In an Aug. 9, 1983 memo, Raymond outlined plans to arrange private backing for that effort. He said USIA Director Wick "via [Australian publishing magnate Rupert] Murdock [sic], may be able to draw down added funds" to support pro-Reagan initiatives. Raymond recommended "funding via Freedom House or some other structure that has credibility in the political center." [For more details, see Consortiumnews.com's "Murdoch, Scaife and CIA Propaganda."]
Questions of Legality
Raymond remained a CIA officer until April 1983 when he resigned so -- in his words -- "there would be no question whatsoever of any contamination of this" propaganda operation to woo the American people into supporting Reagan's policies.
But Raymond, who had been one of the CIA's top propaganda and disinformation specialists, continued to act toward the U.S. public much like a CIA officer would in directing a propaganda operation in a hostile foreign country.
Raymond fretted, too, about the legality of Casey's role in the effort to influence U.S. public opinion because of the legal prohibition against the CIA influencing U.S. policies and politics. Raymond confided in one memo that it was important "to get [Casey] out of the loop," but Casey never backed off and Raymond continued to send progress reports to his old boss well into 1986.
It was "the kind of thing which [Casey] had a broad catholic interest in," Raymond said during his Iran-Contra deposition in 1987. He then offered the excuse that Casey undertook this apparently illegal interference in domestic affairs "not so much in his CIA hat, but in his adviser to the president hat."
As the Casey-Raymond propaganda operation expanded during the last half of Reagan's first term, Freedom House continued to keep Raymond abreast of its work on Central America, with its attitudes dove-tailing with Reagan administration's policies particularly in condemning Nicaragua's Sandinista government.
Freedom House also kept its hand out for funding. On Sept. 15, 1984, Bruce McColm -- writing from Freedom House's Center for Caribbean and Central American Studies -- sent Raymond "a short proposal for the Center's Nicaragua project 1984-85. The project combines elements of the oral history proposal with the publication of The Nicaraguan Papers," a book that would disparage Sandinista ideology and practices.
"Maintaining the oral history part of the project adds to the overall costs; but preliminary discussions with film makers have given me the idea that an Improper Conduct-type of documentary could be made based on these materials," McColm wrote, referring to a 1984 film that offered a scathing critique of Fidel Castro's Cuba.
"Such a film would have to be the work of a respected Latin American filmmaker or a European. American-made films on Central America are simply too abrasive ideologically and artistically poor."
McColm's three-page letter reads much like a book or movie pitch, trying to interest Raymond in financing the project:
"The Nicaraguan Papers will also be readily accessible to the general reader, the journalist, opinion-maker, the academic and the like. The book would be distributed fairly broadly to these sectors and I am sure will be extremely useful."They already constitute a form of Freedom House samizdat, since I've been distributing them to journalists for the past two years as I've received them from disaffected Nicaraguans."
McColm proposed a face-to-face meeting with Raymond in Washington and attached a six-page grant proposal seeking $134,100.
According to the grant proposal, the project would include...
"...free distribution to members of Congress and key public officials; distribution of galleys in advance of publication for maximum publicity and timely reviews in newspapers and current affairs magazines; press conferences at Freedom House in New York and at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.; op-ed circulation to more than 100 newspapers; distribution of a Spanish-language edition through Hispanic organizations in the United States and in Latin America; arrangement of European distribution through Freedom House contacts."
The documents that I found at the Reagan library do not indicate what subsequently happened to this proposal. McColm did not respond to an email request for comment about the Nicaraguan Papers plan or Cherne's earlier letter to Casey about editing McComb's manuscript. Raymond died in 2003; Cherne died in 1999; and Casey died in 1987.
But it is clear that Freedom House became a major recipient of funds from the National Endowment for Democracy, which Casey and Raymond helped create in 1983.
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