WEB OF LIES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000807560024-3
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 23, 2012
• Sequence Number: 24
• Publication Date: October 5, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/23: CIA-RDP90-00965R000807560024-3
y ? 17~I`1 wl
WASHINGTON POST
5 October 1986
Joseph Laitin
Web of Lies
The reader outrige over The
Post's publishing 'Mfi Woodward's
revelation last week that our govern-
ment has been conducting a carefully
planned program o.give false infor-
mation to the, 'American people
matched the anger of those in the
past month who were offended at
some ethnic and religious articles car-
ried in this paper. ' .
But in this new outpouring of anger,
it is odd that the vehement reaction
was to The Post's printing things that
were true. There was not a shred of
indignation that The Post, along with
other news media; had unknowingly
printed lies. It is also interesting to
note that both the Truth and the lies
were provided by government officials.
What it boils down to is that the
government was telling big fibs and
The Post was telling big truths. So
who gets castigated? It is a sorry
state of affairs.
Every day, government spokesmen
put a "spin" on the facts to make the
administration look ' good. I imagine
that's been standard operating proce-
dure since George Washington's ad-
F Ombudsman ,
Ministration. As for the government's
slicing the truth a little thin, in
day-to-day operations, that's what
newspeople get paid for-they're not
stenographers simply taking down
what's told them. Their job is to ask
questions, panning for nuggets of gold.
But when the government tells out-
right lies that are. sometimes impossi-,
ble to disprove, this requires a whole
new look at government.
In contemporary. times, all adminis-
trations have been guilty of lying. A
Pentagon spokesman'in the Kennedy-
Johnson era said the 'government had a
right to he to defend. itself. The presi-
dent who made it a. campaign issue that
he would never li:e to the American
people had his press secretary the press when he.-felt the misleadi occasionj
demanded it. The Nixon administration
was laced with untruths foisted on the
American people, and it paid the heavy
est price for it. .
In this recent, exercise in official
government deceit, it was a case of
amateur night: growii men acting like
children, but playing with a dangerous
toy, which is disinformation-a word,
incidentally, coined by the Soviets
that refers to the practice of slipping
into the system negative stories for
the purpose of confusing the enemy.
(Moscow's speedy advice to the Unit-
ed States of its disabled nuclear sub
off the East Coast may well have been
an inspired effort' to capitalize on
Washington's embarrassment by
showing how the Kremlin levels with
the American people.)
Secretary of State Shultz, no friend
of the Russians, defends the employ.
ment of the caret llV planned web of
lies, which is an effort, intentional or
otherwise, to corrupt the press. He
quotes Winstorr~ -Churchill's World
War II observation that "in time of
war, the truth is so precious it must
be attended by a bodyguard of lies."
Secretary Shultz thus compares a
desert rat like Moammar Gadhafi
with a monster like Adolf Hitler.
This is a situation impossible to
defend, even for so honorable a man
as George Shultz,, It is curious that
Secretary Shultz's defense did
achieve one pure he hardly intend-
ed: unequivocal confirmation of Bob
Woodward's story,,, which the White
House was ineptly denying. And
where will all this leave government
officials who do tell the truth?
There are only, two criticisms I
have of Bob Woodward's story. He
was too hard on, The Wall Street
Journal, which carried the first "disin-
formation" article; after all, it was the
victim, not the perpetrator. And he
should have raised the question of
whether the disinformation gang had
been testing the -.eaters for some
months prior to The Journal article
and perhaps planted one or two fabri-
cated stories in The Post.
It is desirable that we do not return
in the wake of this" unfortunate affair
to the post-Watergate era, when the
Woodward-Bernstein school of jour-
nalism spawned anew breed of corre-
spondent who cruellk cross-examined,
rather than skillfulJlrinterviewed, who
considered government officials guilty
until they proved 'themselves inno-
cent. This unpt'oductive syndrome
had just about worn off in Washing-
ton, but here we are again.
The American. people are best
served when there, exists a healthy
arm's-length relatJonship between
government and the news media.
I hope and pray for the sake of the
American people that, in this uneasy
balance between government and the
news media, neither side ever wins a
decisive victory.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/23: CIA-RDP90-00965R000807560024-3