Caught in the Act

The Reagan Administration, which like its predecessors insists that its assessments of various international threats be accepted as honest and accurate, has now been caught out in a major effort to deceive and mislead. In August it concocted a plan that it hoped would weaken Libya’s Col. Moammar Kadafi by portraying him as “paranoid and ineffective.” By so doing it sought to embolden opposition forces within Libya to seek his overthrow. The plan included a number of complex elements--among them U.S. military feints against Libya. As outlined in a memo signed by Adm. John M. Poindexter, the President’s national-security adviser, and revealed by the Washington Post, a key element of the plan was a program of “disinformation.” Here at least it succeeded.

Within days of the plan’s approval, the Wall Street Journal published a story indicating that the United States and Libya were on a new collision course. Other papers picked up the story. The major alleged reason for the brewing confrontation was that Libya had again begun promoting international terrorist activities. In fact, as the Poindexter memo shows, intelligence reports up to that time indicated that Kadafi had become relatively “quiescent” in his encouragement of terrorism. Ironically, subsequent intelligence has pointed to a possible renewal of direct Libyan involvement in terrorism, perhaps--as some in the intelligence community warned would happen--in reaction to the campaign that the United States set in motion in August.

The Journal’s story was published on Aug. 25. It was immediately decribed by White House spokesman Larry Speakes as “authoritative.” Now Speakes says that no attempt had been made to provide “disinformation” to the American press. Yet the Journal’s story, written in good faith, is now revealed as having been based on false information that was deliberately provided by a number of government sources and deliberately left uncorrected. It was authoritative only in the sense that it resulted from authoritatively fostered lies.

The Post’s story shows an Administration so frustrated by its inability to deal effectively with terrorism, some of which does indeed emanate from Libya, that it was prepared to adopt the extreme and dangerous step of creating a phony war scare. Its aim, so the Poindexter memo has it, was to deceive and damage Kadafi. But its biggest deception was of the American people, and the greatest damage done has been to the Administration’s claim to be trusted and believed.