---
title: 'Lock up these papers: The enemy is vigilant'
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/lock-up-these-papers-owi-1945/
description: Three government envelopes labelled Secret, Confidential and Restricted, each marked by a red arrow on a dark ground.
section: Collection
---

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3. Lock up these papers: The enemy is vigilant

[![Lock up these papers: The enemy is vigilant, 1945 US poster: Three government envelopes labelled Secret, Confidential](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/lock-up-these-papers-owi-1945.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/lock-up-these-papers-owi-1945.jpg)

# Lock up these papers: The enemy is vigilant

Three government envelopes labelled Secret, Confidential and Restricted, each marked by a red arrow on a dark ground, under the headline 'Lock up these papers' and the line 'The enemy is vigilant'. The tell for fear-appeal is the unseen watching enemy asserted as the reason to secure documents, with no specific incident shown.

## Propaganda techniques used in this poster

[Fear appeal](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/fear-appeal/)

## Text on the object

Original (English) · read from the image, not independently checked

```
LOCK UP THESE PAPERS
SECRET
CONFIDENTIAL
RESTRICTED
THE ENEMY IS VIGILANT
[envelope text, partly garbled in print:] OFFICE OF [illegible] / WASHINGTON, D.C. / OFFICIAL BUSINESS / PENALTY FOR PRIVATE USE TO AVOID PAYMENT OF POSTAGE, $300
[imprint:] OWI Poster No. 72.  Additional copies may be obtained upon request from the Division of Public Inquiries, Office of War Information, Washington, D.C.   U. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE : 1945 -O- 533456
```

[← A Lifetime Education Free for High School Graduates Who Qualify: U.S. Cadet Nurse Corps](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/lifetime-education-free-cadet-nurse-corps-1945/) [A message about food from the President of the United States →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/message-about-food-president-1945/)

## More propaganda examples that use the same techniques

- [Miniature of Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont, Les Passages d'outremer (BnF Fr. 5594, fol. 19r)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/passages-doutremer-council-of-clermont-colombe-1474/) (France · 1474 · Testimonial, Fear appeal). Content note: Medieval religious imagery and a French text describing alleged killings and captivity of eastern Christians, as used to argue for the First Crusade; the text is shown as written.
- [Anacoana fut pendue sans raison (engraving in Le miroir de la cruelle et horrible tyrannie espagnole)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/anacoana-hanged-miroir-tyrannie-espagnole-1620/) (Dutch Republic · 1620 · Fear appeal, Name-calling). Content note: Engraving of a hanged, bare-breasted Taino woman, burning huts and people being killed by Spanish soldiers.
- [Der Warner (broadsheet lampoon on the Jesuits after Breitenfeld and Rain)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/der-warner-anti-jesuit-broadsheet-1632/) (Holy Roman Empire · 1632 · Scapegoating, Fear appeal)
- [Sans-Culottes, feeding Europe with the Bread of Liberty (James Gillray)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sans-culottes-bread-of-liberty-gillray-1793/) (Kingdom of Great Britain · Jan 12, 1793 · Fear appeal, Name-calling)
- [Proclamation de Sonthonax en créole, Cap-Français (Proclamation of Commissioner Sonthonax in Creole)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sonthonax-proclamation-creole-1793/) (France · Aug 29, 1793 · Fear appeal, Scapegoating). Content note: Colonial-era proclamation on slavery and emancipation in Saint-Domingue; speaks of slaves, whips and 'Nègues' in period terms.
- [Gazette of the United States, "The Jeffersoniad" no. VIII, 14 August 1800](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/gazette-us-jeffersoniad-1800/) (United States · Aug 14, 1800 · Name-calling, Fear appeal)
- [Tyrants Prostrate, Liberty Triumphant (pro-Polk cartoon on Dorr), 1844](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/tyrants-prostrate-liberty-triumphant-polk-1844/) (United States · 1844 · Name-calling, Fear appeal). Content note: Speech balloons contain anti-Catholic and nativist wording ('the ruins of Popery') in the mouths of the Whig figures, written by a Democratic cartoonist and shown unaltered.
- [Brolej Žemajčiaj! (Brothers Samogitians!): hand-painted broken-cross poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/brolej-zemajciaj-broken-cross-1862/) (Russian Empire · 1862 · Fear appeal, Transfer)