eight policemen and

wounding eight. It was the last in a series of incidents

in which police stations had been attacked, buses burned,

individuals murdered, a train derailed, and 5,600 rubber

trees slashed. The episode had taken place less than two

miles from town, and the sound of the firing had been

plainly audible, yet the inhabitants had offered no help.

The government responded with a series of acts. On

March 27, it stopped the sale of rice in the markets and

cut rations for the entire town. It also imposed a 22-

hour house curfew, which meant that people were allowed

out of doors but two hours a day. Then, every family was

given a questionnaire to fill out. After several days,

troops went from house to house with sealed boxes and

CSISIOO Ijlfll í3M»%aJChXh JL

awm 'PT1 kJm wJmmI mKx

-37-

collected Che questionnaires'. Arrests began on April 8,

and on April 26, acting on information, the troops killed

the notorious terrorist Long Pin

A year earlier, under a different High Commissioner

and Director of Operations,, the government had forced the

removal of a village. At dawn on February 15, 1951, the

entire population of Jenderam and the surrounding 12 square

miles of South Selangor -- some fifteen hundred people --

were detained and charged with continual, active support

of the Communists. (The case was most unusual in that

both the guerrillas and their supporters were Malays,

belonging to that 5 per cent of the communist movement in

Malaya that was not Chinese.) The people of Jenderam were

said to have sheltered, fed, and clothed the guerrillas

and supplied them with recruits. The village had been

both shelter and supply base for a terrorist named Abdul

Manan, and some fifty major incidents had culminated in

the murder of a Malay headmaster. In retribution, the

villagers1 goods were auctioned off, and, after being

given the proceeds of the sale, the people were dispersed,

assisted by teams of social workers, veterinarians, and

'^"Weekly Hews Summary," March 28 and April 1.0, 1952; C. Northcote Parkinson, Templer in Malaya, Donald Moore, Ltd., Singapore, 1954, p. 25.

JEUlsXliJCj JL

OHiV/XlflllX

-38-

Public Works and Supply Department personnel in their

move to new localities.^

Later the same year, the five thousand Chinese inhabi¬

tants of Segambut, a suburb of Kuala Lumpur, were moved

to a resettlement area four miles away. The government

suspected them of having given $1,650 a month to the

guerrillas, and there had been numerous incidents.

In other instances, uncooperative villages that

refused the government information and supported the

guerrillas might be fined collectively, as were two

villages in Kedah, or they might have their rations cut

and suffer a curfew, as did the village of Sungei Pelek.^

More serious violations, however, could have far more

serious consequences. When an assistant resettlement

officer^ was murdered in the teahouse of the little

village of Permatang Tinggi, and the twelve witnesses

denied all knowledge of the event. General Templer himself

flew in and took charge of the case. He told the assembled

villagers that, though they bad been willing enough to

enjoy the freedom of life in Malaya, they had abused that

^Keesing's Contemporary Archives, February 15, 1951, p. 11333; ‘'Weekly News Summary,"?r February 15, 1951.

45"Weekly News Summary," June 2.9, 1951. 46ibid,, February 23, 1951, and. April 18, 1952. 47a young Chinese employed to assist newly resettled

squatters,

SECRET

SISCJItïïŒi: -39-

freedom. If they refused to talk, their village would be

destroyed; they had four days io which to decide. The

villagers chose to remain silent. They were sent off into

detention, and their village was destroyed.48

The reward for popular support, on the other hand,

was for the government to declare a given area "white."

This concept was based on the realization that good intelli

gence is essential to prevent or break a stalemate in

guerrilla war, and that it depends on the readiness of the

people to tell the counterinsurgent side all they see and

hear of the guerrillas.43 if there were no incidents in

an area for a long period of time, and if neither troops

nor police were able to make contact with the guerrillas,

this meant, among other things, that the public was

informing the police promptly and fully. To reward the

people of such an area and at the same time hold out an

incentive to similar cooperation elsewhere, it was proposed

in June 1953 (probably by G.E.C. Wisdom, Resident

Commissioner of Malacca) that Emergency restrictions be

"Weekly News Summary," August 22 add 29, 1952. ^%f. R. Sunderland, Antiguerrilla Intelligence In

Malaya, 1948-1960(0), The RAND Corporation, RM-4172-ISA, September 1964, SECRET.

OJCivJCiJo 1*»

SECRET -40-

lift ed there and be kept off as long as the area remained

without incidents, Templer accepted the suggestion, and

the first ''white" area was declared in Malacca on

September 5, 1953.-^ It meant a return to normal life

for its inhabitants. Controls on food, intended to keep

it from the guerrillas, were removed; rationing, gate

checks, parcel searches, and other tedious control devices

were suspended; curfews were lifted. In short, people

51 were again enjoying the freedoms of peacetime life.

As the years went by, one area after another was

declared white as the guerrillas were eliminated from it.

When at last, in August 1960, the Emergency was officially

declared at an end, this meant that all Malaya, except

for a strip along the Thai border, was one white area.

From 1951 onward, with the progressive improvement

of the situation as defined by the drop in number of

Incidents, many of the general curbs and restrictions

were removed. Thus, in March 1953, the government repealed

5Ojhe color white was chosen in contrast to black, which marked areas of maximum danger and corresponding restrictions. The records of the War Office do not support suggestions that in some instances area® were declared "white" as a challenge to the guerrillas. Malacca was a British colony, not á Malay state, which explains the position of Mr. Wisdom. (Brig. M.C.A. Henniker, Red Shadow Over Malaya, Wm Blackwood & Sons, Ltd., Edinburgh and London, 19537 PP- 288-290.)

51j. B. Ferry Robinson, Transformation In Malaya, Seeker & Warburg, London, 1.956, p. 1371

£3 TjI 'TOlfl OJli ljrJftJCj JL

I

'fililí iiilil inn iii'iii iiiiiiiii muiii!iiiiii;

S&0RÍE7. -41-

its Emergency Regulation 170, which permitted the mass

deportations of communities supporting the guerrillas.

It could, of course, be reinstated at any time the govern¬

ment desired, but to do so would have been an admission

of a setback, even as the repeal was an expression of

confidence.-^

In 1949, consorting with guerrillas had been made a

capital offense, but the provision was removed in August

1952. Experience had shown that the threat acted as a

boomerang. Given the conditions in rural Malaya in 1948-

1949, many people could not avoid some contact with the

guerrillas. Threatened by the guerrillas and menaced by

the government, with the guerrillas a great deal closer,

they gave food or information or money to the guerrillas,

who then blackmailed them with threats of what the govern¬

ment would do to them if it knew. The situation was

remedied when the government announced that it was no

longer a crime to yield food or money under threats, but

that anyone who did so might be punished if he did not

tell the Security Forces what had happened.

"Weekly News Summary," March 20, 1953.

3Ibid., August 29, 1952; Robinson, Transformation, pp. 102-103.

FT Ur ill.I JLlf JUi «JL

. ... ....

: '1111

SENKET -42-

The institution of gate checks* parcel searches* ,v

rationing* and the central cooking of rice fulfilled a

dual purpose: it not only c.<ade it physically difficult

for anyone to smuggle supplies to the guerrillas, but it

also enabled those who had previously supported the

terrorists to plead duress and tell all they knew, an

alternative that was rendered attractive by the prospect

of a reward if their information was useful.54

Among the rewards may perhaps be mentioned also the

personal contributions and token gestures of General

Templer. He traveled continually through the Federation,

and wherever he went rewarded and praised the man or the

family who had contributed to a better Malaya. Thus, one

reads of his offering a prize for the best garden in the

newly created industrial suburb of Petaling Jaya, and of

his paying a special visit to the Chinese who had built

his own house in a new village.55

Though punishment and reward were important and

helpful in the earlier years, the public information

program bad to move to a higher level of sophistication

as the situation improved.

SV’Üeekly News Summary," February 6, 1953.

55Ibid., July 25, 1953.

QB’.ri'ßlS'TP

SECRET -43-

VII. THE TASK OF PERSUASION

Th« public information campaign, with its related

aspects of psychological warfare, had to be flexible

enough to exploit and counter new developments in Malaya

and beyond. The government was aware, for example, that

the armistice in French Indochina after the French defeat

at ölen Bien Phu might be construed in Malaya as a

demonstration of communist power in Southeast Asia, a

view that would hearten the guerrillas and bring them

support from the people. It met the problem by stating

with every device of publicity that the armistice had

ended all chances of outside aid from Indochina, and that

there now was no hope that communist armies would sweep

southward from Vietnam to rescue their colleagues in

Malaya. This approach appears to have been successful;

if the number of surrenders fell from 372 in 1953 to 211

in 1954, the number of major incidents also fell, from

258 to 203.56

^Director of Operations, Malaya, Annual Report (hereafter. Director's Annual Report), 1954, p. 17, SECRET; British Operation Research Section, Far East (hereafter, BORS/FE), Report No. 1/57, Appendix B, "Emergency Sta¬ tistics—Malaya," SECRET.

SECRET

42: Wi ^*w3r:vPr - iSI JBl ' Jl!'' :

-44-

In 1955, the Malayan Communist Party made known that

it wanted to discuse the possibility of peace with the

Federation government. While arrangements for a meeting

were under way, the then High Commissioner, Sir Donald

McGillivray, pointed out to the Colonial Office that this

would be an appropriate moment for making it clear that

the United Kingdom was not using the Emergency as a pretext

to maintain some sort of control over Malaya; he suggested

a statement to the effect that, in the Cabinet's opinion,

the continuance of the Emergency at its current level need

not delay Malayan independence. The Cabinet agreed, and

the statement was made on November 30, 1955.57

McGillivray's move was the most dramatic of several

responses to the Malayan Communists' "peace offensive."

Finding themselves steadily shrinking in numbers, power,

and popular support, the Communists had turned to talk of

peace, as their mentors had done in China and Korea. To

meet this, psychological warfare focused its attention on

the general public rather than on the guerrillas. Its

aim was to strengthen the people's resistance to the

S^Harry Miller, "The Emergency in Malaya," unpublished manuscript in the possession of General Bourne, p. V-7. (Miller enjoyed access to official records in Malaya.)

Cf "EIFfl O JowXIi'JmI1 JL

SECRET -45-

peace offensive, for the leaders of the counterinsurgent

effort believed that the morale of the guerrillas was

affected by popular opinion. To this end, the government

distributed thirty million leaflets announcing an amnesty

to repentent guerrillas, and suspended food-denial

operations lest they alienate the people.^

At Bating, where the peace talks were held in late

1955, the parties met in a room whose design was a matter

of political tactics and psychological war. Tne conference

table ran from wall to wall, and the two parties entered

and sat on opposite sides, so that no informal contact

between them was possible.59 The talks themselves lasted

only a few hours. The government made no concessions

whatever; In effect, it offered the Communists only

unconditional surrender. In the course of the talks, the

senior Communist in Malaya, Chin Peng, stated that, once

Malaya was independent, the guerrillas would leave the

jungle and disarm, a promise duly noted by the government"s

representatives.«0

After the abortive peace talks, the Malayan Chief

Minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman, in 1956 renewed the earlier

^Director's Annual Report, 1955, pp. 8, 22. 5-Interview with Major General Edward S. Lindsay, 1962. 60ïhe Federation of 'Malaya Yearbook, 1961, p. 357.

__ CTI JElJyjj J,

-46-

amnesty offer, including in it all those who. forswore

terrorism and had not committed murder or other atrocities.

Guerrillas who surrendered could choose between passage

to China and rehabilitation in Malaya,01 The amnesty,

however, was not a success, for it had no discernible

effect on the guerrillas.

In 1957, the public information and psychological

warfare campaigns made the most of the failure of the

Baling peace talks and the amnesty offer. They were

directed also at the "wait-and-see" policy of the guerrilla

leaders, who were urging their followers to hold firm

until it was clear whether Malaya would become independent

and, if so, whether a new government would prosecute the

Emergency or seek a modus vivendi with the Communists.

For, outwardly, communist propaganda at that time was

either questioning the genuineness of plans for inde¬

pendence or suggesting that a new government would not

proceed vigorously against the guerrillas and would thus

permit the Communists to reopen peace negotiations whenever

it suited them. This, however, was only the line fed to

the public; actually, as captured documents have revealed,

^^Commonwealth Survey, Vol. 2, No. 9.

it* f** "o fïwp

ililÜ' iilll I lililí! I üllll! Iiililih um riniiiiii ui"

SECRET -47-

the Party was afraid that Malayan independence would

remove the principal reason for ifs existence.

The government responded to the insurgents' wait-and-

see policy by injecting defeatism and despondency into

the Communist Party. For one thing, it tried to infect

the individual guerrilla, so that he, in turn, might infect

others. This tactic was coupled with food-denial operations

and heavy pressure by troops. At another level, the

government reminded the guerrillas of Chin Peng's promise

to come out of the jungle and disarm once Malaya had become

independent. Independence came on August 31, 1957. From

then on, every device was used to suggest that, with this

event, the Communists had, by the admission of their

leader, lost any reason for fighting on.62

It would be a mistake, however, to argue that the

mass surrenders of 1957-1958 were the result of these

appeals. Behind the surrenders lay nine years of military

pressure, the resettlement program that had done so much

to separate the guerrillas from the people, the weight of

hunger resulting from food denial, and the success of the

Police Special Branch in reaching into the highest levels

^"Yearbook, 1961.

SECRET

SECRET -48-

of the Communist Party in Malaya. All. these factorsi of

which the public was fully aware, lent weight to what was

being said by leaflets, voice aircraft, rumor, and go-

betweens . Between mid-October 1957 and May 1958, 123

guerrillas surrendered in South Perak and East Pahang alone.

Including the chief communist leader in Pahang State. These

surrenders were kept secret until June, when they were

announced in five million leaflets so that others might be

encouraged to follow suit. In September 1958 the surrender

of another 150 was announced, all the more shattering to

the Party because this was the work of Hor Lung, the senior

Communist in Malaya since Chin Peng had sought sanctuary

over the Thai border.Other surrenders followed, of

headquarters as of rank and file.

The inner reaction of the Malayan Communist Party to

these events may perhaps be deduced from a document

captured in 1960. At that time, the leadership of the

Malayan Communist Party was sheltering in southern Thailand

just across the border. Occasional sweeps by parties of

Thai and Malayan police, much like those of 1948 in Malaya,

^Sunderland, Antiguerrilla Intelligence, pp. 47-48; interview with Major General Frank H. Brooke,” London, 1962. General Brooke served in Malaya as brigade commander, Director of Operations, and General Officer Commanding the Federation Army.

Jii JL

S'EllHfiT ii7 JmII'JLJ mL

-49-

might force them to move from one camp to another but had

no other discernible effect. In effect, Thailand had

become a sanctuary for guerrilla veterans of the Malayan

campaign. In the captured directive, dated June 1960,

the Party called its members to Thailand to give them a

chance to leave guerrilla operations if they chose to

plead any of the following reasons; (1) that they had

"lost faith in the present struggle"; (2) that they were

sick or old; or (3) that they wanted to marry.^

^"Commander's Diary," 1/3 E, Anglian, June 1-30, I960, SECRET. No Special Branch evaluation accompanied the document, which may have been only a device by which to identify the faint-hearted for a later weeding-out. Its issuance, however, is suggestive of the Communists1 own view of their party’s condition at the time.

UStCTl

SECRET -50.

VIII. TECHNIQUES AM) DEVICES

A.D.C. Peterson, the man who organized the informa¬

tion services for Templer, attributed the greatest

importance to his choice of the men whom he sent out into

the villages as field officers and to the role he assigned

to them. Peterson himself compared these young men to

"Cromwell's captains(He may have had in mind the

Great Protector's saying: "I had rather have a plain,

russet-coated captain that knows what he fights for, and

loves what he knows, than what you call a gentleman, and

is nothing else.") He gave them a six weeks' course and

then sent them into the villages. They were nationalists,

and their reforming zeal was likely to be reflected in

the way they planned and conducted the day's show, using

both local talent and the resources of their mobile vans.

These vans had projectors, public address units,

portable recording machines, radios, and phonographs.

In November 1953, there were ninety such mobile vans,

as well as four similarly-equipped boats; four more

boats were on order. This was enough to permit field

officers to visit one-sixth of the population of Malaya,

65Interview with Peterson.

SECRET

SECRET -51-

that is to say, about one million people, every

month.66

The films, though useful, were only a part of the

program. The field officer was expected to get a high

degree of audience participation. Local talent was

invited in any form, be it singing, acting, or dancing.

And the local actors might well be asked to take part in

an anticommunist comedy skit.

Behind the operations of the mobile vans and the

field officers lay several concepts. One was audience

Identification. To have one or more of the villagers

take part in the activity was recognized as a way of

Identifying the group with the government. Peterson

recalled that; the theory of identification had not been

brought to Malaya by any of the information specialists;

it was developed empirically from observation within

Malaya. A second theory was that showing the guerrilla

on screen or stage tended to dissipate the mystique with

which be was surrounded. The idea of the mobile van

itself came from wartime experience in the Southeast Asia

Command. There, mobile vans with loudspeakers had

^Federation Report, 1953, pp. 312-314; "Weekly News Summary,17.August 8, 1953; interview with Peterson.

CS 1Î1IT1 OJCjw'JÜiJo jl

SECRET -52-

broadcast music and talked to the Japanese, who had

listened without shooting. The reaction was the same in

Malaya, where guerrillas only once fired on a tsõlU-van

unit.67

Another of Peterson's contributions was to expand

the Malayan Film Unit and put it into the Emergency

service. On his arrival in Malaya, he had found the

unit's program unrelated to the Emergency, its managers

left to their own devices in deciding what to produce,

By the end of 1953, it was turning out seventy reels a

year. An incidental benefit of this development was

that the staff of the Film Unit was locally recruited;

of 135 employees., only five came from overseas. The

Emergency would end some day, but the technical skills,

the germ of a Malayan film industry, would stay.

In any given audience, many of the spectators, most

of whom were children, had never seen a film before the

mobile-van unit came to the village. Malay or Chinese,

these were unsophisticated but intelligent people, who

regarded the film as a highly personal approach to them.66

67Interview with Peterson. ^Federation Report, 1953, p- 321; interview with

Peterson. The latterTs memory may have been at fault; there had been a major augmentation of the film unit in 1950 under Peterson's predecessors (c£. Federation Report, 1950, p. 3). -'x-

SECRET

SECRET -53-

Ä special attraction on the village circuit was pro¬

vided by troupes of Surrendered Enemy Personnel, For a

guerrilla to leave the Communist Party was a profound

emotional experience, akin to religious conversion.

These men, and in some cases women, were filled with

revulsion against their former life and often with

missionary zeal. It was only natural, therefore, to have

them tour the countryside to lecture on their experience

and to satirize guerrilla life* A typical party would be

made up of ten ex-Communists traveling in a convoy, which

consisted of an armored truck with firing slits; a scout

car; a mobile movie van; and an armored personnel

carrier. Six militarized police would act as escort.6^

Like so many other things that: the government did in

the realm of public Information, this was also a form of

psychological, warfare. In their jungle camps the guerrillas

were told that, if they surrendered, they would be tortured

and imprisoned, Then, in village after village, there

appeared repentent guerrillas, obviously well, fed, well

dressed, and enthusiastic in their work, who attacked the

communist movement, criticizing it with the inside knowledge

Robinson, Transformation, p. 48.

C2 Hi iTim S3 JOv Jt«>j hJL

OYj1fl*Q;T|irV^ O JZiv/JEÜ« üi JL

-53-

A «pecial attraction on the village circuit was pro¬

vided by troupes of Surrendered Enemy Personnel. For a

guerrilla to leave the Communist Party was a profound

emotional experience, akin to religious conversion.

These men, and in some cases women, were filled with

revulsion against their former life and often with

missionary zeal. It was only natural, therefore, to have

them tour the countryside to lecture on their experience

and to satirize guerrilla life. A typical party would be

made up of ten ex-Communists traveling in a convoy, which

consisted of an armored truck with firing slits; a scout

car; a mobile movie van; and an armored personnel

carrier. Six militarized police would act as escort:

Like so many other things that the government did in

the realm of public information, this was also a form of

psychological warfare. In their jungle camps the guerrillas

were told that, if they surrendered, they would be tortured

and imprisoned. Then, in village after village, there

appeared repentent guerrillas, obviously well fed, well

dressed, and enthusiastic in their work, who attacked the

communist movement, criticizing It with the inside knowledge

Robinson, Transformation, p, 48.

Simrw* uim

ilSfílMilt. ’■'x. ’ c/.

-54- X... . :

and skill of the eKs-Cörnmunistii The guerrillas in the

jungle were being fed and supported by sympathizers from

the village, whose reports of what they had seen and heard

at home had a corrosive effect on the Communists' morale.^

After the visual came the auditory arts. Villages

were wired for sound. By the end of 1953, 946 community

listening devices had been installed, of which 97.6 per

cent were thought to be in operating order at any given

time. Their purpose was "to bridge the gap between the

government and the people and to counter subversive propa¬

ganda." In addition, there were an estimated 120,000

radios in private hands.

Radio programs were the work of a staff of 200,

who operated stations at Kuala Lumpur, Penang, and Malacca.

Programs were produced in seven dialects of Chinese, as

well as in Malay, Tamil, and English. Recording teams

traveled widely in Malaya and then broadcast their findings

"to bring the people to the people,’'' *

Sound aimed directly at the guerrillas was th» mission

of five voice aircraft, two of them light communications

/0iyd., p. 47; "Weekly News Summary," April 25, 1952

''^Federation Report, 1953, pp. 315, 322-323.

o "cp "omn fcjp JL

SECRET -55-

aircraft and three twin-engined transports (C-47s).72

Broadcasts might be "strategic” or "tactical." That is to

say, they might pick up the larger themes, mentioned

earlier, or be aimed at a specific man or group oí men.

In the latter category were items of information that

were expected to hurt local guerrilla morale, such as the

news that a well-known local leader had surrendered.73

In addition to using the familiar media of press

conferences, interviews, and public relations officers,

the government also took full advantage of the fact that

Malaya had a vigorous vernacular press. A relatively

undeveloped country four hundred miles in length and two

hundred miles across, it bad distribution problems that

permitted small newspapers and journals to exist. In 1953

there were three dailies in English, five in Chinese, two

in Malay, two in Tamil, and one in Punjabi; of thirteen

monthly publications, seven were in Malay, four in English,

and two in Chinese. As noted before, all. these received

free copy from the government.

72p snniWbmd. Arrav Operations in.Malay^J^-IgbOßl^ The RANO Corporation; iSfÄrTmTET-TOO-ISA, p.

SECRET. , 73|)etaiied discussion of psychological warfare is beyond

the scope of this paper. The best source on the subject known to this writer is the series ot studies done by the British Operation Research Section, Far Last, copies ot which are in the files of the Research Analysis Corporation.

SECRET

ir ,

The Emergency Information services also operated a

/'' press of cheir own, wir.ii a weekly newspaper each for the /

/ Malays and the South Indians, and two Chinese monthlies

that totaled 75,000 copies. In addition* the ambitious

publications program it,eluded a steady flow of booklets,

pamphlets, and leaflet's.^

The leaflet program was important also as an Instru¬

ment of psychological warfare, for it was the chief means

of reaching the guerrillas directly. "Strategic" leaflets

discussed general theraes, while "tactical" leaflets were

aimed at known individual guerrillas or guerrilla units.

About 54,000,000 of Che former and 23,000,000 of the latter

kind were distributee, in 1953. In addition, the RAF

dropped 15,000,000 leaflets in a single day in one psycho¬

logical war operatic« (BISON I), followed by another

(BISON II), in which 3,000,000 reached the ground.75

The worth of psychological warfare and public

information was attested to by the guerrillas themselves.

During one period li 1953-1954, for example, about half

the guerrillas who voluntarily yielded themselves up to

the Security Forcen said that information from the

^Federation Report, 1953, p. 319. 75TK.VI ( p, 3;ji ,

government had played an important part in their decision

to surrender. / /

^B0RS/FE# Memo No. 11/54, p. 45, CONFIDENTIAL.