I just ran across these quotes, both from the 1940s. It's spooky how much our current Administration is reflected in these words:

"One of the more unpleasant aspects of a state of war under modern conditions is the appearance of a swarm of individuals, too clever by half, in positions of authority. Excited, conceited, prepared to lie, distort, and generally humbug people into states of acquiescence, resistance, indignation, vindictiveness, doubt, and mental confusion, states of mind supposed to be conducive to a final military victory. These people love to twist and censor facts. It gives them a feeling of power; if they cannot create, they can at least prevent and conceal. Particularly, they poke themselves between us and the people with whom we are at war, to distort any possible reconciliation. They sit, filled with the wine of their transitory powers, aloof from the fatigues and dangers of conflict, pulling imaginary strings in people[base ']s minds."

H.G. Wells, "The New World Order" Chapter 2 [^] Open Conference, 1940 (Pre-Nuclear)

"A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude. To make them love it is the task assigned, in present-day totalitarian states, to ministries of propaganda, newspaper editors and schoolteachers.... The greatest triumphs of propaganda have been accomplished, not by doing something, but by refraining from doing. Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth."

Aldous Huxley Brave New World foreword to 1946 edition