Chapter 1 examines the origins of the relationship between American foreign relations and the public relations industry through an examination of the promotion of World War I. Key to this is an examination of the wartime government propaganda agency, the Committee on Public Information. In particular, the chapter highlights five key individuals who went on to play significant roles in connecting the public relations industry to international affairs over the next half century: Edward Bernays, Carl Byoir, John Price Jones, Ivy Lee, and Arthur Page.

Chapter 3 explores the work undertaken by Carl Byoir and Ivy Lee for German interests, the subsequent Congressional investigation into that work, and the public backlash that followed. Byoir and Associates worked for the German Tourist Information Office, while Lee worked for I. G. Farben. These connections to Nazi Germany quickly came to the attention of the US government. Congress investigated potential subversive activities and conflicts of interest between private PR interests and America’s broader national interests. While neither Byoir nor Lee was revealed as a puppet of the Nazi regime, both were tainted by the association. The incident revealed the depth of popular concerns about the use of PR to promote foreign interests in the United States.

Chapter 2 examines the evolution of the new public relations industry in the 1920s and examines how that industry’s leaders built upon their wartime experiences to make links to foreign affairs. It examines how industry pioneers Edward Bernays and Ivy Lee justified their roles by building upon the work of Walter Lippmann. It looks at the earliest private efforts to work on foreign relations matters, such as Bernays’s efforts to promote American recognition of an independent Lithuania in 1919. It also examines Lee’s efforts to encourage American engagement with world affairs through the promotion of loans to European nations and his efforts to open up a dialogue with Russia. The latter interest led to questions about his motivations and allegations that he was a Soviet agent. The 1920s revealed that unlike during the war years, American PR firms did not always support America’s own interests.