Content note: Caricatured Hitler-like eavesdropping figures with swastikas drawn as grotesques. This object is shown as it was published. Why
Don't talk!
White-on-black cartoon poster headed 'Don't talk!' In a bar, a soldier boasts about 'all the new bombers we're taking to...' while a sergeant tells him 'Pipe down! Someone may be listening!' A swastika-marked Hitler-like figure behind the bar and another in a pot at lower left, notebook in hand, eavesdrop, drawn as grotesques (name-calling) within a fear-appeal about spies.
Propaganda techniques used in this poster
- Date
- 1941
- Period
- Second World War
- Made by
- Poster signed Yardley (issuer not printed)
- Region
- North America
- Country
- United States
- Medium
- Poster
- Issuer type
- Mixed
- Regime
- Roosevelt Administration
- Leader
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
- Audience
- Own forces
- Purpose
- Warn or inform
- Themes
- War and the military, Security and surveillance
- Event
- World War II
- Regime
- Roosevelt administration
- Leader
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
- Source
- Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- Source
- U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 44, World War II Posters, retrieved October 4, 2026
- Rights
- Public domain (U.S. government work)
Poster signed Yardley (issuer not printed). National Archives and Records Administration, RG 44, 44-PA-692 (NAID 514173).
Text on the object
DON'T TALK! YOU THINK YOU HAVE A GOOD OUTFIT! LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT ALL THE NEW BOMBERS WE'RE TAKING TO ........ PIPE DOWN! SOMEONE MAY BE LISTENING! [signature: Yardley]
