Propaganda, and Bernays himself throughout his long career, sold something more than all the goods and services his clients offered, and also something more than propaganda as a necessary tool for businessmen and politicians. Bernays sold the myth of propaganda as a wholly rational endeavor, carried out methodically by careful experts skilled enough to lead “public opinion.” Consistently he casts himself as a supreme manipulator, mastering the responses of a pliable, receptive population.
