Presswatch/Woodward Disinforms

...So the theme that "America provoked Libya" is not new for Woodward...

...Thus the concern...

...What, then, remains of the claim' of disinformation...

...intelligence officials had actually concluded in August that Qaddafi was 'quiescent' on the terrorist front...

...Woodward claimed that in fact "the administration only had contingency plans for new military action that were several months old, and nothing new was being done...

...Woodward was left quoting yet another unnamed official to the effect that the Journal had been misled by a "Lone Ranger operation...

...I think, however, that if there are ways in which we can make Qaddafi nervous, why shouldn't we...

...So the Wall Street Journal story was correct in all basic details...

...Laitin was shocked, because he thought that "it is odd that the vehement reaction was to the Post's printing things that were true...

...By now, the basic premise of Woodward's article (often commented upon, rarely read) has been widely accepted: as the subhead put it, "Elaborate Campaign Included Disinformation That Appeared as Fact in American Media" (that's all eight columns on the top of the first page, folks...

...The apparent divergence between his words and those of the President hurt the Administration and encouraged journalists to continue their assault...

...had discovered that Qaddafi was preparing new acts of terrorism...

...Every one of Woodward's claims is false...

...Precious little, as Woodward himself acknowledged in his next effort, on October 6. After describing yet another classified document (this time from the State Department), Woodward wandered all around the subject, and finally described the actual policy adopted visavis Libya: " . . . the only deception was to be directed abroad and at Qaddafi...

...If the authors erred, it was in dreimatizing the degree to which the American government was committed to a single course of action (the "collision course...

...And I don't know anyone close to the President who believes anything other than what the Journal said: if the Libyans had been caught engaged in further acts of terrorism against American targets, the American response would have been more vigorous than it had been last April...

...the media pack had been unleashed against the Administration, and its blood lust was not about to be turned off...

...For the only "action" recommended by the men and women of the State Department is trying to convince Qaddafi that there are Libyans who don't like him, and that there are signs that even the Russians are thinking of getting rid of him...

...3. That false information was provided to the American press, claiming that the Administration was planning "a new and larger bombing of Libya in case the President orders it...

...Part of this is because secrecy is sometimes indispensable to the success of policy, and part of it is for a very different reason: if people come to learn that their most private views are going to be published, they will no longer speak their minds...

...Woodward's original claims (which, as we shall see, he drastically modified in a later article) were basically three in number: 1. That false information was planted in American news media, claiming that the United States government had learned that Libya was preparing new acts of terrorism (Woodward claimed that "U.S...

...For those who know how to read, that means that the information showed that Qaddafi was about to abandon his "temporary quiescence...

...One of the most interesting footnotes to the Great Disinformation Scandal of 1986 is that the great bulk of letters to the editor at the Post were hostile to Woodward...

...But no one felt like pointing out Woodward's retraction...

...It appears that there are some people [in the White House] who think we have to emulate the Soviet Union in order to compete with them" (Senator William Cohen...

...This is a far cry from the original claims, and even it is wrong, since the Journal wasn't misled...

...This means that claim no...

...3, and Woodward is wrong again...

...This administration has contempt for the press, from the top right on down" (Jack Nelson, Los Angeles Times...

...Post "ombudsman" Joseph Laitin spoke of "the reader outrage over the Post's publishing Bob Woodward's revelation last week...

...The government actually conveyed to reporters things it knew to be false—that opposition to Col...

...It would have been more accurate to have said that j/Qaddafi carried out the acts he seemed to be contemplating, there would be a "collision...

...Meanwhile, the Administration's reaction was not clear at all: while the President correctly denied any deception of American reporters, the Secretary of State on occasion seemed to confirm the claim: "I know of no decision to have people go out and tell lies to the media...

...The "American Media" referred to by Woodward was primarily the Wall Street Journal, which had run a front-page story by James Walcott and Gerald Seib on August 25, alleging that Libya and the United States were on a "collision course," since the U.S...

...2 is also false...

...While he wrote, early in the story, that Qaddafi was judged to be "quiescent," the actual phrase in the White House document gives a quite different impression: "Although the current intelligence community assessment is that Qaddafi is temporarily quiescent in his support of terrorism, he may soon move to a more active role...

...It wasn't even mistaken...

...Qaddafi Michael Ledeen is senior fellow in international affairs at the Georgetown Center for Strategic and International Studies...

...But the basic passion was the one we've seen before: the desire to shape American foreign policy...

...There is also a problem with scriptural exegesis of official documents...

...The State Department memo cited by Woodward in his second article, for instance, is a clear example of what I like to call the "pre-emptive policy" memorandum...

...It was common knowledge in Washington that Post editors were enraged at being scooped by the Journal, and the Woodward story was clearly aimed in part against his competitors at the other newspaper...

...Worse still, in an attempt to buttress his case against the government, Woodward tore a crucial phrase totally out of context...

...wrote: "It may cross the reader's mind that Americans are learning more of the truth from Managua than Washington while their Government, as in the recently debated case of Libya, engages in disinformation . . . " With such near-unanimity, you might think that the only thing left to discuss is the degree of malfeasance on the part of American government officials, but things are actually quite different...

...They were right...

...2. That indeed, most likely as a result of the American "disinformation" campaign, Libya began planning new terrorist acts in September...

...Like many people with little understanding of how government works, Woodward takes internal memoranda as sacred text, providing an absolutely reliable picture of "real policy...

...The Woodward stories, like those in the past, put the burden for the conflict with Libya on Reagan's shoulders, rather than on Qaddafi's back...

...In essence it says, "do nothing, the situation will take care of itself...

...There was indeed information showing that Qaddafi was preparing new acts of terrorism, and while there are always people in the American government who challenge any given interpretation of the basic data, most of the senior officials who work on this subject agreed that there was every good reason for serious concern...

...Indeed, the conviction that the American media had been deliberately misled was so firmly entrenched that just one week later the New York Times editorialists (Max Frankel's last editorial comment...

...Those readers who have been with me for the past few months will recognize this as part of a pattern...

...No "disinformation" is needed in this case, since both statements are true, and Qaddafi knows it—indeed h^s known it for quite a long time...

...In other words, contrary to all the headlines, the Post'?, own editorials, the explosions of righteous indignation from the media community, and even the bizjirre resignation of State Department spokesman Bernard Kalb, the chief inquisitor himself granted that there was no disinformation aimed at the American media...

...Woodward has been one of the major sponsors of this world-view, which he has advanced largely through the use of leaked, topsecret documents dealing with covert American programs aimed at Libya...

...The readers were upset at seeing yet another case where government secrets were on the front page of the Post...

...One can debate the ethics of this question interminably, but the basic fact remains this: No goverrunent can effectively design and conduct foreign policy if its private discussions and plans appear in the press...

...unless I am sadly mistaken, the American public has in fact been the victim of a hoax perpetrated by Mr...

...There were several forces at work, least of which was the profound jealousy between the Post and the Journal...

...Fair enough, but George Shultz should have been a lot tougher with those who were screaming "disinformation...

...To read it otherwise is to accuse Admiral John Poindexter of misleading, not the American media, but his boss Ronald Reagan...

...For there were a variety of options and plans being studied throughout the American government in August and September, not just the old programs...

...As usual, we have the unnamed "source who considered the August initiatives potentially dangerous" who provided Woodward with the perfect quotable quote: "There's a fine line between harassment and provocation...

...Finally, we are left with the ongoing problem of the Posf^ passion for the publication of government secrets (and once the media learned that the Administration was trying to find the source of the leaked documents, they condemned it with their usual violence...

...indeed, it is the most vicious piece of disinformation in the entire article, for it suggests that the real cause of Qaddafi's resumption of terrorism in September was the United States...

...If that isn't the real disinformation, what is it...

...Rosenthal, executive editor of the New York Times...

...There are dozens of reasons for writing a memorandum in the government, and many of these have very little to do with the actual content of American policy...

...That leaves us with claim no...

...They weren't, but the readers couldn't have been expected to know that...

...The result of that situation is that errors will not be caught at an early stage, and people, instead of saying stupid things, will do them instead...

...was stirring and that an American attack was on the way" (Washington Post...

...And the media screamed bloody murder: •"We should leave that garbage to the Russians" (A.M...

...What does it all mean...

...Month after month, a variety of Post correspondents has striven mightily to imply, infer, and otherwise convey the impression that Qaddafi is not a serious threat, that any American action against Libya will only provoke Qaddafi to even greater excesses, and that Reagan's refusal to seek rapprochement with Libya is at least as much a cause of Libyan-sponsored terrorism as is Qaddafi's own passion...

...In Woodward's view, citing a secret White House memorandum and the usual collection of unidentified sources, that story was false in all major details...

...Americans grow up convinced that their values are different and more enlightened, but when 'disinformation' ceases to be merely a Russian word, the distinctions begin to blur, and a deeply disturbing impression is conveyed to the rest of the world" (Jonathan Alter et al., Newsweek...