LETTER TO AARON LEVENSTEIN FROM WILLIAM J. CASEY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88B00443R001704340067-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 23, 2009
• Sequence Number: 67
• Publication Date: August 5, 1985
• Content Type: LETTER

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2009/12/28: CIA-RDP88B00443R001704340067-3
wnni o c 20505 Executive Registry
5 August 1985
Dear Aaron,
85- 3123
It is remarkable how after over forty years you and I find our minds
running on the same track so frequently. I have been thinking about follow-
up on the disinformation conference. Leo was down here last week and talked
to me about his idea that we need today the modern counterpart of the old
Institute for Propaganda Analysis. We talked about how best to develop it.
We both agreed that you could make a major contribution. I said I would get
in touch with you to get your ideas. Then over the weekend reading a
follow-up report on the disinformation conference I found appended to it
your letter of 14 February to in which you suggest that the
purpose of the conference should be to ay the groundwork for a permanent
Center for Propaganda Research, paralleling the Institute for Propaganda
Analysis of the 1930s.
So, we are all on the same wavelength. Leo has already talked, I
believe, to Freedom House about it. He tells me that Leonard Sussman was
involved in the Institute for Propaganda Analysis back in the 1930s.
I'd like you to think about and perhaps talk to Leo about how we can
proceed from here. I have already talked to Bob Gates about how we can
contribute and he has some ideas. Sometime soon we should all get together
and figure out what needs to be done.
It is too bad you were not able to make the conference at Airlie House.
Your presence there was missed. We taped the proceedings and are working to
prepare a conference report that includes synopses of the numerous oral
presentations and discussions, as well as papers presented. We expect this
to be given broad dissemination by the State Department.
William J. Casey
1 - ER File
1 - DDI
1 - SOVA
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STAT
February 14, 1985
Central Intelligence Agency
Washington, D.C. 20505
STAT
Fulfilling my promise to give you some afterthoughts about
the Conference In preparing for the big get-together, we ought to ask the
members of our group to assemble a bibliography on the subject.
(Inci`dentally, I never got the details on the book to which you
referred, Dezinformatzia. Who is the author and the publisher?)
The most important aspect of the upcoming conference will be
the follow-up. One-shot deals have only a minimal value. It
would seem to me that the purpose of the conference should be to
lay a groundwork for a permanent Center for Propaganda Research,
paralleling the Institute for Propaganda Analysis that did such a
good job on Nazi propaganda in the 1930s.
Such a Center should operate on a basis of complete in-,
dependence, its funding coming from foundations and/or individual
citizens. Have you seen the recently published Responsibility ~c
Freedom in ?Jle Press, a report of the Citizen's Choice National
Commission on Free and Responsible Media? {Their address is 1615;
H Street, N.W., Washington, D.C.) Their conference was set up as
a hearing, with "testifiers"-and interviews. Its focus was pri-
marily on the issues of media responsibility -- e.g., subjectivi-
ty, invasion of privacy, sensationalism, bias, etc. -- and there-
fore substantially different from our concerns. But I think the
people who participated and who contributed -- their names are
listed in the published report -- would provide a core of busi-
ness persons who might want to attend our conference and possibly
help in the establishment of a permanent research center.
In my judgment it is not too soon to start thinking about
the functions that such a Center could perform. The broad goal
of our conference is to establish the urgency of a counter-
propaganda program. More specifically, this should lead to dis-
cussion of (a) how we can best monitor anti-Western propaganda;
and (b) how we can reply and present our own case.
The Center would not only keep tabs on what the opposition
is saying but would analyze the themes and the strategies they
are putting forward, and how those themes and stategies are
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changing with events Basic patterns would emerge, of course.
For example, the Russians never deny; they countercharge. When
it is reported that they have invaded Afghanistan, their response
is that the Western imperialists had attacked the Afghans. If
the world press says the Russians shot down a Korean plane, they
charge that the U.S. had sent a spy plane into their territory.
As clearer concepts of Soviet propaganda emerge, it is
important that people be educated to understand the techniques.
This means that educators must be reached with the information.
In addition we must.develop a?systematic'program of reaching the
mass audience. The Communists, who have an avowed contempt for
"bourgeois morality," have developed an efficient system of
subterfuge, using front organizations, fellow traveler networks,
and "agit-prop" techniques that seek to create a culture of
mutual suspicion in the West while achieving a culture of strict
conformity in their own borders. Since democracy is essentially
an a4versarial system, there will always be people who pick up
the refrain; their charges being sensational, they usually get a
wide'fbrum in media that depend on sensationalism for their
audiences. What'we need is a system of information compatible
with the.values, indeed strengths, of a democratic society --
its openness, its respect for difference of opinion, and its
encouragement of a free flow of factual data through unencumbered
channels of communication.
I hope these comments are helpful, and I look forward to the
next steps. It was a pleasure getting together with you and the
others.
Sincerely,
STAT
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