IP: White House says information system not aimed at U.S.

[Dave Farber <farber@cis.upenn.edu>]

>Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 14:08:15 +0300 (EEST)
>From: Zombie Cow <waste@zor.hut.fi>
>To: cypherpunks@toad.com
>
>http://www.washtimes.com/news/news3.html#link
>
>White House says information system not aimed at U.S.
>
>By Ben Barber
>THE WASHINGTON TIMES
>
>  White House spokesman David Leavy on Thursday adamantly
>  denied a new International Public Information (IPI) system would
>  be directed at American audiences.
>
>  IPI is a secret Clinton administration program to control public
>information disseminated by the departments of State and Defense and
>intelligence agencies.
>
>  It is meant to "influence foreign audiences in a way favorable to the
>achievement of U.S. foreign-policy objectives," according to a draft
>IPI charter obtained by The Washington Times.
>
>  But critics claim that IPI will be used for domestic propaganda.
>  -- Continued from Front Page --
>
>  "That is totally inaccurate," Mr. Leavy said. "The IPI initiative is
>designed to better organize the government and the instruments we have
>to support our public diplomacy, military activities and economic
>engagement overseas. There is no impact on the domestic press."
>
>  Mr. Leavy said that U.S. information officials at home and abroad
>serve different functions.
>
>  "There are officers who work with the media in the United States and
>officers who support the U.S. policy overseas. They are totally
>separate. They are totally different functions," Mr. Leavy said.
>
>  But a former deputy chief of the U.S. Information Agency (USIA) under
>three presidents said he fears the IPI plan would mean U.S. propaganda
>aimed at foreigners would be used to influence American elections.
>
>  Gene Kopp, who served under Presidents Nixon, Ford and Bush, said the
>elections of President Kennedy and President Carter were directly
>influenced by leaks of USIA foreign public-opinion polls showing a
>decline in U.S. prestige abroad.
>
>  "I am concerned this could happen again under the IPI plan," said Mr.
>Kopp, currently a Washington lawyer. "The administration is
>transferring all assets, except broadcasting, to State, where they
>will not be separated in any way. It will be very difficult to
>separate what is disseminated in the United States and overseas."
>
>  He said that the opportunity for abusing the system will be great.
>"The temptation to spin this stuff in a partisan way will be very
>strong -- probably irresistible," he said. "The other ominous feature
>is that this includes the intelligence agencies. They are in the
>business of misinformation. God only knows where that goes."
>
>  New allegations emerged Thursday that the Clinton administration has
>been trying to control how American news organizations cover foreign
>affairs, at least since the Bosnia peacekeeping mission in 1996.
>
>  According to a former government official, who insisted on anonymity,
>the White House created a Strategic Planning Directorate, which used
>the State Department and USIA to pressure American reporters into
>favorable coverage of the U.S. troop deployment in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
>
>  It came into being just prior to the 1996 presidential election.
>"I heard them talk about it in conference telephone calls --how they
>had to control the media out there, the bureau chiefs, because if the
>Republicans picked this up [the Clinton administration] would be
>exposed as having no foreign policy," said the former government
>official.
>
>  Shortly after President Clinton won re-election in 1996, the
>administration announced that U.S. troops would not be home by
>Christmas, as promised. Today, nearly three years later, some 7,000
>U.S. troops remain in Bosnia.
>
>  "The U.S. public wanted to know how long American troops had to be
>there," said the ex-official. "The Clinton people said 'only one
>year,' and [that] they would be home in December, after the election.
>But everyone knew the only way to keep the warring sides apart was
>robust international and American presence."
>
>  This former official said this was widely discussed.
>"In the conference calls, they openly discussed how they had to
>prevent American journalists from discussing this," he said.
>
>  The source said that USIA officials and National Security Adviser
>Samuel R. Berger tried to convince American editors not to publish
>accounts by their reporters who wrote that Bosnia was unsafe for
>Americans, that Muslim extremists were a threat, and that the warring
>sides would never be pacified.
>
>  Ivo Daalder, who was a staffer on the National Security Council at
>the time, said discussions had no ulterior motives.
>
>  Mr. Daalder, who is now at the Brookings Institution, said the talks
>among the USIA, National Security Council and other agencies "had the
>sole purpose of making sure they share information among them, and
>when the U.S. government speaks to the outside world, it does so in a
>coordinated manner."
>
>  Mr. Daalder said "there was no deliberate campaign designed to put
>out false information prior to the 1996 presidential election."
>
>  He said that USIA did increase staffing and efforts to convince
>American reporters in Bosnia of the administration's perspective in
>September, prior to the Bosnian elections.