# Stop! Criminal! (c. 1950), an English-language Korean War poster distributed in Asia

Stop! Criminal! is an English-language cartoon poster from the U.S. information program's posters distributed in Asia, dated 1950 in the record and c. 1950 to 1955 in its rights line. A soldier labelled "COMMUNIST AGGRESSORS" stands over a bloodied "REPUBLIC OF KOREA" as a hand marked "U.N." reaches in (NAID 5730086).

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- Stop! Criminal! (c. 1950), an English-language Korean War poster distributed in Asia

      Stop! Criminal! (English-language poster distributed in Asia)

      Stop! Criminal! (c. 1950), an English-language Korean War poster distributed in Asia
      An English Korean War poster for Asia: a soldier labelled "COMMUNIST AGGRESSORS," a bloodied Korea, a U.N. hand, and a claim of 53 nations. NAID 5730086.

## Techniques named on the archive record

Name-callingBandwagonFear appeal
      Date1950Made byU.S. Information Agency (predecessor: State Department International Information and Educational Exchange Program), Propaganda Posters Distributed in Asia seriesMediumPosterCountryUnited StatesRegimeTruman AdministrationNARANAID 5730086; Record Group 306SourceUnidentified Source blurred: contractors, cutouts, buried disclosureSourceU.S. National Archives (NARA), Record Group 306, Propaganda Posters Distributed in Asia , retrieved October 3, 2026SourcePublic domain (U.S. government work; NARA RG 306) U.S. Information Agency / Department of State, c. 1950-55. National Archives, Record Group 306 (NAID 5730086, 306-PPA-187).
      Object, image, and catalog record from the FRAME archive. Text on this page is CC BY 4.0. Image rights are as the archive records.

      Full record at propagandaarchive.org

  Stop! Criminal! is an English-language cartoon poster from the U.S. information program's posters distributed in Asia, dated 1950 in the record and c. 1950 to 1955 in its rights line. A soldier labelled "COMMUNIST AGGRESSORS" stands over a bloodied "REPUBLIC OF KOREA" as a hand marked "U.N." reaches in (NAID 5730086).

## The cartoon

A club-wielding soldier in a fur hat with a red star stands over a bloodied figure, in the archive's account. A giant hand reaches in, and a ring of small figures carries national flags. The labels tell the reader who is who.

STOP! CRIMINAL!

[on the hand:] U.N.

[on the soldier:] COMMUNIST AGGRESSORS

[on the fallen figure:] REPUBLIC OF KOREA

53

United Nations

condemn the criminal

Communist invasion

of the Republic of

Korea!

The Communist

war-makers will be

stopped!

Through United

Nations--Peace!

Transcription in the FRAME record; "will" is underlined on the sheet. Full record at propagandaarchive.org. NAID 5730086, local id 306-PPA-187, Record Group 306.

## Who issued it

The record credits the U.S. Information Agency and its predecessor, the State Department's International Information and Educational Exchange Program, in the series the National Archives calls Propaganda Posters Distributed in Asia. The audience is a foreign public and the purpose persuasion, with the Korean War as the event. Nothing printed on the sheet names the United States. The source field reads "Unidentified," glossed "Source blurred: contractors, cutouts, buried disclosure."

The record dates the poster 1950, and its rights line gives c. 1950 to 1955. The archive holds Stop Criminal! sheets in six other languages: Cebuano, Chinese, Ilocano, Malay in Jawi script, Tagalog and Thai. This page covers the English one.

## Reading it

The archive tags name-calling, bandwagon and fear appeal: the label on a brutish figure, the claim that 53 nations stand together, and the blood and the club. The bandwagon number is the poster's main fact, and it comes with no list of the nations.

The case the poster makes, that one state invaded another and an international body condemned it, is a case a free government can make openly. That is why the missing credit line stands out. A message that can be defended in public is stronger with the sender's name on it.

The Korean War messaging hub covers the State Department's posters for Asian allies alongside the UN Command leaflets. Another sheet from the same program, the Korean-language Germ Warfare poster of 1952, answered a Communist charge against the UN forces. The U.S. Information Agency hub covers the agency's posters abroad.

## Sources

- FRAME object record, Stop! Criminal! (English-language poster distributed in Asia), 1950. U.S. Information Agency (predecessor: State Department International Information and Educational Exchange Program).

- U.S. National Archives, Record Group 306, Propaganda Posters Distributed in Asia, 306-PPA-187, NAID 5730086, retrieved by the archive 3 October 2026. Rights as recorded: public domain (U.S. government work; NARA RG 306).

Canonical: https://americanpropaganda.org/collection/stop-criminal-english-1950-1955/