U.N. Day Poster #15: Whatever Its Scale, Technical Assistance Aims at Improving Life, 1953 US poster: A smiling young woman

U.N. Day Poster #15: Whatever Its Scale, Technical Assistance Aims at Improving Life (Japanese poster distributed in Asia)

A smiling young woman holding a baby, in a close photograph. Japanese text says technical assistance, large or small, has one aim, the greatest happiness of all peoples; that recipients and givers are equal partners in the UN technical assistance programme; and that recipient countries often contribute many times the value of the aid received. The tell is glittering-generalities: happiness and equal partnership are asserted in broad terms, with the mother and child as the face of the claim.

Propaganda techniques used in this poster

Glittering generalities

Date: September 14, 1953
Period: Cold War
Made by: U.S. Information Agency (predecessor: State Department International Information and Educational Exchange Program), Propaganda Posters Distributed in Asia series
Region: North America
Country: United States
Medium: Poster
Issuer type: State
Regime: Eisenhower Administration
Leader: Dwight D. Eisenhower
Audience: Foreign public
Purpose: Persuade or win support
Theme: Economy and finance
Event: Cold War
Source: Unidentified Source blurred: contractors, cutouts, buried disclosure
Source: U.S. National Archives (NARA), Record Group 306, Propaganda Posters Distributed in Asia, retrieved October 3, 2026
Rights: Public domain (U.S. government work; NARA RG 306)
U.S. Information Agency / Department of State, c. 1953. National Archives, Record Group 306 (NAID 5730117, 306-PPA-217).

Text on the object

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

しかし技術援助は、その性質、規模にかゝわりなくその目的とするところは生活の改善である。

技術援助が大規模でなされようと否とを問はず、国際連合の目的は一つである。即ち地球上のあらゆる民族に最大の幸福をもたらす事である。技術援助を受ける側も与える側も、共に、国際連合技術援助計画の平等の仲間である。援助を受ける国はしばしば、その援助の何倍かの価値あるものを寄与している。

15

English translation (machine translation by Claude, not verified by a fluent reader)

But technical assistance, whatever its nature or scale, aims at the improvement of life.

Whether technical assistance is given on a large scale or not, the aim of the United Nations is one: to bring the greatest happiness to every people on earth. Both those who receive technical assistance and those who give it are equal partners in the United Nations technical assistance programme. The countries that receive aid often contribute something worth several times that aid.

15