"The Wave" leaflet, Gulf War amphibious deception
Two-sided leaflet drawn to suggest that US Marines would land from the sea on the Kuwaiti coast. The item description says 12,000 copies were put into empty plastic bottles and dumped off the coast of occupied Kuwait on 14 January 1991, with about 90,000 more reportedly dropped by aircraft. The tell is that the message is a planned feint: its purpose, per the description, was to deceive Iraqi forces about where the attack would come from, not to report plans.
Propaganda techniques used in this leaflet
- Date
- December 1990
- Period
- Contemporary
- Made by
- US armed forces psychological operations (4th Psychological Operations Group, Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm)
Full record
Region, Country, Medium, Issuer type, Regime, Leader, Audience, Purpose, Theme, Event, Source, Rights
- Region
- North America
- Country
- United States
- Medium
- Leaflet
- Issuer type
- Military
- Regime
- George H. W. Bush Administration
- Leader
- George H. W. Bush
- Audience
- Enemy forces
- Purpose
- Deceive or deny
- Theme
- War and the military
- Event
- Gulf War
- Source
- Unidentified Source blurred: contractors, cutouts, buried disclosure
- Source
- Internet Archive (Hollen Song collection), retrieved October 11, 2026
- Rights
- Public domain (US government work, 17 U.S.C. 105)
US Army psychological operations leaflet, Gulf War, 1990-12. Scan via Internet Archive, uploader nathanielsong2004.
