A BODYGUARD OF LIES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000201650070-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 1, 2010
• Sequence Number: 70
• Publication Date: October 13, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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6
NEWSWEEK
13 October 1986
A Bodyguard of Lies
Revelations of a `disinformation' campaign
damage the credibility of the Reagan White House
I n 1965 Americans were introduced to a.
new word: dezinformatsiya, or "disinfor-
mation." It was reported that six years
earlier the Soviet Union had established a
Kremlin department dedicated to spread-1
ing false information abroad for political
ends. Since then, Soviet disinformation
campaigns have stirred trouble around the
world and provided constant reminders of
the cynical and duplicitous nature of the
Soviet regime. The U.S. government, of
course, has also been known to distort, mis-
lead, bluff and manipulate, but it has rare-
ly been caught pursuing an elaborate, mul-
tipronged policy of coordinated lying. Last
week, though, the Reagan administration
was reported to have mimicked the Soviet
approach. In an article in The Washington
Post, Bob Woodward revealed that in
August national-security adviser John
Poindexter sent President Reagan a
memo outlining what Poindexter called a
"disinformation program" aimed at desta-
bilizing Libyan leader Muammar Kaddafi
by generating false reports that the
United States and Libya were again on a
collision course.
While reporters independently con-
firmed the memo-and a presidential di-
rective approving it-Reagan painted him-
self into a corner by denying any
disinformation campaign and challenging
"the veracity of that entire [Washington
Post] story." Crossing signals with his boss,
Secretary of State George Shultz, in New
York for meetings at the United Nations,
tried to justify the deception. He quoted
Winston Churchill in World War II as hav-
ing said, "In time of war, the truth is so
precious it must be attended by a body-
guard of lies." The Reagan administration,
he said, was "pretty darn close" to being at
war with Libya.
It was even closer to being at war with
journalists. "This administration has con-
tempt for the press, from the top right on
down," says Jack Nelson, Washington bu-
reau chief for the Los Angeles Times.
"Even the Nixon administration, as closed
as it was, didn't treat the press as poorly."
Besides severely limited access to the presi-
dent and his aides and "managing" news
much more thoroughly than earlier admin-
istrations, the White House has become
obsessive about leaks. CIA director Wil-
liam Casey has been particularly outspo-
ken, and even as the Libya story unfolded
last week, the FBI was gearing up a new 7y
created special unit to n leakers. The
twin offensive made it seem tfi-af7he ad-
ministration believed the press should Ve
punished for reporting the inconvenient
truth and rewarded for reporting conven-
ient lies. As if to confirm the press's worst
suspicions, the administration asked the
FBI unit to try to find out who had leaked
Poindexter's memo to Woodward.
The three-page memo outlined an elabo-
rate disinformation strategy,
though it seems the prime in-
struments were meant to be
Kaddafi agents and the foreign
media rather than the Ameri-
can press. Poindexter argued
that U.S. policy should be
aimed at "making Kaddafi
think that there is a high de-
gree of internal opposition to
him within Libya, that his key
trusted aides are disloyal, that
the U.S. is about to move
against him militarily." Evi-
dence that the disinformation
campaign was under way first
turned up on Aug. 25 in The
Wall Street Journal. While
Poindexter was reporting pri-
vately in mid-August that Kaddafi was
temporarily "quiescent," the Journal's
John Walcott and Gerald F. Seib wrote that
Kaddafi was planning more terrorism, that
the United States and Libya were on a
"collision course" and that as a follow-up to
the April bombing raid, "the Reagan ad-
ministration is preparing to teach the mer-
curial leader another lesson." Many other
reporters, pressed by their editors for a
story during a slow news month, scam-
pered to match the Journal story, which
White House spokesman Larry Speakes cu-
riously described as "unauthorized but
highly authoritative." Within a couple of
days other aides quietly backed away from
it, leading some news organizations to chal-
lenge the Journal account.
Fdse throat? Even though the overall
thrust of the story appeared false, the Jour-
nal stuck to the part that suggested the
U.S. government believed the Libyans had
stepped up their support of terrorism.
"This was an incredibly well-sourced sto-
ry," says Albert Hunt, the Journal's Wash-
ington bureau chief. But the paper admits
it was "misled" about the likelihood of an-
other military strike against Libya. "We
relied on high-level officials who hyped
some of this," Hunt says. Among the
sources, according to some White House
aides, was Howard Teicher, a strong-mind-
ed Poindexter deputy (page 46).
The Journal may have also been the vic-
tim of what former CIA director William
Colby once called ow ac k. In 1976 the
Church Committee, set up to investigate
the CIA, determined that stories planted
by the agency abroa sometimes ended up
back in the U.S. media, where they were
believed by an unsuspecting ublic. In the
'50s and'60s, accor ing to t e urc m-
PHOTOS BY LARRY DOWNING-NEWSWEEK
The case for lying: Casey, Shultz
STAT
U
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mittee more than 30 American news a-
"? gn nova a v-
ices that were in fact C fronts.
ilarly, on the Libya story, the usual double
standard-disinformation is acceptable
abroad but not at home-broke down. The
White House apparently did nothing to
throw Walcott and Seib off the phony scent.
In August NewswzEj learned that when
Poindexter was asked about the Journal
story he said the leak was unauthorized but
added, "We aren't troubled by it because
this serves a useful purpose by providing a
warning to Kaddafi." Reagan nodded in
agreement and said, "That's fine."
The way Shultz frames it, the disinfor-
mation issue is a simple matter of the ends
(in this case rattling Kaddafi, a confirmed
terrorist) justifying the means (lying to the
press and thereby to the American people).
But even within the administration there
was strong disagreement over the ends
Aemselves. Woodward's source for the
memo,in all likelihood, was an official who
believed that spooking Kaddafi would do
more harm than good, possibly inciting the
Libyan leader to further acts of terrorism.
And the means-the lies-were profound-
ly disturbing, even to journalists hardened
by a lifetime of covering dissembling offi-
cials. "We should leave that garbage to the
Russians," says A. M. Rosenthal, executive
editor of The New York Times. Sen. Wil-
liam Cohen argues that the disinformation
campaign reflects a strange pathology in
superpower relations. "It appears that
there are some people over there [in the
White House] who think we have to emu-
late the Soviet Union in order to compete
with them."
N I M Isdoum: Some of the lying is
not emulation, but simply business as usu-
al in government. The Eisenhower admin-
istration lied about the downing of U-2 pi-
lot Francis Gary Powers, the Kennedy
administration lied about the Bay of Pigs,
the Johnson administration lied about
Vietnam (the "credibility gap"), the Nixon
administration lied about Watergate, the
Carter administration lied about the Irani-
an hostage raid. The lies are often about the
president's health: Eisenhower's heart at-
tack was called a "chill" at first; Nancy
Reagan ordered aides not to disclose infor-
mation about her husband's cancerous
nose pimple. Other times they involve nice-
ties. After he won a hard-fought 1981 vote
for selling AWACS planes to Saudi Arabia,
Reagan was
to have said a hby his aide eartfelt, Thank
God." What Reagan really said was, "I feel
like I've just crapped a pineapple."
Is lying on minor matters or to protect
the secrecy of a military operation differ-
ent than launching a disinformation cam-
Paign? Many journalists answer yes. In the
ease of imminent military operations,
where the element of surprise is essential
and lives are at stake, the deceptions are
often unavoidable-though as Anthony
Marro, managing editor of Newsday, puts
it, "These situations should be so rare that
case studies are written about them." Us-
ing the press as part of psychological war-
fare is viewed in a separate matter. "Ln
to the press goes back to the beginning of
tine re ubllc, but this Kind or institutional
lying dates most y from t o origins o t e
cold war and covert activities," says author
David Wise. "It used to be t a policies were
framed to fit events; now events are shaped
and manipulated to tit policies.
But because governments have rarely
seen truth as their first duty, some blamed
reporters for not being more wary of their
sources. "What shocks me about this is the
credulity of the press," says Hodding Car-
ter, who served in the Carter administra-
tion. Sen. David= Duren
bg ~Sr noted that
all the scrambling for scoops makes you
susce tl a to an one bent on antin a
story," And it's much easier to plant stories
when the press relies so heavily on igh-
ranking anonymous informants, many of i
whom ensnare reporters with promises of
access and play by play insider detail. The
Wall Street Journal article alone con-
tained 42 uses of "sources say," "officials
say" and other variations. Such sourcing is
often unavoidable in Washington stories,
and that in itself should compel a greater
degree of skepticism.
Should the government be blamed for
simply making use of what Shultz calls the
"predictable tendencies" of the press?
Even on a practical plane well below moral-
ity and the Constitution, the answer would
seem to be yes. The next time the adminis-
tration pits its word against that of critics
or another nation, its believability will
have been diminished. On the eve of the
summit; it. also inspires reflection on the
differences between the United States and
the Soviet Union. Americans grow up con-
vinced that their values are different and
more enlightened, but when "disinforma-
tion" ceases to be merely a Russian word,
the distinctions begin to blur, and a deeply
disturbing impression is conveyed to the
rest of the world.
JONATHAN ALTER with MARGARET GARRARD
WARNER, THOMAS M. DEFRANK
and KIM WILLENSONin Washington
I
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