TARGET

AMERICA
The Influence of
Communist Propaganda
on U.S. Media
James L. Tyson
Preface by Reed Irvine

What They Say About Target America

"This book is probably the first of this kind... The U.S. public may learn a lot
of basic facts about how Communism and the USSR penetrate the world, the
United States and mass media in this country... I, as a former functionary of the
Communist regime, can only confirm what so ably Mr. Tyson described in his
most fascinating book.
Prof. Zdzislaw M. Rurarz former
Ambassador of Poland to Japan who
defected to the U.S. in 1981.
"...should almost be required reading for all public officials and those in
media management... extremely timely and its message cannot be turned aside
or discredited as Cold War "paranoia" or McCarthyism reincarnate...
thorough, objective, and well pondered... The most ominous theme in the
book concerns the apparent inability of the United States to deal with Sovietdirected onslaughts... Hopefully the President will take heed of Tyson's book
and other warnings and direct a major interagency effort to learn and expose the
full extent of the Soviet offensive and its inroads."
Dr. Joseph D. Douglass Jr.
Strategic Review
"Anyone trying to understand the key role the mass media are playing
presumably unwittingly in most casesin the self-destruction of the remaining
free societies, will find the Tyson book invaluable. What's more, the case
histories it provides make it a fascinating reading." Lubor Zink Toronto
Sun.
"The greatest service Tyson has performed is to raise an important issue in a
responsible manner. Most of us in the news business are aware that we are
frequently manipulated to some extent, but what we must confront is how to mesh
our responsibilities as journalists with our responsibilities as citizens in an age
of ultra-sophisticated propaganda techniques."
Charley Reese
Sun Belt Syndicate
"Mr. Tyson's research has uncovered important new insights into Communist
recruiting tactics, into the amount of time and money spent on propaganda
activities, and into the army of unwitting 'sympathisers' in the media who are
being manipulated to support Communist party causes without their knowledge."
Allen C. Brownfeld
America's Future
"James L. Tyson's book will scare you to deathand maybe that's good if it
will shock this country into realizing that Russia is beating us to a pulp in the
war of propaganda."
Dick West
Dallas Morning News

Contents
Preface...................................................

I.

Introduction ........................................

II.

The Far Left Lobby ............................. 32

III.

Proven Communist Agents

in the MediaSingapore, Malaysia
and France .......................................... 42

IV

The Selling of Sihanouk and the Cambodian

Communists and Zig-Zag Parallelism.... 47

Whitewashing the North Vietnamese .. 66

VI.

The Campaign Against the Agency for

International Development ................. 73

VII.

The Campaign Against the Vietnamese

Labor Unions ..................................... 78

VIII.

Blowing Up the Neutron Bomb ......... 90

IX.

The Hidden War Against the CIA .... 97

X.

Balance Sheet

XI.

Conclusions and Recommendations .. 140

.................................... 116

Preface
Since 1950, the United States has fought two wars,
both against countries vastly inferior to us militarily,
economically, and in terms of population and resources. North Korea and North Vietnam were third
or fourth rate countries, but against one the best we
could do was fight to a draw. In Vietnam, we suffered
a humiliating and costly defeat.
It was with words and ideas that our enemies frustrated our military might in Korea and Vietnam. They
demonstrated the continuing validity of the old adage,
"The pen is mightier than the sword." Their target was
the morale of both our troops in the field and our
civilian population, but especially the latter. As we embarkand rightly soon an expensive effort to reconstitute our military might, we must recognize that
the best weapons system in the world will do us no
good if we continue to disregard our vulnerability on
the battlefield of words.
In the years following WW II, when we were confronted with enemies affiliated with the international
communist network, we neglected the power of
5

Target America
words and ideas even though we knew that the communists were masters of propaganda and disinformation. In this vital area, we literally practiced unilateral
disarmament, abandoning all defense and gutting our
offensive capabilities, leaving only a hollow shell.
Despite a wealth of incontrovertible evidence to the
contrary, our people are constantly bombarded with
assurances that defenses against the enemy's war of
words and ideas are not only unnecessary but damaging to our cause.
The longshoreman philosopher, Eric Hoffer, in his
1952 book, Ordeal of Change, has tried to warn us
against this folly:
We know that words cannot move mountains, but
they can move the multitude; and men are more
ready to fight and die for a word than for anything
else. Words shape thought, stir feelings and beget
actions; they kill and revive, corrupt and cure. The
"men of words"priests, prophets, intellectuals
have played a more decisive role in history than
military leaders, statesmen, and businessmen.
No less important than the priests, prophets and intellectuals are those who staff and control the mass
communications media. As a long-time media critic, I
have been appalled to observe the ease with which
important media organs in this country have been enlisted to assist in a campaign against this country, a
massive and frighteningly successful war of words, inspired by governments that despise and fear freedom,
aided by a host of witting and unwitting helpers.
Truth in labeling is enforced for goods on the
shelves of grocery stores, but not for what you see in

Preface
the newspapers or on television. Communist writers
are published in such prestigious and influential papers as The New York Times without being properly
identified. Communist propaganda is not only aired
over our public broadcasting facilities, but is even financed with grants from the taxpayer-funded Corporation for Public Broadcasting. It is not, of course, so
labeled.
In Target America, James Tyson documents the
baleful record and shows us why the United States is
frighteningly vulnerable. It should alert the American
people to the fact that wars are fought and won with
words and ideas as much as with missiles, planes,
tanks and ships. And these wars go on even when we
are at peace.
Reed Irvine

I. Introduction
During 1980 the American people displayed several
signs of growing anger and alarm at continuing Soviet
aggression and American reversals abroad. In November, this concern was a major factor in the defeat of
the Carter Administration and several appeasement
minded senators.
But anxiety about America's position in the world
continues. The trends of the past decade cannot be reversed overnight, and in recent years, many of the
ablest observers of our defense situation went so far as
to declare that if these trends persisted, the U.S. could
be defeated by the Soviet Union within the next ten
years. Brian Crozier, one of Great Britain's leading students of strategy, published a study of the peril of the
West, entitled Strategy of Survival in 1978, in which
he says the democracies face defeat in the near future.
"Unless the West reacts now, " he concludes, "meaning by 1980, the chances are that the tide of retreat
will be irreversible."
Several Americans defense experts are equally concerned but reluctant to be so frank for publication.
9

Target America
The closer the observer is to the facts of Soviet preparations, the more worried he is. The most worried of
all are those Russian emigres who have seen Communist preparations from the inside. Dr. Igor S. Glagolev
was a member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences and
an adviser to the Russian SALT I negotiators. After the
treaty was signed, he recommended some logical
armaments cuts. He was shocked to be told by his superiors that they had no intention of reducing their
arms, but instead planned to increase them until they
had overwhelming superiority. In disillusionment, he
defected to the West in 1976, settled in Washington,
and has been waging a one-man warning campaign
ever since.
Another better known emigre, of course, is Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who has also been a tireless Jeremiah, warning America of probable defeat if we do
not regain our courage. "Will you wait until the Communists are beating at your gates and your sons will
have to defend your borders with their breasts?" he
cried in one of his most dramatic appeals.
The Soviets are following a three-part strategy: (1)
the enormous arms buildup, as Glagolev warns, hidden under the smoke screen of detente and the SALT
negotiations; (2) a gradual take-over of other weaker
countries by pro-Communist regimes, leading to the
eventual encirclement of the U.S. on the outside; and
(3) a massive, secret propaganda campaign designed to
weaken and demoralize America from the inside.
The first two threats are recognized by some of the
public and many of our leaders. But the third is virtually unknown except to a few specialists. And it may
be as dangerous as the first two because of the fact
10

Introduction
that the public is not even aware of it.
This propaganda campaign has been going on with
increasing vigor and long-range planning ever since
the Bolshevik Revolution. It is designed to undermine
our confidence in our own democratic system and our
leaders, to destroy our trust in our security agencies
(the FBI, CIA, and police forces) so that the Communists can operate more freely against us in this country
and abroad, and to undermine our foreign policy so
that we fail to support our allies in the fight against
Communism and allow the encirclement to continue
almost unopposed.
If this forecast of encirclement sounds alarmist, just
consider the history of the past 40 years. In 1939,
there was only one Communist country, the Soviet
Union, accounting for about 7% of the earth's population. In 1940, the Soviets swallowed up the three Baltic Republics. In succeeding years, we have seen the
communization of all Eastern Europe, Czechoslovakia, North Korea, China, North Viet Nam, Cuba, South
Viet Nam, Cambodia, Laos, Mozambique, Angola,
South Yemen, Ethiopia, Nicaragua, Grenada, Surinam,
and Afghanistan. As a result, Communist governments
now control more than a third of the world's population. The Communists prepared for every one of these
conquests by a massive campaign of propaganda and
subversion before taking any military action. For all of
Eastern Europe, China, Cuba, South Viet Nam, Cambodia, and Angola, they also waged clever propaganda
campaigns in the U.S. and Western Europe to confuse
the democracies and undermine our resolve to resist
this Communist imperialism.
While the American people are waking up to the
11

Target America
Communist political and military threat, it is time they
were awakened to this propaganda threat. Only if we
become aware of it can we neutralize it. In its present
largely undercover form, it represents one of the most
serious dangers facing the country today.
How is it possible to illustrate the effects of such
Communist propaganda in the United States? It has become difficult in recent years to identify Communists
agents in the media or other influential organizations.
The FBI has been ordered not to investigate subversive activity unless there is already evidence of criminal behavior. This restriction has literally wrecked the
Bureau's ability to monitor Communist subversion.
(How can you get evidence of criminal behavior until
you have first conducted an investigation?) The FBI's
number of open cases of security investigations
dropped from 21,414 in 1973 to 50 in 1979. This was
made clear in an exchange of correspondence between
the Bureau and Senator Gordon Humphrey of the
Senate Armed Services Committee in late 1979.
Several senators on this Committee were concerned
that the Soviets were attempting to manipulate American media and public opinion to obtain a SALT II
Treaty favorable to the USSR.
On August 22, 1979, Humphrey wrote William
Webster, director of the FBI, recommending a study of
Communist propaganda in the U.S. as being of benefit
to several matters of Armed Services Committee concern. Humphrey received a letter from Webster on
November 19, saying, "This Bureau does not have a
data base upon which to predicate a study or discussion of such issues, since we do not dedicate personnel to tracking the sources of news articles bearing on
12

Introduction
U.S.-USSR relations to see if they were Soviet inspired .... In view of the foregoing, the unclassified
study requested in your letter of August 22 cannot be
undertaken...."
Not only the FBI's counter-subversion efforts, but
the congressional committees that used to investigate
Communist (as well as right-wing) subversion, have all
been dismantled, including the Senate Internal Securities Subcommittee, the Senate Subcommittee on
Criminal Laws and Procedures, and the House Internal
Security Committee. The Subversive Activities Control Board has also been abolished, all under the theory that the Cold War is an outdated concept. As a
result, the only media personalities who can be positively identified as present or former Communists today are those of the older generation, whose careers
extend back into the years when there were active investigations of subversives.
But there are two techniques we can use to provide
at least strong circumstantial evidence of Communist
influence:

The "Balance Sheet" method:

Draw up a balance sheet listing all the major stories,
articles, or broadcasts of the media personality in
question. These can be listed under two major headings: (a) debitsthose that appear to follow the current Communist line, or (b) creditsthose written
from a position harmful to the Communist line. It may
13

Target America
more than $3 billion. Suzanne Labin, a French expert
on Communism, estimated in 1967 that the Communists had more than 500,000 propaganda agents
around the world, outside the USSR. These figures can
be compared with even more direct sources on the
number of people engaged in propaganda within the
Soviet Union. Pravda revealed in 1970 that there were
1.1 million full time propagandists or "agitprops"
within the USSR. A Soviet scholarly journal provided
a total for part time and full time propagandists of 6.8
million, which includes no less than 80,000 "atheist
lecturers."
The position of agit-prop is a prestigious one in the
Soviet apparatus, considered to be as respectable a
profession as accountancy or civil engineering in the
U.S. There are no less than six professional journals
for propagandists, which we could compare to the
Journal of Accountancy or the Engineering News Record in the U.S. One of these, The Agitator, is used
mainly for foreigners. Lee Harvey Oswald read it regularly during his years in the Soviet Union, and tried to
subscribe, after his return to the U.S. Every political
unit in the USSR, from provinces down to villages, has
a party organization with at least three officials, the
chairman, the secretary, and the agit prop.
If one considers that the Communist Party has assigned these millions of people to carry out propaganda against their own citizens within the Soviet
Union, the estimate of a half million agents outside the
country does not seem far-fetched. The various universities and schools for Communist cadres have graduated more than 120,000 people from foreign
countries since 1926. These are the top experts, the
16

Introduction
full time professional cadres. They do not include the
less fully trained: the fellow travelers and sympathizers who may have never even visited the Soviet
Union.
How many of these half million agents are operating
in the U.S.? Again, there are no official figures, but
from several sources, it is possible to deduce that there
must be a minimum of 4,000 agents, fellow travelers,
or sympathizers actively supporting Communist
propaganda efforts in this country. Likewise, it is possible to estimate that out of the $3 billion being spent
worldwide, at least $250 million is being annually
spent in the U.S. So, we have minimum estimates of
more than 4,000 people, spending more than $250
million a year on a propaganda effort that most Americans do not realize even exists.
How is this broad activity organized? Again, the evidence is sketchy. Responsibility for Soviet propaganda
rests not with any government department, but with
the Communist Party, which directs a huge Department of Propaganda and Agitation responsible for
both foreign and domestic efforts. This is housed in a
massive building in Moscow. Alexander Kasnacheev, a
KGB agent who defected to the Americans in Burma,
describes occasional visits to this headquarters, where
he was awed by the military discipline, elaborate security, and extreme secrecy.
The International Department, under the Politburo,
is responsible for operations in non-Communist countries. This department has taken over the work formerly performed by the notorious Comintern, which
in the days of operators like Grigory Zinoviev and the
Hungarian, Bela Kun, was responsible for the control
17

Target America
of Communist parties in other countries and the planning and execution of foreign propaganda and subversion. The Politburo is responsible for setting overall
propaganda policies, while the International Department is in charge of carrying out these policies around
the free world. Under this department is the International Information Department, responsible for such
overt activities as the news services (Tass and Novostii), foreign work of Pravda, Izvestiya, and Radio
Moscow, and the voluminous activities of Embassy Information Departments. While these operations are
ostensibly public, they also include a large amount of
undercover propaganda. The KGB's Department of
Disinformation, another important center of power in
propaganda, now known as Directorate A, is responsible for an increased level of psychological warfare
around the world, consisting of the floating of forgeries, planting mendacious articles in friendly media,
and similar deceptions. While other Soviet organs are
responsible for more subtle propaganda, the Disinformation Directorate specializes in "outright lies," to
quote Dr. Glagolev. According to Glagolev's estimate,
they are now executing more than 500 such disinformation operations per year around the world. A further symptom of the Soviets' high regard for
propaganda and espionage is that the KGB's Director
is a member of the Politburo. (Contrast that with the
U.S. where the heads of the FBI, CIA, and the International Communications Agency are well below Cabinet rank.) Another influential organ in propaganda
against the United States is the Institute for the Study
of the U.S.A. and Canada, a part of the Soviet Academy, headed by Dr. Georgi Arbatov.
18

Introduction
How is the apparatus organized within the United
States? Ray Wannall, former chief of the FBI's Counterintelligence Service, is of the opinion that since the
early 1950's, Soviet propaganda against the U.S. has
been directed from outside the country. Certainly, the
Communist Party, U.S.A. plays only a subsidiary role.
Most propaganda direction comes from the International Department of the Central Committee. In order
to direct activities in the U.S., Soviet control officers
travel in and out of the country. They do so under a
variety of identities and pretexts. In this, the large international Communist front groups are useful. The
largest of these is the World Peace Council. Other
activities are transmitted through a myriad of other
fronts, including the World Federation of Trade
Unions (WFTU), the Women's International Democratic Federation, and the International Association of
Democratic Lawyers. All of these groups maintain relations with contacts in the U.S. and promote continuous intercourse through international conferences,
periodicals, and other communications. But the U.S. is
so open that virtually anyone can come and go on any
pretext whatever. And some of these groups have
American counterparts. The World Peace Council
works through the U.S. Peace Council, headed by veteran American Communist Pauline Rosen. Other links
are less formal, and direct control has not been
proven. But, for example, the National Lawyers Guild
has close ties to the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, while Women Strike for Peace in the
U.S. has a long-standing close association with the
Women's International Democratic Federation. In addition, within the U.S., there has grown a large num19

Target America
ber of study centers, citizens' committees, and public
affairs coalitions that maintain close relationships with
these international Communist fronts. Only a few of
these have been identified by congressional committees or the attorney general as Communist fronts, but
all of them have one common characteristic: they consistently back causes that knowingly or unknowingly
give aid or comfort to the Communists and have never
advocated policies that are contrary to the Communist
line. As a group, they can be classified under one
name, "The Far Left Lobby," and will be described in
the next chapter. The most important of these and
their knowing or unknowing support of the Soviet
propaganda organs are also summarized on Chart I on
the next page.
The Chinese Communist government administers a
propaganda apparatus within its own borders almost
as massive as that of the Soviets. Overseas efforts are
not as vast as the Soviets, but are substantial, including
energetic efforts to manipulate media in other countries.
Lenin, in his writings, continually pounded on the
importance of the mass media in propaganda. In 1950,
Stalin said, "If I could control the movies, I could rule
the world." This was before he had any concept of the
power of television. In a report to the Politburo,
Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov bluntly stated: "Who
reads the Communist papers? Only a few people who
are already Communists. We don't need to propagandize them. What is our object? Who do we have to influence? We have to influence non-Communists if we
want to make them Communists or if we want to fool
them. So we try to infiltrate the big press, to influence
millions of people, and not merely thousands."
20

21

Target America
More recently, John Maury, a senior CIA officer who
was head of the Russian section for five years and retired in 1977, quoted a KGB manual obtained by the
CIA which gives top priority to recruiting agents not
only among the opponents' military and government
officials with access to top secret information, but also
among the media.
There is a continuing massive Soviet effort to plant
stories in local media around the world. Alexander
Kaznecheev was the senior KGB officer specializing in
Burmese affairs at the Soviet Embassy in Rangoon and
defected to the Americans in 1959. He describes how
his department, secret even to most other Russians in
Rangoon, was responsible for receiving drafts of articles from the propaganda headquarters in Moscow,
translating them into Burmese, editing them for local
consumption, and then seeing that they were placed in
local publications to appear as though they had been
written by Burmese authors. The final step was to
send copies and translations of the Burmese articles
back to Moscow. From here they were often quoted in
Soviet broadcasts or publications as evidence of
"Burmese opinion" that favored the Communist line.
A variant of this technique is to search the Western
press for quotations which can be used to support the
Soviet line, and then see that they are published. Usually, the Soviets don't have to search hard for materials
they can use. The open debates which characterize
political life in the West generate enough. In the
1970s, it was striking to read the Soviet press and
broadcast coverage of the Viet Nam War and to note
how attacks on U.S. policy were mainly built around
quotes from American sources. In other cases, the
22

Introduction
KGB's Disinformation Department relies on outright
forgeries. American intelligence has detected innumerable cases over the years of forged documents being used to discredit American agencies or policies.
Sometimes these are such obvious fakes as to boomerang on the Communists, but frequently, they leave
enough smoke to lead people to believe there was
some fire. A notable example was the series of Communist forgeries making it appear that the CIA had
been behind the efforts by French Generals to overthrow or assassinate President De Gaulle.
Since the death of Stalin and the launching of "detente," Soviet propagandists have not abandoned old
methods, but added new ones. In The White House
Years, Henry Kissinger says that Dr. Georgi Arbatov,
Director of the Institute for the Study of the U.S.A.
and Canada, "knew much about America and was
skillful in adjusting his arguments to the prevailing
fashion. He was especially subtle in playing to the inexhaustible masochism of American intellectuals, who
took it as an article of faith that every difficulty in U.S.Soviet relations had to be caused by American stupidity or intransigence." Arbartov is regularly welcomed
by academic and think-tank scholars in the U.S. and
often quoted by CBS, Newsweek, the New York
Times, and other media without comment as to his
true motives. For example, in 1977, Dr. J. Kenneth
Galbraith was the narrator of a Public Broadcasting
System TV series on Socialism and Free Enterprise entitled "The Age of Uncertainty." Georgi Arbatov appeared at a luncheon table seated between Galbraith
and Mrs. Katherine Graham, owner of the Washington
Post-Newsweek enterprise. Late in the program, the
23

Target America
camera focused on Arbatov, who delivered the following statement: "The Russian people love freedom!" Neither Galbraith, Graham, nor PBS pointed
out to the audience that while the Russian people may
indeed love freedom, Arbatov and his bosses are its
enemies.
With people like Arbatov enjoying such prestigious
platforms, such respectable company, and such lack of
contradiction, older forms of propaganda like Radio
Moscow and Russian foreign language magazines have
become less significant. Our own media do a better
job.
Thus in recent years, the Soviets have relied most
heavily on propaganda from withini.e., propaganda
executed by citizens of the target countries themselves, by media personnel, members of public affairs
organizations or front groups, and other opinion
leaders who have been recruited as "agents of influence" or are being manipulated without their knowledge. In principle, propaganda from within is the most
difficult and least reliable form of the art. To do it
successfully, one has to stimulate great numbers of
people to follow a line simply by giving them cues to
which they have accustomed themselves to respond. It
is difficult. But when it works, large scale propaganda
campaigns can be waged without the target people
even being aware that propaganda is taking place or
that the Communists are behind it.
Since it is far more effective to have one's own line
of propaganda written or spoken by people of the
same nationality as the target population, the art of
propaganda depends on inducing persons in the target
populations, to, in effect, act as agents. Some of the
best propaganda assets are those who genuinely be24

Introduction
lieve they have a mind of their own, yet follow their
cues almost invariably. Also, it is quite normal for people to associate themselves with a propaganda effort
through a front organization. Thus, their association
with the effort, effective as it might be at any given
time, is only secured by tenuous bonds.
The modern techniques of propaganda from within
requires not so much manipulated front groups as
congenial groups encouraged to do their own thing.
According to Miles Copeland, a retired CIA officer, the
CIA dubbed this technique the "Franchise System"
and compared it to the way franchises operate in the
field of fast food. The Communists have been encouraging every radical organization around the world that
was pushing anything approaching the Communist
line or any line opposed to the United States. They
scaled down their efforts to control every such organization, first because it was becoming impossible, and
second, because it was unnecessary.
Encouragement might take the form of money or
advice for smaller organizations (often without such
organizations knowing the source), or even manpower
and weapons for larger groups.
The Soviets regularly go so far as to give secret support to Trotskyite or Maoist groups that are ostensibly
opposed to the Soviet Union or supporting Communist China. The only criterion is that they be opposed
to the United States on the principle that any enemy of
my enemy is my friend. "Let's go after the U.S. now,"
General Agayants, first Director of the KGB's Disinformation Department, was quoted as saying. "We can
take care of China later." The U.S. is "glavny vrag,"
the main enemy.
Up until 1968, the Soviets had given only lukewarm
25

Target America
support to many of the New Left groups, believing
them too crazy, irrational, and hard to control. But after 1968, when they saw that the New Left played a
major role in the retirement of Lyndon Johnson and
the near downfall of Charles De Gaulle and had put a
major crimp in the U.S. Viet Nam effort, they began to
take them more seriously and support them actively,
even though many such groups were unaware of the
support and in some cases continued to attack the Soviet Union.
The recently retired head of the Counterintelligence
Division of the FBI, Ray Wannall, says that the
Communists in recent years are doing more of their
recruiting of Americans in foreign countries during
international conferences, foreign visits, and other
occasions. A typical instance is the Venceremos Brigade. From 1968 onwards, Cuban and North Vietnamese intelligence agents in the U.S. were active in
persuading young radical activists in the U.S. to join
this Brigade, which ostensibly was helping with sugar
harvests, teaching school, and conducting other
peaceful pursuits in Cuba. Many of these young people came from the Weather Underground, an extreme
off-shoot of the radical Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). In fact, the Brigade became a pool for the
Communists to recruit agents for work in the United
States. War protest movements needed not just intellectual protesters but also physically rugged recruits
for more violent duty. Such people were trained in
guerilla warfare techniques, including the use of arms
and explosives. One of the results was the so-called
"Days of Rage" in Chicago in 1969 in which several
police were injured and at least one permanently crip26

Introduction
pled. Another objective of the Cuban intelligence effort through the Brigade was the recruitment of
"individuals who are politically oriented and who
someday may obtain a position in the U.S. government, which would provide Cuba with access to political, economic or military intelligence."
Journalists, scholars, scientists and other visitors to
Russia are also targets of recruiting efforts.
Yuri Krotkov, a Russian playwright and part-time
employee of the KGB on propaganda, who defected to
the West in 1965, testified before the Senate Subcommittee on Internal Security. He described how the
KGB was carrying out constant efforts to subvert foreign journalists in Moscow. He cited the KGB's energetic but unsuccessful efforts to subvert two New York
Times correspondents, Bill Jordan and Jack Raymond.
But he says the Soviets were successful in recruiting
the Australian journalist, Wilfred Burchett, who carried out an assignment for Ho Chi Minh to work with
the Pathet Lao communists in Laos. He has also been
reported by other sources to have been active in North
Korea during the Korean War, attempting to
propagandize American prisoners and assisting in interrogation.
Joseph Frolik, a member of the Czech intelligence
service for 16 years, defected to the U.S. in 1975. In
November, 1975, he testified before the Senate Subcommittee that Czech intelligence in the U.S. was
closely controlled by the KGB, and was carrying out
an energetic campaign to recruit among staffs of the
U.S. Congress, Government departments, the Republican and Democratic parties, and "mass organizations" like the AFL-CIO, NAACP, and the American
27

Target America
Civil Liberties Union. During his tenure in Washington, he said, the Czech embassy attempted to penetrate
Ralph Nader's organization, cooperating with Syrian
intelligence to gather data on Nader's relatives in
Lebannon. He had no knowledge that Nader was recruited but mentioned this as typical of Communist efforts to influence opinion leaders.
Idealism is one of the most common appeals to recruit Communist agents, fellow travelers and sympathizers. Hollywood screenwriter Dalton Trumbo
claims that all the "finest people" in Hollywood joined
the party in protest against Depression conditions in
the 1930's. Many Hollywood Communists deserted the
party after the Hitler-Stalin pact, but Trumbo and
others hardlined it and remained members. They
included the "Hollywood Ten", who refused to testify
before the House Un-American Activities Committee
in 1947, went to jail for contempt and were blacklisted
by the industry. Regardless of the blacklisting, many
of the Hollywood Ten succeeded in influencing the
contents of movies towards a Communist line.
Trumbo has boasted that they may not have managed
to get pro-Communist films produced by Hollywood
but they did succeed in preventing several outstanding
anti-Communist stories from becoming motion
pictures, most notably Arthur Koes-tler's great novel
of the Communist purge trial period, Darkness At
Noon.
Ambition is frequently used as an appeal. In Beyond
Cloak and Dagger: Inside the CIA, retired senior CIA
official Miles Copeland describes a type of American
journalist whom the Russians call "maggots." These
are reporters who have no strong opinions of their
28

Introduction
own but believe that in the current climate of opinion
they can be most successful by following the anti-antiCommunist line.
Copeland says that the Soviets also identify another
type they call "termites." These are individuals who
are not agents but are so leftist in sympathy that they
become anti-anti-Communists. Opposed to efforts to
contain Communism, which they believe violate their
liberal principles, they aid Communists in passing
along their propaganda line.
Money is a major appeal, but sex, as a means for recruiting Americans is rated rather low by the KGB.
Alcohol is a classic persuader, used more in manipulation than in outright recruiting. Yuri Besmenoff, a recent defector from Novostii, the Russian News agency,
now living in Canada, testified that during his apprenticeship in Moscow, one of his principle duties was to
work on foreign visiting delegations. "As soon as any
group got off the plane," he says, "my job was to get
them drunk as soon as possible and keep them that
way throughout their visit. If I had too much alcohol
myself, there were always other comrades to take over
from mebut there was no one to replace our
delighted guests... Our first function was to make
every foreigner think everything in Russia was just
splendid." He adds that he personally "did such a job"
on a Look photographer in 1967, accompanying him
around Russia. He was so successful in maneuvering
this American into presenting a favorable picture story
of Russia that he was later rewarded with a ticket for a
week in Italy.
"If foreign guests showed strong sympathy for the
Soviet Union," Besmenoff says, "our job was to pre29

Target America
pare them psychologically, and then pass them over to
the KGB agents to indoctrinate and recruit them.. .
The KGB trains them to destroy anti-Soviet activists
in their own countries through character assassination
and infiltrate universities, trade unions and
organizations such as the Canadian-Soviet Friendship
Society."
Manipulation of well-meaning persons without their
knowledge is an important technique, but there are
even more subtle forms of manipulation used constantly by the Soviet propaganda organizations. Western correspondents and media commentators are
targets of continuous efforts. During the EisenhowerKhrushchev Summit Conference in Geneva, in 1955,
the Soviets skillfully manuvered the crowd of free
world journalists into creating an exaggerated atmosphere of hopefulness at the start. When the conference fizzled out with no real progress, the journalists
were encouraged to lay much of the blame on Dulles
and other democratic statesmen. The Soviet propaganda organs were then able to make it appear that all
criticism of Western statesmen was coming from free
world sources and the Westerners alone were responsible for the failure of the conference.
There may be little concrete evidence on the exact
dimensions of the Soviet covert propaganda effort in
the U.S.with our investigative agencies crippled,
how could there be?but there are many indications
that the USSR is conducting a massive, deliberate,
highly effective campaign which has had a major impact on our national policy. In recent years, most of
the implementation has been carried out by agents and
sympathizers within the U.S., mainly Americans,
30

Introduction
working in think tanks, citizens' committees and foundations, helped by friends in media and the government. These people are primarily responsible for
converting the Kremlin's basic goals into specific
propaganda campaigns and devising tactics and slogans that will have the most effect on American media,
public opinions and government policy.
A large number of such think tanks, citizens committees, and other organizations have grown up in recent years. Only a few of these have been identified as
Communist fronts by the Attorney General or Congressional Committees, but this "Far Left Lobby,"
which consistently backs causes that help the Communists and never advocates policies that contradict
the Communist line, will be discussed in detail in the
next chapter.

31

II. The Far Left Lobby

Q. "Don't you think that some people in the U.S. are
always seeing Communists under the bed?"
Eldridge Cleaver: "But there are Communists under
the bed!"
From Rolling Stone magazine, September 4, 1976,
interview with the former Black Panther leader after
his return from being a fugitive in several Communist
countries and France.
According to principles developed by Lenin and his
associates, front groups are among the finest vehicles
for Communist propaganda. The principle of fronts is
to use an attraction to induce non-Communists to cooperate with Communists or to serve the Communists'
objectives. As for propaganda, fronts are useful
because they can spew the Communist line, yet give
the impression, sometimes true, that the line is coming
from non-Communist sources. Fronts can conduct
research studies, seminars, publish books and pamphlets, write letters, encourage demonstrations, take
legal action, and in other ways exert influence on the
media. Francis Watson, an expert on subversion and
32

The Far Left Lobby

terrorism, quotes a figure of no less than 2400 "movement" organizations in the U.S. The following "movement" groups, Legal Organizations, Foundations,
Think Tanks, Citizens Committees, and Innocents,
wield the greatest influence on the media and public
policy and also show the clearest signs of following a
pro-Communist line, knowingly or unknowingly.
Some have been identified as Communist fronts, and
many others have Communists sprinkled among their
memberships.
LEGAL ORGANIZATIONSThe Communists have
made a major effort to infiltrate the U.S. legal professions, for in no other country is the Law more influential in politics and even in foreign relations.
The National Lawyers Guild. The NLG grew out of
the International Red Aid, founded by the Communist
International in 1922. In 1925, this IRA set up an
American Section, which in 1936, helped to organize
the National Lawyers Guild, which became affiliated
with the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, the world-wide Communist front. The NLG now
has several thousand members and units in most leading law schools, and a major operation in Washington.
When the League testifies before Congress, its views
are accepted as those of strong civil libertarians. Major
media often gives NLG members a sounding board,
without identifying their far left tendencies. For example, at the height of the 1978 controversy over the indictment of several FBI agents for their investigation
of the Weather Underground terrorists, the New York
Times ran an Op Ed page article by Gerald Lefcourt
(only identified as an attorney) attacking the FBI. Lefcourt is a leading member of the Guild and was a law33

Target America
yer (in the '60s and '70s) for the Weather
Underground.
Cited many times by HUAC and the Senate Internal
Security Committee as a Communist front, the Guild
moved for a dismissal of the listing on the grounds of
"lack of prosecution." Leading officers and members
include:
David Rudocsky, also member of the NECLC, active in several suits against the CIA, FBI, and Selective
Service.
Victor Rabinowitz, member of Rabinowitz, Boudin and Standard, which has represented Alger Hiss,
Communist Cuba, Daniel Ellsberg and Soviet spy
Judith Coplon.
Bernadine Dohrn, National Student Organizer,
1967-68; until recently a fugitive from justice as a
Weather Underground member.
Robert Borosage, now Director of the Institute
for Policy Studies.
William Kunstler
Bella Abzug
Arthur Kinroy, law partner of Kunstler's. Counsel
for atom spy, Martin Sobell, the Southern Conference
Education Fund (a Communist front) and the Chicago
Seven.
The NLG is one of the most influential groups in the
Far Left Lobby and has spawned a number of other organizations, including the following:
The National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee,
(NECLC), founded in 1951 by NLG members, was
cited as a Communist front by HUAC in 1958, for repeatedly defending Communists in legal proceedings
and disseminating Communist propaganda. Clients in34

The Far Left Lobby

clude the "Teheran Ten," Ramsey Clark and Alger
Hiss. Members include: Leonard Boudin, representative of the Cuban government and father of Weather
Underground leader Kathy Boudin, now on trial in the
Brink's robbery case, Sidney Gluck, Harvey
O'Connor, Frank Wilkinson (identified before Congressional committees as Communist Party members),
and Morton Stavis, who has taken the Fifth Amendment when asked if he was a member of the Communist Party. The Center For Constitutional Rights,
founded in 1966 by NLG members William Kunstler,
Arthur Kinroy and Morton Stavis. Its far left activities,
include an attempt in the 1970s to have U.S. support
of the Cambodian Government, which was fighting
the bloody Pol Pot Communist guerillas, declared unconstitutional.
The Campaign To Stop Government Spying, renamed the Campaign for Political Rights, a leader in
the campaign against the CIA, FBI and local law enforcement agencies, includes many radicals other than
lawyers, and has drawn in more than 80 far left or
well-meaning liberal organizations. Members include:
Morton Halperin (Chairperson) and Frank Donner,
identified as a Communist before Congressional committees.
FOUNDATIONSthe following foundations have
been notable for sponsoring causes which have resulted in support for the Communist line.
The Rubin Foundation, one of the principal backers
of the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), the most
important of the far left think tanks. It once gave
financial support to Breira, a New York City Jewish
organization opposed to the state of Israel, which
35

Target America
ceased operations in 1980, probably because of the
criticism of its peculiar point of view.
The Stern Fund has also backed the IPS and other
far left groups. Its President is Philip M. Stern. Black
politician Channing Phillips has said, "You are most
likely to get to Philip Stern if you are doing something
that threatens the system."
The Fund For Peace, founded by leftists and liberals, was initially backed by Stewart Mott, the largest
individual shareholder of General Motors, and a supporter of leftist causes.
Other foundations which regularly back leftist projects include the Southern Conference Education Fund
(at one time, the Communist Party's major front in the
South), and the Youth Project, once headed by Marge
Tabankin, elected to the ruling council of the Sovietcreated World Peace Assembly in 1972. From time to
time, many large, well-known organizations, such as
the Ford Foundation and the Marshall Field Foundation, have been persuaded to finance projects which
follow the Communist line.
THINK TANKSThe leading edge of the Far Left
Lobby in influencing the media and public policy, the
think tanks are active in sponsoring conferences and
seminars, brief Congress and the executive departments, and take activist roles in law suits and mass
demonstrations.
The Institute For Policy Studies (IPS), the most important think tank (annual budget of more than $ 1 million), is the center of a large web of project groups and
related industries, which have consistently followed a
far left line, such as unilateral disarmament for the
U.S., withdrawal of support for American allies
36

The Far Left Lobby

abroad, attacks on free enterprise and democratic institutions at home. (See Chapter X.) Leading personalities include Robert L. Borosage, director, former head
of the NLG Washington office, Richard Barnet, Marcus
Raskin, and Roberta Salper, a member of the Central
Committee of the Puerto Rican Socialist Party, a proCommunist group.
IPS Projects and Subsidiaries:
National Priorities Project (NPP) publicizes the
theme that the U.S. military power is a major threat to
world peace and proposes the transfer of U.S. defense
funds to "more productive social goals."
Government Accountability Project (GAP), encourages present or former members of U.S. intelligence or
other government employees to "blow the whistle" on
projects they oppose.
Bay Area Institute (BAI), IPS San Francisco affiliate,
sponsors Pacific News Service and other Coast leftist
causes.
Transnational Institute (TNI), the major IPS vehicle
for affecting international politics. Former director,
Orlando Letelier, who had been foreign minister of
Chile under Salvador Allende's pro-Communist government, was killed in Washington by a bomb planted
in his car, in November, 1976. His briefcase was recovered intact from the wreckage. It contained correspondence and records that provided an inside look at
how IPS and its related groups fit into the proCommunist propaganda network. Among other things,
the letters showed that Letelier had received a lump
sum of $5,000 and was receiving $1,000 monthly
from Beatrice Allende in Havana, the daughter of
Salvador Allende, and the wife of the number
37

Target America
two man in the Cuban intelligence service.
This and other evidence in the correspondence
proved that Letelier was in the pay of an international
propaganda network, based in East Berlin and administered by Cuban and Chilean Communists, but ultimately controlled and mainly financed by the Soviet
KGB. There is a clear indication that Letelier and the
IPS were not working for true democracy in Chile or
elsewhere, but rather for their own brand of Socialism.
In a letter to Beatrice Allende, Letelier says that he is
doing everything possible to oppose the movement to
back Eduardo Frei, a popular leader and true democrat, in Chile as a possible alternative to the Junta. In
the same letter, Letelier says, "Perhaps some day, not
far away, we will be able to do what has been done in
Cuba." In other words, he and the IPS were working
for a Cuban-styled Communist dictatorship in Chile,
not for democracy.
The Fund For Peace Constellation, next to IPS the
three most important far left think tanks, are grouped
around the Fund for Peace:
The Center for International Policy (CIP), working
through a network of journalists, former diplomats
and international officials world-wide, most CIP publications consistently attack U.S. aid to "repressive" regimes of countries cooperating with the U.S. in
opposing Communists. CIP director William Goodfellow, an apologist for the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia,
in a New York Times Op Ed article said that the reports
of massacres in that country were false and the results
of "self-serving propaganda."
The Center for Defense Information (CDI), promotes through publications, speeches, conferences,
38

The Far Left Lobby

unilateral U.S. disarmament, minimizing Soviet buildup.
The Center for National Security Studies (CNSS), is
the leading critic of the CIA, FBI and other intelligence
law enforcement activities. (See Chapter X.)
The North American Congress on Latin America
(NACLA), has considerable influence in media treatment of CIA and American Policy in Latin America.
CITIZENS COMMITTEESBack positions coinciding with the Communist line and never advocate opposing positions.
Committee for Public fustice, formed by Lillian
Hellman, an admitted former Communist, and Ramsey
Clark, monitors the FBI, CIA and Justice Department,
advocates policies weakening these groups.
The Indochina Resource Center, (now the Southeast
Asia Resource Center) consistently backed the North
Vietnamese and Cambodian Communists and has continued to defend them in recent years in spite of the
growing evidence of their brutality.
Campaign for Economic Democracy, founded by
Tom Hayden and his actress turned activist wife, Jane
Fonda.
Organizing Committee for a Fifth Estate, original
publishers of Counter Spy magazine, which spawned
Covert Action Information Bulletin, publications
which identified and mis-identified undercover American personnel. The murder of the CIA's Athens station
chief and shots fired at the home of the CIA's Kingston, Jamaica station chief followed publication of their
identities.
Riverside Church Disarmament Program, organized
by the Church's senior minister, the Rev. Wil39

Target America
liam Sloane Coffin, as a major activity of the Church,
under the directorship of Cora Weiss (daughter of the
founder of the Rubin foundation). Ms. Weiss had been
prominent in groups opposing U.S. support for Viet
Nam, as was Rev. Coffin, one of the founders of
Clergy and Laity Concerned, a group opposed to the
U.S. Policy in View Nam, which continues to back
causes paralleling the Communist line. Under Coffin
and Weiss, the Riverside program has actively promoted unilateral U.S. disarmament.
Women Strike for Peace, in the forefront of agitation against a resumption of testing by the U.S. and
conspicuously silent in protesting Soviet violations.
Has continued to work for unilateral U.S. disarmament and down played the threat of Soviet arms buildup. Close ties with the Women's International League
for Peace and Freedom (pro-U.S. disarmament, antinuclear power) and the World Peace Council.
INNOCENTSSeveral older organizations that formerly were truly liberal and had considerable prestige
have come increasingly under the influence of the far
left. These include The American Civil Liberties
Union, The American Friends Service Committee, and
the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
TRUE LIBERALSLiberalism and the far left are
anything but identical, but much of the far left's efforts are aimed at fostering the false impression that
liberals support most of their goals. They do not.
Social Democrats, U.S.A., noted for its antiCommunist stands, advocates the democratic road to
Socialism. The AFL/CIO, the foremost bastion of political liberalism at home, is perhaps the strongest bulwark against Communism in the world.
40

The Far Left Lobby

The actions and stands of these organizations show
that truly humanitarian liberals can be antiCommunist, making the groups of the Far Left Lobby
even more conspicuous in their unwillingness to ever
criticize Communist crimes.

41

III. Proven Communist Agents in the Media

Singapore, Malaysia and France
Of all the countries in the free world, Singapore and
Malaysia in recent years have uncovered the largest
number of Communist agents in the media. These two
governments have been especially vigilant against
such subversion because their recent history has been
marked by a bloody struggle against Communist insurgency. The Communist networks they have exposed
during the last decade provide several valuable analogies to similar activities that may be going on in the
United States.
In June, 1976, Singapore took into custody two
leading journaliststhe editor of the largest Malay-language newspaper, Berita Harian Singapore, and his
assistantaccusing them of being Communist agents
and using their paper to promote Communist propaganda. A few days later, the top journalist in the country, Abdul Samad Ismail (editor of Malaysia's
prestigious New Strait Times) and his "accomplice,"
Samai Mohamad Amin, news editor of Berita Harian
(Malaysia) were arrested and accused by the government of leading Malays into accepting Communism.
42

Proven Communist Agents

On September 1, Samad confessed on television that
he had been a Communist for "three quarters of his
life" and had been using his position to further the
cause of Communism. Singapore announced that the
two journalists they arrested, working in league with
Samad, had been using their newspapers and influence
among political leaders to soften the Malay environment for Communism.
Two weeks later, the Malaysian Security Service arrested two Deputy Ministers, who confessed on television to Communist activities and Soviet connections.
In February 1977, the Malaysian government arrested Chan Kien Sin, ex-editor-in-chief of a leading
Chinese daily and Chief Executive Secretary of the Malaysian Chinese Association, a crucial group in the ruling National Front government. Chan confessed on
TY saying he had been a Communist for 30 years and
had used his position on the paper to promote Communist propaganda. Later that month, Singapore announced the arrest of a group of pro-Communists,
headed by lawyer Gopalkrishnan Raman. The public
confessions of these people and correspondence found
in their possession revealed the existence of a wide
network of influence in the media at home and abroad,
in universities, labor unions and religious bodies.
Their methods for infiltrating opinion groups and
influence on the media bear many resemblences to the
work of the American Far Left organizations.
After his arrest in February 1977, Arun Senkuttuvan,
correspondent for the Far Western Economic Review,
the Economist, and the Financial Times, confessed
that although not a Communist himself, he had been
spreading anti-government, pro-Communist propa43

Target America
ganda in cooperation with Raman's group.
Why did these Communists and their sympathizers
make such complete confessions of their activities?
One ominous explanation is that many of them simply
feel that Communism is the wave of the future in
Southeast Asia. They have often enunciated their version of the Domino Theorythat after the fall of Viet
Nam, Laos, and Cambodia to the Communists, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore would soon follow.
They may have felt that after a few years in jail, under
the relatively benign Singapore and Malaysian governments, they would be released (the Communists having taken over) and emerge as heroes of the
revolution, with the prospect of prominent positions in
the new regime.
These revelations of widespread Communist subversion in Singapore and Malaysia have been virtually
ignored by the American media or simply treated as
evidence of a repressive government, following the
line that Raman and the others were attempting to
promote. For example, the NY Times ran two long articles by a Singapore correspondent, David A. Andelman. The first, on June, 23, 1976, patronizingly
treated the arrests of Samad and Amin as the result of
the "frenzy" of anti-Communist fear in the Malaysian
government and the fact that Prime Minister Lee of
Singapore was "known to fear Mr. Samad as an extraordinarily able and honest journalist." (Emphasis
added.) The second, a front page piece on April 4,
1977 reported on the arrests of Raman and his network as a "new campaign to repress dissent that has
crippled the political opposition and a fledgling human rights movement" and a further effort to prop up
44

Proven Communist Agents

Lee's "dictatorship with a democratic facade."
The cases of Singapore and Malaysia indicate that
the Communists will go to great lengths to successfully infiltrate and manipulate the media, even in relatively small countries like these. But in contrast to
these countries, Western countries have paid little attention to subversion of the media. Our FBI is not
even empowered to investigate such activities, and
only one Western journalist, Pierre Charles Pathe, has
ever been arrested (and sentenced to five years in
prison) as an agent of influence for the Soviets in
France. Arrested in 1979, while meeting with his KGB
control, Pathe was accused of planting stories in the
French press or in his own newsletter, Synthesis (financed by the Soviets), designed to sow discord
among the NATO allies and discredit the Western secret services, especially the CIA. Over the 20 year period, he or his KGB ghostwriters wrote more than 100
such articles. Because of his many connections, he
was also in a position to give the Soviets gossip about
prominent journalists or officials for use in recruitment or blackmail.
Robert Moss, in the London Daily Telegraph, commented that "by putting Pathe behind bars, the French
Court of State Security publicly recognized that this
form of Soviet Covert action. . . may represent a
danger equal to traditional espionage." Paris Match
said, "In sending Pathe to jail for five years without
considering his age or state of health, the judges firmly
condemned him as a spy without him actually being
one For them, Path6 is tangible proof that in France
there are innumerable 'ants' of the KGB, 'ants' that are
both insignificant and dangerous. These
45

Target America
ants tirelessly and in little doses are the vehicles of
false ideas."
This case has been ignored by American media, but
provides an ominous lesson for the U.S. as do the
events in Singapore and Malaysia. If the Communists
have spent enough time and effort over the past 20
years to subvert prominent journalists and government officials in France and these two small Southeast
Asian countries, what efforts have they been making
to influence the people controlling the media in a
much more important target, the United States, their
principle enemy? Have they been as successful as they
were in France, Singapore and Malaysia? How many
"ants" exist in the United States?

46

IV. The Selling of Sihanouk and the Cambodian

Communists
Among all the propaganda campaigns to be described in this book, the efforts on behalf of the Cambodian Communists and Prince Sihanouk had some of
the most direct and disastrous effects on U.S. policy.
And none of these campaigns had been so clearly revealed by later events to have been based on falsehoods. For five years (1970-75) American media were
influenced by this propaganda to build up Prince Sihanouk in his Peking exile as an important factor in Cambodian politics, with whom the U.S. should negotiate
to end the bloodshed. At the same time, many American commentators and media were portraying the
Cambodian Communists as honest idealists, "gentle
people," whose country was being ravaged by American bombs, and who, but for our violent opposition,
would be willing to form a coalition government with
other parties in their country.
What in fact was the true history?
During the 1960s, Sihanouk had attempted to steer a
neutral course between the Communist subversion in
his own country (the Khmer Rouge, headed by
47

Target America
Noun Chea and the notorious Pol Pot), backed by Viet
Nam Communists and less directly by Soviets and Chinese, and the anti-Communist forces, the South Vietnamese, the U.S. and anti-Communists in his own
government. This struggle was complicated by the
fact that Cambodians of all beliefs feared and disliked
the Vietnamese, who have been their enemies for centuries. In 1963, Sihanouk broke off diplomatic relations with the U.S. and South Vietnam and refused
further U.S. aid. Under increasing pressure from the
Communists, Sihanouk extended them great concessions in the way of transit rights and permission to use
Cambodian territory against the Saigon government
and the U.S. In the late '60's, the border areas of Cambodia became a de facto staging area for the North
Vietnamese army, and by 1969, there were an estimated 40,000 North Vietnamese and Viet Cong along
the borders. The whole border area became a rest and
reassembly sanctuary for Communist troops. Though
the presence of the hated Vietnamese was causing
growing bitterness among the Cambodian people and
many government officials in Phnom Penh, Sihanouk
was unable to extricate himself from his agreements.
The Bombing Campaign. In 1968, Sihanouk proposed
to Chester Bowles, visiting Phnom Penh, that the U.S.
bomb the sanctuaries along the border, saying that he
would not object as long as his acquiescence was kept
secret. Early in 1969, President Nixon gave his
approval. A major bombing campaign of the 10 mile
border region followed, with elaborate precautions set
up to prevent publicity and avoid embarrassing
Sihanouk. He was still engaged in his manueverings
with the North Vietnamese, China and
48

The Cambodian Communists

the Soviets and it would have put him in an impossible
position to admit he approved the raids. While the
Communists did not complain publicly about the raids
(they didn't want to admit that they had 40,000 North
Vietnamese troups and Viet Cong inside Cambodia),
they incorporated them into their propaganda in Cambodia, claiming U.S. air strikes were bringing death
and destruction to the Cambodians. Although most
Cambodians had been expelled from the sanctuary
areas by the Communists and virtually none were
killed by the bombings, the American media later
bought this Communist propaganda completely in
criticizing the bombing. They also misinterpreted the
reasons all parties involved were reluctant to talk
about the bombings publicly. In July 1973, the NY
Times ran a front page story by Seymour Hersh critical
of the bombing. The Times had sent a cable to Sihanouk asking whether he had been aware of the bombing. Sihanouk, deposed in 1970, had taken refuge in
Peking, and in July, 1973, was visiting the ruler of
North Korea. Sihanouk cabled the Times from the
North Korean capital that he had not been aware of
the bombing and that the raids "simply proved that the
U.S. was preparing for the overthrow of his government." Seymour Hersh quoted the cable in his
Times story, without questioning whether Sihanouk
could have sent any other reply from a Communist
capital.
The allegation that the U.S. had bombed a neutral
country without its government's knowledge or consent grew to be one of the favorite examples of the
American government's villainy among the anti-antiCommunists during the succeeding weeks and until
49

Target America
the present. As late as 1977, no less an expert on U.S.
foreign policy than Ben Bradlee, executive editor of
the Washington Post, was quoted as saying that the
news suppression that angered him the most during
his career in Washington was the bombing of Cambodia. It is difficult to believe that sophisticated journalists like Bradlee and Hersh wouldn't know that the
reason for secrecy was not to fool the American people, but to protect Sihanouk, and that they'd be taken
in by such an obvious propaganda line.
After Sihanouk was deposed in 1970 and settled
down in exile under the protection of the Chinese
Communists, anti-anti-Communists in the U.S. blamed
Nixon and Kissinger for not attempting to negotiate
with Sihanouk to bring about his return to a "neutral"
government. Facts now show that would have been
impossible. Within two days of his arrival in Peking,
without waiting for any U.S. approach, Sihanouk took
sides with the North Vietnamese and turned violently
against the U.S. and the new Lon Nol government. He
issued a statement blaming his overthrow on the CIA
and defending the Vietnamese Communists in Cambodia as resisting "American imperialism."
Between April 3 and 24, 1970, the North Vietnamese launched attacks on the Cambodian Republic's
forces all across southern and eastern Cambodia in cooperation with the Viet Cong and Khmer Rouge. The
U.S. saw the possibility of a Communist take-over of
the entire country. Nixon decided on April 28 to order
the "incursion" into the Cambodian border areas by
South Vietnamese and American forces.
The later propaganda line was that our actions had
somehow "driven the North Vietnamese deeper into
50

The Cambodian Communists

Cambodia," but the incursion was ordered three weeks
after the North Vietnamese had themselves burst out
of the border areas and started major operations
further into Cambodia. The incursion led to the largest
storm of protest of the entire Indo-China war, with
accusations that we were invading a "neutral country"
and expanding the war to include this small "gentle"
people. The hysteria culminated in the Kent State riots
and death of four students.
Kissinger's diplomacy in 1972 resulted in the Paris
Peace Treaty of 1973 which called for a "cease fire" in
South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Lon Nol called
for an immediate cease fire by his army, offering to negotiate a settlement, but the Communists refused and
continued the fighting. Lon Nol was obliged to continue the war and asked for further U.S. aid, but the
anti-war movement had become so powerful that the
Congress forced Nixon to agree to a bill that would
cut off all military operations by August 15. So the
Cambodian Communists had to only hold out until
that date. With this final cut-off of U.S. military support and reduced financial backing by Congress, the
Cambodian government's ability to fight the Communists, with their backing from Hanoi, China and Russia, declined steadily. The Republic fell in April, 1975,
shortly after the fall of Saigon.
The victorious Communists began to drive the population of Phnom Penh and other Cambodian cities
and villages out at gun pointthe sick, wounded,
young, oldin an exodus that some commentators
said was the most brutal since Ghengis Khan.
How was this tragic history reported by the media?
Going back to 1970, a few months in that year, after Si51

Target America
hanouk was ousted, the NY Times took a neutral
position. But on April 30, the Times wrote an
editorial against any form of U.S. intervention, then
joined in the general hysteria in the country when the
incursion came. From then on, even after all the U.S.
troops had been withdrawn on schedule, the Times
reflected a growing negative attitude towards the
Republican government and a tolerant attitude
towards the Communists. The original incursion and
our bombing, the only means the U.S. had after 1970
of supporting the small Cambodian army against the
combined force of the Khmer Rouge and the North
Vietnamese, were continually cited as the only
reasons Cambodia was then at war. Commentators
generally ignored the fact that the Cambodians
themselves had overthrown Sihanouk and the North
Vietnamese had attacked three weeks before the U.S.
incursion.
Most of the "northeastern liberal press," which depends so much on the Times as a source, and the major broadcasting networks, echoed replays of the main
Communist propaganda line. On May 6, a CBS correspondent in South Vietnam, interviewed Alpha Company, about to embark on fighting, asking: "Do you
realize what can happen to you? Are you scared? Do
you say the morale is pretty low in Alpha Company?
What are you going to do?"
These questions prompted Senator Robert Dole to
ask. "Does Freedom of the Press include the right to
incite to mutiny?... I believe a CBS reporter has come
periously close to attempting to incite mutiny by
playing on the emotions of soldiers just before they
were to go into battle.... I can think of no other war in
our history where this sort of thing would have
52

The Cambodian Communists

been permitted."
By the beginning of 1975, with the fortunes of the
Republican government declining, the clamor in the
media increased, echoing the main Communist lines.
On February 11, the Times ran an article by O.
Edward Clubb, a former U.S. Foreign Services officer
who has usually taken positions somewhat sympathetic to Communist regimes in Asia, which said that
the "U.S. has always displayed an irrational opposition
to revolutionary regimes" (like the Khmer Rouge). On
February 13, there was a column by Anthony Lewis
urging a coalition government with the Communists.
Lon Nol offered to step aside on March 1 if that would
bring peace, and on March 3, the Times ran an interview with Senator Mike Mansfield recommending a
coalition government following Lon Nol's offer. In the
same issue was a signed article by Prince Sihanouk,
written at the Times' request. On February 25, Tom
Wicker's column echoed the position that the war was
all the fault of U.S. intervention. "It was the U.S. invasion of 1970 that brought full-scale war to a country
that had been at peace, however uneasy. The real disaster is that of the gentle and unwarlike Cambodian
people." On February 27, the Times ran an interview
with Senator Mansfield in which he said letting Cambodia fall would "force the Cambodians to face up to
their own future with no help or hindrance from the
U.S., and that's the way it should be, and that's the
way it's going to be!" On March 13, the Times published an article reporting a proposal of Senators Jackson and Mansfield to send Mansfield to Peking to
negotiate a peace with Sihanouk. In the same issue
was a long report from Phnom Penh by Sidney Schan53

Target America
berg examining the possibilities of a bloodbath if the
Communists won and reporting that although there
had been some stories of brutality from Communist
occupied areas, these were probably exaggerated and
that the bloodbath predicted by U.S. and Cambodian
officials was unlikely.
A month later Phnom Penh had fallen and the massacre had started. Saigon surrendered to the North
Vietnamese in the same month. For months after
Phnom Penh's surrender, Communist propaganda
played the line that this Communist victory was the
victory of the people against U.S. imperialism and its
lackeys; a line echoed by American media.
But the horrendous bloodbath that began immediately after the fall of Phnom Penh presented a major
embarrassment for Communist propagandists. They
had several alternatives. One was to deny it, which
they tried to do for several months. But when denials
were overwhelmed by the facts, this became difficult.
The next alternative was to disassociate themselves
from it. This the North Vietnamese and Soviets eventually did. Chinese Communists and their sympathizers, however, were left in the unpleasant position
of having to defend the Khmer Rouge because they
turned out to be one of the few buffers against the aggressive Soviets and North Vietnamese. But all Communists could and did agree to try to blame the
horrors in Cambodia on American policy.
There is no direct evidence that Peking stimulated
this effort. But there are indications that the stimulus
did come from media and research people in the U.S.
with sympathies for the Chinese Communists. And
there is also the fact that the effort fit in directly with
54

The Cambodian Communists

the pro-Khmer Rouge and pro-Chinese party line.
A key figure in this campaign was William
Shawcross, a British journalist who reported on the
Indo-China war for several years from Washington.
Many of Shawcross's articles for the Far Eastern Economic Review in 1976 and 1977, and his book Sideshow, published in 1979, expounded the thesis that
Nixon and Kissinger were responsible for the horrors
in Cambodia. They had authorized the bombing of a
"neutral country," they had "refused to negotiate with
Sihanouk in Peking to bring about a neutral coalition in
Phnom Penh," and finally they had authorized the
invasion of this "neutral country," which "forced the
North Vietnamese deeper into Cambodia and expanded the war." Shawcross's conclusions do not fit
the facts summarized briefly earlier in this chapter. His
book was severely critized by the liberal British
weekly, The Economist, which said "This is not history .... Mr. Shawcross's book is free of (the right)
questions, and free of answers too. It is too busy doing
something else to be considered even remotely fair."
Nevertheless, Shawcross's theories on Cambodia
were taken up eagerly by many in the media, who
were anxious to blunt the impact of the horrors. Tom
Wicker and Anthony Lewis echoed his lines in their
columns in the N. Y Times. The Educational Broadcasting Corporation interviewed Shawcross for TV
His book was recommended by Peter Osnos, Foreign
Editor of the Washington Post, Walter Berkov in the
Cleveland Plain Dealer, and Harrison Salisbury in the
Chicago Tribune. The New Yorker's "Talk of the
Town" joined in.
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Target America
Whether or not deliberately, Shawcross provided
another salvo in the Communist propaganda offensive
to convince the American public that we should not
interfere in any attempts by Communists to take over
other countries.
Of all the case histories to be described in this volume, none will so clearly show the effects of Communist propaganda in emasculating our foreign policy.
Communist propaganda affected our media. The
media in turn had profound impact on the opinions of
students, intellectuals, and groups of opinion leaders,
who in turn influenced Congress. At the same time,
the Far Left Lobby organizations probably exerted direct influence on Congress.
Communist propaganda, however apparently had
greater effect on the media and on Congress than it
did on the general public. At the height of the hysteria
in the media, in Congress, and in student bodies over
the Cambodian incursion in 1970, the Gallup Poll
found that 50% of the people approved of the Government's policy in Cambodia, 35% disapproved, and
15% had no opinion.
In retrospect, our abandonment of Cambodia was a
disgraceful retreat from American honor and commitments to defend the freedom of countries facing aggression. This small country was unified in its fear and
dislike of the Vietnamese and abhorrence of Communism. The Cambodians appealed for aid and fought
hard by themselves, tying down large Communist
forces for five years. Yet we spurned them. The
actions of Congress in cutting off our aid marked a
tragic abandonment of the principles declared by
President John F. Kennedy in his inaugural address in
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The Cambodian Communists

1961: "We shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet
any hardship" to defend freedom around the world.

The Flip-Flop on Cambodia

After the Communist conquest of Cambodia, many
American media exhibited some strange and significant behaviour.
One of the most convincing signs that an organizations is being influenced by foreign propaganda is
when it displays a sudden shift in opinion coinciding
exactly with a shift in policy of a foreign country. This
type of switch in response to the Communist Party
line is called "Zig-zag Parallelism." Communist propaganda and the reaction of American media to the Cambodian horrors went through two phases, providing
striking examples of such parallelism. From 19751977, the reports were ignored or discounted by many
in the media who had been sympathetic to the Khmer
Rouge and opposed U.S. assistance to the Cambodian
Republic government. In 1978, a shift took place.
Indo-China became the scene of violent confrontation
between countries which became Communist after
1975. The cooperation that existed among the Soviet,
Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Chinese Communists
until their victories in April 1975, had fallen apart by
1978. By mid-1978, there was an overt split between
the Cambodians backed by the Chinese on one side
and the Vietnamese backed by the Soviets in the other.
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Target America
This was reflected abruptly in the propaganda. As
late as January 3, 1978, Radio Moscow was still following a line friendly to the Khmer Rouge, broadcasting a
New Year's messsage of support to the Cambodian
people. Within two days, the tone began to change.
Radio Moscow started to air stories of "border tensions" between Cambodia and Viet Nam. It quoted the
Vietnamese ambassador as saying that Viet Nam was
resisting Cambodian aggression. On January 12, the
World Peace Council, always a barometer of Soviet
foreign policy, declared that it "supports the Vietnamese position." On January 19, Radio Moscow said
"the Vietnamese radio asks for peace. The Cambodian
radio fans hysteria." On January 26, the Vietnamese
radio declared that Viet Nam "refutes the Cambodian
charge that Vietnam is attempting to carry out its Federation Plan." By March, Radio Moscow reported the
"Cambodian failure to respond to Vietnamese proposals for negotiations," and March 3, 1978, Radio
Moscow broadcast a long commentary from Novoye
Vremya on the "Medieval Barbarities Characterizing
Cambodian Actions." From then on all gloves were
off and attacks from Radio Moscow and Hanoi on
Cambodia became as fierce as they had even been
against the American "imperialists" in Viet Nam.
This shift was reflected almost immediately in the
American media. Although no direct evidence of
cause and effect is available, the coincidence is remarkable. With the Cambodian holocaust ongoing for
almost three years, there was no more reason for discovering it in 1978 than there had been a year before.
After early 1977, additional evidence poured in, with
one unimaginable horror piled on top of another, but
58

The Cambodian Communists

the evidence differed only in degree rather than in
kind from previous clear indications that horrors had
taken place. Thus, the only new factor as of early 1978
was the Soviet Union's new attitude. When the proSoviet elements in the Far Left Lobby switched instantly, this somehow made it respectable for those
who look to the far left for clues to join in.
Anthony Lewis's columns in the Times for the first
time admitted the horrors, although one column
quoted William Shawcross in attempting to place
much of the blame on American policy. Coverage of
human rights violations in Cambodia increased considerably in the Times, with 48 mentions in 1978 compared to 34 in 1977. In the Washington Post, such
mentions increased from 10 in 1977 to 29 in 1978. In
July 1978, more than a year after they had been published and become best-sellers, the Post finally reviewed two major books on the Cambodian holocaust,
Barron and Paul's Murder of a Gentle Land and Father
Francois Ponchard's CambodiaYear Zero.
TV mentions of the massacres also increased considerably, reaching a climax of sorts on June 8 when CBS
broadcast a program anchored by Ed Bradley featuring an all-star cast of "experts" on Cambodia, including Gareth Porter, William Shawcross, and Tiziano
Terzani. All of these now confirmed that horrendous
massacres had in fact occurred, with Porter completely reversing the position he had taken before the
House Subcommittee.
The only exception on the program was Daniel Burstein of the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist), the
Chicago-based party that supports China and opposes
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Target America
the Soviet Union. Burstein is editor of the party's
weekly newspaper, The Call, and had recently returned from a visit to China and Cambodia, where he
and two associates were the first Americans admitted
since the Khmer Rouge victory. He testified rather
lamely under sharp questioning by Ed Bradley that all
reports of brutality in Cambodia were exaggerated.
The climactic and most dramatic shift in viewpoint
came in August 1978 from Senator George McGovern.
At a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing,
McGovern called on the State Department to recommend an international military force to "knock the
Cambodian regime out of power." McGovern had run
for president in 1972 on a platform of American withdrawal from Indo-China and cessation of support for
the anti-Communist governments there. In 1974, with
the Communists winning in Cambodia, he declared
that the Cambodians "should be left to settle their own
affairs." Now he said military intervention was
justified because of evidence that more than 2.5 million out of Cambodia's population of more than 6 million had died from starvation, disease, or execution
since the Communist victory. His statement evoked
bitter comments from the Wall Street Journal and
others who had supported American resistance to the
Communists in Indo-China. Why, they asked, had
McGovern not foreseen the dangers of a Communist
victory before it was too late?
Thus, from mid-1978 onwards, almost immediately
after the USSR began opposing the Khmer Rouge, the
only people defending the Cambodian regime were
those with obvious ties to Peking. Burstein and the CP
(ML) were the most extreme examples. Then in
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The Cambodian Communists

December 1978 occurred the strange visit of three
Western journalists to Cambodia, the first and only reporters to be admitted by the Pol Pot regime after Burstein's group.
These included Elizabeth Becker of the Washington
Post, Richard Dudman of the St. Louis Post Dispatch,
and Malcolm Caldwell, a British instructor from London University. All had shown earlier evidence of partiality towards the Chinese and Cambodian
Communists. Elizabeth Becker had been a Post correspondent in Phnom Penh in 1973 and 1974, when she
wrote articles generally critical of the Cambodian Republic's government and sympathetic to the Khmer
Rouge. Back in Washington as a Post writer, she
showed the same sympathy for the Khmer Rouge even
after the evidence of their brutality became overwhelming during 1977. In January of 1978, Miss
Becker attended an American Security Council press
conference at which a Cambodian refugee, Pin Yathay,
presented one of the most authenticated eye-witness
accounts of the massacres. Pin, a civil engineer, escaped after surviving 26 months in Cambodia and witnessing the death of all of his family. He told "many
macabre incidents.... The starving people ate the flesh
of dead bodies during this acute famine. Now I will
tell you a story that I lived myself. . .a teacher who ate
the flesh of her own dead sister. She was later caught
and beaten to death, in front of the whole village, as
an example, with her child crying beside her."
Halfway through this press conference, Elizabeth
Becker walked out. She was helped into her coat by
an employee of the American Security Council, who
heard her exclaim, "I have heard enough of this
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Target America
junk." The Post failed to carry a story of this press
conference.
Richard Dudman had also shown a strong partiality
for the Cambodian and Chinese Communists. In 1970,
while covering the war in Cambodia, he and some
other correspondents were captured by the Khmer
Rouge. Dudman was released after six weeks, and
there is evidence that he was freed because of the intervention of anti-war activists in the U.S., who considered him an ally. He later wrote a book about his
experience in captivity, tending to favor the Khmer
Rouge and saying nothing about their brutality, which
was becoming evident even after 1974.
Malcolm Caldwell of London University was a member of the British Labor Party, but known to be active
in London's Maoist Communist circles. In 1977, he
was implicated in the public TV confessions of a Communist-agent-of-influence in Singapore, G. Raman.
(See Chapter III.) Raman had met Caldwell while
studying in London in the 1960s. Caldwell persuaded
him to recruit agents in Singapore to spread propaganda and to gather information unfavorable to the
Singapore government, information Caldwell used to
try to discredit Singapore in European media and the
Socialist International. Caldwell had also lectured and
written articles defending the Pol Pot regime.
These three arrived at Phnom Penh by way of Peking in December, 1978. A Cambodian radio broadcast
quoted Caldwell as saying, "I have been trying for
years to create more sympathy for your country in
Britain. And I know that I shall be able to carry on this
work much more successfully as the result of having
the opportunity to visit your country." They stayed
62

The Cambodian Communists

for two weeks and were given guided tours around the
country, finishing with an interview with Pol Pot
himself. On the early morning before they were to
leave, three gunmen broke into their house. Caldwell
was killed. Dudman narrowly escaped when a gunman missed him from only 20 feet. Elizabeth Becker
escaped by hiding in her bath tub. The assassins were
believed to be members of the pro-Vietnamese underground in Cambodia. Their motives were either to discredit the Pol Pot government by showing that they
could not protect their own guests, or to take revenge
on pro-Pol Pot journalists.
Becker and Dudman returned to the U.S. via Peking
and wrote a series of articles frankly describing Cambodia's desolation: Phnom Penh was like "Pompeii
without the ashes," said Dudman and there were signs
of hunger, and a cowed and dispirited population.
They also admitted that they had been given a Potemkin tour and were not free to interview whom they
pleased. Yet they somehow managed to conclude with
favorable impressions. Dudman argued that "The
physical conditions may well have improved for many
peasants and former urban workers,. . . the new leader
are not fanatical madmen... the crash evacuation of
Phnom Penh may well have been essential to resume
food production. Cambodia is in the midst of one of
the world's great housing programs." Becker
concluded that the production figures given them
could not be too misleading and that "the system was
working." The system was working indeed, if its purpose was to destroy a people and a culture.
Both these journalists reported that the Vietnamese
forces in the area had been repulsed the year before
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Target America
and were now weaker than before. But within a week,
they were proved wrong. The Vietnamese launched
their long-planned final invasion and drove through to
Phnom Penh by January 7. The Pol Pot government
was forced to flee to the jungles.
The Vietnamese set up their puppet regime under
Heng Samrin. In the first weeks it appeared that any
government, even one sponsored by the hated Vietnamese, would be preferable to the murderous Pol Pot
regime. But as the months wore on and the guerilla
fighting with the Pol Pot remnants continued, the
Vietnamese and their puppets refused to allow imports
of foods to the contested areas. So another cycle of
starvation and bloodshed started for the unfortunate
gentle people of Cambodia.
The reactions of American media and opinion
leaders since the fall of Cambodia to the Khmer Rouge
in April 1975 provided several clear cases of Zig-zag
Parallelism." Columnist Anthony Lewis, research analysts William Goodfellow and Gareth Porter, and Senator George McGovern defended the Pol Pot regime
long after the time when the evidence of their brutality
was overwhelming. Then when the Soviets and
Vietnamese switched from support of to opposition to
Pol Pot, most such people also made the same abrupt
change, A similar change took place in the coverage of
most of the major media.
The New York Times editorial page denounced the
horrors soon after they became evident, and Henry
Kamm reported them in detail from Southeast Asia,
but the rest of the Times news columns and Op Ed
page showed the same swing from indifference or disbelief to strong denunciation. The Washington Post
64

The Cambodian Communists

and the major TV networks also made a similar abrupt
shift in early 1978.
Why was it only after the Soviet propaganda machine suddenly "discovered" Khmer Route brutality in
1978 that many U.S. media and opinion leaders allowed themselves to do the same? And why was it that
only the pro-Peking members of the Far Left Lobby
desperately clung to their defenses of Pol Pot and his
cohorts? The zigs and zags of U.S. media and "intellectuals" and their correspondence with the twists and
turns of Soviet and Chinese propaganda are indeed enlightening. We like to boast of our freedom of the
press, but our press may be far less free than we think.

65

V. Whitewashing the North Vietnamese

The worldwide propaganda in support of the struggle by
the North Vietnamese against the United States was one of
the largest campaigns in history. Once the U.S. had
withdrawn from Indochina, the propaganda had two new
objectives: 1) to persuade the U.S. and other democracies
to grant political recognition and economic aid, and 2) to
convince the American public that our involvement in Viet
Nam had been a gigantic mistake, that we had been
opposing a sincere movement for national liberation, and
therefore that, in the future, we should not "interfere in
other countries' internal affairs." Or to use a popular media
phrase, we should not try to be "the policeman for the
world." The first objective was of primary interest to the
Vietnamese who were facing tremendous economic problems. The second was a particular aim of the Soviets. By
taking advantage of this "first defeat ever suffered by the
U.S.," the Soviet propaganda could do much to convince
the American public that we should never again become
involved in such foreign adventures.
This scenario of the non-interventionist propaganda
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The North Vietnamese

line had been promoted in the U.S. for many years before 1975 by those who wanted the U.S. to quit the
war. In 1972, Senator Ted Kennedy said the U.S.
should get out of Viet Nam and "let the Vietnamese
settle their own problems," causing Singapore's brilliant, sharp-tongued prime minister, Lee Kwan Yew, to
say that in view of the massive Communist interference in Viet Nam on the other side, Kennedy must be
"out of his mind." Statements such as Kennedy's began to prove false almost immediately after the Communist take-over. The North Vietnamese set up a
typically authoritarian Communist regime in Saigon.
Though given token titles, southern leaders of the Viet
Cong gradually dropped out of sight. All former members of the South Vietnamese Army, government officials and those who had done any business with the
government or the Americans were required to report
for "re-education." Persecution of religious groups
began. In November 1975, 12 Buddhist monks burned
themselves to death in protest against government
repression, an event virtually ignored by the media.
The Catholic Church also came under severe pressure,
and by summer of 1977, there were 300 priests and 6
bishops in prison.
A massive system of prisons and "re-education"
camps was set up all over South Viet Nam and extended into the North, like the Soviet Gulag Archipelago on a smaller scale. Father Gelinas, a Jesuit priest
who lived in Viet Nam for 20 years and remained in
Saigon for 15 months after the Communist conquest,
estimated a minimum of 300,000 prisoners in 1977.
Other estimates ranged as high as 800,000, and refugees reported that large numbers of "re-education
61

Target America
center" prisoners were slowly being starved to death.
The Soviet and Vietnamese propaganda machine, of
course, presented a much more attractive picture of
Viet Nam after the fall of Saigon in 1975. But in order
for the propagandists to argue convincingly that it had
massive support when such large numbers of people
were fleeing desperately, in 1975-76, they waged a
campaign against the refugees, following two somewhat contradictory lines: most of the refugees were
misguided and would want to return; most of them
were the scum of Vietnamese society and lackeys of
the Americans. These lines appeared first in publications of the Far Left Lobby and its sympathetic allies.
For example, in April 1975, the American Friends Service Committee distributed a flyer, "Vietnam: Why
the Refugees?" by Edward Block, who was affiliated
with a number of Far Left organizations in attacking
the U.S. effort in Viet Nam. The flyer's point is that the
refugees were not fleeing from Communism but from
fear of additional American bombing. But this assertion did not explain why the refugees were leaving the
"safe" Communist areas for the dangerous areas held
by a crumbling government! Communist propaganda,
and its American echoes, could only portray the refugees as irrational, panic-striken people. But after the
fall of Saigon and the complete cessation of fighting, it
was unmistakable that the refugees actually preferred
the risk of death at sea to life in the new socialist paradise. The depth of the campaign in 1975 was reached
with Herblock's cartoon in the Washington Post,
showing the Statue of Liberty with a worried expression on her face, looking at a procession of seedy Vietnamese entering the country, and captioned, "Give
68

The North Vietnamese

me your drug pushers, pimps, prostitutes, your torturers and embezzlers."
Direct Communist propaganda (printed materials
and broadcasts from Moscow, Hanoi and Peking)
sought to depict Vietnam as a place full of brave efforts to restore a war-damaged country and bring
about national reconciliation. In the U.S., the Far Left
Lobby echoed this line. A typical example was Don
Luce of Clergy and Laity Concerned, who testified before the House Subcommittee on International Organizations in June 1977, that he had visited Viet Nam in
April and came back "with a very optimistic feeling
about a society that is working very hard to rebuild."
This line was reflected in the American TV networks
and liberal northeastern media, from the time of the
Communist victory through 1977, ignoring the testimonies of the many refugees coming out of Viet Nam
who could give authoritative evidence of the horrors.
By late 1976, when evidence of brutal oppression in
Viet Nam was becoming overwhelming, it began to
have some influence on humanitarians in the U.S., including many who had been anti-war agitators. The
Fellowship of Reconciliation, a pacifist organization in
New York and Amsterdam, which had been active in
opposing the war, began circulating a letter within the
peace movement, expressing concern over reports of
large numbers of prisoners, maltreatment and a violation of human rights. It asked for permission for neutral organizations like Amnesty International or the
U.N. to make on-site inspections. The 112 signers included many former anti-war activists such as Joan
Baez and Daniel Ellsberg, and liberals, including Kay
Boyle and ACLU founder, Roger Baldwin. Attempts
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Target America
were made to present the letter privately and without
publicity to the Vietnamese U.N. observer, but Mr. Thi
ignored all letters and phone calls. As a last resort, the
group called a press conference for December 29,
1976, and released the letter publicly. Between the
first discussion of the letter and the public announcement, there was tremendous pressure on the signers to
withdraw their names. Here the separations between
true humanitarians and dedicated pro-Communists
was most evident. Anti-war activists most closely
connected with the Far Left Lobby, led by Gareth Porter of the Indo-China Resource Center, not only
refused to sign but vigorously attempted to prevent
publication of the letter.
In 1977 and 78, conditions in Viet Nam worsenedtwo poor harvests (blamed on the after-effects
of U.S. defoliation, "flooding," "drought"), low rice
rations, hunger and even starvationcausing an increase in the flood of refugees.
In the 1975-76 period, the evidence of tyranny in
Viet Nam had drawn little mention in the print media
and was almost ignored by TV In 1978, there was
some pickup in the media but most mentioned referred to the ethnic Chinese refugees from Viet Nam.
This raises the question as to whether some of this attention was stimulated by persons having sympathy
for the Chinese Communists, who were engaged in a
major confrontation with Viet Nam. It was at this time
that Hoang Van Hoan, Vietnamese politboro member
and a close friend of Ho Chi Minh, defected to Peking
in a disagreement over Vietnamese policy towards
China, issuing statements critical of the Vietnamese tilt
towards the Soviets and persecutions of their Chinese

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The North Vietnamese

minority. Still hard core ultra-liberals and the Far Left
Lobbyists continued to paint a favorable picture of
Viet Nam. In the August 3, 1979 NY Times, the first of
six articles on Viet Nam by Seymour Hersh appeared.
Hersh had spent 10 days in Viet Nam, one of the few
American correspondents to be admitted since the
early months of Communist rule. His articles seemed
to reflect his gratitude for this favor, painting a universally rosy picture of conditions there.
True liberals, however, were becoming increasingly
disillusioned. In May, 1979, a number of those who
had signed the 1977 appeal to the Vietnamese composed another letter. The leading spirit was Joan Baez
and the letter more outspoken. Again, the hard-core
members of the Far Left refused to be associated. Attacks on Joan Baez and the other signers appeared, including an ad in the NY Times (June 24, 1979)
headlined "The Truth About Viet Nam." In comparison to similar pro-Vietnamese appeals of earlier years
there is a complete absence of any of the well-known
idealists and a large number of the signers are known
Communists. It appears that backers of Viet Nam have
finally exhausted the support of the large number of
humanitarian liberals who were seduced for years into
backing the policies of this tyrannical regime, undermining U.S. policy and encouraging the final collapse
of the South Vietnamese government. Jean Lacouture,
a French liberal journalist who reported on the Viet
Nam war for La Monde, publicly confessed his
"shame for having contributed to the installation of
one of the most repressive regimes history has ever
known," adding that he and other journalists were
"intermediaries for a lying and criminal propaganda
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Target America
ingenuous spokesmen for a tyranny in the name of liberty." How many Lacoutures still exist in U.S. media
today? How many American reporters or TV commentators don't realize they are being used as "intermediaries for a lying and criminal propaganda?" What is the
next target for Communist conquest, or the next campaign to undermine American security or economic
progress at home that they are being manipulated into
helping? Though the veil of illusion on the nature of
the Vietnamese Communists was being swept away,
the second objective of the propaganda campaign, to
convince us that the U.S. made a great mistake in interfering in another country's internal affairs, was still
having disastrous influence. When anti-Communist
factions in Angola and Ethiopia appealed to the U.S.
for help against the Communists, Congress refused. In
Angola, the Communists, with massive Cuban and
Russian support, won. Ethiopia fell to the Communists after extremely bloody fighting that went almost
unnoticed in the U.S. and the entire Horn of Africa
was dominated by the Communists.
American isolationism was succinctly expressed by
a scholar who should have known better, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.: "Six months ago, most Americans had
never heard of the Horn of Africa, and now the government is creating panic that this might affect our interests." (Shades of 1938 in England when
Chamberlain's followers asked who had ever heard of
the Sudentenland.)

72

VI. The Campaign Against the Agency for

International Development
The Agency for International Development (AID) grew
out of President Truman's 1949 Point Four Program, which
called for a "bold new program for making the benefits of
our scientific advance and industrial progress available
for the improvement and growth of underdeveloped areas."
AID was set up in 1961 to take over this and all other
foreign assistance programs, administering a large number
of projects in medicine, education, land reform, agriculture
and labor relations in underdeveloped countries.
The Communists began sniping at these activities almost
immediately. Soviet publications and Radio Moscow
broadcasts to underdeveloped countries attacked the
program as an American device for penetrating "colonial"
countries and seizing control of them after the other
"imperialist" powers had pulled out. The campaign
became more ferocious after 1966 as the Viet Nam War
heated up and AID became more active in Indochina in
humanitarian fields. American media attacked AID's
program to advise the underdeveloped countries in Public
Safety methods. In 1962, President
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Target America
Kennedy founded the International Police Academy in
Washington, saying the police constitute "the first line
of defense against subversion in troubled Third World
countries." The police training program was an attractive target for Communist propaganda, which accused
AID of training people in how to make deadly booby
traps and torture civilians. Characteristic of modern
Communist propaganda campaigns, the propaganda
began to originate in U.S. media as well as in the Soviet organs themselves. On October 8, 1973, Jack Anderson's column alleged that "Bomb and booby trap
experts from the CIA have been quietly training foreign police to make explosives devices.... The cloak
and dagger professors are on loan from the CIA to the
AID." Anderson fails to make clear that the course was
designed to teach the police how to combat bombings
and booby traps, not create them. On August 3, 1974,
Anderson reported that "students at the International
Police Academy... have developed some chilling
views about torture tactics." Accuracy in Media's investigation found that Anderson's researcher had taken
quotes completely out of context from the essays of
six students, who in fact, opposed the use of torture.
AIM complained to the National News Council, an
organization founded to monitor the media, and the
Council upheld AIM's complaint, stating the
Anderson's column was "biased and inaccurate."
However, the charges that AID was training foreign
torturers had direct repercussions.
On August 10, 1970, the body of an American was
found in the back seat of a stolen car on a street in
Montevideo, Uruguay. Blood was dripping through
the floor boards. The man had been shot twice in the
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International Development
head and twice in the body. His eyes were bandaged,
and his arms were pitted by 16 needle punctures. His
left arm-pit had deep bruises, close to a gun-shot
wound. This was the body of Dan A. Mitrione, employed by AID to teach police techniques to the Uruguayan government and kidnapped eleven days earlier
by the Tupamaros, a large terrorist organization in
Uruguay. Mitrione had been tortured and then tried by
a Tupamaros "People's Court," accused of being a
CIA or FBI agent teaching the Uruguayan police
methods of torture and repression, and then executed.
Three years later, his story became the theme of an
even more sophisticated Communist propaganda effort, the movie, State of Siege, co-authored by the
noted director, Constantin Gavras (Costa-Gavras, the
"Alfred Hitchock of the Left"), and an Italian Communist, Franco Solinas. State of Siege portrays the Uruguayan government as tyrannical and the Tupamaros
as clean-cut humanitarian idealists. Both are gross distortions. Uruguay in 1970 was one of the most liberal
democracies in the world, and the Tupamaros, a mixture of idealists, hard-nosed terrorists, and common
criminals. Founded in the early 1960s, the Tupamaros
(an organization of more than 1,000 members) committed its first murder by 1966 and by 1970 had already killed nine people. Mitrione was their tenth
victim. By the time they were crushed, the Tupamaros
had caused thousands of deaths.
The movie implies that Uruguay was already under
martial law and in a "state of siege" in 1970, but this
was not the case. Not until three years later, one day
after the Tupamaros had murdered five government
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officials, did the Parliament declare martial law. By
that time, the Tupamaros had killed 45 people.
The principal message of State of Siege was that the
United States had cooperated with the Uruguayan authorities in this tyrannical regime, with Mitrione assisting them as a CIA agent under AID cover, teaching the
police refined methods of torture. This became a principal theme in the Communist propaganda campaign
against AID; that it was training the police forces of repressive regimes in Third World countries in torture
techniques.
This movie was filmed in Chile during the pro-Communist Allende regime. Offered to the Chilean government, it was turned down as being too obviously a
Communist propaganda documentary. Nevertheless, it
was shown in many art cinemas in the U.S. and got
several favorable reviews, including one from Vincent
Canby in the N. Y Times.
Dr. Ernest W. Lefever, at the Brookings Institution in
Washington in the 1960's, conducted a 15 country
field trip survey of AID's Public Safety Program and
found no evidence of the torture charge. Nevertheless,
in 1974, both houses passed a bill to eliminate the
entire program.
The Communist campaign's most telling effect on
U.S. media was to influence them in later years to ignore the good works of AID. Although there was no
mention in the Times, from 1968 on, of AID accomplishments in Viet Nam nor of the hundreds of AID advisors who had given years of sacrificial service in Viet
Nam, there were bitter attacks and on January 15,
1978, the Times ran a story on a single AID official
who had resigned and had something negative to say.
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International Development
The result of the Communist propaganda campaign
against AID, echoed by far leftists and re-echoed by
American media was to reduce public support for such
activities abroad, lead to further doubts in the minds
of the American people about the aims and activities
of our government and its leaders, and create an image
of AID as an organization that encouraged torture,
bombings and other nefarious activities. In fact, AID
was devoted to the most humanitarian activities in
medicine, education, labor relations and land reform,
and reflected some of the highest ideals of the
American people both in its policies and character and
devotion of its employees.

77

VII. The Campaign Against Vietnamese Labor

Unions
The Communist campaign against Vietnamese labor
unions provides one of the clearest case histories of
the success of propaganda in causing bias in American
media. It is also a good example in microcosm of the
Communist's world-wide offensive against free
unions, partly by promotion of dummy Communist
unions, and partly by an all-encompassing propaganda
effort.
Labor unions were active in Viet Nam for decades,
well before U.S. involvement began. Under French
rule from 1862 to 1941, the large class of laborers and
tenant farmers rebelled against the French in 1940,
with the slogan, "Land to the Tillers, Freedom for the
Workers, Independence for Viet Nam." One of the
leaders of this revolt was Tran Quoc Buu, a schoolteacher who later became the father of the labor union
movement in Viet Nam.
Under French rule, urtion membership was forbidden for Vietnamese nationals although permitted for
Frenchmen. Buu started a Vietnamese labor confederation in 1949, with the cooperation of French labor
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Vietnamese Labor Unions

organizers. By 1954, the federation, the CVT (Confederation Vietnamienne de Travail), had joined the International Labor Organization and counted 100,000
members.
After division of the country in 1954, when the Ho
Chi Minh Government took over the North, about half
of the CVT members were in the North. The Communists persecuted labor leaders in the North, executing
or jailing some, forcing others to flee. The free union
movement was wiped out and only dummy Communist unions remain to this day.
In South Viet Nam, the Diem government was
friendly to labor for a while and union membership
grew to about 500,000. Diem began to repress the
unions, but conditions improved under the Thieu administration. The Thieu government carried out a major land reform program in 1970, stimulated partly by
the Tenant Farmers Federation (with 330,000 members) which practically wiped out the serious farm tenancy problem in South Viet Nam.
ILO data on work stoppage and man hours lost from
1967 to 1972 shows that Vietnamese unions were
more active than any others in Asia, a clear indication
that these were not dummy unions.
The Communists began waging a major propaganda
campaign against the CVT after 1965, as the war
heated up. By 1970, Buu was being attacked more by
Radio Hanoi than any other individual in South Viet
Nam, except Thieu. The Communists regarded free
unions as a major threat to their attempts to undermine
the society of the country by portraying the Thieu
government as a tyranny and Buu as nothing but a
CIA agent, plotting to impose restrictions on la79

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bor for the benefit of American imperialists and their
lackeys.
The CVT was getting well publicized assistance
from AID in training and techniques, and it would not
be surprising if AID in turn fed information to the CIA,
but it would be ludicrous to say that Buu was "nothing
but" a CIA agent. No CIA or AID backing could
produce a trade union confederation of 500,000 members, and the CVT had a membership of at least
100,000 in 1954, before the U.S. had much direct interest in South Viet Nam and certainly before the CIA
or AID knew much about Vietnamese unions.
The Communists also carried out an assassination
campaign against the CVT. More than 100 free union
organizers were assassinated from 1960 to 1974, and
three attempts were made on Buu's life. This was denied by the Communists before the fall of Saigon, but
Tiziano Terzani, a pro-Communist correspondent of
the German magazine, Der Spiegel, has now revealed,
in his book on the subject, Giai Phong (Liberation),
that the attempts on Buu's life were the work of a Viet
Cong assassination team. The leader of the team told
Terzani that the Viet Cong tried to make it appear that
the attempts on Buu's life were the work of the South
Vietnamese military, and one member of the team was
thrown out of the Communist party for confessing
publicly on TV that it was the work of the Communists. Terzani, whose book echoes all of the Communist propaganda lines (and received a favorable review
in the New York Times), also calls Buu a "CIA agent"
and says that the CVT was financed by "various organs of the 'International Right'." One wonders if Terzani really believes that the AFL-CIO is part of the
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International Right.
Effects on the U.S. media: A few mentions of Buu
and the CVT as CIA agents in the radical press, including the Hayden-Fonda Focal Point magazine and
Ramparts. Richard Dudman of the St. Louis Post Dispatch, in a New Republic article, "AFL/CIO as Paid
Propagandists," refers to "Agent Meany," and criticizes the activities of the CVT in Viet Nam. In the famous Marchetti-Marks book, The CIA and the Cult of
Intelligence, several paragraphs were deleted at the insistence of the CIA. One deletion immediately follows
Buu's name, and would seem to imply that Marchetti
is claiming that Buu was an "agent." (Among other
mistakes, Marchetti gives Buu the wrong middle
name.) But the major effect on American media of the
Communist campaign, as in the case of AID, was to
cause errors of omission, resulting in the labor union
movement in Viet Nam being virtually ignored.
A check of The Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature shows that the 124 publications indexed there
contained not a single article on the CVT or Buu
throughout the entire history of U.S. involvement in
Viet Nam, from 1955 to 1975. Another check, through
its index for this twenty year period, indicates the
same is true of the New York Times. Two one-inch
stories appeared during this period: one when Buu
barely escaped assassination and the second when he
attacked the U.S. mistakes in Viet Nam. Then in
1974, the Times finally devoted one full column to
Buu when he openly denounced Thieu for the first
time. The Times apparently only found Vietnamese
labor unions newsworthy when they could be used for
negative coverage of the South Viet Nam government.
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There was good coverage in the labor pressAFL/
CIO publications, The Machinist, etc. and Victor
Riesel's columnsbut nothing in the general media.
Considerable treatment of Buu and the CVT does appear, however, in The Politics of Massacre, by Professor Charles A. Joiner of Temple University
(Philadelphia, 1974), the most complete study of
South Vietnamese politics.
The general media's neglect of labor unions in Viet
Nam would be comparable to their covering American
politics and business over the past 20 years, without
mentioning the AFL/CIO or George Meany. In fact,
they were missing a rather dramatic and moving story,
of the struggles of Buu and his associates to build up a
free labor union movement in spite of French Imperialism, Communist subversion, and a major war within
their own country.
Finally in 1975 came the fall of Saigon. Three days
later, the Times ran a front page story on a parade of
"2,000 members" of the Communist labor union organization in Saigon. Of all the evidences of the effects
of Communist propaganda on the Times, certainly this
is one of the clearest. Any journalist with an elementary knowledge of world labor union affairs
knows that unions in Communist countries are simply
another instrument of Government control of the
population. Any union which tries to assert its independence is quickly snuffed out or emasculated. Communism, which claims to be the voice of the workers,
simply cannot afford to allow a real and independent
workers' voice. For the Times editors to ignore free
unions in Viet Nam for twenty years and then to frontpage the first demonstration by a Communist "union"
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is a startling example of bias.
The campaign against Vietnamese labor unions and
its success among American media, is a clear example
of the continuing world-wide Communist effort to destroy free labor unions by propaganda, or by penetration, or physical force, and to substitute their own
dummy unions. Poland is the most recent example,
but this has been conscious Communist practice since
the days of Lenin. When the Comintern was founded
in 1921, the 21 conditions which Communist parties
had to accept to join included not one word about improving the lot of the working class, but instructions
to (1) infiltrate and attempt to capture existing trade
unions, and (2) propagandize for a break of national
trade unions from the existing International of Trade
Unions in favor of a projected new International of
Unions (an organization which would be Communist
dominated).
After WW II, there was considerable hope in the
West that the Soviets had given up ideas of world
domination and stood for the rights of the workers.
The World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) was
founded in 1945. Disillusionment set in soon, and in
1949, non-Communist trade unions withdrew and
founded the International Confederation of Free Trade
Unions (ICFTU). The WFTU has since devoted a major
effort to attacking the ICFTU. In the United States,
the organization with the closest ties to the WFTU is
Trade Unionists for Action and Democracy, which
regularly hosts visits by "trade union" officials from
the Soviet Union.
Soviet efforts to promote subversion through trade
unions have grown greatly since WW II. There is a
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special department in the KGB on labor affairs, a
counterpart in the Propaganda Ministry and KGB labor specialists in Soviet embassies in most major
countries.
Red unions have been prominent in most Communist attempts to seize power, as in Chile under Allende,
where the Communist unions were financed from
Moscow much more liberally than the free trade unions were supported by the U.S. In the struggle for
Portugal in 1975 and '76, the Communists almost succeeded in taking over the only large labor federation
in the country, thanks to millions of dollars poured
into the country by the KGB.
The Soviets made an energetic effort to restore the
relations between the WFTU and labor unions in democratic countries by a vigorous propaganda campaign
on the need for labor solidarity. The head of the Russian trade union organization spearheading this drive
(the All Union Central Council of Trade Unions) was
ex-KGB director, Alexander Shelepin, a man without
previous labor union experience. He had some success
in improving relations with Western union officials.
But during a London visit in 1975, newspapers
published the fact that his KGB duties had led to involvement in a murder in Germany. After hostile demonstrations by British anti-Communist unionists, he
was forced to return to Moscow early and soon removed from his "trade union" post.
In the 1960's and '70s, AID, in cooperation with the
AFL/CIO, carried out an education and assistance program for new or weak unions in other countries.
Working through the African-American Labor Center,
based in New York City, the Asian-American Free La84

Vietnamese Labor Unions

bor Institute, and the American Institute for Free Labor Development, AID provided much valuable
support to unions in Viet Nam, Indonesia, Thailand,
the Philippines, Zaire and elsewhere in Africa, and
Chile, Brazil, Mexico and Uruguay in Latin America.
These American efforts stimulated vigorous countermeasures by the Soviet propaganda apparatus. In
the U.S. efforts began that were the first seeds of the
later massive assault on the CIA. In 1966, Victor
Reuther of the United Auto Workers, a bitter rival of
George Meany and the AFL/CIO, charged that the CIA
was operating through the AFL/CIO labor institutes.
Senators Eugene McCarthy and J. William Fulbright
picked up this charge and attempted to get a Senate
committee to investigate the CIA. Though their attempt failed in 1966, some of the dirt stuck, and this
became a favorite theme of Communist propaganda.
Any anti-Communist union in another part of the
world from then on could be accused of being a "CIA
tool" and an "agent of the American monopolies and
multi-nationals."
The massive Communist campaign was also successfully directed against the International Labor Office, a UN body based in Geneva, whose main official
mission was to work for the improvement of working
conditions and labor union organizations around the
world. As a result of the Communist efforts, the ILO
became increasingly political, frequently criticizing labor conditions in the U.S. and other democracies,
refusing to investigate charges of labor repression in
the Soviet Union, and engaging in non-labor related issues. In 1975 when the ILO voted to admit the Palestine Liberation Organization as official observers
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during a heated debate in which the U.S. and Israel
were viciously attacked, the American delegation
walked out for the first time. A few minutes later, the
PLO delegation walked in to the cheers of most of the
assembly. The PLO leader, Abdel Aziz al-Wajeh, made
an opening speech. He was later identified as having
directed the PLO massacre of the 11 Israeli athletes at
the Olympic Games as well as the terrorist attack on
the Hotel Savoy in Tel Aviv, in which 11 guests were
killed.
Later in that year, the Ford Administration gave the
required two-year notice that the U.S. would withdraw from the ILO if it did not reduce its political
activities. In 1977, when there was no sign of improvement, the Carter Administration formally withdrew, depriving the ILO of 25% of its budget.
In 1980, the ILO Director General promised in writing to try to prevent politically motivated resolutions,
and the organization showed evidence of not following a double standard when the Soviet Union and
other Communist countries were challenged for practices harmful to workers. In February 1980, the U.S.
resumed membership.
But the Communist offensive against free labor
unions continued in this country and abroad. Typical
of the propaganda campaign was the actions of
Counter Spy Magazine in 1979. This journal had been
started by the "Fifth Estate" organization in 1975,
with the backing of the Institute for Policy Studies and
the advice of opponents of American intelligence like
CIA defector Philip Agee, Victor Marchetti, David Dellinger (one of the Chicago Seven), and Mark Lane (attorney for Jim Jones' church, and James Earl Ray).
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Vietnamese Labor Unions

During 1976, after an internal fight over policy, most
of the staff resigned and the magazine stopped publication. Agee and others in 1979, started a new magazine, Covert Action Information Bulletin, while
Counter Spy resumed publication under a new editor,
John Kelly. The first issue of the new Counter Spy was
devoted almost entirely to an attack on the so-called
involvement of the CIA in the efforts of AID and the
AFL-CIO to assist labor unions in other countries. Following the practice of the old Counter Spy in "naming
names," this issue listed more than 50 labor union officials from other countries who had simply visited the
U.S. Kelly later admitted that there was no evidence
that any of these persons were CIA agents, but the
magazine used the mere fact that they had visited this
country to besmirch their reputations and imply they
were tools of American monopolies or the CIA.
Another example was the three-part Public Broadcasting Service television series of the CIA, aired in
May 1980, entitled On Company Business. Billed as a
scholarly documentary, this series produced by Allan
Francovich and Howard Drach in fact was a highly
prejudiced hatchet job on the CIA. In a fund-raising
prospectus circulated in 1976, the producers made
clear that their purpose was anything but a balanced
investigation: "This film will be the story of 30 years
of CIA subversion, murder, bribery and torture as told
by an insider... it will show the broken lives, hatred,
cruelty, cynicism, and despair which result from U.S.CIA policy." The "insider" was Philip Agee, and many
of the other "experts" interviewed on the film were
Agee's friends and associates, including Angela Seixas,
the Brazilian woman who lived with Agee for several
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years in England; A.J. Langguth, who wrote the highly
distorted book on the Mitrione case, Hidden Terrors;
and John Stockwell, another CIA defector, who wrote
In Search of Enemies, a biased account of CIA attempts to counter the Communist conquest of Angola.
The second installment of this series was almost entirely devoted to an attack on American efforts to assist free labor unions in other countries and on efforts
to resist Communist subversion of the labor movement. Statements by officials of the AFL-CIO international labor institutes are taken out of context or
followed by statements by Agee and his friends making these American efforts appear to be nothing but
cynical attempts to use foreign labor unions as tools of
U.S. imperialism. The CIA is pictured as using foreign
labor unions simply as a means of subverting legally
elected foreign governments.
This PBS series was so biased and distorted that it
aroused considerable indignation, with many persons
questioning the use of the taxpayer-funded broadcasting system to sponsor so prejudiced an attack on
American institutions. Communist propaganda had
found its way into the heart of a news medium which
should belong to the American people. But as the
Polish unions illustrate, free labor unions and Communist tyranny cannot coexist, so the propaganda machine cranks up with all its power subtlety against
these unions, as we saw in Viet Nam and as we are
now seeing in Poland. We can only hope thatas the
Reagan victory suggests and as media coverage of Poland may indicatewe are finally beginning to see the
reality behind the propaganda.
Just how diametrically opposed are free labor
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Vietnamese Labor Unions

unions and the Communist system is dramatically indicated by a speech buried in the On Campus Business series itself. The producers quoted the speech out
of context, intending it to be heard as support for their
anti-CIA, anti-AFL-CIO, and anti-Americans stance,
but if we remove it from the false context of the
television series, it provides a vivid illustration of the
graphic contrast between free labor and the Communist world.
Bill Doherty, director of the AFL-CIO's American Institute for Free Labor Development, gave the speech
at a luncheon concluding a one-month training session
for Latin American labor union officials: Concluding
our luncheon today... I'd like to give you a thought in
Spanish that comes from one of the great political and
literary geniuses of this century and of the past
century, the true liberator of his country, who is
embarrassed from heaven by the shame that now
exists in Cuba because of the dictatorship of Fidel Castro. That great Cuban, Jose Marti, once said:
" 'El mundo se divide en dos ramos: los que aman y
construyen, y los que odian y destruyen.' Nosotros
companeros sindicalistas libres, somos que amanos y
construimos. Vayanse con Dios, compaheros."
(" 'The world is divided into two groups: those who
love and build, and those who hate and destroy.' Our
comrades in free labor unions are those who love and
build. Go forth with God, comrades.")
Communist propaganda has been tragically effective in attacking those who love and build and in supporting those who hate and destroy.

89

VIII. Blowing Up The Neutron Bomb*

The Communist campaign against the neutron
bomb** has been one of the most massive of all Soviet
propaganda efforts and one of the most successful. It
has confused the media and public opinion, altered
U.S. defense policy to our disadvantage, and blackened the reputation of the American government in
the Third World and even in the eyes of our own people.
The neutron bomb story starts in the late 1950s,
when American scientists at the Livermore Laboratories developed the concept of a precision atomic
weapon with reduced blast and heat effects, but with
greater radiation of neutrons. This device could be
used to kill enemy soldiers and would greatly reduce
*Written in cooperation with Charles Wiley, Executive Director
of the National Committee for Responsible Patriotism.
**"Neutron bomb" is not an accurate description. The present
device is not a bomb, but is designed for use in a rocket missile or
artillery shell. It is more accurately an "enhanced radiation reduced
blast" weapon. Since "neutron bomb" has been so widely adopted
by the media, it will be used throughout this chapter.

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The Neutron Bomb

civilian casualties and destruction of homes and other
property in the battle zone.
Such a weapon has great advantages for certain situations. Most of all, it is particularly effective against
the major threat to NATO countries: the awesome
strength of Soviet tanks and armored personnel carriers massed in Eastern Europe, which by 1975, outnumbered NATO vehicles almost two to one.
Defending against this onslaught by conventional
atomic weapons would cause massive damage to West
Germany and other democracies. Many doubt the
West would dare to use tactical atomic bombsand
that doubt, in Soviet minds, could encourage the
Communists to risk an invasion.
As soon as the possibility of developing this device
was mentioned in the scientific press, the Soviets recognized its importance as a defensive weapon for
Western Europe and started a propaganda campaign
against it. The first big blast came from Premier Nikita
Khrushchev in a speech at a Soviet-Rumanian "Friendship Meeting" on August 11, 1961. "The neutron
bomb as conceived by American scientists," he said,
"should kill everything living but leave material assets
intact. They are acting as robbers who want to murder
a man without staining his suit with blood so as to be
able to use this suit."
Later the same month, the Russians exploded their
bombshell. They resumed atomic bomb testinga
stunning violation of the agreements made three years
earlier with the U.S. and other democracies. This was
one of the greatest blows to the hopes of mankind
ever perpetrated by the Soviet Union, and the Kremlin
required a large-scale propaganda effort to contain the
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Target America
public relations problem. They seized on the neutron
bomb development in the U.S. as one excuse for resuming the tests.
After the initial shock, President Kennedy and his
cabinet decided to defer a decision to resume American tests, and to sit back and await a ground-swell of
popular protests around the world and reap to the full
the propaganda value of the Soviets' moratorium violation. But almost nothing happened. The Kennedy
administration, after seven months, reluctantly announced that we were obliged to resume our own
testing. Only then was there an enormous outpouring
of demonstrations and denunciations around the
world. Even within the United States there were more
organized attacks on Kennedy's decision than had ever
been directed against the Russians' initial violation.
Women Strike for Peace was formed in September
1961, specifically to put pressure on Kennedy against
resuming tests, and the organization mounted
vigorous protests after his decision was announced. In
subsequent appearances before the House Un-American Activities Committee, ten out of the twelve top
officers of W.S.P. took the Fifth Amendment when
asked about Communist Party membership. And
throughout 1961 and in later years, they agitated continually against American tests and never against Soviet actions.
The bomb was put on the back burner for several
years by the Defense Department, but in 1975, Defense Secretary Schlesinger decided to begin production in view of the increasingly serious preponderence of Soviet tank forces in Europe. Soon after
this decision was made public in 1977, a major propa-

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ganda campaign began, starting in the U.S. and continuing around the world. Organizations like Women
Strike for Peace demonstrated in front of the White
House using slogans that were notable for being identical to those used by Khrushchev 15 years earlier: 1) a
"killer" weapon that destroys people; 2) produces
death by radiation which is somehow more horrible
than death from other weapons; 3) an "imperialist"
bomb, designed to preserve material things. By 1977,
the Soviets had a fourth point: this new weapon would
"lower the nuclear threshold," making atomic war
more likely and threatening detente. In 1977 and '78,
these points would be echoed by the media and signs
carried by innocent demonstrators who thought their
slogans were their own ideas.
In fact, none of these four statements is accurate. In
relation to the amount of damage to enemy armed
forces, the neutron bomb would actually save millions
of lives. All bombs kill people. This is the tragic reality
of war. Neutron bombs do not kill more people per
pound of material used than do conventional atomic
weapons. They simply have the special advantage that
they can kill the same number of combatants with a
lesser degree of damage to surrounding homes and
property. Since the purpose of most weapons is to kill
soldiers, it is illogical to criticize a weapon that can
accomplish this with less destruction of civilian establishments.
Such a consideration is especially important in
Western Europe, where the potential war theatre is the
heavily populated areas of Germany, France and the
Low Countries. When we are talking about preserving
material things, we are referring not only to

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factories and other "capitalist" property, but also to
homes, churches, hospitals, museums, schools, universities, and all the other treasures of centuries of
European history.
Finally, most military analysts agree that the neutron
bomb would not lower the nuclear threshold, but
would provide a more effective deterrent to Soviet aggression and thus make nuclear war less likely.
In June 1977, the campaign against the bomb broke
full-scale into the open with a series of articles by Walter Pincus in the Washington Post. The series echoed
all of the original Communist propaganda points:
"killer warhead," "kills people but preserves buildings," etc. After the articles continued for almost three
weeks, some under two-column heads on the front
page, the Post climaxed the series on June 26 with a
lead editorial opposing the bomb. Throughout all the
articles, there is only a single mention of the main
American objective in developing this weapon: to
confront a Soviet tank invasion with a credible deterrent that would minimize the destruction of lives,
homes and the cultural heritage of the NATO countries. Pincus passed along all the Communist propaganda lines, but not the true aims of the U.S. The
Pincus articles were immediately followed by a massive Communist propaganda campaign. Within two
days, the Pincus articles were being quoted extensively by Tass and Pravda and from July 25-August
14, Radio Moscow comments on the bomb received
more attention than any other topic. Using this barrage as a kick-off, the Soviets carried the campaign
world-wide through other organizations. In July,
1977, the World Peace Council launched a massive
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campaign against the bomb. Communists organized
meetings and demonstrations world-wide during a
"Week of Action." Communist China did not join in,
letting it be known through several American visitors,
that they were heartily in favor of U.S. deployment of
the bomb. The campaign reached a climax in February
and March 1978 with three international conferences,
organized by the W.P.C. The U.S. campaign was led by
a constellation of "citizens" groups and think tanks
which habitually agitate for unilateral U.S. disarmament and have close ties to the W.P.C. and other Communist fronts.
All this activity had an impact on American news
media. Leftist magazines, such as The Nation and The
Progressive, attacked the bomb, parroting the Communist slogans. The TV networks carried both sides of
the controversy for a few weeks, then let the subject
die. The NY Times took a neutral stance but columnist Russell Baker ran one column, "Son of H bomb",
an attack baser on the threshold argument. Newsweek,
under the same ownership as the Washington Post,
launched its coverage with a piece repeating most of
the Pincus arguments against the bomb. Time gave a
balanced presentation, explaining the value of the
bomb in defending Western Europe.
In April 1978, Carter, against the advice of many of
his advisors, decided to defer the production of the
weapon. The main force behind the decision was the
furor in the media and the public, stirred up by the
propaganda campaign in the U.S. and abroad. The decision caused confusion and alarm in the NATO countries which had been counting on the defense the
neutron bomb would provide. By October, 1978, in
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reaction to grave warnings from the NATO allies,
Carter apparently decided that no reciprocal Soviet
concessions were forthcoming. Instead, the Russian
build-up continued. So he quietly announced the start
of production of neutron warhead "parts," which could
be assembled in Europe if needed.
The campaign, illustrating the power of the Communist apparatus to mount a tremendous world-wide
propaganda effort on command, succeeded in blackening America's reputation in the eyes of millions
throughout the world and giving the Soviets an excuse
for its mammoth arms build-up. But the Soviets have
little need for military weapons when they can win
their battles against the unsuspecting West so easily
with words alone.

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IX. The Hidden War Against the CIA

The scope and ferocity of the Communist campaign
against the CIA are vastly more intense than the campaigns described in previous chapters. Other campaigns have been designed to blunt or cripple
American agencies such as AID or policies such as neutron bomb deployment or our assistance to the Cambodian Republic, but the propaganda campaign
against the CIA has had the aim of actually destroying
the agency. This is because the CIA's missioncountering the Communist offensive around the world
brings it into more direct confrontation with the
Soviets than any other agency. If the United States is
the Soviet Union's main enemy, "glavny vrag," then
the CIA is the eyes and ears of this enemy, the bull'seye at the center of the target. So the Communist war
against the CIA has been the longest, fiercest, and
most subtle of all.
It is tragic that many of the Western journalists,
scholars, and legislators who participated in the blinding and deafening of our eyes and earsthe dismantling of the CIAdid not even realize they were acting
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as unwitting dupes of the KGB in this war and would
never have participated if they had known what was
going on. As the propaganda campaign began to succeed in the media and Congress, virtually no one in
the media, in Congress, or in the executive branch
mentioned that the KGB and its Soviet propaganda organs were promoting attacks on the CIA. Perhaps the
greatest irony of all is that even many top CIA officers
appeared unaware that Soviet puppeteers were pulling
the American strings. Men like William Colby, CIA director during the worst period, seemed blind to the
fact of Soviet stimulation of the campaign and made
surprising blunders in dealing with the media, blunders which substantially furthered the Soviet effort.
The history of the war against the CIA provides the
clearest example of a campaign that started with direct
Communist propaganda output and gradually shifted
over the years until most of it was coming from American sources. Moscow set the overall objective: destroy
the CIA. But more and more tactical planning and implementation came to be carried out by U.S. citizens
Communists, sympathizers and ultra-liberals (many
unaware of the Communist inspiration) who were
mainly responsible for uncovering the most damaging
areas where the CIA could be investigated by journalists or Congress. The Soviets could then follow their
usual practice of playing back such American sources
in broadcasts from Radio Moscow, in print media and
in other vehicles around the world, thus further blackening the reputation of the CIA and American foreign
policy.
By the mid-1960s more of the propaganda effort
was beginning to come from American sources rather
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War Against the CIA

than directly from the Soviet media. The atmosphere
in the U.S. was becoming increasingly radical and thus
receptive to such agitation, with the country experiencing growing controversy over the Viet Nam War.
Communist propaganda against our participation and
American mistakes prolonging the war combined to
create a heated climate favorable for attacks on many
American institutions and the establishment in general. The CIA became a prime target along with the
FBI and local police intelligence operations, as part of
the Soviet objective of putting out the eyes and ears of
its primary enemy, its "glavny vrag. " Though there is
little concrete proof of direct Soviet influence on the
Americans who led the campaign against the CIA, this
chapter presents four mini-case histories of campaigns
that can now be seen to have been based so much on
falsehoods or distortions that they must have been the
result of either pro-Communist inspirations or manipulation. After years of attack by the Far Left Lobby and
the media, CIA director Colby started a policy of being as open as possible with the media and Congress.
But the material he released only fueled the arguments
of the CIA's enemies.
THE CIA IN CHILEone of the "affairs" which
Colby had a hand in revealing and which ultimately
became a mainstay of anti-CIA propaganda starts in
1970 when Salvador Allende-Gossens, a Socialist allied with the Communists, won the Chilean election
for the presidency.
Washington was extremely alarmed by the possibility of a second Communist government in the south of
Latin America with Castro in the north.
With other crises erupting in other parts of the
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world, several last minute and frantic efforts were
made to mount some sort of measures via the State
Department and the CIA in Chile that might head off
an Allende election by the Parliament. The U.S.
approached the military on the subject of a coup. But
the Chilean Commander in Chief, General Rene
Schneider, was reluctant to move. The U.S negotiated
with one group of officers who were considering kidnapping General Schneider, removing him to Argentina and launching their own coup. Though the U.S.
decided this group was not worthy of support and
specifically called off its backing, the group proceeded anyway with the kidnapping attempts. General
Schneider resisted and the man was shot. This "assassination" in which the U.S. was in no way involved
later figures as one of the major crimes laid at the door
of the CIA.
Allende took office and as expected immediately
launched a Communist program of nationalization and
of attacks on the press, broadcasting and free labor
unions. The Communist Party was known to be importing arms, money and foreign agitators to Chile on
a large scale, through the Cuban embassy and with Soviet support. On a visit to Santiago, Castro gave strong
backing to the new government and warned Allende
that he was probably not moving fast enough to control the military. The U.S., through the CIA, provided
support to the free forces (non-Communist labor
unions, consumer groups, media) to resist Allende's efforts to suppress democracy. Allende's policies were
creating inflation and economic chaos and the military
at last took action. In September 1973, they over-

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threw Allende, who was reported to have committed
suicide.
The Soviets were furious and launched a major effort to overthrow the new Chilean government and
restore a Communist regime. Radio Moscow and Soviet print media claimed that the CIA was responsible
for Allende's overthrow. The campaign was soon reflected in U.S. media. Seymour Hersh reported on the
subject in the NY Times. Congressman Michael Harrington demanded a probe of the CIA's role and the
House Intelligence Subcommittee called on Colby to
testify. Harrington leaked the contents of Colby's testimony to the Times, claiming Colby said the CIA was
attempting to "destabilize" the Allende government.
Colby denied this, saying that the CIA's mission was
only to help democratic elements in Chile survive. But
the word "destabilize" became a buzzword in future
media and leftist attacks on the CIA, which was accused of "destabilizing legally elected governments"
in small countries around the world.
The Chile story became one of the major issues
blackening the reputation of the CIA and leading to
later congressional investigations and the emasculation of the agency. Like so many of the other attacks
on the CIA it was based almost entirely on exaggerations and falsehoods with just enough kernal of truth
to be believable to those who wished to think ill of our
intelligence services.
The campaign had considerable impact on the media. The allegations against the CIA began to be covered heavily in the Times with Seymour Hersh's
series, Harrington's leak, and similar articles in the

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Washington Post. To a large extent, the major television networks are "edited" by the New York Times
and the Washington Post, meaning that the directors
of the network news operations turn to these supposed
national "newspapers of record" to determine which
stories are worth including in the evening news. Too
frequently, the network news attitude is that if a story
hasn't made the Times front page, it's not worth
covering (and vice versa). And this surprising
dependence of our media on a very few opinion
leaders is one of the reasons the Soviets have been so
successful with their propaganda campaigns. Once the
Times and the Post decided the CIA in Chile was an
important story, the networks followed suit.
An analysis of TV evening news performance during
1974, shows that out of 812 evening news programs,
there were 92 items on U.S. and foreign intelligence
activity. The leading topic was CIA activities in Chile.
And like the print media coverage, there was virtually
no mention of the activities of the KGB or other Communist subversion in Chile or elsewhere. Out of a total
of 168 minutes devoted to intelligence matters, only
4% was devoted to the KGB or other foreign espionage. Like the Far Left Lobby, the networks ignored
the CIA's opponent, picturing the CIA as if it were
shadowboxing against a non-existent enemy.
DOMESTIC SPYINGour second mini-case history
provides an even clearer case of successful Communist manipulation of some of our leading media. The
case starts with a December 1974 newspaper article
that created a quantum increase in the heat of the war
against the CIA. In Honorable Men, his memoirs, William Colby offers his version of how the episode be102

War Against the CIA

gan. He says he had a phone call December 18 from
Seymour Hersh, who claimed to have a story "bigger
than My Lai" about CIA illegal domestic activities.
Colby says he was justified in trusting Hersh because
a year earlier when he asked Hersh to refrain from
writing anything he learned about the Glomar
Explorer project, Hersh "honored his request." So he
trusted "Sy" to use his discretion in the present
investigation and talked to him at some length,
assuring Hersh that his information was only scattered
exceptional misdeeds and activities that had been
subsequently halted.
Colby was not aware that Hersh's earlier silence on
the Glomar Explorer had not by any means been patriotic restraint. Hersh had simply not understood then
that the project involved recovering a Russian submarine, and he was too busy at the time following up on
Watergate to check further.
So Colby was rudely shocked by Hersh's reactions
to his interview. As he says sadly, "Hersh did not see
it my way at all."
On Sunday, December 22, the Times exploded a
front page Hersh story, with pictures of Colby, Helms,
and Schlesinger and a three column headline:
"Huge CIA Operation Reported in U.S. Against Antiwar
Forces." The lead paragraph stated, "The CIA, directly
violating its charter, conducted a massive illegal domestic
operation during the Nixon administration against the
anti-war movement and other dissident groups in the
U.S., according to well-placed Government sources."
Colby, naive to the end, had allowed himself to be used
as a "well-placed Government source" in the campaign
that almost destroyed the agency he was supposed to
lead.

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This was the final major breaking of the dam of media restraint in publishing any variety of leak, rumor
or slander that might be available. For the prestigious
Times to give the story this sort of play opened the
way for other media to join the campaign.
Hersh followed up with several more stories giving
additional details. On at least one story, he seems to
have been the clear victim of a KGB disinformation
agent. On December 29, he reported an elaborate
"confession" by a CIA "ex-agent" who claimed to
have worked for four years spying on radicals in New
York City, not only infiltrating student activist groups
but also participating in break-ins, wire-taps, and the
use of a "boom microphone" to overhear distant conversations. This, incidentally, was the only story by an
actual participant in domestic spying to appear in the
Times. But no such activities were ever confirmed by
later Times checking, by the investigations conducted
by the Senate and House Intelligence Committees, or
by the Rockefeller Commission. And the Times was
never able to produce the man to testify. Harry Rositzke, a former CIA officer, in his book, CIA's Secret
Operations, says he was probably a disinformation
"walk-in."
When Hersh's story was later the basis for investigations by the Senate and the Rockefeller Commission,
it was found to be greatly exaggerated and overblown.
Hersh was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize but
failed to get it. The Times, however, continued to follow up on the story. By giving such prominent play
initially to this story of "massive domestic wrongdoing," the Times had maneuvered itself into a position
of being committed to CIA misdeeds, so that no mat104

War Against the CIA

ter what the evidence later turned out to be, the Times,
from Managing Editor Rosenthal on down, was
committed to supporting his point of view. In fact, after Hersh failed to get the Pulitzer and his article was
criticized for being overblown, the Times and many of
its columnists and reporters, like Anthony Lewis and
James McNaughton seemed to make a special effort to
plead the case that Hersh had been right and his story
"confirmed."
In any case, the damage had been done. The Hersh
story and it followers resulted in:
consternation in the CIA and the Ford Administration.
appointment by Ford of a commission under Nelson
Rockerfeller to investigate the domestic activities of
the CIA.
Senate establishment of a special committee to investigate the CIA under Senator Church.
later follow-up in the House with an investigation
under Otis Pike.
Colby calls the subsequent year of 1975 "The Year
of Intelligence." It was a period when the CIA was hit
by torpedoes from every direction. Colby, required to
testify two or three or even five times a week during
the year before the Rockefeller Commission and the
various congressional committees, also had to attempt
to maintain some sort of open relations with the
media.
He made his first appearance before the Rockefeller
Commission on January 13 and the Senate Armed Services and Appropriations Committees on January 15.
He presented a frank and open summary of CIA activities with comments that illegal activities were minimal
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and had been terminated in earlier years. There was a
sympathetic reception by both groups, but the Senate
insisted on releasing his testimony. The Times published a front page Hersh article with two-page summary of Colby remarks, emphasizing misdeeds.
Significantly, Colby started his statement with the
phrase, "I flatly deny...", but Hersh's lead begins,
"Colby admits..." As usual, the Times treatment
caused another sensation in the country and further
furor
in
Congress
and
the
media.
ASSASSINATIONSthe third mini-case history concerns the furor over CIA assassination attempts and illustrates again the failure of high American officials,
from Colby all the way up to President Ford, to appreciate the adversary position of the media on intelligence matters. Ford himself was responsible for the
initial leak on assassinations. On January 16, 1975, he
hosted a luncheon for Arthur Sulzberger and the top
editors of the New York Times at the White House.
When the subject of the Rockefeller Commission
came up, Ford was asked whether its make-up of
"conservative and establishment" figures did not detract from its credibility. He replied that he needed reliable men on the panel to insure that it did not delve
into secrets that might "blacken the reputation of
every U.S. president since Truman." "Like what?"
asked Times Managing Editor Abe Rosenthal. "Like assassinations," said Ford, and then, realizing what he
had said, he added, "That's off the record!"
Of course this remark leaked within two weeks and
became a common topic of conversation in media circles. Daniel Schorr learned of it just shortly before an
interview he had obtained with William Colby on Feb106

War Against the CIA

ruary 27. He raised the subject towards the end of the
interview in an off-hand way. Since the Rockefeller
Commission's charter covered only activities within
the U.S., he asked Colby whether the CIA had ever assassinated any one in this country. Colby was startled
that Ford had mentioned such a topic and replied simply, "Not in this country." Schorr, startled, in turn realized that this meant the CIA had committed or at least
attempted assassinations abroad. He asked Colby
"Who?" but Colby refused to answer any further
questions. Schorr now thought he had a sensational
story, which he proceeded to broadcast on CBS the
following evening, that "President Ford has repeatedly
warned associates that if current investigations go too
far they could uncover several assassinations of
foreign officials involving the CIA."
For nine months, the subject of assassinations became another major subject of frequent headlines and
sensational broadcasts, spearheaded by almost daily
pronouncements by Daniel Schorr on CBS and leading to further blackening of the reputation of the CIA
and the American government. The administration
was obliged to widen the mandate of the Rockefeller
Commission to include assassinations, and the subject
was added to the topics to be investigated by the
Church Committee of the Senate. The investigations
were secret, but they led to endless leaks and attempts
of the media to catch witnesses before or after testimony.
The Church Committee issued its report on assassinations in November 1975. The Committee concluded
that the CIA had been "involved" in plots against five
foreign leaders. But a careful reading of its
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report shows that the Agency, in fact, made efforts to
assassinate only two of these: Castro and Lumumba,
both unsuccessful. (See Chart II on following page.)
The assassination story is another case where all of
the propaganda impetus came from American sources,
wittingly or unwittingly following the Communist objective of attacking the CIA with the purpose of destroying it. The details were picked up by Soviet
media and played back all around the world. Communist propaganda in Latin America, Africa, India and
elsewhere made frequent reference to "CIA Assassination Teams" to cast doubt on American diplomatic efforts in those areas.
THE GLOMAR EXPLORERThis fourth mini-case history of another campaign that damaged the CIA and in
fact, American security in general, had its origin back
in 1968. In February, of that year, a Soviet "G Class"
missile submarine left her pen in Vladivostok and
sailed out into the Pacific. Somewhere in the mid-Pacific, she met disaster due to a malfunction which led
to a series of explosions, rupturing her plates and
causing her to sink out of control and at increasing
speed until she hit bottom more than three miles deep.
The U.S. Navy network of underwater monitoring
devices tracking her progress detected the disaster and
made a horrifying recording of the actual sounds of
the fatal descent with fracturing plates and bodies and
other objects slamming into steel bulkheads audible
on the tape. The Navy was thus in possession of an
exact fix on a wrecked Soviet submarine, and it realized that the Soviets were unaware of the accident and
had no knowledge of the sub's location. Naval officials
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War Against the CIA

decided that the recovery of a Soviet submarine would
yield priceless knowledge of Russian naval architecture, missile techniques, nuclear weaponry, code
books and other data. The CIA and the Navy
contracted with Howard Hughes' Summa Corporation
and Global Marine, Inc., to build the Glomar Explorer,
under a cover story that it was to be used to mine mineral nodules from the ocean floor. The salvage operation was carried out in the Pacific in the summer of
1974. The CIA said only about half the sub was
brought to the surface and they planned to recover the
rest in 1975. Other reports say the entire sub was
recovered, perhaps in three pieces. Most knowledgeable comments say the information gained on Soviet
technology and codes was worth far more than the
several hundred million dollar cost of the project.
Security was tight, but a few journalists, including
Seymour Hersh, found out early in 1974 that the Glomar Explorer was preparing some important project,
without learning its true purpose. Colby persuaded
them to drop the story because of its importance to
national security. However, in 1975, Hersh re-entered
the case. In his book, On Press, Tom Wicker says
Hersh attacked the story with his usual "ferocity,"
flew to the West Coast, and within a week had a "complete" story, which Hersh said was worth six columns
in the Times. Colby appealed to the Times management and Sulzberger and Rosenthal agreed to hold up
the story until Colby said it was no longer crucial or
until another medium broke it. That break came when
Charles Morgan, Jr. head of the Washington office of
the ACLU, and active in the Far Left Lobby, learned
that the Glomar Explorer was involved in some secret
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work more important than its cover story. He called
Jack Anderson, the columnist, to alert him to the story.
Les Whitten, Anderson's assistant, called Hersh, and
Hersh, according to Wicker, gave Whitten "suggestions of further sources." Whitten called Hersh back to
say that Anderson had enough information to break
the story and would broadcast it that night, March 18,
1975.
The media enlarged on the Glomar incident for several months, some even implying it was an attempt to
create good publicity for the CIA, that there had been
no real effort to recover the sub, and that it had been a
waste of money, with Colby's efforts to maintain a security ploy to cover up CIA waste. It isn't clear from
reports available whether the CIA did in fact plan to
go back the following summer or whether this was a
cover story used by Colby to persuade the media to
hold off, to hide the recovery of the sub from the Soviets. In either case, the Morgan-Anderson-Hersh combination, by blowing the project, gravely injured a
major valuable enterprise by the CIA and did considerable harm to national security.
During 1975, the Far Left Lobby and the media continued a barrage of attacks on the CIA, exploiting the
CIA's drug experiments, the development of a poison
dart gun (Colby himself revealed this weapon in a televised open hearing of the Senate Committee) and the
use of a harmless chemical that had been sprayed in
the NY subway system by the Army several years earlier to determine whether an enemy could saturate the
subways with poison. Colby says the CIA, in 1975,
was required to report on such activities as the Mayaguez incident off Cambodia and other covert opera110

War Against the CIA

tions to no less than eight Congressional committees
and every one of the operations leaked. Colby was
fired by President Ford on November 2, 1975, probably for his excessive openness.
In January 1976, the House Committee completed
its report on the CIA and voted to keep the report
confidential. However, a copy of the report was given,
under the table, to CBS reporter Daniel Schorr, who
citing his "journalistic duty" published major portions
of the report in the Village Voice's February 16, 1976
issue, with a front page headline: "The Report of the
CIA That President Ford Doesn't Want You to Read."
This leak provoked another uproar in the country
and the House of Representatives, but this time in the
form of some backlash against the continuing leaks
and harassment of the CIA. Schorr was subpeoned by
the House Committee and there was a move to have
him declared in contempt. But the House was unable
to discover the source of the leak and Schorr refused
to name it, invoking freedom of the press. The House
Committee voted not to hold him in contempt. But
Schorr was discharged by CBS.
One of the most important conclusions of the House
report was an apparent dig at the Church Committee,
who claimed the CIA had been a "rogue elephant out
of control." Evidence suggests that the CIA, far from
being out of control, had been utterly responsive to the
instructions of the American Presidents.
The report, however, was critical of the CIA, describing failures to predict crises in Viet Nam (the Tet
offensive), Cyprus and India, coups in Portugal, the
Mid East War and the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. The CIA called the report "biased, perjora111

Target America
tive and inaccurate." The Senate Intelligence
Committee's report (April 1976) also rejected the notion that the CIA was "out of control" and said that
American agencies "have made important contributions to the nation's security, and generally performed
their missions with dedication and distinction." While
highly critical of CIA actions in the domestic field, the
facts as presented in the report did not add up to a serious indictment. Nevertheless, the Times and other
media played up the report as further documentation
of CIA crimes and the findings were widely reported
by Soviet media with critical comments, mainly from
American sources.
When Carter took office in 1977, the war on the
CIA was widened. In order to unify the Democratic
Party, he made many concessions to the McGovern
wing and their sympathizers, appointing large numbers of ultra-liberal and radical followers of this group
to the new administration. Under the guidance of such
officials, a further dismantling of the CIA took place,
with firings of over 800 people. Counter intelligence
virtually went out of business and covert intelligence,
said one veteran, lost the equivalent of thousands of
years of experience. The Administration further restricted the activities of the CIA, limiting its power of
surveillance and its ability to gather covert information and counter-intelligence. Meanwhile, Congress
and the Administration were struggling to devise a
"Charter" that would formalize the new regulations for
the CIA and the intelligence community. But by late
1978, Carter, who had earlier decried "the inordinate
fear of Communism" was becoming alarmed at the
breakdown of our intelligence capability. Between
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1978 and 1980, the Carter administration experienced
several intelligence disasters, including the excesses of
the Khomeni regime in Iran and the seizure of the hostages, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Carter
said that his ideas on Soviet aims had changed more in
the two weeks following this invasion than in his entire previous career. In the spring of 1980, Carter was
demanding a stronger intelligence capability, and Congress abandoned efforts to write a new charter for the
CIA. In effect, American intelligence was going to be
allowed to rebuild some of its own strength with a
congressional policy of looking the other way. The
Times wrote an indignant editorial on the abandonment of the charter and Tom Wicker and other ultraliberal journalists wrote similar blasts.
The one-sided offensive by the media and Far Left
Lobby and the hemorrhaging of classified information
did immeasurable harm to the morale of the CIA, possibilities of recruiting foreign agents in the future, relations with allied foreign intelligence operations and
CIA operations in general. The propaganda also succeeded in causing over-reaction by Congress and the
administration, probably going beyond the opinions of
the American public. The campaign started by the
Kremlin and carried forward later by sympathizers
and agents in the U.S. succeeded in almost crippling
the CIA. Up until the middle of 1980, the Soviets appeared to be close to their goal of total destruction.
But by that time, a popular reaction had set in and
even President Carter was having second
thoughts.The 1980 election reflected this backlash
even more clearly. The current administration and
Senate majority, working with like-minded representa113

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tives in the House, have an enormous task to restore
the CIA to its former effectiveness. Perhaps the most
frightening lesson of all has to do with the ease with
which our media has been manipulated. The KGB and
its propaganda apparatus have learned to get our "free
press" to do their work for them in destroying the eyes
and ears of the USSR's main enemy, "glavny vrag."

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CHART II
FACTS VS. ALLEGATIONS ON ASSASSINATION
ATTEMPTS
Leader

Facts

Castro

Several attempts, all unsuccessful.

Lumumba

In 1960 CIA officers were ordered to

devise plot to assassinate Lumumba,
evidently with knowledge of
Eisenhower and Allen Dulles. Attempt
never materialized and Lumumba was
later shot by Congolese rivals, with no
CIA involvement.

Trujillo

U.S. cooperated with dissidents in

Dominican Republic. Supplied them
with arms, but had no direct
involvement in assassination.

Trujillo was one of the most brutal

dictators in Latin American history.
CIA and U.S. government cannot be
criticized
for
encouraging
his
overthrow.

Diem

U.S. Government and CIA were privy

to plot by South Vietnamese military to
overthrow Diem, and gave it cautious
support, but did not cooperate with or
approve of assassination.

Assassination was evidently unauthorized even by the South Vietnamese

coup leaders, but was carried out by
junior officers. U.S. not involved.

General
Schneider
(Chile)

Killed by plotters who had been in

contact with CIA. But CIA had
specifically disapproved assassination
and no U.S. weapons were used.

115

Comments
Weight of evidence shows CIA
launched attempts only on orders from
very high authority, most probably
with knowledge of Kennedys. Should
be judged in light of conditions at that
time. Castro was first breach in
containment policy, a Communist
dictatorship within 90 miles of U.S.
During period of these attempts he was
allowing Soviets to prepare to install
nuclear missiles, a major threat to U.S.,
leading to "Missile Crisis." He was
later quoted as criticizing Soviets for
backing down and withdrawing
missiles.

X. Balance Sheet
The Balance Sheet method, in which an individual's
outputpublications, public statements, etc.is used
here as an approach to measuring the degree of Communist propaganda influence on some prominent figures in the media. If the Debits, statements in
harmony with the Communist line, heavily outweigh
the Credits, statements opposed to the Communist
Line, this is persuasive evidence that the individual, if
not an agent, is at least being strongly influenced by
Communist propaganda, consciously or unconsciously, or has views closely approximating it. In
many cases, the Debits are based partially on the truth.
But if the individual in question has written only
about such "truths" and never about the anti-Communist truths, he is as suspect as those whose output consists totally of falsehoods.
The following are balance sheets on four individuals
and two organizations that have been influential in the
events described in this book.

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Balance Sheet
Seymour Hersh
Graduate, University of Chicago. Joined AP in Washington, 1965. Washington Bureau of the New York
Times in 1972. DEBITS:
1967Articles on U.S. chemical and biological warfare in New Republic: "Just a Drop Can Kill,"
May 6. "Germs and Gas as Weapons," June 7
"Gas and Germ Warfare," July 1 "But Don't
Tell Anyone I Told You," December 9.
1968Chemical and Biological Warfare: America's
Hidden Arsenal (Doubleday). Publisher later
claimed this was major influence in U.S. decision
to halt production of these weapons. (It is now
apparent that the Soviets continued to produce
these weapons in violation of the Biological
Warfare Convention signed with the U.S. in 1975
outlawing their use.)
Press Secretary to Senator Eugene McCarthy
for his presidential campaign, during which
McCarthy opposed the U.S. effort in Viet Nam
and recommended lower defense spending.
Hersh resigned from McCarthy's staff after
campaign and criticized McCarthy for being
"nothing but a liberal." with no feeling for "the
revolution."
1969Article, "On Uncovering the Great Gas Coverup," Ramparts, June. (Here he is already using
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phrase, "cover-up.")
Begins an investigation of Lt. Calley and the My
Lai incident. (Indications that the Communists
facing a major propaganda problem over the
massacre of 2,000 leading Hue citizens by the
North Vietnamese, saw the My Lai affair as a
possible distraction.) The Stern Foundation and
Stern's Foundation for Investigative Journalism, headed by James Boyd, backed Hersh's
investigation and arranged for the almost moribund Dispatch News Service to distribute
Hersh's stories. The My Lai industry was
launched and the Hue massacre virtually ignored by the media.
My Lai, published by Random House.
Institute for Policy Studies publishes The Pentagon Watchers: Student Reports on the National Security State, a book based on summer
work by students under the guidance of Hersh,
NACLA, and others.
Joins Advisory Board of Fund for Investigative
Journalism.
1972Cover Up, on My Lai (Random House).
1973Front page NY Times article on U.S. "secret"
air raids against Cambodian sanctuaries in
1970.
1974Times articles leaking Congressional testimony
on CIA's activities in Chile before Allende's
overthrow. Front page Times article on CIA's
"massive illegal spying," December 22. Followed
up by al-

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Balance Sheet
most daily articles containing highly
exaggerated, often inaccurate information.
Hersh nominated, but failed to get Pulitzer
prize because articles considered overblown
and poorly researched.
1975Glomar Explorer, secret to recover sunken
Russian submarine in Pacific, blown by Hersh,
Jack Anderson, and Charles Morgan of ACLU.
1977Times favorable review of Arthur Sampson's
The Arms Race, which blames the West for creating the race, but does not mention the Communist build-up causing the race.
1978Front page Times story on CIA recruitment of
blacks in the '60s to infiltrate Black Panthers
and other radical groups in U.S. and abroad.
Times story on John Stockwell's book, In
Search of Enemies, attacking CIA's Angola policies.
Article in Times on lapses in monitoring of
CIA's covert actions by Congressional Oversight Committees. (Representative Edward P.
Boland, Chairman of House Committee on Intelligence, writes in an issue the following
week to say that Hersh article is misleading.)
Front page Times article on leaked Senate Intelligence Committee report saying that Colby
and Kissinger misled Congress on U.S. role in
Angola. Colby and Kissinger deny charges.
1979Times article says CIA rejected warning on
Shah.
In August, Hersh is one of few American jour119

Target America
nalists to be allowed to visit Viet Nam. During
and after a 10 day visit, he writes a series of six
articles for the Times, which generally pass
along the North Vietnamese propaganda line,
including:
After six hours of interviews with Vietnamese
Foreign Minister, Hersh quotes him as blaming
U.S. for failure to "normalize" relations with
Viet Nam.
There has been no bloodbath. The "reeducation
camps" are austere, but there is no starvation or
cruelty. Refugees are simply those who had
cooperated with the Americans, became used
to the easy life with American assistance, and
could not get accustomed to austere life under
Communism.
The Government is not extracting money from
the refugees.
Horrors exist in Cambodia. (Now a major
theme in Vietnamese propaganda to stress the
horrors of the Pol Pot regime and thus justify
the Vietnamese conquest of Cambodia.) The
Soviets are not seeking military bases in Viet
Nam. (Actually, intelligence is now overwhelming that the Soviet Navy is making use
of Cam Rahn Bay and Danang Harbor, although
the Russians may not have set up their own
"bases" there.)
The New Economic Zones have been having
some minor problems, but in general, the people are content there. (By coincidence, one of
the same issues of the Times carrying the
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Balance Sheet
Hersh story from Viet Nam, also ran a short
news item with directly contradictory evidence.)
There is a relatively free press. One of Hersh's
six articles is entirely devoted to an interview
with a newspaper editor in Ho Chi Minh City
(formerly Saigon), who said he is able to publish almost anything he pleases with only mild
"guidance" from the government. Hersh must
be incredibly naiveor something worseto
accept this propaganda as truth.
1980Op Ed Times on Iran mission says, "Perhaps
the failure of the operation will be as instructive for
Jimmy Carter as was the Bay of Pigs for John F.
Kennedy in 1961." In other words, the advice of the
Intelligence and military communities cannot be
trusted. CREDITS:
No articles can be found that could be considered
against the Communist line. For example, in all his
voluminous writings on My Lai, there is no mention of
much greater massacres by the Communists, of which
Hue was only one. His 1979 series of articles on his
Viet Nam visit contains nothing about the reported
horrors in the reeducation centers, the suppression of
free press and free religion, the Americans missing in
action, growing Soviet influence, and other problems.
He has produced no articles on the activities on the
KGB, which represent a vastly greater threat to American liberties than his favorite target, the CIA. In fact,
he has expressed exactly the opposite view, that the
KGB represents no threat. At the Accuracy in Media

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conference in Washington in November of 1979, at
the end of a question period, he was asked the following:
Q: Mr. Hersh, this conference is entitled "The Media
and the Present Danger. " Do you believe there is a
danger, and if so, what is it?
Hersh: There is no danger. I don't believe it. There
is no danger of the KGB penetrating the U.S. to the
point where our institutions are at stake. (Laughter) I
consider that a James Angleton fantasy. I really do. I
think we are in terrific shape.

Gareth Porter. PhD.

from Cornell. On faculty of Center for International
Studies, Cornell, 1964-68. Joined Indochina Resource
Center, 1970 (one of leading organizations opposing
Viet Nam War). DEBITS:
1968"People As the Enemy," New Republic. Attack
on U.S. policy in Viet Nam.
1969"Diemist Restoration," Commonweal. Attack
on South Vietnamese government.
"Vietnam: The Bloodbath Argument," Commonweal. Asserts that South Vietnamese need
not fear a Communist takeover and that stories of
bloodbath in North Vietnam after their victory
there are false.
1971Correspondent and "bureau chief in Saigon
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Balance Sheet
for the leftist Dispatch News Service.
above under Hersh.)

(See

1970-74Voluminous publications, via Indochina Resource Center, opposing U.S. efforts in Viet Nam,
painting North Vietnamese and Viet Cong as patriotic
nationalists and urging government of "national reconciliation."
1975"Pressing Ford to Drop Thieu," New Republic.
"Viet Nam: Reconciliation Begins." Christian
Century.
A Peace Denied: The U.S., Viet Nam, and the
Paris Peace Agreement, Indiana University
Press. The thesis of the book states that "the
policies of the U.S. were the cause of the war
and the major stumbling block preventing a
negotiated settlement."
1976Porter gives principal speech at meeting in
Union Theological Seminary welcoming Ieng
Sary, Foreign Minister of new Pol Pot Cambodian Communist government, on his arrival in
New York for UN session. No mention of reports of massacres by Communists in Cambodia.
"Viet Nam's Long Road to Socialism," Current
History. Highly optimistic account of the new
Vietnamese government's attempts to build
"socialism."
Actively campaigns against release of Fellowship of Reconciliation letter to Vietnamese
government appealing for more human rights
and an open society.

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Target America
1977Testifies before House Subcommittee on International Relations, says reports of massacres in
Cambodia are false.
Leaves Indochina Resource Center, joins Institute for Policy Studies, Far Left Lobby group.
"Healing the Wounds of War; Justice not Peace
for Viet Nam," Christian Century.
"Kissinger's Double Cross for Peace," Nation.
1979Viet Nam invades Cambodia (ignoring UN),
overthrows Pol Pot, and sets up puppet government. In telephone interview with author,
Porter says Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia
is justified.
1980Joins the Center for International Policy, another organization active in the Far Left Lobby.
CREDITS:
No record of any Porter writings contrary to the
Communist line on Indo-China. Defended the brutal
Pol Pot regime until it became permissable to attack
Cambodia in order to justify Vietnamese invasion. Opposed U.S. policy in Viet Nam, gave steady optimistic
picture of developments, after the fall of Saigon. In
spite of knowledge on Vietnamese affairs, failed to
criticize the tyranny that was evident and tried to suppress others' attempts to do so.

Morton H. Halperin. PhD.

Harvard. On staff of Harvard Center for International
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Balance Sheet
Affairs, 1960-65.
DEBITS:
1961An early advocate of unilateral American disarmament.
A Proposal for a Ban on Nuclear Weapons, suggests that U.S. should disarm even if Soviets do
not and that inspection is "not absolutely necessary."
1966-68Defense Department, Deputy Asst. Secretary, reports to Leslie H. Gelb, responsible for preparation of Pentagon Papers, critical of U.S. role in Viet
Nam.
1969Hired by Kissinger for National Security Council.
FBI names him as most likely suspect for having leaked story of secret bombing of Cambodian
sanctuaries. Kissinger takes him off list of those
allowed to see top secret documents. He is one of
first to have phones tapped by "Plumbers"
operation, designed to curb serious government
leaks. (No evidence was found that he was the
leaker.) Later resigns from National Security
Council.
1972Testimony before House Appropriations Committee, recommends series of drastic progressive cuts in defense expenditure, eliminating
multiple warheads on missiles, Minuteman III,
Trident submarine, and several advanced
fighter planes, and also eliminate two out of
our three legs of the three-legged defense system, i.e. bombers and land-based missiles,

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Target America
leaving only nuclear subs (the least accurate).
1974Joins Center for National Security Studies, Far
Left think tank.
"Covert Operations, Effects of Secrecy on Decision-Making," paper presented at Conference
on
Intelligence,
sponsored
by
CNSS.
Recommends removing secret classification from
U.S., satellite reconnaisance operations and
National Security Agency communications
intercepts, and a greatly reduced operations role
for CIA.
1975"Most Secret Agents," New Republic.
"Led Astray by the CIA," New Republic. "CIA
Denying What's Not in Writing," New Republic.
"Activists at the CIA," New Republic.
1976Director of Project on National Security and
Civil Liberties, a joint operation of CNSS and
ACLU. Concentrating on investigating and reducing role of FBI, CIA, police departments
and other internal security organizations.
Co-author of The Lawless State: The Crimes of
the U.S. Intelligence Agencies. (Penguin)
"Did Richard Helms Commit Perjury?" New
Republic.
"Public Secrets," New Republic.
Board member of the Committee For Public
Justice. Principal organizer was Lillian
Hellman, who has never renounced her support
of Stalinist Russia. (Other Board members
include admitted Communist Jessica Mitford.)

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Balance Sheet
1977Chairperson, Campaign to Stop Government
Spying (founded with backing of National Lawyers Guild). Frequent testimony before Congressional Committees, recommending strict
limits on operations of CIA, FBI, and other security organizations.
1978Testimony before House Committee on Intelligence regarding the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Act. Recommends no surveillance be permitted unless
there is prior evidence of criminal activity (which
most experts say would cripple investigative process).
Becomes Director of CNSS.
Co-signer of letters to Justice Department, as head
of Project on National Security, opposing all wiretaps
except with prior evidence of criminal activity.
CREDITS:
No record of any writings or statements against the
Communist line. All CNSS "studies" of "national security" have generally attacked the methods of CIA, FBI,
and other U.S. security organizations, recommending
drastic restrictions. But his organizations have never
mentioned the KGB or other Communist subversive
activities.

Saul Landau
MA in History, University of Wisconsin. One of the

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Target America
most active associates of the Institute for Policy
Studies and Director of their subsidiary, the Transnational Institute. Left-wing agitator, film producer,
mostly far left propaganda documentaries. DEBITS:
1959On Editorial board of Studies on the Left, radical magazine.
Collaborated with C. Wright Mills, writer
prominent in Far Left and pro-Castro causes in
the 1950s and '60s. Accompanied Mills on trips
to Cuba and Europe.
1961Speaks as a representative of the Fair Play for
Cuba Committee at American-Cuban Friendship Rally in New York City, sponsored by
Advance, youth organizations of the
Communist Party. (The Fair Play for Cuba
Committee went out of existence in 1964 when
Lee Harvey Oswald was revealed as a
member.)
1962Featured speaker at pro-Castro rally at Berkeley, sponsored by Trotskyite Socialist Workers
Party and similar rally at Stanford.
1963Joins with about 100 leftists in the formation
of a new leftist movement, "The San Francisco
Opposition," or "The Opposition."
1964Fired from his hospital social work job for
promoting the showing of Un Chant D'Amour,
a French film about homosexual love and
sadism, produced by Jean Genet, the French
homosexual and ex-convict. Film co-sponsored by SDS, "The Opposition," and SLATE,
a radical student group at Berkeley. (Landau
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Balance Sheet
eventually took his case on the banning of the
film to court, and in 1966, the California District Court of Appeals handed down a decision
saying that the film was nothing less than hardcore pornography and should be banned. Time
Magazine called the film "a silent 30 minute
portrayal of a sadistic prison guard alternately
beating and spying on four convicts engaged in
homosexual acts." This was Landau's first
highly-publicized
entrance
into
film
distribution or producing.)
1965Active in Students for a Democratic Society
(SDS) affairs, speaking at benefits, serving as instructor in SDS's "New School" in San Francisco.
Joins staff of Ramparts, radical magazine.
1966Active in the North American Congress on
Latin America (NACLA), new radical organization formed by former SDS members who were
becoming too old to be considered "students."
Objectives are research and action on "the real
forces shaping U.S. policy in Latin America
corporations,
government
agencies,
foundations, churches, and unions."
1967Attends International Cultural Congress in Havana as a film maker. Landau's wife, Nina Serrano Landau, attends Communist Youth
Festival in Moscow and then travels to Red
China, in violation of State Department regulations.
1969Produces two propaganda films about Cuba:
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Target America
Report from Cuba and Fidel.
1970Film, Que Hacer, ("What Is to be Done"), on
"revolution" in Chile.
On editorial board of Socialist Revolution,
new pro-Communist magazine in San Francisco.
1971Film, BrazilA Report on Torture. Co-producer is Haskell Wexler, radical film maker
who accompanied Jane Fonda on one of her
trips to North Viet Nam and has produced films
for the NLF and other Far Left organizations.
1972Film, Robert WallEx-FBI Agent. "Confessions of a former FBI agent who describes how
he spied on the IPS, Stockely Carmichael and
others.
Film, The Jail, a trip through the society of
"prisoners, jailers, transvestites, murderers,
drunks and sadists."
Film, An Interview With Allende, co-produced
with Haskell Wexler.
1973Film, Song for Dead Warriors, "examines the
reasons for the Wounded Knee occupation in
the Spring of 1973 by Oglala Sioux Indians and
members of the American Indian Movement."
1975Film, Cuba and Fidel, a "film picture postcard
of Cuba with interviews of Fidel on socialist
law, the difference between Russians and
Americans, and Cuba before and after the Revolution."

130

Balance Sheet
1976Film, Land of My Birth, on "Jamaica's charismatic Prime Minister, Michael Manley, in the
midst of his election campaign."
Letelier killed by bomb blast under his car in
Washington along with IPS associate Ronni
Moffitt. Letelier papers found in his brief case
include a letter from Landau to be delivered to a
friend in Cuba, saying, "I think at age 40 the time
has come to dedicate myself to narrower pursuits,
namely making propaganda for American
Socialism.... we cannot any longer just help our
third world movements and revolution, although
obviously we shouldn't turn our backs on
them...." Landau takes over the publicity on
Letelier's killing and the campaign to get the
maximum propaganda value against the Chilean
Government. Later succeeds Letelier as Director
of Transnational Institute.
1978Film, In Search of Enemies, with Wexler, based
on Stockwell's book attacking CIA role in Angola.
Article in Mother Jones, radical magazine, partially funded by IPS, "Behind the Letelier Murder," blames the CIA for a part in the killing
because of its encouragement of the Chilean
intelligence organization. No word in here, or
another Landau IPS output on Letelier about his
receiving money from Cuban intelligence.
1980Book, Assassination on Embassy Row, by
John Dinges and Landau, continues propaganda
campaign against Chile, CIA, and U.S.

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Target America
government, based on Letelier killing. Receives a
moderately favorable review in New York Times,
although reviewer says, "the main actors in the drama
are superficially and sometimes clumsily portrayed....
We are expected to believe that the first word spoken
by Letelier's infant son, Christian, was 'Allende'."
CREDITS:
There is no record of any of Landau's films or published works that could be considered critical of Communist aggression, subversion, or tyranny.

The Center for National Security Studies

This organization was founded in 1974 through the
initiative of the National Lawyers Guild and the Institute for Policy Studies. It was funded initially by the
Fund for Peace and the American Civil Liberties Union
Foundation. (For further details, see Chapter II.) The
following balance sheet of its published works is taken
from its "Publications" for March 1980: DEBITS:
The Lawless State: The Crimes of the U.S. Intelligence Agencies by Halperin, Jerry Berman,
Robert Borosage and Christine Marwick.
Covers the activities of the CIA, FBI, IRS, military intelligence and "politically motivated"
grand juries, and details such operations as the
overthrow of the "democratic government" of
Chile.
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Balance Sheet
The CIA File, edited by Borosage and John Marks.
Papers presented at the 1974 CNSS Conference on
the CIA, entirely by CIA opponents, except for
William Colby, who was subjected to an hour and a
half harangue during the question period.
FBI Charter Legislation Comparison. Compares the
proposed FBI Charter Act of 1979 with other
recommendations, including Attorney General
Levi's guidelines, the Church Committee proposals,
and recommendations by opponents of the FBI, like
the ACLU and the Committee for Public Justice.
The CIA and the Freedom of Information Act:
Report on the Proposal for an Exemption. Criticizes
the CIA's testimony that the present FOIA is
crippling the Agency's ability to maintain foreign
agents and gain cooperation for foreign intelligence
services.
From Officials' File: Abstracts of Documents on
National Security and Civil Liberties Available from
CNSS Library. Catalogue of materials in CNSS files,
available for researchers. Documents have been
obtained by FOIA releases and discovery processes
in law suits, most formerly classified. Many
obtained "only after a courtroom struggle." Includes
such items as: transcripts of Kissinger's off-therecord press conferences on Middle East and SALT,
FBI surveillance of J. Robert Oppenheimer, DOE
Report on uranium diversion and theft, documents
on intelligence operations by state and local police,
etc.
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Target America
Comparison of Proposals for Reforming the
Intelligence Communities, by Berman, Mark
Drooks, Halperin, and Barbara Pollack. Compares the Church Committee report, Carter's
Executive Order and the Senate Intelligence
Committee 1978 and 1980 bills.
Nuclear Power and Civil Liberties, by Allan
Adler and Jay Peterzell. "Critics of nuclear
power have said it presents a major risk to civil
liberties because the nuclear materials provide
a powerful justification for surveillance of protestors and other measures."
Operation Chaos by Jay Peterzell, Comparison
of Church Committee account of CHAOS with
other later information gained through FOIA
and lawsuit by ACLU.
Freedom vs. National Security by Halperin
and David Hoffman. 600 page "sourcebook"
on cases and statutes on such topics as Pentagon Papers, CIA, Viet Nam, and Watergate.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation. A pamphlet that "reviews the Bureau's history and
lays out recommendations for reform.... The
FBI's long-term apparatus for surveilling American citizens and targeting movements for social change have not been put under control."
National Security and Civil Liberties by Morton Halperin. Deals with wiretap law.
The CIA Corporate Shell Game by John Marks.
On CIA proprietary companies such as Air
America, which "are another area of unregulated clandestine operations."
The Grand Juries: An American Inquisition,
by Judy Mead.
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Balance Sheet
Top Secret: National Security and the Right to
Know, by Halperin and Hoffman. Case studies of
"several of the country's biggest secrecy snafusthe
Pentagon Papers, the bombing of Cambodia, the
Angolan intervention."
Documents: A Collection from the Secret Files of
the American Intelligence Community, by Christy
Macy and Susan Kaplan. Reproduces "a selection from
the paper trail left behind by improper intelligence
agency programs."
FOIA Litigation Manual, edited by Christine
Marwick. Technical manual for attorneys on "all
aspects of Freedom of Information and Privacy Acts."
Using the Freedom of Information Act: A Step by
Step Guide. CREDITS:
There is no record that the Center for National Securities Studies has conducted any "studies" of the threat
to American "security" posed by the KGB or
Communist propaganda or subversive activities. The
CNSS statement of purpose says that it was founded
"to reduce government secrecy, to limit the surveillance of Americans by intelligence agencies, to prohibit surveillance or manipulation of lawful political
activity, and to protect the rights of Americans to write
and speak on issues affecting the national security."
The organization has never attempted to study the degree of surveillance of American citizens or American
defense or industrial activities by Communist intelligence agencies. One hundred percent of its studies
have been aimed at the CIA, FBI, and other American
agencies. It has ignored the well-documented evidence of Communist espionage and surveillance; for
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example, the interception of American telecommunications traffic and the massive and growing activities
in espionage and propaganda in the U.S. by the KGB
and other Soviet organs.

Institute for Policy Studies

This section arrays the published output of the IPS,
classified as to whether it is for or against a Communist line. (For further details on the IPS, see Chapter
II.)
The following balance sheet is based on the Fall
1979 IPS Catalogue and a supplement for Summer/Fall
1980. These provide the titles and brief descriptions of
80 publications and 14 films. Ten of the films were
directed by Saul Landau and were described earlier in
this chapter. Out of the remaining 4 films and 80 publications, 68 are found to be closely parallel to the Communist line in their main subject matter and
orientation as described in the IPS Catalogue. For example, many advocate unilateral American disarmament, attack the U.S. intelligence community, or
analyze the Americans economy from a "class conflict" point of view. The remaining 14 might most
charitably be called neutral. Although not necessarily
paralleling A Communist line, even these are generally
critical of American institutions, including such titles
as Whistle-Blowers' Guide to the Federal Bureaucracy
Industrial Exodus ("a classic study of strategies for
preventing plant closings and run-away shops") and so
forth.
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Balance Sheet
This section does not describe all 84 items in the IPS
Catalogue, but presents a sampling of typical titles and
quotes from the descriptions given in the catalogue.
(Emphasis has been added in some of the descriptions.) DEBITS:
The Politics of National Security by Marcus
Raskin. "This historical analysis of the national
security state traces its evolution from a
planning instrument to ensure national stability, mute class conflicts, and secure the domestic economy to the basis for overt and covert
imperialism. The debacle in Indochina, the
genocidal nature of the arms race. . . . etc. "
The Search for 'Manchurian Candidate': The
CIA and Mind Control by John Marks.
The Lawless State-. The Crimes of the Intelligence Community by Halperin, Borosage, Berman, and Marwick.
The Counterforce Syndrome by Robert C.
Aldrige. "How 'counterforce' has replace 'deterrence' contrary to what most Americans believe..."
Dubious SpecterA Second Look at the "Soviet Threat" by Fred Kaplan.
The Rise and Fall of the "Soviet Threat" by
Alan Wolfe.
Resurgent Militarism by Michael T. Klare. "An
analysis of the growing militaristic fervor
which is spreading from Washington across the
nation...."
NATO's Unremarked Demise by Earl C.
Ravenal. "A critique of the Atlantic Alliance....
This study refutes two assumptions
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Target America
of the post WW II era: that the defense of Europe is required for the balance of power, and
that 'interdependence' is required for our national security. A drastically changed international system invites American disengagement
from Europe."
The Economy of Death by Richard J. Barnet.
".... this trenchant analysis of the defense
budget exposes how the military-industrial
complex manipulates public expenditures to
squander vast sums in useless hardware....
Social costs of this waste require a program of
national conversation to an 'Economy of Life'
achieved by citizen action in defiance of this
threat."
Intervention and Revolution by Richard J.
Barnet. "A classic study of American intervention in developing nations. This lucid work refutes the Cold War tenets of U.S. foreign policy
and documents the history of repressive military intervention.
The Sullivan Principles: Decoding Corporate
Camouflage by Elizabeth Schmidt. "An analysis of the Sullivan Principles, the fair employment code devised by American corporations
in South Africa to deflect public criticism of investment in that country." (Actually, this code
was not developed by American corporations
but by the Rev. Leon H. Sullivan, pastor of the
Zion Baptist Church, the largest church in
North Philadelphia, and one of the most respected black ministers in the U.S. Sullivan devised these principles as a means of allowing
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Balance Sheet
the blacks in South Africa to have the benefits of
employment by American corporations without the
corporations being parties to encouragement of
apartheid.)
How the Other Half Dies by Susan George. "This
examination
of
multinational
agribusiness
corporations explains that the roots of hunger are not
overpopulation, changing climate, or bad weather, but
rather control of food by the rich."
The Dead Are Not Silent. Film produced by Studio
H & S of Communist East Germany, describes the
overthrow of the Allende government in Chile as told
by two womenIsabel Letelier and Moy de Toha.
CREDITS:
No publications are listed that could be considered
to oppose a Communist line in any respect. In none of
the many studies of U.S. defense policies is there any
recognition of the danger of the Soviet arms build-up.
In fact, many of the books specifically discount this
threat. There is no mention of the work of the KGB or
Soviet propaganda organs. While there is considerable
treatment of American multi-nationals and "monopolies,' there is nothing about the problems of Communist monopolistic practices in such areas as grain
purchasing or the setting of shipping rates, which is
now causing grave problems for free world shipping.

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XI. Conclusions and Recommendations

While many observers in the U.S. and abroad have

been alarmed and mystified by America's loss of will
during the past decade, virtually no one has identified
Communist propaganda as a principal cause. A notable
exception is Andrei Sakharov, the great Russian dissident. In his latest book, My Country and the World,
he speaks of the loss of will among elites in the West
due to "an unrelenting stream of mendacious propaganda aided and abetted by fellow-travelling intellectuals."
The case histories in previous chapters were designed to show the effects of such propaganda in affecting American media and hence public opinion and
even government policy. We selected these to illustrate crises in American policy where media treatment
of the issues can now be shown to have been based so
clearly on falsehoods and at the same time to have fol-

140

Conclusions and Recommendations

lowed so closely the Communist line that the treatment must have been executed either by Communist
agents or sympathizers or by well-meaning people being manipulated.
Who are the agents behind such bias or manipulation? There is little firm evidence, because of the inhibitions placed in recent years on FBI investigations of
subversion and the dismantling of the Congressional
Internal Security committees in the 1970s. In countries where the security agencies are allowed to conduct investigations, such as Singapore and Malaysia,
they have unearthed large networks of agents influencing media performance and government policy, as
described in Chapter III.
How is the Communist propaganda effort organized? A major portion of the effort is now implemented by Americans working within this country.
Before World War II and up through the early 1960s,
the major portion of the propaganda emanated directly
from Communist media. But beginning in the 1960s
and increasing part of this was being carried out by
American agents and sympathizers working within
this country. In the case studies of Cambodia, the
North Vietnamese, AID, and the CIA, for example, we
can see that most of the slogans and tactics for stimulating Congressional investigations and recommendations for new legislation, were devised by Americans
in the Far Left Lobby or the media. They were following, knowingly or unknowingly, major objectives laid
down in Moscow (or Peking), but were adding to
them their expertise in how best to influence American opinion.

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Conclusions

So the conclusions of this study can be summarized

in just 9 points:
1. The Communists' drive for world domination
has been making relentless progress since World War
II. In 1945, the Soviet Union controlled 7% of the
earth's population. Following the latest takeovers,
Communist governments now dominate more than
33%. Americans should be concerned about the survival of the free world if this trend continues, but recent Communist victories have been virtually
unopposed.
2. The Communists have been succeeding by subversion and propaganda as much as by military means.
Throughout history, from Lenin and his successors,
they have regarded propaganda as being as important
a weapon as physical force in gaining power.
3. There are more than three million people, "agitprop cadres," within the Soviet Union, engaged full
time on propaganda directed at the Soviet population.
4.. There are more than a half million Communist
propaganda agents working around the world outside
the Soviet Union, spending more than $3 billion a year
on propaganda.
5. The United States is the number one target,
"Glavny Vrag," the main enemy.
6. A substantial percent of these half million agents
are operating within the United States, at least 4,000
and possibly many more, spending over $240 million
annually on propaganda.
7. There are several levels of propaganda agents.
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Their activity can be classified from high to low as follows:
Russian (or other Communist country agents in the
U.S.)
American agents (usually not Party members).
Opportunists who follow the Communist line for
the sake of their careers.
Idealists being manipulated, often without their
knowledge.
8. Many journalists have been following the Communist line. Only a few of these individuals have been
identified as Communists, and these are almost all in
the older generation. The reason is that American intelligence agencies have been crippled in recent years
and the Congressional internal security committees
have been dismantled. So there have been no government authorities capable of determining who may be
agents. Instead, this study has used two other techniques: a) the Balance Sheet Method, to assess the output of major media personalities and show the degree
of Communist influencesummarized in Chapter X,
and b) the Cast History Method.
These propaganda activities have been having a
devastating effect in undermining America's will
power abroad, causing defeats in such areas as Viet
Nam and Cambodia; distorting public attitudes towards American institutions like the CIA, the FBI, and
the Agency for International Development; and weakening our defense and intelligence efforts.
9. Propaganda is the only area where the Communists are superior to the Free World. In economics, internal
morale,
human
freedoms,
scientific
development, and weapons (at least until recent
years), we surpass them. But if the trends of the past
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thirty years persist, the Communists may succeed in
taking over the world by subversion and propaganda,
backed by their eventual use of force, even though the
majority of the people are against them.

Recommendations
The key to defeating propaganda is to expose it as
such. We Americans should do at least the following:
1. Restore the FBI's authorization to investigate
subversive activity, reactivate the internal security
committees of the Senate the the House of Representatives. As part of their new duties, there should be an
investigation of Communist propaganda activities in
the U.S.
2. An increase in the valuable work done by private
organizations such as the useful studies on the total
propaganda picture by the Church League of America,
the American Security Council, Accuracy in Media and
Information Digest.
3. The results of both private and public investigations should be made public whenever possible.
4. It is not enough to expose falsehood. One must
also disseminate the truth. The government's own information agencies (the ICA, Voice of America, Radio
Free Europe, etc.) should be strengthened. These organizations should become more vigorous in drawing
attention to aggressive Communist behavior around
the world and in defending American policies.
5. There is a need for more control of the media.
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Perhaps there is enough competition in print media so
that no Government control is needed, but the near
monopoly of the 3 major TV networks has become so
powerful in opinion formation that national survival
demands some assurance that they will not be free to
disseminate the misinformation and distortions that
have occurred in recent years. The Fairness Doctrine
was passed to guard against propaganda from the right
but has proved to be ineffective against propaganda
from the left. A preliminary recommendation for a solution to this problem is to require an ombudsman for
each major network (such as exist on some newspapers), but appointed by an independent outside body
such as the FCC. This individual would be responsible
to see that the Fairness Doctrine is followed and that
the networks are employing adequate expert advice on
any major issues arising in the news, such as nuclear
weapons, intelligence, internal security, defense, and
foreign policy, all of which have become much more
complex in recent years.

What Private Citizens Can Do

Some of the most powerful work to counter the
Communist propaganda offensive can be done by
Americans working as individuals or in citizen groups.
1. Monitor your own local media. Do the popular
columnists or broadcast commentators in your area
tend to show a heavy tilt towards policies that parallel
the Communist line? If so, ask them and editors, news
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directors and media owners for explanations. Broadcasting stations must keep your letters on file for review at license renewal time: this is one of the most
powerful tools we citizens have for controlling the
electronic media.
2. Monitor the national organization of your church
or temple. If the organization is active politically and
you see a title towards the pro-Communist side,
demand an explanation and review its contribution
policies.
3. Monitor the votes and speeches of your Congressman and Senator. If you disagree, write. If you
fail to get a satisfactory explanation, work for an opposing candidate.
4. Monitor any Congressman and Senators from
your state on the Foreign Affairs, Intelligence, Justice,
or Armed Services Committees. If their policies don't
tend to strengthen the U.S., write.
5. Keep abreast of major decisions before Congress
and the Administration. Write to your Senator and
Congressman to support the policies that strengthen
the U.S.
6. Join citizens' organizations active in working for
a stronger America (labor unions, veterans groups,
etc.)
7. If you are in a profession, consider joining or
forming a professional organization to offset proCommunist activities.
8. Everything you do as a private individual in travelling or doing business abroad has some effect on
America's image and the impression of the U.S. as a
free enterprise democracy. You and your business or

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trade association may be able to cooperate in promoting America's cause in foreign countries.
9. It is even possible for you to have a direct influence behind the Iron Curtain, by assisting those in
Communist countries who are attempting to worship
as they please. Several organizations in the U.S. and
Europe, such as the Christian Anti-Communist Crusade and the Eastern European Bible Mission, are carrying on campaigns to send bibles into Communist
countries and in other ways help believers there worship as they see fit.
This is only a bare outline of recommendations for
countering the Communists propaganda campaign.
Such propaganda is the one superior weapon the
Communists wield in their offensive against the Free
World. One reason it is so powerful is that it is so little
known. If we can unmask the propaganda offensive, if
we can overcome this one advantage the Communist
have over the free world, we can arrest the continual
threat, stave off defeat, and turn it into a victoryand
we can do it without a nuclear war.

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