WELL-OILED PROTEST MACHINE AIMS TO KILL CONTRA AID

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00806R000100510003-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 24, 2010
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: April 8, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/24: CIA-RDP90-00806R000100510003-1
By John Holmes
and Bill Outlaw
Intelligence experts call it "The
Network" - a massive but almost'
invisible spiderweb of hundreds of
left-wing groups and organizations,
linked together by sinewy threads of
personnel, ideology and politics, and
seeking dramatic changes in the
social, economic and political poli-
cies of the United States govern-
ment.
And- now, The Network has
focused its attention and resources
on its latest target: President Rea-
gan's Latin American policy.
Last Thursday night, shortly after
President Reagan announced his
plans for bringing a halt to conflict
in Nicaragua, a coalition of pacifist
church groups began to prepare for
a program of "nationally coordi-
nated legal vigils and phone-ins" of
protest.
Dennis Marker, spokesman for
that coalition, which is called Pledge
of Resistance, was quoted over the
weekend as saying that an "active
alert" went out over its 55,000-
person telephone network. Mem-
bers of this network were told to call
their congressmen the day after Mr.
Reagan makes a future television
speech on Nicaragua and urge them
to vote against his policies.
This apparently well-oiled protest
machine is just a small part of what
is called "The Network:" Over the
years, those who organize, operate
and manipulate this web have
thrown their efforts behind many
causes opposed to policies of the
administration.
The Network consists of literally
hundreds of groups on the left side
of the religious and political spec-
trum. Many are shoebox and tele-
phone booth outfits - small groups
of cause-oriented people working in
cramped spaces for little or no
money. Some, however, are large,
well-funded and highly organized.
Most of these organizations claim
to be non-partisan and independent,
interested in such noble causes as
"human rights" and "social justice:'
Tb a degree, that's true; and many
individuals who participate in these
activities are motivated out of a
genuine sense of righteousness and
altrusim.
But in many cases, that's not the
whole truth.
WASHINGTON TIMES
8 April 1985
Well-oiled
protest.
machine
aims to
Contra ai
Wall Street Journal columns
Suzanne Garment pointed out tha
"there is by now - on the America
I left - a whole cottage industr
using the language of human right
and social justice to delegitimize
i the United States' efforts to nurnm
democratic, anti-communis
regimes in Latin America.
"While these organizations por
tray themselves as `objective
observers of Latin America, thi
often is not the case:' said Joaj
Fraley, an analyst writing in th
Heritage Foundation's "Polic3
Review"
"Analysis of Latin America
issues is offered mainly by organza
lions whose fundamental ideologica.
perspective is sharply suspicious of
if not openly hostile to, U.S. policy
this region:"
Of course, legitimate differences
of opinion and debate are essential
to the democratic process. But
experts who have observed The Net-
work over many years point out that
some of the groups employ question-
able tactics, including the planting
of disinformation and outright
deception - a tactic known as
"active measures:'
"Anything that advances their
cause is, in their eyes, the truth. Any-
thing that retards it becomes an
untruth;" wrote Auguste Lecoeur, a
former high-ranking : Communist
Party official in France, who was
drummed out for protesting the
Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.
Adds one analyst: "Ever since the
creation of the World Peace Council
by the Soviet Union in 1949, Moscow
has manipulated the slogan 'peace'
as a weapon of 'war.' "
And some groups in The Network.
actively cooperate with organiza-
tions established by the Kremlin for
just these "active measures;" pro-
claiming allegiance nevertheless to
the lofty goal of "world peace"
of groups, this handful stands out as
the largest, best organized and sin-
gularly most effective. In an arena
littered with amateurs, these are the
professionals.
While their names may sound
vague and non-partisan, and they
may have differing fields of prime
i interest, many groups in The Net-
work are linked in one way or
another to the Institute for Policy
Studies (IPS), which has been
described as a radical "think tank"
with headquarters near Dupont Cir-
1 cle.
"IPS has one line [on Central
America]: It wants the United States
to be disinvolved;' says Sam Dickens,
director of Interamerican Affairs
for the conservative American Secu-
rity Council.
"The single objective is to curtail
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/24: CIA-RDP90-00806R000100510003-1