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'Eureka' moment leads professor to study of propaganda By
Heather Fredrickson
You can call him Professor Cole. Or you can call him Dr. Cole. But undergraduate students at Utah State University had better watch their step. A first-name basis is inappropriate, he says. "Especially if the student is female," he said. Sound old-fashioned? Maybe. But Robert Cole, who's been teaching at USU since 1970, insists a distance be maintained. "Graduate students are different," he said. "They're more like colleagues." Cole graduated from Ottawa University, a Baptist school in Kansas his parents insisted he attend, with a bachelor's in art. He decided to focus on history at Kansas State University after getting his sole "straight 'A'" in an art history class. There he focused his thesis research on A.J.P. Taylor, an English historian Cole described as a "prolific writer, anti-fascist, and one iota short of being a Commie." Cole's adviser, Joseph Gallener, left KSU for a promotion to associate dean at Claremont Graduate University in California. "I asked if I could go with him," Cole said. "He said, 'I was hoping you'd say that.'" Cole packed up and headed to Claremont with Gallener. The two never worked together after that. "Every time I turn on the television I get some kind of propaganda." "(My) whole career has been one accident after another," Cole said. As he was graduating from Claremont, Cole wrote to various universities asking about teaching jobs. One of the schools Cole wrote to was the University of Utah, but it wasn't hiring history professors. Utah State was. "I see myself here until retirement," Cole said, "which is a lot closer than you might think," he added, the corners of his mouth curling up. Cole's office size hasn't increased with his promotion to full professor. About 15 feet square, Cole has maximized every inch of space available with floor-to-ceiling shelves on two walls, a 13-inch television and videocassette recorder on a wheeled cart stashed in a corner, two desks pushed together in the shape of an "L," and a foot-long shelf over one desk supporting a 4- cup coffee pot. "My wife gave me that. I haven't used it in three years -- it's just easier to get (coffee) from the coffee room (in the history department's office)," Cole said. "I'd probably have to clean it with half a gallon of vinegar." The shelves on the north wall are home to more than 1,000 books, while the shelves on the south wall house more than 50 video tapes, books, a brown can of coffee beans and pictures. One of these pictures features Cole with his head on a chopping block at the Tower of London. The story is that the same block was used to behead Ann Boleyn, the second of Henry VIII's six wives during his reign over England from 1509 to 1547. Cole's goddaughter Courtney had an old camera, he said, probably from the early 1950s. By the time she had everything just right to take the picture, Cole had been on his knees with his hands behind his back and his head on the block for more than 10 minutes. "Everybody there got a real kick out of it," he said. Another photo showed a woman Cole met in Lafayette Parish, La., giving alligator tours on a boat -- locals called her "Alligator Annie." She looked about 70 years old, holding a stick with what looked like half a chicken, minus head and feathers, hooked on the end over the bow. The white underbelly of an alligator, from its stomach up, extended from the waters of Lafayette Parish Bayou as its jaws opened in anticipation. "She's been doing it for twenty years," Cole said. "She calls them all by name." Do they come to her when she calls, like a house pet? "Oh yes, they came right to the boat when she called," Cole said. "They knew where the food was." Aside from traveling, Cole can be found in his own back yard, hedging, weeding and tending his roses, strawberry patch and spices. "I'm the rose guy." Back in his cramped office, more than 50 videotapes of propaganda films act as bookends on his south wall. "I get to watch propaganda films and count it as working," Cole said. In 1979, Cole turned his attention to other aspects of British history and put the book about A.J.P. Taylor aside. "Fact is there wasn't a publisher in England or any place else that was interested in publishing a book about a man that was still alive," Cole said. That's when he found an article about the Ministry of Information of Britain. A collection of documents had been released in the late 1970s through the public records office, Britain's propaganda center during World War II. Those documents sparked Cole's curiosity and he turned his attention to propaganda. "I said, 'Eureka! This is for me,'" he said. Over the next two years, Cole researched British propaganda in London. He gradually expanded his research to include film propaganda, with his first published book appearing in the early 1990s. "That's how I got started and I never looked back," he said. Unfortunately, Cole doesn*t get to spend much classroom time focusing on propaganda. His usual teaching material involves Western Civilization, which is also the name of the freshman-level class Cole finds himself teaching most often. He doesn't seem to mind, though. When a history teacher has a European-focused background, he can expect to teach "Western Civ," he said. And the students in his class wouldn't know this isn't his area of expertise. "It seems like he's very motivated; he loves to teach the subject matter he teaches," said Jeff Brighton, a junior majoring in history. "He's a true professor who enjoys lecturing." The one class in which Cole has a chance to focus on propaganda is a senior-level class that requires students to do a lot of independent study and work on research projects involving film propaganda. The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks is one film Cole gets particularly excited about. As he described the movie, Cole grew animated. He leaned forward in his milk-chocolate-brown arm chair, letting the springs coil tightly together. He placed his stainless steel coffee mug on the desk in front of him, rested his elbows on the arm rests. He raised his silver-gray, bushy eyebrows and tilted his Kirk-Douglas-dimpled chin down so he peered over the glasses that covered half of his cheeks. His shock of silver hair surrounded by darker gray, parted on the left, reflected the sunlight streaming through his single window. He stretched his hands out in front of him, palms out. The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks is a silent film about a representative of the YMCA who goes to Moscow and discovers that the Bolsheviks are "really good, noble people. It's all those scuzzy ex-aristocrats who are the real slime balls." Cole leaned back in his arm chair, the springs groaning as they stretched out. He crossed his legs, left over right. He picked up his coffee mug, rested the bottom on his right thigh, and interlocked his fingers around the smooth, shiny gray surface. "It's an absolutely hilarious film and it's pure propaganda." Cole looked up to the ceiling and was silent for a few seconds. Thinking. "Do you know where the word propaganda comes from," Cole asked. "It was the name of a committee established by the Vatican in 1622 for the propagation of the faith. Propagato is the word in Latin." His eyes reverted back to the ceiling. Quiet. Thinking. "Every time I turn on the television I get some kind of propaganda," he said. "If you can get people to go with the flow, that's the point." One kind of propaganda that Russia has specialized in is "disinformation." Cole explained this with a story of race horses. The Russian newspaper runs an article with a headline that reads: "Soviet horse finishes second in international grand race." The article informs the readers the Russian horse finishes second and, in small print, the last sentence says the American horse finishes next to last. If the readers know only two horses raced, then the American horse finishes in first place. "They haven't lied," Cole said, "but propaganda isn't all political. It's also social, economical and religious." Cole himself has experienced religious propaganda and fought it at almost every opportunity. Raised a Baptist, his mother never got over the fact that he became an Episcopalian. He said she enjoyed Christmas Mass at his childhood friend's Catholic church, but that was the extent of her experimentation with religion. Ilona Jappinen, Cole's second wife, is a German professor at USU, specializing in the writings of Nietzsche, a German philosopher. Cole said he'd seen her walk into the south door of Old Main on campus nearly every day. They would stop to chat. Cole invited Jappinen to a USU Theatre production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, and they were married the following September. "He seemed like a nice guy, a decent human being," Jappinen said. "He will only tell you truthful information. And he's very entertaining." Experimenting with different religions led Jappinen to finally decide to integrate the two she most often associated herself with: the Quakers and her husband's Episcopal faith. Cole said she asked both the Episcopal Church and the Quakers if she could be a joint member of each religion. "Funnily enough the Quakers were a little bit leery at first," Cole said. "We thought it would be the other way around." Since his second marriage, Cole has gone on to publish three books, one he wrote during the 10-year gap between his first and second marriage and the other two he wrote afterward. In 1993, Cole's book on A.J.P. Taylor was finally published. "He finally had the grace to die so I could get my book published," Cole said. "That sounds awfully cruel, doesn't it? He was almost 90 years old, so why not?"
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