United States
George Creel
1876–1953 Chairman, Committee on Public Information
A crusading Progressive journalist from Missouri, Creel was named by President Wilson to run the Committee on Public Information in April 1917. He believed in persuasion rather than coercion and in giving the public facts, as he saw them, in huge quantity: the Committee produced pamphlets in several languages, press releases, newsreels, war posters and the Four Minute Men. It also helped to stir a hysteria against Germans and dissenters that Creel later regretted. His 1920 memoir, <em>How We Advertised America</em>, takes pride in the scale of the effort, and historians still debate whether the CPI created American patriotism or merely directed it.