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OpEdNews Op Eds    H2'ed 3/8/10

How Reagan's Propaganda Succeeded

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Another important figure in the pro-contra propaganda was NSC staffer Oliver North, who spent a great deal of his time on the Nicaraguan public diplomacy operation even though he is better known for arranging secret arms shipments to the contras and to Iran's radical Islamic government, leading to the Iran-Contra scandal.

The draft chapter cited a March 10, 1985, memo from North describing his assistance to CIA Director Casey in timing the disclosures of pro-contra news "aimed at securing Congressional approval for renewed support to the Nicaraguan Resistance Forces."

However, the discarding of the draft chapter and the ultimate failure of the Iran-Contra report to fully explain the danger of CIA-style propaganda intruding into the U.S. political process had profound future consequences. Indeed, the evidence suggests that the Casey-Raymond media operations of the 1980s helped bring the Washington press corps to its knees, where it has remained most of the time through today.

To soften up the Washington press corps, Reich's S/LPD targeted U.S. journalists who reported information that undermined the administration's propaganda themes. Reich sent his teams out to lobby news executives to remove or punish out-of-step reporters with a disturbing degree of success.

In March 1986, Reich reported that his office was taking "a very aggressive posture vis-Ã -vis a sometimes hostile press" and "did not give the critics of the policy any quarter in the debate." [For details, see Parry's Lost History.]

Though Casey died in 1987 and Raymond in 2003, some U.S. officials implicated in the propaganda operations remain important Washington figures, bringing the lessons of the 1980s into the new century.

For instance, Elliott Abrams though convicted of misleading Congress in the Iran-Contra Affair and later pardoned by President George H.W. Bush returned as deputy advisor to George W. Bush's NSC, where Abrams oversaw U.S.-Middle East policy.

Today, Kagan writes influential op-eds for the Washington Post and is a senior associate at the Carnegie Institute for International Peace. Oliver North landed a show on Fox News. Otto Reich was an adviser to John McCain's presidential campaign in 2008.

Beyond the individuals, the manipulative techniques that were refined in the 1980s especially the skill of exaggerating foreign threats have proved durable. Such scare tactics brought large segments of the American population into line behind the Iraq War in 2002-03.

It took years and many thousands of deaths before Americans realized they had been manipulated by deceptive propaganda, that their perceptions had been managed.

In his book, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception, Bush's former White House press secretary Scott McClellan described Iraq War propaganda tactics that would have been familiar to Casey and Raymond.

From his insider vantage point, McClellan cited the White House's "carefully orchestrated campaign to shape and manipulate sources of public approval" and he called the Washington press corps "complicit enablers."

The newly discovered documents in Raymond's files at the Reagan Library offer a glimpse at how these manipulative techniques took root.

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Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, can be ordered at secrecyandprivilege.com. It's also available at
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