DECEIVING OURSELVES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000403040010-3
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 26, 2012
• Sequence Number: 10
• Publication Date: October 12, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/26 :CIA-RDP90-009658000403040010-3
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64ASHINGTON POST
12 October 1986
Deceiving Ourselves
.ameriaol7t Ann t Tfery Good at Disinformation
Hy Drid Igoatiue
S TATE Department spokesman
Bernard Kalb resigned last
week to protest his govern-
ment's reported plan to use disia-
formation. Soviet Foc+sign Ministry
spokesman Genaadi C,eraaimov,
surely no stranger to the world of
disinformation, didr't.
That telb you two obvious but
important things abort official de-
ception. Meet of the world does it
routinely, blattdbr, without com-
punction. The United Staten does it
awkwardly, with a guilty con-
science, and suffers etarmous em-
barrassment when it gets caught.
Both points are worth remember-
ing: Most of the world routinely
lies, and the United States
doesn't-and shouldn't.
If you doubt that lying is a rou-
tine instrument of statecraft in
moat parts of the work!, take a ktok
at a study prepared last yeti by
The Rand Corp. The study, ponder-
ously titled "M Annotated Biblio-
graphy of the Open Literature on
Uecepdon," cites nearly 1,000
works about deception. from its use
rn China 2,500 yel~eago to modern
nines. A reader is Idt with the con-
clusion that in every age, in every
part of the gkabe, clever generals
and statesmen have used lies and
deceit to confuse and confound their
enemies, and sometimes their own
people.
The Rand study was prepared
under a contrsct from the Office of
the Secretary of Defense. It's valu-
able because it helps explain how
the Reagan admiwitration stum-
bled into planning itL own campaign
of "disinformation" against Libya
last August.
The Reagan administration and
its conservative allies see America
surrounded by a sea of disinforma-
r ron. Among conservatives, analyz-
,ng Soviet destinjonNatsya has be-
ome something of an academic
pub-specialty, with Soviet-bloc de-
rectors and American professors
writing learned hooka on the sub-
~ect. There is even a quarterly
newsletter titled "Disinformation:
oviet Active Messures and Disin-
formation ForecsstF' to warn the
Qaaid lg+wtitrs, aw eraiak editor
o% TNe Washingbu Part, is editor of
the OKtlook settioa<
unsuspecting reader about Mos-
cow's disinformation targets.
Some of this material is down-
right silly. For example, the news-
letter warns that Moscow's targets
this month include the World Peace
Congress opening in Copenhagen
on Wednesday and U.N. Disarma-
ment Week, starting Oct. 24. Next
month, beware of the Helsinki Re-
view Conference in Vienna, the
U. N. International Day of Solidarity
with the Palestinian People and-
egad!-the U.S. congressional elec-
tions.
The wonderful thing about this
list is that it takes events about
which Americans would otherwise
be completely oblivious-do you
know anybody who is actually plan-
ning to attend the World Peace
Congress, or who even knows what
it is?-and makes them seem like
serious and important events.
The disinformation specialists
are ever-vigilant. Consider this
warning about Soviet media plans
from the winter 1986 issue of "Dis-
information":
"Western media will be exploited
by both overt and covert tech-
niques. Increasing numbers of for-
mal press conferences will be held
by Soviet spokesmen; Soviet adver-
tisements will be placed in major
Western newspapers; and Soviet
officials and 'journalists' will be
made available for both on-the-air
and off-the-air meetings with the
Western media before, during and
after the second Reagan-Gorbachev
meeting. There will also be direct
broadcasts of contacts between the
Americans and the Russians."
Press conferences? Advertise-
ments in major Western newspa-
pers? Interviews with officials? The
soviets evidently will stop at noth-
~ng.
T he Rand study of deception
paints a similar picture of a
world awash m lies and de-
ceit, aworld in which events are
shaped not by the truth, but by dis-
tortions of it.
The bibliography cites among its
~~? 5 entries: a Roman studv of mil-
uary deception, written in 90 A. D.
by Sextus Julius Frontinus: an in-
vestigation of why the French un-
derestimated German strength be-
fore the invasion of the Rhineland in
1688; a discussion of deception
.~ritten by Frederick the Great in
1747; an analysis of the role of
propaganda in the American Rev-
olution in 1776.
The bibliography even cites ex-
amples of deception in nature: fe-
male Photuris fireflies,. for example,
that prey on males of other species
by mimicking the flash responses of
that species' females. Md there is a
study from American Naturalist
about "misinformation" and natural
selection.
The Rand collection also notes
the classic deception ploys (the
"bodyguard of lies" that Secretary
of State George Shulta referred to
last week) that helped the Allies to
win World War II: the elaborate
"Double-Craea" system that fed
German agents false intelligence to
corroborate Allied deceptions and
the case of " I'Fte Man Who Never
Was," in which the British dressed
up a corpse so that he would appear
to be a British major who had died
in a plane crash while carrying se-
cret (and false) invasion plena.
What's striking about the Rand
study is how few of the examples of
successful deception operations in-
volve the United States. There is a
simple explanation for that absence.
Americans, God bless us, aren't
very good at deception. As a people,
we lack many of the necessary
skills: subtlety, patience, a capacity
for sustained hypocrisy and deceit.
Lacking these essenpal skills, when
we try our hand at deception stra-
tegems, we tend to make a mess of
it. The proponents of the Libya dia-
information campaign, for example,
couldn't even get their alibis
straight.
The proponents of deception are
fond of quoting the Chinese strat-
egist Sun Tau, who wrote in the 5th
century B.C. that "All warfare is
haled on deception." They seem to
iKnore another passage by Sun Tzu
.m the importance of understanding
your own society and its limitations.
"Know the enemy and know your-
:c~lf; in a hundred battles you will
irc~ver be in peril," wrote Sun Tau.
"If ignorant both of your enemy :end
of yourself, you are certain m every
battle to be in peril."
The Reagan admimstrauon may
have understood Libya when tt
planned last August's campaign of
disinformation. But it certainly
didn't understand America.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/26 :CIA-RDP90-009658000403040010-3