Once the recruited and vetted agents begin placing the desired messages, success demands time for subtle thoughts and ideas to float through the various channels, attract the attention of the target audience, and, ultimately, influence or change their minds. The overall time required for a propaganda operation to work its magic depends upon a range of variables, including the number of channels available to disseminate the messages, the quality of the assets involved, the nature (e.g., openness) of the society, the character of the government, and so forth.
Depending on the type of propaganda, the originator or sponsor of the product may be openly identified, disguised, or falsely represented as some other source. Although a frequent presumption is that propaganda is composed of partial or total falsehood, in point of fact the best propaganda is the truth well presented and well argued. Nor does the source have to be disguised or hidden. Many governments have within their foreign ministries an official “news agency” that disseminates information about the government’s policies and responds to critics of these policies.4 This includes the United States, which has as its official voice the Office of International Information Programs in the State Department. Despite the official status of these agencies and the fact that the information they provide is accurate, albeit perhaps rather one-sided and often lacking complete objectivity, their products are propaganda nonetheless. After all, the intention of these government-sponsored, official “news” organizations is to promote their countries’ national positions within the world community, to create and sustain a favorable image of their sponsoring government, and to provide news that may not otherwise be available to their audiences. Likewise, some governments also fund an overseas public radio network that provides news and other programming to various world regions, sometimes in the language of that region. The Voice of America, British Broadcasting System, Australian Broadcasting Company, National China News Agency, and Radio Moscow are all well-known examples of governmental radio networks that serve their sponsors’ national purposes.
Perhaps the best-known official American propaganda organs were Radio Free Europe (RFE) and Radio Liberty (RL), established early in the cold war to broadcast across the Iron Curtain to Soviet and Eastern European citizens. Through RFE and RL, oppressed populations, whose own governments provided only highly slanted and frequently false information to the public, could learn the truth about world events. Although funded and run covertly by the CIA for a number of years before being overtly managed by the United States Information Service, there was never much doubt among listeners as to the sponsoring government. Millions listened secretly to these broadcasts for decades, until the end of the cold war ushered in their own free media.
Simply repeating the truth, or the truth as one sees or understands it, is a highly underestimated form of propaganda. During forty years of cold war, there was never any need for the United States to lie to the Soviet people about the nature of their regime; they, far better than anyone else, knew that the Soviet government was corrupt, oppressive, and dangerous. The American government needed only to accurately relate world events to counter the deceitful lies the Soviet regime told its own citizens. Indeed, it would have been counterproductive for the United States to exaggerate or fabricate stories, for doing so would only have undermined the credibility of the United States and weakened its democratic ideals.
Included in U.S. propaganda operations against the USSR were the “Nationalities” programs intended to keep alive the heritage, culture, and languages of the ethnic minorities in the Soviet Union. These programs were doubly useful in that they also constituted an “attack on the internal legitimacy of the Soviet government.” According to former director of central intelligence Robert M. Gates, among materials infiltrated into the USSR as well as other totalitarian governments were “Western literature (books, magazines, newspapers and the like) . . . [and] among other approaches the CIA has dropped leaflets from airplanes, tied transistor radios and Bibles onto balloons lofted towards hostile nations, and broadcast from makeshift radio stations in remote rain forests.”5 Also infiltrated in miniature version were banned works by prominent Russian authors like Aleksandr Isaevich Solzhenitsyn and Boris Pasternak. Unable to see any immediate positive results and disbelieving that such actions could assist in the dismantling of the Soviet system, CIA case officers specializing in Soviet intelligence operations were highly critical of these programs. But these programs were not intended to influence in the short term, nor were they ever touted as the key to the destruction of the Soviet regime. The value of these programs was ultimately seen in the pro-American, pro-democratic attitudes of more than a few former Soviet officials, many of the citizens, and some (but not all) of the governments in the new nations created from the former Soviet republics after the breakup of the Soviet Union.
Propaganda that presents facts in a generally accurate or truthful fashion (albeit perhaps one-sidedly) from official government outlets or from a clearly identified source is referred to as “white” propaganda in the argot of covert action specialists. White propaganda is used to present to foreign audiences the originating government’s positions on issues, to explain policy decisions, to provide news unavailable from the local media, and generally to put a human face on the country and its people to the world. If the message emanates from a government agency, it may be considered the official position of that government. Regardless of whether the message is put out by a government or another source, however, if it is found to be untruthful, this fact soon becomes known and the source discredited.6
But not all propaganda presents the absolute truth, of course. The operational technique known as “gray” propaganda includes the subtle, or not so subtle, distortion of fact emanating from a source that is opaque or averred to be someone other than the actual author or presenter. “Gray” propaganda is the work of intelligence agencies and, like the overt product, is intended to further the policy interests of the originating government, albeit with disguised sponsorship. A government engages in gray propaganda when, for example, its intelligence agency recruits or induces a foreign newspaper editor or columnist to publish under his own name opinion pieces that coincide with the policies of the government that recruited him. These articles will purportedly reflect the writer’s own independent thinking presented as the best policy for his country, but in reality much of the text may have been written at the intelligence agency’s headquarters.7 As these journalists are almost always in favor of the policies they are asked to support in the first place (or, at least, favorably disposed to the country for whose intelligence service they are now working), the fact that they may receive a secretly provided stipend usually serves only as an added incentive.
The attention of the intended audience—which is often, but not always, the general population—may be captured in any number of ways, through any medium that can carry a message: editorials placed in the press or on television, advertisements, television documentaries, tabloid-type exposés, political campaign speeches, books, articles placed in academic journals, weekly news magazines, music videos, radio programs, Internet “chat rooms” or other electronically accessed information sources, and pamphlets can all be utilized to carry a “payload” message. And just as a five-second shot of a particular brand of beer or automobile placed in a movie scene by an advertiser can influence the audience to buy that brand, likewise just a few seconds or minutes of “payload” message adroitly inserted by the propagandist in a documentary, video, newspaper editorial, or magazine article may generate a desired reaction on the part of the unwitting audience.
One excellent way to use gray propaganda to influence a country’s elites is for a foreign intelligence service to recruit respected scholars, political figures, and other public figures who will publish articles in scholarly journals or commentary magazines that subtly support the foreign government’s policies. In the United States, journals such as Foreign Affairs and magazines like Atlantic Monthly and National Review are re
ad by policymakers and senior officials who work closely with policymakers. As such, an article written covertly at the behest of a foreign government and published in any of these periodicals could conceivably sway the thinking of a congressman, senior cabinet official, or White House staff member. Articles that are well written, cogently argued, and in which the “payload” message is subtly stated or limited in presence—perhaps just one point in a much longer article that might be on an issue only tangentially related to the payload message—hold the possibility of affecting the perception or position of the reader. Likewise, publishers of scholarly journals are often policy-oriented research institutions (e.g., “think tanks”) that may also sponsor issue forums, debates, discussions, and research projects, the results of which might reach policymakers. The ability to influence covertly the products of these institutions is perforce also the ability to influence the policy elites of the nation.8
It is “black” propaganda, the complete fabrication of message and source, known in the parlance of Soviet active measures specialists as “disinformation,” that can be the most injurious. Black propaganda can reinforce rumor or unfounded beliefs in a population that is, in all probability, not largely literate or sophisticated in the first place and, therefore, at once the most likely to believe the lie and least apt to discern its provenance. This scenario explains the widespread acceptance in the early 1980s throughout the Third World (and especially sub-Saharan Africa) of the allegation—first propagated in India through a story in a pro-Soviet newspaper—that the U.S. government created the AIDS virus. The Soviets were also very successful in exploiting the willingness of South American poor to believe that their babies were at risk of being kidnapped at the behest of rich Americans who would then transplant body parts from those infants into their own sick children. Both stories were products of a KGB disinformation operation designed to discredit the United States in the Third World, and they both resonated for years, propagated by people who were already inclined to think ill of America.
The AIDS story is instructive for two reasons. First, it’s a case study of the way a single story in one newspaper can spread throughout the world and influence large segments of the international population. Second, it demonstrates how a story can be so long-lived that it eventually creates unwanted difficulties for the regime that originated it. The AIDS story was generated in 1983 when U.S.-Soviet relations were at a nadir and endured for more than four years into the regime of Mikhail Gorbachev. After taking office, Gorbachev desperately sought to improve relations between the two superpowers, and he soon realized that this story and the negative image of the United States that it had created were beginning to cause problems at home and abroad for his new plans. The KGB then tried to deny the story, but not with unalloyed success. Both the AIDS and the “baby parts” story still lived on through the end of the twentieth century in some areas of the Third World.9
Two operations by the KGB to undermine Indian-American relations serve also as prime examples of black propaganda. In 1967, the KGB department responsible for active measures programs forged a series of communications supposedly originating from the U.S. Consulate in Bombay hinting that a major Indian politician, who was also anti-Communist, was both in the pay of the United States and involved in under-the-table dealings with the government of Pakistan. And in 1984 the KGB’s effort to “prove” that the CIA was behind the assassination of Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi was a particularly potent operation given the Soviet Union’s intense desire to drive a permanent wedge between the world’s largest democracy and the West. The fact that the “official” U.S. government documents used to “prove” these stories were clearly fabrications—with very apparent discrepancies from authentic documents—had no impact on the target audience, many of whom were instinctively anti-American and, more importantly, illiterate. These stories resonated throughout sub-Saharan Africa, the subcontinent, and Latin America for years afterward.10
One notable exception to the general practice of first spreading black propaganda in the Third World was a highly successful Soviet intelligence operation in Europe using the Italian newspaper Paese Sera. An article planted in that daily in 1967 asserted that the CIA was behind the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, an allegation that even many Americans still believe today.11 This one plant clearly shows the power of the written media with a literate audience and the willingness of a naive public to believe anything that both sounds credible and is aired in a medium that is likewise perceived as credible. This is particularly so when the story plays to a readership already prejudiced or predisposed to believe it.
It must be emphasized that the CIA does not create the propaganda in isolation and for its own purposes. A presidential requirement mandates that all propaganda must coincide with U.S. policy objectives. To insure that this is so, CIA, Department of State, and NSC staff jointly craft a guidance document clearly delineating U.S. government policies; thereafter, all propaganda messages are coordinated among the three entities prior to approval for dissemination by CIA field officers. The document gives policy thematic guidance on whatever issues are approved for propaganda operations, thus insuring that the propaganda supports overt foreign policy measures and objectives. As Georgetown University’s Roy Godson asserts, propaganda must run in the same yoke as overall policy, for “[i]t serves little purpose to dabble in the trade unless there are important strategic goals to be achieved and tactical plans for carrying them out.”12
DECEPTION OPERATIONS
A stepsister of propaganda is the deception operation, intended to confront a specific decision maker with a false reality or to “mislead an enemy by manipulating, distorting, or falsifying evidence to induce a mistaken perception.”13 Students of World War II are familiar with this type of program through Operation Fortitude, used by the Allies to convince Hitler that the D-day landings in June 1944 would take place at the Pas de Calais. More recently, in 1991 the presence of a large U.S. Marine Corps landing force off the Kuwaiti coast influenced Saddam Hussein to believe that the threat was from that direction rather than from the west—from whence came the Allied attack with devastating results. In these instances, deception, in the words of Boston University professor Angelo Codevilla, works to “ensure that the enemy’s strength is wasted while one’s own strength is matched against the enemy’s weakness”; and because this is done, “deception can make the weak strong, and make the strong unchallengeable. In a close contest, it’s the easiest way of tipping the balance.”14
But deception operations are rarely used outside of the military, however, because they are such complex undertakings. Before a deception operation can be commenced, there must be in place a detailed, coherent policy so that the deception element can be specifically and precisely tailored to enhance and support the larger plan. Then the actual deception operation requires great attention to detail over a long period of time, a circumstance that is perforce a huge investment in manpower and multiple resources or assets in the target country (or countries) to acquire feedback on the effects of operations. In these endeavors, it is critical that the deception operation not only be fully integrated into the overall plan, but that it also be supported by other components having the responsibility of preventing the opponent from collecting accurate information that is contradictory to the deception plot.15 The fabled Trojan Horse at Troy was a deception operation, while a modern day classic was the “Double Cross” operation by the Twenty Committee (or “XX,” hence the double cross sobriquet), in which German spies in Great Britain were turned and used with astonishingly great success to deceive the Germans about Allied plans for the invasion of Europe in 1944. The Double Cross operation, as a case study, makes for exciting but also thoughtful reading for the intelligence professional.
The assets or resources necessary—overlapping human, technical, and open source information—for collecting details on the effects of the deception from within opposition territory must also be in place prior to the com
mencement of deception operations. This permits the deception program managers to observe the responses by the target audience as soon as they occur and to immediately refine the operations to solidify and sustain the deceptive acts. Moreover, accurate and timely feedback is necessary if unforeseen opportunities are to be exploited and for unforeseen difficulties to be managed before they become fatal.
While intelligence scholars Godson and Wirtz state that “deception is enhanced” when the deceiving power understands the history, culture, government, and sociology of the target country or individuals, it is more accurate to say that this knowledge is essential. Godson and Wirtz are absolutely correct when they recognize that “[f]alse information should conform to the [cultural] idiosyncrasies” of the target audience. Otherwise, readily apparent errors will undermine even the most elaborately designed deception program. In short, “deception planners ‘need to know a great deal about the world view of those they are trying to manipulate, and recognize the human proclivity for self-deception.’”16
Finally, it is critical that deception material reach the target audience by multiple “creative” methods, including the unorthodox, to permit the target policymakers and intelligence services to corroborate the deception material, allowing the enemy to “confirm” the accuracy of what they’re being fed.17 Perhaps the prototypical non-wartime model of a successful deception program was “The Trust” (officially known as the Moscow Municipal Credit Association), run by Soviet intelligence between 1921 and 1927. The Trust had as its objectives the identification and elimination of anti-Bolshevik threats to the new Leninist regime, particularly among the exile organizations outside of the Soviet Union. Moreover, “the Trust was able to use its contacts with Western intelligence services to pass along misleading and false information on the internal state of the Soviet regime.” By these deceptive operations, the Lenin government was able to construct a vastly more positive image of the Soviet regime than had previously existed, allowed time for the Bolsheviks to consolidate their control over the Soviet Union, and “distracted the West with unproductive operations.”18
Executive Secrets Page 10
