GOVERNMENT DECEPTION, DISINFORMATION, DELUSION

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000706570002-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 13, 2011
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: November 2, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STET
~ Declassified in Part
~I Tad Sauk
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/13 :CIA-RDP90-009658000706570002-8
?t Jai LUJ HIYI~tLCJ 111'ICJ
1 2 November 1986
Government Dece
- p ,
Disinformation, Delusion
w~~ox
A mericanforeign-policy imbroglios
over Libya and Nicaragua are
only the most recent examples of
how easy it is to u a supposedly
well-informed democratic sodety, and
how short ie our institutional memory.
In this realm, we should distinguish
between ouch notions as disinformation
and decetption.
Disinformation is an acxepted tactic in
international politics, intelligence opera-
tions and wars of nerves everywhere in
the world. The East and the West emend
considerable resourcxs spreading disin-
formation about an endless variety of
topics to affect responsive policy deciaiona
and attitudes. The Central Intelligence
A~encv and the KGB can pn~aumably
claim that the have caused ea to be
tope ere ere World
throw h ima inative dieinior n
arms and more .
In the case ya, an eYamp a of
not-eo-imaginative disinformation, the
Reagan Administration pioua),y denied
having undertaken to destabilise the
regime of Moammar KadaB last August,
although it was painfully dear to friend
and fce that the ineptly orcl-estrated
scenario, including misinforming the
American media, had been set in motion at
the highest levels in Washingwn.
It is also useful in ova shadowy would of
foreign involvement to separate policy
deceptfon, visibly carried out by the
government, and so-galled covert actions
conducted secretly by the same govern-
ment, but on a different scale and for
other reasons. Covert actbn may lead is
time to escalation and become part of a_
broader deception, or it may, from the
outset, be part of an enterprise of dtcep-
tion. .
Thus the CIA began its Laos operations
in the 19?Os as covert activities before
transforming them into full-fledged "se-
cret war." The agency's early clandestine
jabs at Cuba led to the Bay of Pigs. Covert
operations in the Congo were nearly
another CiA war, complete with Cuban
pilots from the Bay of Pigs. CIA covert
political action helped to quicken the
ouster of the leftist regime of Salvador
Allende in Chile. The CIA's paramWtary
action in Nicaragua smoothed the way for
the contras-and whatever may follow
them.
Deception is fundamentally a national
policy of considerable magnitude. Pre-
teuta and justifications are a vital part of
the scenarios In "A Thousand Days,"
Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., who served as
a praddentW assistant during the Bay of
Pigs, recalls that just weeks bdare the ~
attack he was instructed to produce a
white paper on Cuba to "help clarify the
new political objectives. To make the
invasion and its aftermath politically
'acceptable, the white paper .urged Fidel
Castro "to sever links" with "internat'ion-
al communism," warning that "if this call
is unheeded, we are confident that the
Cuban people ...will continue to strive
~ for a tree Cuba" In as much as the CIA
counted on an anti-Castro uprising to
coincide with the invasion, the white
paper o[fered the justification far U.S.
support, wrongly suggesting that Cubans
were ready to do away with thetr revolu-
tion.
Four years later, President Lyndon B.
Johnson dispatched a Marine dividon and
an airborne division to the Dominican
Republic where a dvu war had erupted
between the rightist military establish-
ment and the leftist supporters of a
democratically elected president who had
been thrown out by the army. Johnson
In Nicaragua, the Administration stW
does not admit that its real objective in
a~pporting the contras, the chaotic rebel
groups whom the Congress recently
awarded 1100 million in irbsh funds. is the
overthrow of the 3at~dinieEa regime that is
closely allied to Cuba and the Sovkts. The
White House continues ~ maintain the
fiction that all the United States wants is
internal democracy in that Central Amer-
ican republic. This is why Eugene Hasen-
fus, the disavowed secret warrior whose
coraftm supply plane was, downed by a
Sandinista missile, pereon'i8es the policy
of great deception-sold embarrasa-
~ went-era he stands trial in Managua. O
7bd Sonic is tlu author of a new Mopr+aphy
of I~idat Glastrc, "I~Ydsl? a Critical Pertrait; ,
to be pn6iished t>tita monM by WtWam
Morrow.
believed that a victory by the "oonatitu-
tionalista" would result in a communist
takeover and a "new Cuba," but the
official justification for landing the tw6
?U.S. divisions was the need to protect and :
evacuate several hundred Americans and
other foreigners raiding in the coimtrg
(though they were in no danger). U.S::
forces assured the victory of the military .
group, but those of ua who wrote newt
atones disputing Johnson's version of .
history became targets of his formidable
In the Vietnam conflict, Johnson auc=
seeded in winning congressional and
public opinion support for air strikes on
North Vietnam and, subsequently, f~
introdudng 500.000 Amerikan troops iA
the war. It took years before it became
dear that no American destroyer hacj
been attacked by the North Vietnamese fA
the Tonkin Gulf, and that Johnson's claim
to that effect was pure fabrication.
Unquestionably, the Reagan Adminili-
tration wins new honors for deceptbn iii
the service of foreign policy In 1983
public opinion was persuaded that the
ill-advised presence of U.S. Marines hi
Beirut would guarantee peace in I,ebanoti
and nerve our strategic needs; it led to the
massive killing of Marines in a vehi=
cle-bomb explosion. That acme year the
tiny island of Grenada in the eastern
Caribbean, then in the throes of a savage
conflict between leftist factions, was
invaded by U.S. forces. Though the real
reason was the Cuban military and politi-
caipresence on Grenada, tie of5dal story
was the evacuation of several hundred
American students at the medical college
there.
Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/13 :CIA-RDP90-009658000706570002-8