AARON LEVENSTEIN

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 06705098
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 15
• Document Creation Date: December 28, 2022
• Document Release Date: July 31, 2018
• Case Number: F-2017-02452
• Publication Date: June 19, 1984

Approved for Release: 2018/07/24 006705098
CO5264486
EXF.CUT1VE SECRETARIAT
kOUTING SUP
TO:
r
1
ACTION
INFO
DATE
INITIAL
1
OCI
X W/0
att
201X1
X W/O
att
3
EXDIR
4
3
1D/ICS
'DOI
X Wilatt
6
DOA
.
- -
7
DOO
6
DOW'
9
Chm/NIC
�
10
GC
11
10
-Compt
12
: �
�
13
0/Pets
14
D/OLL
15
13/PAO
16
SA/IA
17
i
AO/DCI
1.3
C/IPD/OIS
19
ES
X w/o
att
20,.
21
r-22 f----
SUSPENSE
Date
' 17.-tmmis
3637 oce.
xamoi,msecrowy
20. June 84
Dat�
rinmved for Release: 2018/07/24 006705098
CO5264486
Approved for Release: 2018/07/24 C06705098
SECRET
ry
I
84- 2560/9
19 June 1984
MEMORANDUM FOR: Deputy Director for Intelligence
FROM: DirectOr Of Central Intelligence
SUBJECT: Aaron Levenstein
1. The attached is on the subject of the use which the other side
makes of words and concepts in damaging our reputation and diminishing our
policies. Aaron Levenstein is a very knowledgeable social democrat who has
been following communist propaganda for over forty years. If you think he
would be helpful in formulating the project you and I talked about, I think
he would be availabte for consultation.
2. Also attached is a paper I asked Pat Moynihan, who has pronounced
on the subject, to give me. I'd like to talk about how we might address
this subject which everybody seems to think is as important as it is
elusive.
William J. Casey
SECRET
Anoroved for Release: 2018/07/24 006705098
Co 5264486
Approved for Release: 2018/07/24 C06705098
Dear Aaron,
11w Diwctor o Central IntrIligence
w.r.turg..A.1) C
1 E,.. f.n.,.: 1�1:-..qi0.:y
84- 2560/8
19 June 1984
I very much appreciate your prompt and thoughtful response to my
request that you search your mind to identify the foremost practitioners
of psychological warfare of the late 1940s and early 1950s. You made
a good haul and I appreciate it. -
As you say, it is a very important subject and certainly the use
of these skills damages our position in the world. I have not yet
figured out how to go about assessing what we face in this area. Your
suggestions are good ones and I will keep in touch with you on this.
Best regards.
Yours,
William J. Casey
Mr. Aaron Levenstein
3083 Uncas Street
Mohegan Lake, New York 10547
Anuroved for Release: 2018/07/24 C06705098
CO5264486
Approved for Release: 2018/07/24 C06705098
AARON LEVENSTEIN
7�J'istry
2560/7 t
3083 UNCAS STREET
MONEGAN LAKE. NY 10547
June 16, 1984
Mr. William J. Casey, Director
Central Intelligence Agency
Washington, D.C. 20505
Dear Bill:
Your letter and the enclosures arrived while I was away,
and I'm hastening .to reply Pecause I believe the subject matter
is of top importance. It's my firm conviction, as I have said
to Leo on many occasions, that if we can't resolve the problem
of propaganda -- conscious and unconscious -- in this age of
mass communications, democracy will not be able to survive.
The basic premise of a free society.is that, in the long run,
the people will reach the right decisions and select the right
leadership if they have access to truthful information.
Democracy will die if the current wave of "semantic pollution"
cannot be conquered.
The basic point was elaborated by none other than George
Orwell in his famous essay, "Politics and the English Language,"
that begins:
Most people who bother with the matter at all would admit
that the English language is in a bad way, but it is
generally assumed that we cannot by conscious action do
anything about it. Our civilization is decadent and our
language -- so the argument runs -- must inevitably share
in the general collapse...
Now, it is clear that the decline of a language must
ultimately have political and economic causes: it is not
due simply to the bad influence of this or that individual
writer. But an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the
original cause and producing the same effect in an
intensified form, and so on indefinitely....
The point is that the process is reversible. Modern
English, especially written English, is full of bad
habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided
If one is willing to take the necessary trouble. If one
gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and
to think clearly is a necessary first step toward
political regeneration... (George Orwell, A Collection
DI _Essays, A Doubleday Anchor Book, New York 1954, pp.
162-3)
This is quite clearly your purpose in raising the issue,
and I think its accomplishment is a prerequisite if democracy
is to prevail over totalitarianism.
Approved for Release: 2018/07/24 C06705098
CO5264486
Approved for Release: 2018/07/24 C06705098
Your recollections are quite right. Back in the 1930s,
there was a group of sociologists at Columbia University, led
by Harold Lasswell and Paul Lazarsfeld, who were concerned with
propaganda analysis. They focussed particularly on the rela-
tively new phenomenon, radio. Another important figure was
Leonard Doob, who brought out a book in 1935 entitled
propaganda, I1A 21.Ygla1asy Ana Technique. Much of this
material was inspired by the need to resist the vast propaganda
drive that Hitler had let loose. A major center in the counter-
campaign wad the Institute for Propaganda Analysis, led
by a former journalist whose name, if memory serves me, was
Clyde Miller. It wa.s he and his group who described the basic
Hitler techniques in terms that eventually became part of the
current idiom -- for example:
"The Big Lie" -- Hitler had said, "The bigger the lie, the
more readily it will be believed."
"The stereotype" -- this was applied particularly in the
Nazi campaign against the Jews.
"The glittering generality" -- reference to abstractions
that had no operational meaning, like Volk (peoplehood),
Racial Purity, etc.
Resistance to the present propaganda wave will require the
development and acceptance of a vocabulary that accurately
identifies present-day techniques.
In the years immediately following World War II a good deal
was done by men like Kurt Lewin, the founder of Group Dynamics.
He demonstrated, for example, how people are converted to move-
ments like Communism. The propagandists do not expound the
philosophy of the movement -- most new recruits are told nothing
about the complex theories of historical materialism, class
struggle, surplus value, the dialectic, that Marx wrote about.
Instead the technique is to create a general attitude, perhaps on
a single immediate issue, while surrounding the individual by a
group pressure or an atmosphere. Then a point is reached where
the target, without having made a deliberate decision, considers
himself one of the group. The religious cults are now using the
same approach. Lewin develops this in one of the essays in
Besolving Social Conflicts; I can't give you a more specific
citation because I have misplaced my copy. (Also worth
reviewing is Carl I. Hovland's research on what happened during
the war effort in the U.S. and how attitudes in the Army were
shaped.)
Some of the above is summed up in passing in a major volume,
a thousand-page tome, edited by Ithiel de Sola Pool and William
Schramm (Rand McNally College Publishing Company), entitled
Hanslbook of Communication. (Pool, then at M.I.T., died recently;
he had come out of the same social democratic background as I,
and was firmly anti-Communist; in recent years he identified with
2
Approved for Release: 2018/07/24 C06705098
CO5264486
Approved for Release: 2018/07/24 C06705098
the neo-conservatives. Schramm is, unless he has retired, at
Stanford University.)
The current techniques of propaganda manipulation that we
have to overcome are adaptations of the methods used by anti-
democratic forces in the 1930s. They have taken a new form,
however, because of the nature of contemporary printed and elec-
tronic media. For instance, the "Big Lie" Technique has been
replaced by the "Bigger Truth" Technique. I recall a review in
the New York Times Book Review of Braestrup's book on the Tet
Campaign that Freedom House brought out. The reviewer, admitting
that the press had misrepresented the facts, as Braestrup demon-
strated, took the position that the press was right in doing so
because the reporters were serving "a greater truth" -- namely,
that the U.S. had.no right.to be in Vietnam.
One important change that has occurred in the techniques of
propaganda in the 1980s, as compared with the 1930s, is the
result of the very success of those techniques in throwing a
blanket of cynicism over the minds of the public. The skepticism
has not only touched "the Establishment"; it has jarred the
media themselves. The press, for instance, complains about the
enormous verdicts that juries are rendering in libel suits; in
the overwhelming majority of the cases, the higher courts reverse
the juries because of Sullivan v. New York Times, or reduce the
damages substantially. So far as I know, nobody in the media has
done sufficient self-examination to ask why the public, speaking
through the jury system, is so scornful of the media's honesty.
Onc they have set off the fires of mistrust, their own house
can't escape the conflagration. Unfortunately, even if one dis-
trusts or hates the brainwasher, the constant exposure leaves the
mind infected with the falsehoods.
Because the media have abandoned the traditional standard of
objectivity, they use language not to convey data but to convey
an attitude towards the data. No statistics about the actual number
of accidents in nuclear power plants can have any effect if the
data come into conflict with an attitude. Jacques Ellul, the
French sociologist and philosopher, points out that propaganda
aims at conditioning people's reflexes:
Propaganda tries first of all to create conditioned
reflexes in the individual by training him so that certain
words, signs or symbols, even certain persons or acts,
provoke unfailing reactions. Despite many protests from
psychologists, creating such conditioned reflexes,
collectively as well as individually, is definitely
possible. (Jacques Ellul, Propaganda -- the Formation
ol Men's Attitudes, New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1965, p.
31)
Ellul calls attention not only to conditioned reactions to
words but includes also signs AL symbols. That is why general
semantics, as a study, has been broadened into the field of
3
Approved for Release: 2018/07/24 C06705098
005264486
Approved for Release: 2018/07/24 606705098
semiotics, which includes the examination of all three. That
symbols are important is evidenced by the consistent campaign to
de-legitimize the nation's historic symbols through acts like
burning the flag, refusing to stand during the singing of the
national anthem, disrupting judicial proceedings, defiling reli-
gious symbols (example: the overt offensiveness with which the
.Star of David is used by political cartoonists in the Soviet
Union). I think the Administration's insistence on orderly ques-
tioning during White House press conferences, instead of simul-
taneous shouting by the reporters, has had a salutary effect on TV
viewers; so too the disciplinary response against Chris Wallace
(I think it was he) at the London summit when he insisted on
shouting a question in violation of the rule that there were to
be no questions during a picture-taking session.
It may be useful here to review briefly the propaganda
techniques that past studies have described and to note modifica-
tions that have since occurred:
1. Stereotypes. The contemporary version is largely
derivative from the portraits presented on the TV screen: the
businessman is invariably corrupt, power-hungry, lascivious
(see Dal/AA); the teacher is scared, ineffectual, discontented
(is this why young people are turning their backs on such a
career?); the scientist is callous about the consequences of
his research; etc., etc.
2. Epithets. Invective is an old method, but the
terminology changes. A recent example is the reference to
"Hymies" for Jews and "Hymietown" for New York. Applying a tag
that carries negative connotations is a practise made more
deadly by the enormous reach of the media. "Squeal law" became
the media's term of identification for a regulation that would
require parents to be notified that their children are re-
ceiving birth control information from publicly supported agen-
cies; the appellation made objective examination of a debatable
proposition virtually impossible.
3. Selectivity. "The propagandist, out of a mass of
complex facts, selects only those that are suitable for his
purpose," says one analyst. This phenomenon grows more serious
as the problems of society grow more complex. Because our media
emphasize the current, they fail to inform their readers and
viewers on the historical background. Can the Russian role in
Poland today be understood without knowledge of the betrayal and
execution of the leaders of the Polish government in exile who
went back from London to negotiate with the Russians on the basis
of the Yalta pledge of free elections? Certainly, limitations of
space and time require selectivity, but if the standard for
selection is which facts will serve to advance a predetermined
point of view, democracy must fall victim to misinformation. Even
if the individual facts presented are true, falsification occurs
if they are placed in a false context or if they are so stacked
that they result in a totally wrong impression.
Approved for Release: 2018/07/24 C06705098
CO5264486
Approved for Release: 2018/07/24 C06705098
4. The veil of. yerbiag, . Truth can be conceded and
dismissed through the device of overwhelming the reader or
hearer with a mass of words. Orwell gives this illustration:
Consider for instance some comfortable English professor
defending Russian totalitarianism. He cannot say out-
right, "I believe in killing off your opponents when you
can get good results by doing so." Probably, therefore,
he will say something like this:
"While freely conceding that the Soviet regime exhibits
certain features which the humanitarian may be inclined to
deplore, we must, I think, agree that a certain curtail-
ment of the right to political opposition is an unavoid-
able concomitant of transitional periods, and that the
rigors which the Russian people have been called upon to
undergo have been amply justified in the sphere of con-
crete achievement." (Op. cit., p. 173)
5. Bold assertiveness. This is part of the technique of
the Big Lie. Truth is whatever the propagandist says it is. A
recent example is the following from a front-page article by
R. W. Apple, Jr., in the New York Times, March 19, 1984, headed
"Greece Under Papandreou: Leftist but in Western Camp":
Over recent months Ethnos (Greek newspaper that has won a
libel suit against a reporter who called it an agent of
the USSR] has been arguing that the vision of George
Orwell in "Nineteen Eighty-Four" was of the future of the
West, and particularly the United States, and not of the
Soviet Union.
6. Repetition and BloganeerIng. Propagandists rely on a
pile-driver repetition of particular phrases to lead to ulti-
mate acceptance. Soviet speeches at the UN are a monotonous
spewing forth of the same phrases to describe the same arguments
endlessly. Is there something cultural about the resistance of
the West to repeating itself in the same words? The Russians
catch onto a phrase, say the phoney linkage "Americans-Zionists,"
and bring it into play like a reflex action. Or consider the
psychology of such sloganizing as "Better red than dead." Is it
true because it rhymes, whereas "Better communist than dead"
would be false because it does not? Would the West be winning
the argument if it had come forward with "Better dead than red"?
Or what about "Neither red nor dead" which is the intelligent
policy of deterrence?
7. Bcapegoating. Hitler used the Jews as a device to
rally his followers, while he was preparing his attack on the
real adversaries, those he later called the "pluto-democracies."
At the UN, the Russians have picked up the Arab target, Israel,
for the same purpose, but behind the attacks on Israel is the
real target, the U.S. Indeed, the Russians who were among the
5
Approved for Release: 2018/07/24 C06705098
CO5264486
Approved for: Release: 2018/07/24 C06705098
first at the UN to approve the creation of the state of Israel
(expecting it to become an ally if not a satellite) now denounce
it as a "tool of the U.S. in the Middle East," acting as an agent
of American imperialism even when the U.S. publicly expresses its
opposition to a given Israeli policy.
8. risreprgsentation by extension. This technique involves
pushing an adversary's argument beyond the true boundaries of his
words and his intent. By rewording or by misinterpreting his
statement, it becomes possible to attribute to him views he never
held and thus to render him vulnerable to attack. This technique
often restates a proposition in words that add connotations,
associations or emotional content that the author never intended
and, indeed, may flatly oppose. Two recent examples of misrepre-
sentation by extension:
a. The New York Daily News in a front-page headline de-
clared that President Ford, responding to an appeal for financial
aid from New York City, had said: "Drop dead!" (It has become
increasingly the practice for journalists, particularly on radio
and TV, to rephrase what public figures have said and to present
it in such a way that the public believes those were the words
spoken. This is frequently done by interviewers who try to force
the interviewee to accept their wording of the proposition.)
b. The New York Times was responsible for a shocking mis-
representation of a statement made by Archbishop O'Connor, given
in reply to a question asked in an interview. He had compared
abortions with the deaths in the Holocaust. The Times used some
of his impromptu language to accuse him of holding the view that
the Jews had been a "problem" in Germany during the Hitler
period. This despite O'Connor's well known position on the
persecution of the Jew.
9. Guilt by association. This is a familiar technique, but
the opposite side of the same coin is innocence by association.
Thus, it is argued that Alger Hiss must have been innocent be-
cause targets of Senator McCarthy were innocent; or that Hiss
must have been innocent because one of his accusers was Richard
Nixon. A curious example is the case of New York City's Schools
Chancellor who was charged with financial improprieties unrelated
to any political issue. He defended himself, according to the
New York Times (March 27, 1984), in a well received speech at
City College: ".. the 41-year-old Chancellor compared his plight
to that of educators who were silenced during the cold war and
pledged to state his case loudly and repeatedly."
10. Sotto voce complunication. I use this term to de-
scribe a practise that is more subtle than the Russian "Every-
body knows..." technique. (Prof. Morris Raphael Cohen used to
say to us when we used such a phrase: "I don't care if every-
body knows; I want to know how you know.") The sotto voce
technique puts crucial issues in subordinate clauses or paren-
thetical phrases, as if they are generally agreed upon and no
6
Approved for Release: 2018/07/24 C06705098
005264486
Approved for Release: 2018/07/24 C06705098
longer at issue. Or the subordinate clause may seem to be
describing a sinister fact which, if it were stated in a direct
sentence would not at all appear to be sinister. Here is a
recent example from the New York Times (April 15, 1984), re-
porting that the Israel army had announced that it had
destroyed the homes of certain terrorists: "The army, which did
not explain why it waited 24 hours to announce the demolitions,
said the houses were bulldozed in the villages of..."
Tom Wicker in the New York Times is a master of the
interpolated comment. For example, writing of John Glenn, he
says: "This is a serious disability.-- and a peculiarly Ameri-
can failing -- for a man, etc., etc." It's the parenthetical
interpolations, reiterated often enough, that create an atti-
tude based on no substantive examination since it is treated as
a foregone conclusion or an already established fact for which
no proof is needed.
11, The distorting leas. The problems that exist in the
print media are even more serious in the visual media. The
polls show that Americans rely more on TV and radio for their
news than on the press. McLuhan's statement that "the medium Is
the message" once seemed outlandish, but has proved to be the
reality. TV is oriented to the visual; what cannot be seen is
therefore given less attention by the medium. Yet the unseen
maybe more important than the seen. The poverty of a black
family is easily photographed and will get more time than the
tedious, process of improving a Chrysler assembly line, though
the latter has more relevance for the poverty problem. Thus,
the medium is the message, but the message is a distorted
picture of our society. The printed media then follow suit
because they must remain competitive, and further distortion
takes place.
In bygone times, the glory of our freedom of the press was
that it produced a diversity of reporting. One could find a
clash of opinions and perspectives by reading the New York
Times and the Herald-Tribune. Today one cannot differentiate
the treatment of news from one network to another; in basic
approach, the New York Times and the Washington Post follow the
same premises. The purpose of the First Amendment -- to
guarantee that a variety of voices would be heard -- is not
being fulfilled.
This is not due to any conspiracy on the part of the media
to formulate one single view of the world and to impose it on
the public. The uniformity is due to the fact that the news
output is forced through the same McLuhanesque mold. Sydney H.
Schanberg, the New York Times columnist, recently introduced
his commentary on a Democratic Party primary debate with a
reference to the fact that "as usual, the think-alike press
corps missed the big issue." (March 13, 1984) They think
alike because the medium writes their message.
7
Approved for Release: 2018/07/24 006705098
C05264486
Approved for Release: 2018/07/24 C06705098
Recently, the New York Times noted that an important
speech by Walter Mondale at Emory University got little
coverage on the electronic media; "the national networks either
ignored it or used only a scant portion of it." The reason:
"the former Vice President's phrases tend to be too long,
making speeches difficult to cut into for the nightly news."
(March 11, 1984) Some time thereafter, the Times carried a
story (March 26, 1984) to the effect that Mr. Mondale's media
consultant, Raymond Strother, said that he usually sends his
clients for training to a video studio. The Times quotes him
as follows:
"And in that studio, we teach the candidate how to stand,
how to address the camera, how to address a reporter's
question," Mr. Strother said. The point, given the
tightness of television time, is for him to be able to
answer any question in 30 to 40 seconds.
Can democracy work if the market place of ideas, including
electoral decisions, is to be stocked with 30-to-40 second
intellectual wares?
Already this letter is far too long, and I know your
reading burden is enormous. I would have liked to discuss also
the political and social significance of the socalled "docu-
drama," through which the TV audience is being taught recent
American history -- for instance, the Alger Hiss case, the
Oppenheimer story, etc. But let me conclude this over-lengthy
response to your question with these additional observations
and some bare-bones recommendations:
Of course we must not interfere with the great tradition
embodied in the First Amendment. But that very amendment is
based on the premise that the health of the Republic requires
that there be competition in the marketplace of ideas. If we
have reached a point where there is only uniformity of opinion
in the marketplace -- not by virtue of conspiracy, I repeat,
but inherent in the very mechanisms of mass communication --
then those who believe in preserving America's tradition of
pluralism must undertake new initiatives. At the very least
these would require:
1. convening some of the people who participated in
the efforts to inoculate Americans against the Nazi propaganda
during the 1930s and the War -- semanticists like Hayakawa if
they are available and sociologists like Seymour Martin Lip-
set, Nathan Glazer, and others they could suggest, with a view
to providing --
2. a thorough analysis of what is happening in our mass
communications system, and
8
Approved for Release: 2018/07/24 C06705098
CO5264486
Approved for Release: 2018/07/24 C06705098
3. the creation of a new Institute for Propaganda
Analysis, which like its predecessor would be conducted by
private citizens and would function in the interests of
American democracy and without partisan bias.
Such a beginning, I believe, could lead to the development
of a program that would strengthen the American ideal --
diversity of 'discussion, civility of discourse, and
consistency of national purpose.
Thank you, Bill, for asking me for my views. It brought
back many memories of our association in the hectic 1940s.
Sincerely,
9
Approved for Release: 2018/07/24 C06705098
CO 5 2 6 4 4 8 6 Approved for Release: 2018/07/24 C06705098
FALL 197A POI ley Review
The Power of the Press:
A Problem for Our Democracy
MAX M. KAMPELMAN
41 SALT II�A Soft Bargain, A Hard Sell:
An Assessment of SALT in Historical Perspective
EUGENE V. nosTow
57 Proposition 13: Tax Reform's Lexington Bridge
DANIEL ORR
09 Words and Foreign Policy
DANIEL PATRICK MOYNIHAN
73 How Government Profits From Inflation
EAMONN BUTLER
77 Countdown in Rhodesia
WILLIAM R. KINTNER
The Pacific Century and U.S. Foreign Policy:
Two Views
89 The United States, Japan
and the Defense of the Pacific
ERNEST W. LEFEVER
105 American Foreign Policy and Northeast Asia
EDWARD NEIIAN
119 Book Reviews by WILLIAM it. PETERSON, KENNETH L.
ADELMAN, ROBERT L. SCHUETTINGER. JOHN B.
BRECKINRIDGE and CHRISTOPHER THIELE
hr ru in copyrighted C) 1975 by The i leritage Foundation. Requests for
perminsion to rept int trutce than ii few pat ,graph or articles should lie atIth caned
in the editor.
Puha 10,4,0 widen ate iceularly 311�11aCled or indexed in the leading nocial
mien, r ndexing nervirrs. including AnC-Pol Sri, Cumufatitte Intim In Perindiro13, Ci1,-
(.111 Coufrn)v/Sortal & Brharinral HLIM4,1 ReACIldreel AbliraCil, International Po-
Srirure if Monett, ,11nnfkly Perinthral Index, Public Affain information Strvie,, Public
Shulom !Motto-um, Sugi, Pub& kimini,Priirui f Wrath, Sage Urfan
suriul Afif,H11 Coultinu Unite., Nahum Curren, I liAlingonthir Inforuentinu,
Uuiuui Stithu PulitiralSrtPurpnuf,u,ut, and r;,bn AffainAborueb,
r,�firy nrr�ielo. is availaltie ii,, eee i c from Ilitixel lily Mil-million International.
:WO N Zerlt Rd.. Aim Att.,. lull �1111111.
I.r inte: nal; ,,,, Siatidni el Sr. Noillthrt (or Peter) firui�u� in ISSN: 01,111.50�15
Nmiunal .oussslatuls lwxtltsinten: R. Ilelluet IRA 1101 !inert.
NtItIry, NJ. 0711n I rlevlume: 2111/9979:11101.
Words and Foreign Policy
DANIEL PATRICK MOYNIHAN
Years ago Disraeli, in one of the novels, remarked that "Few
ideas me correct ones, and none can ascertain which they are.
it is with words we govern men." There can he no doubt
that words are important in government and they are especially
so in the delicate arena of foreign policy negotiations. It is for
this reason that I have recently been troubled by what appears
to me to be the undisciplined sisi- of language with which
American spokesmen and principal officers of the government
have addressed themselves to certain foreign policy problenis.
In particular, I am concerned about the phenomenon dealt
with so brilliantly by George Orwell in his classic essay.
"Politics and the English Language." More specifically I shisold
like to briefly call to the at of our diplomats a more
recent and. I think, important point made by Dr. Fred Charles
Ikle (formerly a professor of poliilcal science at NI IT and
lately director of :he Arms Control and Disarmament Agency).
Some years ago, in a paper on American difficulties in
negotiating with communist countries (published, by the Rand
Corporation), he pointed to the process whereby we come to
adopt the language of our adveriaries in, describing political
reality. Ile gave to this process the intriguing term "semantic
infiltration."
I quote a passage from the paper he wrote on the matte'.
He said:
Paradoxically, despite the fact that the State Depart
mcnt and other government agencies bestow so much care
on tin. vast verbal output of Communist governments,
we have been careless in adopting the language of tour
opponents and their definitions�of Conflict issues in many
cases where this was clearly to our disadvantage. Di
perhaps this is not so paradoxical. It might be precisely
because our offirials spend so much time on the oppo�
'lents' rhetoric that they eventually use his wook � first
in quotation marks, later without.
'I hese an. u onrrins %%inch arc at Ike licarl a today's majoi
political conflicts. For years nmv, most brutal totalitarian
regimes in the svoild have called themselves "people's demo.
Approved for Release: 2018/07/24 C06705098
Approved for Release: 2018/07/24 006705098
70
Policy Review
cracics" or "democratic republics."
The term "people's democracies," according to Milovan
Djilas, was coined by Stalin himself and given as part of the title
of the new publication that attended the formation of the
Cominform in 1947. Stalin wanted us constantly repeating the
fact that the Cominfarm journal for "A People's Democracy"
said such and such. Similarly, organizations in various parts of
the world which seek to emulate and institute that manner of
regime have taken to calling themselves "liberation move-
ments."
"Semantic Infiltration" at State
Now here is the problem we face today.
For some time, the Secretary of Stale, who is a distinguished
and capable American statesman, in referring to the parties to
the dispute in Rhodesia, has spoken of "the l'atriotic Front,"
on the one hand, and "the Salisbury group," on the other.
Now, "the Patriotic Front" is made up of forces supplied by
land backed by the totalitarian powers, the Soviet Union and
'China. The self-styled "Patriotic Front" represents the armed
component of totalitarianism, a philosophy which they openly
espouse.
However. who would not wish to be with "the Patriotic
Front?" Is there a man whose heart is not stirred by the
prospect of joining with the Patriots? Who, by contrast, would
wish to be with "the Salisbury group"? It sounds like a mining
Concession put together by investment bankers in London.
Let me cite another example. On July 17, in a State Depart-
ment briefing, the spokesman for the Department of State
Made the following statement:
, There cannot be a peaceful settlement unless the libera-
tion forces and the Salisbury parties are satisfied. What we
arc seeking is an agreement by all parties to fair elections
under neutral transition-arrangements.
By using the words "liberation forces" the Department of
State spokesman is-referring to the guerrillas who are armed by
the Soviet Union and China and who certainly espouse a
totalitarian doctrine. The Department of State spokesman
went on to say that we want "fair elections under neutral
transition arrangements."
I would argue that the use of those terms, the choice of those
co
.7r, words, is fatal to the object of neutrality. Inen you have
Lc)
C\1
Words and Foreign Policy
71
described one side as the liberation forces and the other side
as a group in the capital, you have summoned all the imagery
of political legitimacy of the 20th century and put it on the
one side and denied it to another. That is not only fatal to
rieutrality but, I suggest, it is fatal to clear thinking about this
phenomenon.
The Need to Describe our Adversaries Accurately
I do not believe this is a trivial matter. For some years, I
have been arguing that the Vest's political culture is endangered
by the fact that the vocabulary and the symbols of political
progress arc being expropriated by the opponents of our values.
Democracy, as we understapd it, is under assault from
totalitarians masquerading as democrats � just as democratic
socialism is under assault from totalitarians masquerading
as socialists in Eastern Europe. Nonetheless, we persist in
dignifying these enemies of freedom with the terminology
of freedom � so that we persistently misdescribe the political
forecc arrayed against us.
It is thus important that we convey the impression to the
world that we understand the difference between national
liberation on the one hand, and the progressive brutalization
of politics which is being carried on by the Soviets in the
name of national liberation.
If I could use a term of nautical imagery, I would like to
suggest that at the very least the Department of State's accept-
ance of this language is unscamanlike. It is prejudicial to good
order and to semantic discipline. It reveals a carelessness that
verges on negligence or, alternatively, it reveals a private agenda
that needs to be further explored in public. �
In summation, I believe we need not be ashamed to express
our proprietary .interest in the notions of self-determination
and representative government. And it is essential to our own
well-being in the world that other nations not be permitted
to distort these concepts into a shape which would exclude
our own democracy from the proper definition.
Approved for Release: 2018/07/24 006705098
C05264486
Approved for Release: 2018/07/24 C06705098
act,nct
1 Ey.n7.,,. � ":'.�;�_�.:ry
__..._..........____
C4- 2560/9- ...4
19 June 1984
MEMORANDUM FOR: Deputy Director for Intelligence
FROM: DirectOr Of Centril Intelligence
SUBJECT: Aaron Levenstein
1. The attached is on the subject of the use which the other side
makes of words and concepts in damaging our reputation and diminishing our
policies. Aaron Levenstein is a very knowledgeable social democrat who has
been following communist propaganda for over forty years. If you think he
would be helpful in formuldting the project you and I talked about, I think
he would be available for consultation.
2. Also attached is a paper I asked Pat Moynihan, who has pronounced
on the subject, to give me. I'd like to talk about how we might address
this subject which everybody seems to think is as important as it is
elusive.
William J. Casey
SECRET
Approved for Release: 2018/07/24 C06705098