SCOPE AND THEMES OF COMMUNIST PROPAGANDA:

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80B01439R000500120014-1
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 9
• Document Creation Date: November 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 22, 1998
• Sequence Number: 14
• Publication Date: March 10, 1972
• Content Type: REPORT

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SCOPE AND THEMES OF COMMUNIST PROPAGANDA:
Notes and Nuggets Relating to the
Question of RFE and Radio Liberty
10 March 1972
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SOVIET DOMESTIC AFFAIRS: In all media and to all audiences, domestic as
well as foreign, the image-conscious Soviet regime exercises tight
control over what is divulged about domestic conditions and developments.
The limited degree of free play allowed the media under Khrushchev and
in the immediate post-Khrushchev period has been substantially
withdrawn. It is this clampdown that has prompted writers, scientists,
and others to air their literary and political writings in
hand-circulated documents (samizdat). Often basically factual material--
reports on investigations, arrests, trials, and protest demonstrations--
is passed on in this form to the West (usually, clearly, in the hope
that the information will then filter back to a larger audience in the
USSR).
In the case of a great number of important developments inside the USSR--
the overthrow of a Khrushchev, a wave of arrests of dissidents, the
banning of Solzhenitsyn's works--the Soviet citizen learns almost
nothing from Soviet information media. The death of Khrushchev last
September was first reported by TASS and Radio Moscow after midnight
on 12-13 September in the briefest possible announcement, some 36 hours
after the death had occurred--and notwithstanding the fact that
Western news agencies had reported it nearly a day and a half earlier.
FOREIGN DEVELOPMENTS INVOLVING THE USSR: Advances in international
communications modes have made it less easy than it once was for Moscow,
in its broadcast beamed abroad, to suppress major events that are
widely publicized by the media of other countries. Nevertheless, the
Soviet broadcast effort.remains tightly controlled and orchestrated,
betraying special sensitivity on matters involving the USSR itself.
Some examples:
-F Moscow media have never acknowledged the plight of the Soviet
nuclear-powered submarine which has been floundering in the North Atlantic
since late February. Soviet propaganda invariably exploited incidents
involving U.S. aircraft and naval vessels (the loss of nuclear weapons at
Palomares and Greenland, the accidental sinking of two nuclear submarines
in April 1963 and May 1968, and such lesser incidents as the discharge of
radioactive wastes in January 1972 into the water at Groton). As recently
as 7 March, an IZVESTIYA article on environmental pollution--reported in
TASS' international service--said that "numerous instances of U.S.
aircraft 'losing' nuclear bombs are fresh in people's minds."
+ Soviet media have distorted the nature of the NATO response to
Brezhnev's proposal for the opening of talks on force and armaments
reductions in central Europe. Propaganda in early October 1971
acknowledged that former NATO Secretary General Brosio had been designated
as emissary by the Alliance to meet with Soviet representatives to explore
the force-reduction issue. Since then, however, Moscow has maintained a
virtual silence on Brosio's so-far fruitless mission. A Moscow radio
talk for Italian listeners on 2 February complained that the West has
limited itself to "general phrases on the desirability of reductions but
has given no concrete reply--if it has replied at all--about opening real
negotiations."
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EAST EUROPEAN AFFAIRS: Most East European media are more freewheeling
than Moscow in reporting international developments, sometimes
commenting on subjects Moscow won't touch--in such instances at times
seeming to serve as proxy spokesmen for Moscow and at other times,
with respect to developments that are not especially sensitive,
seeming simply to exercise the measure of license they enjoy. But
there is a tight lid on information about domestic affairs,
particularly where popular dissent is involved. Some examples:
+ Obscuring the widespread voter apathy and resistance in Czechoslovakia,
that country's media for both foreign and domestic consumption claimed
99.45-percent voter participation in the 26-27 November 1971 elections.
The widespread disruptive activities during the voting were portrayed
by the Prague radio on the 27th as "isolated negative phenomena" which
"did not influence the voters and were condemned by the people
themselves." Czechoslovak media said the election results constituted
a massive defeat for the "rightists" (the liberal reformers of 1968),
as well as proof that the "consolidation" (establishment of Soviet
control over the country following the August 1968 Warsaw Pact
invasion) had been successfully "completed."
+ Prague media--and the media of the rest of the Soviet bloc--
have maintained silence regarding widespread arrests in recent
months of prominent progressives who supported the 1968 reforms, said
by Radio Free Europe to have reached a total of some 200 by early
February 1972.
+ In December 1970, RFE's publicity for reports emanating from
regional transmitters in the Polish coastal area regarding riots in
that area on 14-15 December forced the central Warsaw news media to
end their news blackout of the coastal disturbances: The Warsaw
domestic radio at 1500 GMT on 16 December broadcast its first,
belated acknowledgment of the developments in the form of a "communique,"
and Warsaw television carried a film of the riots that evening-
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THE CONTIUNIST VIEW OF RFE AND RADIO LIBERTY
One measure of the impact of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty is
the extent of the counter-effort mounted against them in Soviet and
East European media. In a sense, attack may be taken here as the
sincerest form of flattery. The thrust of most recent Soviet bloc
comment on the two radios is directed at what are called their
"refined" methods of "psychological warfare," said to be aimed at
weakening listeners' confidence in "the superiority of the socialist
system" and "socialist internationalism." These have been constant
themes, with ebbs and flows in volume. During the early post-invasion
period of "normalization" in Czechoslovakia, the media of Moscow and
its allies were especially vocal in denouncing RFE and Radio Liberty
as prime instruments of Western "imperialist" efforts to abet the
Dubcek reformists and to encourage "counterrevolution" in Czechoslovakia.
Against the background of the signing of the Moscow and Warsaw treaties
with Bonn in late 1970 and the developing detente in central Europe
under Chancellor Brandt's Ostpolitik, Soviet bloc media stepped up
their efforts to picture the two radios as "cold war relics"
impeding detente. Recurrent references are made to past publicly
disclosed links of the radios with the CIA: both are said to be
"subservient to their CIA masters." These charges have recurred in a
seemingly well-orchestrated Soviet bloc effort to pressure Bonn and,
through it, Washington to close down the "slanderous," "lying,"
19rabid anticommunist mouthpieces" transmitting from Munich. When
the license under which RFE operates in West Germany was up for
renewal at the beginning of June 1971, Warsaw media publicized a
letter from the then foreign minister Jedrychowski to his West
German counterpart, Scheel, protesting that Bonn's actions did not
correspond to the Ostpolitik. When the license was renewed, there
were prompt, sharp denunciations in the same vein from the media of
Moscow and its allies.
Some recent propaganda has seized on differences on the issue in
Congress to welcome the appearance of what are called "realistic"
elements in the United States who understand that the two radios
are cold war "anachronisms" in a period when the trend is toward
detente. At the same time, a continuing staple of Soviet domestic
propaganda is the theme that while the Soviet Union moves ahead
with its policy of peace and detente, there can be no peaceful
coexistence on the ideological front.
Here are two examples of denunciatory comment:
+ Bulgaria, the most extreme of Moscow's proxy spokesmen, had this
to say about RFE and Radio Liberty in the party organ RABOTNICHESKO
DELO on 8 March 1972:
We have called them "notorious" because these two monstrous
offsprings of anticommunism have gained over the 20 years
of their existence the unenviable fame of main mouthpieces
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of ideological subversion against the Soviet Union and
the European socialist countries. This is because they
have become synonymous with false information, slander,
and beastly hatred for the peoples who have taken the
road of socialism; this is because they have become
hideouts for renegades and traitors of their countries,
prepared to accomplish any and all dirty deeds . . . .
[After denouncing the citizens' committee formed by
George Ball, Nelson Rockefeller, and others, the article
went on to charge that the two radios] will probably
continue their antisocialist and anti-Soviet work, which
is to be envied even by the hoods of Goebbels.
+ IZVESTIYA, in the course of an article on Congressional plans to
fund the two radios, said on 11 December 1971:
Imperialist propaganda is stepping up its struggle against
the ideas of Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism.
The activity of the American ideological sabotage centers
in Europe is a gross violation of existing norms of
international law and open interference in the internal
affairs of the countries of the socialist bloc.
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U.S. EVENTS AND POLICIES: THE VIEW FROM THE SOVIET BLOC
Some examples of how American events and actions are portrayed in
the media of Moscow and its hardcore allies:
THE ANGELA DAVIS CASE: The extent of Radio Moscow's continuing
propaganda effort to exploit the Angela Davis case is reflected in
the number of radio commentaries devoted to it: 20 commentaries,
in all languages taken together, in the week ending 5 March.
Moscow has mentioned that Miss Davis is charged with complicity
in murder, but the thrust of its comment is that she is a "political
prisoner" being persecuted because of her avowed communist
affiliations and her color. On 4 March, reporting an interview
with Miss Davis, TASS' international service said the campaign to
close "the so-called 'case of Angela Davis' . . . is of great
significance not only for the trial in San Jose but also for
destinies of all political prisoners" in the United States.
TASS on 23 February, reporting that the USSR's NOVOSTI press agency
had put out a book in Russian, English, French, German, and Spanish
entitled FREEDOM TO ANGELA, stated that "the courageous
American Communist" had been "framed by the U.S. authorities."
THE PEACE CORPS: Sofia's army daily NARODNA ARMIYA on 19 January
carried a scathing attack on the Peace Corps as "one of the
ideological weapons used by U.S. imperialism and neocolonialism
against the developing countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin
America." Citing the Indian press, the article said facts show
"that the olive branch hides the cloak and dagger of spies."
The article went on to assert that the organization's activities
unmask it
as a tool of the State Department, the FBI, and the
CIA. According to the admissions made by Senator
Barry Goldwater, well known American "hawk," the
"Peace Corps" is "the best thing in U.S. foreign
policy." The "best thing" consists of the subversive
activity by "volunteers" which inflicts grave harm
upon the national interests of independent states,
the collection of espionage data and recruitment of
agents among local people, the propagation of the
"American way of life," slanders against socialism,
participation in the distribution of narcotics, and
so on.
THE COMMON MARKET: In connection with the expansion of the
European Common Market to 10 countries with a uniform external
tariff, a commentary in the Prague party daily RUDE PRAVO of
8 March--also publicized in broadcast media--portrayed the
expansion as a new discriminatory move, backed by the United
States, aimed at the communist countries:
In the case of the EEC, it is a matter of the
reactionary forces in the United States and
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Western Europe exploiting the trends toward an
internationalization of production forces for creating
and strengthening military-political blocs directed
against the socialist countries. In the present
instance, the closed economic bloc of the EEC states
should serve--quite in harmony with U.S. interests--
as a firm base for the NATO Pact.
THE MIDDLE EAST: Moscow depicts U.S. policy toward the Arab-Israeli
conflict as one of total support for Israel--political, military,
economic, and financial. The policy is said to be carried out to
the accompaniment of "hypocritical" professions of a desire for
peace in the region and of readiness to assist in the quest for a
settlement.
Soviet propaganda for all audiences denigrates American efforts to
assist in Israeli-Egyptian talks on an interim settlement regarding
reopening the Suez Canal, describing this "alleged mediation role"
as intended to replace Ambassador Jarring's mission of assisting
in an overall settlement based on the November 1967 Security Council
resolution. A broadcast in Arabic in November said of the U.S.
"mediatory role":
The purpose is to extinguish the vigilance of the Arabs
and help the United States win their confidence in
order that the United States may ultimately create
differences between them and their true friends, thus
weakening them and disarming them in the face of
aggression, in order to impose the will of the
imperialists.
Another Arabic-language broadcast that month said the American
mediation
from beginning to end has been based on lies,
deception, and misleading activity, because all
along the United States has been giving the
biggest support in every form--material, moral,
and political--to Israeli aggression against the
Arab countries.
An Arabic-language broadcast this February again accused the United
States of trying to replace Dr. Jarring's mission with American
mediation. It ascribed to Washington the following motives:
The chief aim of the ill-famed American quarters is
first to strengthen and support U.S. positions in the
Arab world, and secondly to help the Israeli
extremists to profit materially from their aggression
against the Arab countries.
In line with periodic advice to the Arabs to use U.S. interests in
the Middle East--particularly petroleum--to the. Arabs' own
advantage, this commentary called it logical that the Arabs "should
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make every effort to mobilize their resources and potential"
to strengthen the confrontation against "imperialism" and Israel.
A Moscow domestic service commentary in late December, discussing
Israel's occupation policy, referred to
numerous reports on monstrous, truly colonialist
methods of assimilating occupied Arab lands by
Israel. Savage tyranny reigns there, entire
villages are destroyed, thousands and thousands
of peoples are forced out of them, and cultural
monuments are torn down. Israeli propaganda
literally turns this inside out, trying to prove
that the occupiers are benefactors and that the
Arabs did not begin to live in a human manner
until they came. But it is clear that an Arab--
provided he manages, in order to escape death by
starvation, to find work in Israeli concerns--
receives only a quarter of the wages received by
Israeli workers. Other highly unsavory details
of the Israeli presence in Arab territories have
become known. The occupiers have begun to
exploit, hurriedly and rapaciously, Egyptian oil
deposits in the Sinai desert. This is robbery in
itself, but those who were ordered to carry the
theft out, high officials and managers, stole not
only for Israel but also for themselves.
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