The First Amendment; Lawrence Martin

The eastern Public Radio Network in cooperation with the Institute for democratic communication at Boston University now presents the First Amendment and a free people a weekly examination of civil liberties in the media. In the 1970s the host of the program is the institute's director. Dr. Bernard Reuben. My guest tonight is Dr. Lawrence Martin a professor at Boston University of journalism who is going to be talking about this information in the Western world especially in the United States we are so concerned about information being based on truth that we don't really understand this information or the manufacturing of the illusions or information that is not necessarily connected to truth in any way but is believe a bull on the on the side of the target or the victim as you want. And Dr.

Lawrence Martin is of great importance to us in this in this series because as we come straight on the First Amendment in our comprehensions of civil liberties and as President Carter for example talks about our attitude toward freedom of information. We have to understand that we live in a world in which some governments do not operate on the basis of open information openly arrived at. Dr. Martin is a graduate of the Charles University in Prague Czechoslovakia and has his doctoral degree in international law and also a master's in journalism. He spent 14 years in the chuckles of Iraq in diplomatic service and in its intelligence operations operating in the field in China Korea Germany Austria and in Latin America because of his involvement in the processes of politics that took place in Czechoslovakia in 1968. He was involved in the sense that he was

on the Duke chick side favoring democratization. He left and asked the American government for political asylum. He now lives in the metropolitan Boston area as a political exile and is a I must say a very good teacher of international communication and other subjects at Boston University Larry. To your knowledge what does the our region of the term. This information. You know I think that the term originated in the First World War and the Germans use it as the first power or superpower at the time. But on a large scale it was used only after the Second World War. Well also during the Second World War One by both sides by the allies and by the Germans but particularly after the

Second World War during the Cold War era when actually this kind of political. Struggle against the outside enemies became institutionalized and today it is actually a weapon used by both sides. By the Soviet bloc countries and by the Western world. So when we object to the to the alleged used by the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States placing of stories in the foreign press at times which contain false information which sometimes somehow got back into the American press as reports from abroad which appear to be true. That in itself is another example of this information. Yeah that's right. I think that very many articles stories have been published in recent years dealing with the CIA involvement in the world

journalism but very little has been sat with the other side is doing what kind of disinformation operations the Soviet bloc is using against the United States and the Western world and also in the developing world. And it is part of the problem and I think that the American journalists American public and. And they can journalists in particular should know something about this technique because quite often they are the. Victims just like the public. Not only that you know if somebody wants to do see a public in another country he has to deceive the messenger first. That means a journalist who has to accept the message as generally and present it to the public. And that's what's happening on a large scale today not only in the United States but all around the world.

So if you want to be a civil libertarian the United States in the First Amendment and you want to be a realist realistic person you're really saying that you had better know about this information because you cannot live in a dream world. You must understand that there are people who as an integral part of government operations in other countries create manufacture what might be termed black propaganda material. Yeah that's right. I think it's. Generally on topic subject even for an Eric in universities I am very glad that this topic was introduced in Europe. For example a couple of years ago in 1974 it was in the University of Uppsala in Sweden introduced by Eyre who is a Yugoslav exile living in Sweden and he visited the United States in 1972 and

was very surprised that none of the 4000 American universities offered a serious academic course dealing with intelligence services and international deception. Because today in the world of. In this world modern world of developed communications I think that it's very necessary particularly for the journalists to know about their techniques to to develop certain defenses against being misused unintentionally for disinformation purposes or black propaganda purposes. So it is a very popular subject of course and I hope that few American universities will follow that example. Well I was interested in your comment about absolute University in Sweden it just so happens that a friend of mine professionally like Karen Dov

uring wrote a book that I consider to be one of the masterpieces of propaganda analysis and she taught at Absolut University a leading Swedish journalist called the semantics of biased communication propaganda the semantics of bias communication. Larry Martin I would like to ask you to specify in a hole through some of your own experiences how this information works. For example I would like you to tell us when you were working for the communist information services of Czechoslovakia. What you did or what you know about what was done in West Germany in regard to let us say the case of the LUCA forgeries. Yeah well forgeries forged documents are one of the basic techniques used in the disinformation campaigns and I have to mention that

for two years I was responsible for a special department. This information department conducting these operations all over the world and Germany was one of the targets. In the mid-1960s it was the he was eased battle in the East German specialists who opened a larch campaign against the West German president. Saying that he was a Nazi and they submitted a series of documents about him to the West German public trying to undermine his position. And. Several of these documents were forgeries. By the time they asked us what we have in our Erica eyes on that leap we mentioned a few documents and they pressed us they pushed us to

prove quote unquote. Few of these documents so that they would be really they would have a strong propagandistic message. But at the time we didn't want to go into it but we participated in this campaign against President. And to a degree it really undermined his position as a politician in West Germany. And nodes are concerned with this case I think that his wife Vilhelm Nina contributed to his political fall because during this campaign against a few West German journalists found that Mrs. Lippett had a personal document also lies German arse wise.

Personal cart saying stating that her date of birth was actually. Making her 10 years younger. And for a lady the first lady of the country that was of course something unacceptable and I think this case contributed too to the fall of Mr Lee. So you are one of the tactics is to as you use the phrase improve documents. That's just another another case that. I'd like you to tell us about it in terms of what is disinformation. Well the unscrupulous use of information. Is the operation of the Czechoslovakia group chucks like a communist group in regard to a book. I guess it was titled Who is

who in the Central Intelligence Agency. Yeah that's right it. Actually. I went and I came to the United States. One day I was looking for new books in one of the bookstores and I found this book. Who is the CIA. And I immediately recognize an operation which the Chickasaw like in this information service participated in. Again it started in East Germany. The East German intelligence that was put together this material and it is a combination. It is a book consisting of genuine data about American CIA offices. Plus there is a large number of people who have never had anything in common with the CIA. But for one reason or another were.

Considerate and nice of the socialist bloc and so they were looking in my eyes this way. So there are very many names of American diplomats who or even journalists who have never cooperated or who have never worked for the CIA. Naturally this book was used by quite often by journalists and even some organizations as a source of information in the campaign against the CIA. But this is another thing I think journalists should take into consideration what is the origin of the book and the name of Julius Mada the author of the book is the name doesn't mean anything in this country but in Europe and particularly in Germany. If you say you do smarter everybody knows that he's a man who is living in East

Germany who is the office of the easy money that is and so is writing particularly about Western intelligence services. Well tell me when you are in the business of disinformation yourself before they do check. Overthrow injective archaea as a young graduate of Prague University. Did you have any feelings of revulsion or trepidation about creating such imageries that were paid only false or did you feel that the ideology of communism requires certain activities. What was the feeling there its It was something that you did with enthusiasm or reluctantly or politically I'm trying to understand what the attitude of the groups are it is a very complicated question and I think I went through a

long process of personal maturing political maturity. I for years I was a very devoted Party member and to the party of the Communist Party when I was 15. And for twenty two years I was an member of the county's party and I actually started my process of the curing started after the political trials and she was so lucky. 1052 53 when a group of leading party officials were put on trial and executed as traitors. In spite of the fact that they were a very devoted party member there was a big anti-Semitic campaign at that time precisely that was he was the general secretary of the party and the man number two in the country was executed only for one reason because he was Jewish. And then of course the 20th Congress the one who should reveal the crimes of Stalinism in the Soviet Union and outside and I think that it was just 656 that was another

important period for me. And then in the 1960s I was more and more open about the mistakes. First I thought those were mistakes of the system. But only slowly I admitted to myself that. It was something that belonged to the system and that's why we tried to change the whole structure of the political system in Chicago so I came 1968 and I was deeply involved in the democratization process particularly in the government and particularly in the intelligence service and in diplomatic service. And for me after the Soviet invasion I had no other choice but to leave because a journalist or writer could have still do something fights and do something but for me the only choice was to

leave. She was like I know Larry that you were in Korea. And yes during the Korean War. Tell us a little about that. That this informational experience. Well this is this. True it doesn't have anything to do with my disinformation activities. It was my first diplomatic assignment abroad. I was a member of the news one nation's Repatriation Commission repatriating prisoners of war from the south to the north and vice a versa. I also came in contact with the 20 American prisoners who refused to go home to the United States. They stayed in first in North Korea and then later they moved to China. As I recall India was one of those neutral a restaurant called and was Poland Czechoslovakia Switzerland and Sweden. And just when was it about a year ago I wrote a story about an American prisoner who is still

living there. He's the last one out of the out of the Group of 20 and they've been prisoners who stay there in an after the war. And he visited the United States for two or three months and then went back. He has a family there and wife and children. But he was the only one the rest of them returned to the United States in spite of the political sympathies for the system in China because it was too difficult for them to adjust to a totally different environment culture and environment. There were two reporters there. One was in Australia and one was a British reporter. If you recall which under this who under the circumstances came south thought to pend and to the peace meeting space and began to brief the American press about what was going on and about the prisoners and about facts and so on and so forth. Winifred Birgitte her church. Yes I forgot the name of

their youngest. Well that's beside the point. There has been a great deal of criticism of that period. Some allege that they were in the disinformation business. They allege that they were straight reporters telling the things as they say in America the way they are Was it Mr. Burchett who visited as recently the United States yes he murdered thrice. Well I met both of them in Korea and talked to them and there was there were a few articles in the American press. I didn't like it when Mr. Burchett was here and some newspapers praised his journalistic achievements. But the he he you know he could never do a journalist could never do it in this country what he did there because he was closely associated with the North Korean Chinese side. He was financed by the side he lived for years in China. He was provided with everything there.

Even with a Chinese passport he was totally dependent on on the Chinese government. That means that he couldn't write anything critical of the Chinese government only sympathetic reports. It was you know once sympathetic to all of the. But was he sympathetic because of his own inclinations or you know those in the disinform Asian business. That's another question I of course I can only speculate I don't have any proof but there are a few reports about his possible connections with the Soviets with KGB speculations I personally I don't know. But this is a this is a problem when we run into Internet in international reporting. And there are very controversial stories and reporters find themselves on one side or the other. The temptation to be inclined in one direction or another is always there.

I'm sure it is there on the part of very democratically minded Western reporters from the United States or Great Britain who are not communist ideologues but perhaps ideologues of the Republican Party or of the Conservative Party in Britain. Yet how much of this disinformation you think creeps in or crept in in a very highly political era of the late 40s and 50s. Was it endemic. Well I think we have to consider one very important factor when we are talking for example about the activities of the American side CII does informing the public in communist countries. We have to take into consideration the fact that. They are in a much in a very difficult position because they cannot place this information in to

a communist newspaper or a newspaper in a communist country has to follow strictly the orders of the party which means that nothing going against the dick Treen against the party policy at the moment. It can be published while on the other hand it's relatively easy for the other side to plant false informations in the Western press. And there are very many techniques of course use. They are rumors planted and diplomatic. Among diplomats they are forgeries leaked to the press the foreign press. There are. Journalists on the payroll of intelligence services probably writing and publishing stories according to the instructions. And there are also newspapers owned by intelligence services in western Iraq and I'm talking now about the company's intelligence services owning newspapers.

If you're suggesting that the very nature of a freer press in the West means more or less in getting insinuation from I think means we have to be much more alert to the fact that the playground for disinformation may be the freer press not the controlled press. Precisely I hope. You know I don't sound like it. Cold Warrior. I am definitely not suggesting any drastic measures and they can involve money and I don't mean radical measures against the other side. But what I would like to see is more rallies and on the side of journalists that they maybe they they can easily become victims of deception game started on the other side of the political fence. They should know about these techniques and be aware and develop certain defenses. Be much more careful in analyzing every bit of information every document coming

through and the Nimitz channels that this is for example are extremely important to very carefully analyze the linguistic side. The style of the document the date the the origin of the document into very far everything because that assumes that all of the press is responsible. I'm reading a book currently now called The Lost Kaiser whittle and there's a little tidbit there that the stories that really inflame the population of Berlin just before war was declared in the Kaiser really through his hand and that was in the worst one of the worst run newspapers in Berlin a paper that had no standards whatsoever. And they were the conduit for the exceptional the sensational the explicitly and bellicose. Yes it reminds me of another little statement that whittle ascribed to the Kaiser

The Kaiser at one point lost hope in making a Russian policy because of the defeat of the the Russians in the Russian Japanese war and because of other disturbances. And he said. Nicholai my cousin is not treacherous but weak. But in his weakness lies the seeds for much treachery. Could you briefly tell us about perhaps one other incident in a moment or two. Operation Camelot. Well you know let me guess. Well this was something that started in the midst 966 probably you remember the American research project in Latin America called Camelot research of the public opinion in sort of letting American countries this and information about it reach a few journalists in Latin America who started a

campaign against the operation coming out and the American government decided this was a research conducted I think by a Pentagon and they Pentagon decided to stop. This project that inspired the East European intelligence services to conduct this research in the name of the Americans to send the many questionnaires to leading politicians journalists and so on with a very arrogant aggressive questions. Of course this stimulated anti anti-Americanism on our scale. What was the subject as I recall there was a special question there about war. Was it in operation Camelot before it was stopped by the Americans here I mean if you look into it where would people go in a war. Yes I don't know this was yet something seemed to boil in my mind on that. So if you say that the other side the communist side fan this when it was over. That's right I'm going to tell you in the name of the Americans were they successful.

It was quite successful. Yes Larry. What help do you see in the last second here of avoiding this information or are we sliding into more and more of it all the time. Well I think that. We cannot totally avoid of course becoming victims but we should know more about these techniques the more careful critical. And use our heads more than we do. Good advice. I want to thank you very much for being quite explicit about this very serious problem of dis information for this day I think. Dr. Lawrence Martin of the faculty Boston University. The eastern Public Radio Network in cooperation with the Institute for democratic communication at Boston University has presented the First Amendment as a free people weekly examination of civil liberties in the media in the 1970s.

The program is produced in the studios of WGBH Boston. This is the eastern Public Radio Network.