Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>Overseas publicity—which had to address many different audiences and cultures, some friendly and many neutral or hostile—was fraught with difficulty and sometimes failed. However, it had to be done because communication space had to be occupied so as not to be occupied by the enemy. Latin America was challenging because of Britain’s Protestant and imperial past. MoI campaigns stressed that Fascism was anti-religion and that British Catholics supported the war; while the Beveridge Report suggested a Christian concern for the poor. Similar arguments were used in campaigns in Portugal and Spain. The Middle East presented even greater problems: some campaigns celebrated the fight for religious freedom and self-determination; others the Islamic community in Britain. Work in the Far East illustrated the huge workload required to explain and defend Britain’s case. In Sweden, the MoI worked hard, through its newspapers and the distribution of Allied feature films, to deny space to German counterarguments.</jats:p>