THIRD WORLD GUIDELINES MLD 2033

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP85-00024R000300730003-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 26, 2007
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: August 13, 1982
• Content Type: LETTER

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WQ 2086
13 August 1982
Chief, London Bureau, FBIS
Subject: Third World Guidelines
MLD 2033
STAT
Dear Paul:.
Your letter of 28 June went a long way toward helping us understand
the concerns underlying the BBC's reaction to the AG draft guidelines.
I hope I can allay some of them--and some of the bureau's concerns, too.
At the risk of verbosity, let me recap some background. The genesis
of these guidelines dates back to the start of the effort to revanp the
comma-nist requirffnents. There was'a strongly held view in FBIS that the
Editorial Handbook's almost exclusive focus on the c=, unist media was
anachronistic and that the Handbook should include basic SOP's for other
countries, whether or not they were regularly analyzed in AG. There
were some strong proponents of that view in Ops.
It takes time and a lot of research to develop such guidelines, and
we were not prepared to take on the job at the time. We started by trying
to build some needed flexibility into the carununist package. Meanwhile,
a nunber of developments converged to make a Mideast-Africa package seem
desirable:
+ Connninity interest in the Third World markedly increased. We
started building files of authoritative statements from selected Middle
Eastern, African, and Latin American countries out of sheer self-defense--
to enable us to respond to a growing nunber of requests for research, cc-
pilations, and reporting. As in the case of the canminist countries, we
confined the files to authoritative statements for the self-evident reason
that they are authoritative and hence are the first place to which one turns
in tracing policy trends and positions. They have proved to be valhEble
research tools.
+ At the sane time, under the impetus of successive crises in Iran,
the Arab world, and El Salvador, AG began a modest, exploratory effort
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to exploit some nonca;ununist media we felt might prod tively lend tha_-
selves to systematic analysis. The eight analysis reports Angie took -r,-if-
her to London illustrate what we have done on the ?diddle East so far. T;
fall into the categories of reaction reporting, compilations of leader sa_ze-
ments and--in the case of Egypt--in-depth studies based largely on the pr_ss.
You've good reason to wonder "%Ahy we feel we can apply the same
analytical apparatus" to Third World countries that we apply to the
caimtnist states. We don't. There is no thotght here of a blanket
ferral of the techniques of caTUnznist media analysis to these countries.
We're well aware that the media in these areas do not play the same role
as media in the calm unist states and that they differ from country to
country. Our approaches must be tailored accordingly. We envisage a
selective analytic effort, limited to areas and topics on which media
analysis proves to be useful.
You ask why not South Africa or India. Chiefly because we've not
had any demands placed on us with respect to either county;,, and it would
take further research to determine whether including them would be
worth the effort. We do plan to add a small number of Latin American
countries to the list in the future.
The main point is that we have to be prepared to respond to legiti-
mate interests on the part of FBIS' major customers. What we are g
to produce is a set of very basic selection and processing SOP's based or.
educated guesses as to the kinds of authoritative statements the FBIS
research base should contain--for us and for our clientele.
comments seem to reflect an assumption that we must be
asking for a lot more than we're. getting, because simply codifying
existing practice doesn't make sense. In fact we think it does. Any set
of requirements is a statement of goals influenced by a judgment of vrat
available and feasible. When it turns out that the goals are largely vein
met by existing practice, we have assurance that we--FBIS and the BBC--arz-
doing our jobs well. With new editors cycling in and out of the bureaus
all the time, codifying a satisfactory status quo helps to insure the
consistency and continuity that are essential if the DAILY REPORT is to
serve as a reliable base for research. When existing practice falls well
short of a goal defined in a set of guidelines, we have to examine the
shortfall: If an appreciable amount*of the material that is not being
processed turns out to be chaff rather than wheat, then the goal needs to
be restated in such a way as to exclude the worthless material. If the
unprocessed material turns out to be significant, then we need to consde_
how and where it can best be processed.
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Now as for "mandatory texting ." The draft should have been clear
in spelling out the degree of leeway for judgment. But I also have the
impression the BBC may have been so predisposed against written
"requirements" of any kind that they simply skipped over passages that di'=
sound mandator-y?. Freudian skip? For example, co.-mnent a_ pea--
to assure that when any of the listed leaders even mentions one of the
listed subject categories, we want the entire text of the speech. That
not the intent. The introductory page 1 mentions use of the Cue, FYI. art
Editorial Report, and the footnote on page 3 restates the standing FETS
policy on excerpts. The introductory sentence on page 3 should have
said in so many words that excerpts or editorial reports are perfectly
okay, though I would have thought that was understood. Note also the
second paragraph on page 3, which states that the subject categories _ho:-d
be applied "as appropriate to the country and the position of the o f t That, it seems to me (if you' 11 forgive the wildly mixed metaphor) , is a
caveat through which you could drive a whole platoon of editors and
monitors armed with ju3gment and discretion.
We are baffled by judgment that the guidelines would
entail significantly increased processing of North African leader state-
ments from French-language papers. We are not talking about adding
sources to those now on coverage. We also don't understand the relevance
of John's reference to speeches by "officials below leader level." T=
there is indeed a lot of unprocessed material in statements by the listed
leaders carried in media covered by the PM), it may fall in Producticn
Group's purv-iew. Prod may be covering it already, or it may. turn out to
be of marginal interest and be excludable. In any case, there is no in-
tention to impose a processing load that would expand the PM) staff. To
help us sort this out, could you provide some chapter and verse on the.
basis for the PMU's assessment of the impact?
The responses from the other bureaus. are in hand and are attached tc
this letter. Gulf and Tel Aviv are the only ones to suggest changes:
proposes some additions, and cogently describes the
current plans to analyze Israeli sources, we have frequent occasion tc-
refer to Israeli leaders' statements, and we think the approach suggested
in Jim's last paragraph makes good sense.
What we have, then, is a draft docunent which with a few changes cc-.-d
serve almost at once as a working tool for those bureaus but which the
BBC views with alarm. We think the best course in the circumstances =-.ou:1_
be to recast it, at least for now, as a statement of interest rather than
a set of "requirements." As such, it could serve the other bureaus ?r
all practical purposes as the kind of guidance that was intended frog th=
outset. For London Bureau it could serve as an informational documer .---
effect a set of provisional processing guidelines based on assumption= wEose
validity we can jointly explore as resources permit.
unique ind of quagmire represented by Israeli media. Khile we have no
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reasonable one to apply T JCCi1L5 an entirely
eas~ to coverage where problems are discerned or
y suspected. We thought it might also be helpful to identify a_ong
the countries in BBC's coverage area, where the perceilzd problems exist.
those currently hailing highest priority in terms of U.S. interest. We
would place Saudi Arabia, Libya, Afghanistan, and Iran in that grog -1e
exercise now in train on Saudi coverage is providing some idea of the
e
frequency of authoritatiy~ statements, as well as useful information on
Saudi media behaidor generally and on the overall responsiveness of the
level of processing. A similar fact- finding approach might be applied in
the future to one or more of the other high-priority countries, or we
might want simply to do a trial rlm in applying the draft guidelines to
one of them.
Let me know your reaction to this game plan.
--~~y apologies again for
the length of this essa
Pea
d
y.
ce an
best regards,
i
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