Truth Best Weapon Against Disinformation

The propaganda technique of "disinformation" has been with us ever since the serpent misled Eve about the effects of forbidden fruit.  

The Trojans were taken in by a wooden horse full of Spartan soldiers, Julius Caesar was assassinated by 20 senators on the basis of a forged document that he wanted to be king, and Richard III lost his life and the English throne when he was falsely accused of murdering two young princes.  

In recent years, the Soviet Hierarchy has used disinformation techniques to justify thousands of dirty deeds.  

It would not be much of a surprise to learn that the United States tried earlier this year to hassle Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi with fabricated tales of impending invasion.  

John M. Poindexter, President Reagan's national security advisor, was less than discreet when he set down in writing a plan of "real and illusionary events with the basic goal of making Gaddafi think that there is a high degree of internal opposition to him within Libya, that his key trusted aides are disloyal, and that the U.S. is about to move against him militarily."  

For the record, it should be noted that U.S. intelligence agents had learned that Gaddafi was about to launch a new series of terrorist attacks.  Indeed, officials in Britain, Togo and West Germany had intercepted terrorists trying to enter their countries with bombs.  Also, the Karachi airport bombing was believed to have a Libyan link.  

President Reagan had threatened to attack Libya a second time if Gaddafi renewed his terrorist activities.  However, a pacifist Congress and European public had so thoroughly condemned the raid on Libya that Reagan had to abandon any more force.  

Thus, the president approved Poindexter's plan.  Evidence of renewed Libyan terrorism - and inference we might carry out Reagan's threat - was leaked to the Wall Street Journal and other sympathetic newspapers.  

The fat hit the fan when someone in the White House leaked Poindexter's confidential memo to the Washington Post.  

In a feeble attempt to maintain the credibility of the disinformation campaign, Reagan and Secretary of States George Shultz denied there was any official policy to destabilize Libya.  

Whether the attempt was official or not, justified or not, the fact remains that White House aides lied - first to the American press and then, briefly, to the American people.  

U.S. credibility has been badly damaged.  Next time we say Libya, Soviet Union, Syria, Iran or who ever is guilty of something or other, will we be believed?  The communists and U.S. critics now have ammunition to shoot down any future U.S. warnings or proposals for forceful action.  

Citizens of a democracy, particularly American citizens, have a curious standard of political morality.  All manner of official skullduggery is shrugged off - except falsehood.  

President John F. Kennedy acquiesced in the assassination of three foreign heads of states and attempts on several others.  He entertained a Mafia moll in the Lincoln bedroom and sent the first combat troops to Vietnam.  Yet he was never confronted with his deceptions and therefore escaped the temptation to lie.  An eternal flame burns over his grave.  

President Richard Nixon resigned from office, one-step from impeachment, in the aftermath of a piece of jackassery called Watergate.  Nixon was hounded out of office for lying about an unauthorized attempt by some "plumbers" to bug the Democrat headquarters and discover the source of leaks from the White House.  The escapade had just about been laughed to death when secret tapes were revealed indicating cover up.  

The Soviet Union enjoys a free hand in the disinformation game because it controls 99 percent of its public information and suppresses what little adverse public opinion crops up.  

The Soviet KGB, for example, can get away with a bald assertion that the Korean Airliner it shot down was on a U.S. spy mission.  Half of Europe and most of the third world believe this.  

Following the assassination attempt against Pope John Paul II, the KGB circulated forged documents linking the deed to a right-wing Turkish agent and the CIA.  When proof of a Soviet-Bulgarian connection was discovered a year later, the pressure to prosecute had evaporated.  

The KGB sent a forged letter, purported to be from the Ku Klux Klan, to third-world black athletes in an attempt to scare them away from the Los Angeles Olympics.  In this case, the forgery was so clumsily worded with non-American phrases the disinformation ploy fizzled.  

Truth Weapon

Though democracies may be handicapped in the ideological struggle with communism by an inherent distaste for falsehoods, they have a potent weapon at their disposal - truth.  

We eventually dispose of Soviet disinformation by confronting the lie with evidence to the contrary.  This is a slow process, but the accumulation truth-telling builds trust in what we say and do.

Unfortunately, we sometimes shoot ourselves in the foot by trying to match Soviet guile.  President Dwight D. Eisenhower almost got into trouble by disowning the U-2 spy plane shot down over Russia.  Fortunately for his reputation, Ike quickly backed off and admitted complicity.  

There is a time and place for U.S. disinformation.  During World War II we mislead the Germans several times with false documents and broadcasts.  The Normandy invasion succeeded in large part because the Allies were successful in misleading Hitler into believing we were going to strike farther north.  

In peacetime, when censorship and harsh espionage laws cannot be imposed, and leaks by disgruntled government employees are common, our defense against falsity, against cowardly attacks, must be truth.  It is a frustrating but never-failing refuge.  

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