'COGNITIVE DISSONANCE' VS. SOUND COGNITION

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000505110027-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 27, 2010
• Sequence Number: 27
• Publication Date: July 12, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
- Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/27: CIA-RDP90-00552R000505110027-2
ARTICLE APPEARED WALL STREET JOURNAL
ON PAGE 7 12 July 1984
`Cognitive Dissonance
Suppose that I announce that It has
been disclosed to me in a vision that floods
will cover the earth on July 31, 1984, but
that those who give up all and rally to my
side may well be saved. Suppose. further
that on July 31 I ascend a mountain peak
with my followers and there, bursting with
prayer and beset by reporters, await the
midnight hour of doom for all save me and
mine. What happens when midnight comes
and goes without disaster? The chances
are that I and my disciples will find the
event as somehow confirmatory of our be-
liefs and will continue to proselytize with
Viewpoint
by Alexander Cockburn
greater gusto than ever. The alternative
would be to admit that the scoffers had a
point after all.
The sociologists who described this par-
ticular pattern of self-hallucinating mental
gymnastics-they called it "cognitive dis-
sonance"-in a book called "When Proph-
ecy-Fails," published in the mid-1950s, con-
fined their examination to one tiny cult,
most of whose members were finally re-
stored to reason by the incredulity of the
outside world and particularly the cynical
attentions of the press.
But suppose that in the promulgation of
a delusion important elements in the press
were willing actors, eager proselytes for a
doctrine that turned out to be baseless?
Quis, as the saying goes, custodiet ipsos
custodes?
Round about 1974 the long climb down
from detente began. The prophets hoisted
signs to the general effect that the Soviet
slave state, populated exclusively by
drunkards, dissidents and mass mur-
derers, was bent upon world domination,
with its forward legions chafing to plunge
deep into Western Europe. The barrage in-
creased in intensity as the decade pro-
gressed, just as one might have expected
as the prophets neared triumph. Triumph
in this case meant the conclusive end of
detente, the destruction of arms control
and a great leap upward in U.S. military
spending.
Alarmism about the Soviet Union's in-
tentions is reasonable enough, for without
such alarmism military spending-the
main source of vigor in the U.S. economy-
would decline and with it the fortunes of
the nation. But as always in such spasms
of rational propaganda, the irrational in-
creasingly obtruded as the prophets went
about their business of delineating the So-
viet Union as the empire of evil, devoid of
all elements of humanity or reason.
One important element in this irration-
ality stemmed from the very vehemence of
the attack on the Soviet system. If this sys-
tem had engendered a falling birthrate, a
nation of drunks, an expiring economy
drained of initiative (and even, in one
phase of the barrage, oil), then how had
such a system managed to sponsor such
vibrant health in its supposedly dominant
sector of defense? If the Soviet system was
barely held down by the creakingly aged
despots in the Kremlin, then why would
these despots be contemplating so rash an
initiative as the invasion of Western Eu-
rope?
After a brief spell of cognitive disso-
nance, the prophets came back with the
"cornered bear" theory. This proposed
that Boris the Bear, politically and eco-
nomically bankrupt, would at the last ex-
tremity spring from history's cul-de-sac
and drag the world down with him in an
orgy of mutual destruction. Leaving aside
questions about the true state of the Soviet
economy, or of the corruption of the social
structure, cursory study of Russian history
suggests this to be highly unlikely.
As the propaganda barrage moved into
its final stages, the press began to sponsor
on an individual basis illustrations of the
utter swinishness and evil of the Soviets.
To take two well-known examples, the
"yellow rain" theory was particularly es-
poused by The Wall Street Journal edito-
rial page and by ABC television, and the
KGB-Bulgarian Pope Plot theory was ac-
corded the enthusiastic support of NBC
(and Marvin Kalb), the Reader's Digest
and of course Claire Sterling. The WSJ edi-
torial page was, unsurprisingly, also hospi-
table to Ms. Sterling's propositions. Since
there has been much talk this year of jour-
nalistic ethics and news-gathering prac-
tices, I should emphasize that journalism
.in both these cases moved well beyond "re-
porting" into "advocacy." The line be-
tween the two is a lot vaguer than many
might suppose, but in this case it was
clearly crossed.
And there was no mystery about what
lay behind the advocacy. Indeed, the advo-
cates stated it explicitly. If the Soviets'
complicity in the dropping of "yellow rain"
could be demonstrated, then it was clearly
futile and dangerous for the U.S. to discuss
or sign treaties with such an outlaw state.
The Pope Plot compounded this view. A
state that attempts to engineer the assassi-
nation of the holy father is beyond the
bound of civilized discourse.
Thus we have the reputations of power-
ful news media (and the reputations of pro-
minent journalists) intimately tied up with
the validity or otherwise of two hotly con-
tested propositions. What happens if proph-
ecy fails, and if the propositions turn out to
be false?
I'm sure that with that breadth of mind
for which they are justly famous, the edi-
tors of these pages would concede that
their theories about "yellow rain" have not
been immune to challenge and that serious
objections have been raised by scientists
and technicians who could scarcely be re-
garded as the agents of a Soviet disinfor-
mation campaign. Yet cognitive disso-
nance seems to have come into play. Amid
all the controversy over "yellow rain," the
WSJ published a lengthy series about So-
viet genetic engineering, supposedly for
the production of biological weapons,
blandly entitled "Beyond Yellow Rain."
The series was largely based on interviews
with emigres who had not seen the inside
of a Soviet lab in five years or more, drew
sweeping conclusions from mostly circum-
stantial evidence and, finally, stipulated
that though the U.S. is incontestably doing
exactly this sort of work, its work is
"good" and the Soviet work "bad." Thus
have the difficulties with the original "Yel-
low Rain" been effortlessly transcended.
The Pope Plot has reached such a pitch
that the New York Times, purportedly a
disinterested journal of record, published
the Italian prosecutor's indictment across
two pages of its news columns, below the
signature of . . . Claire Sterling! (One of
its own correspondents had, earlier, filed
some deprecating investigations of the
"plot.")
canurru
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/27: CIA-RDP90-00552R000505110027-2