Reagan’s Credibility Seen Hurt by Anti-Kadafi Effort

The discovery of a Reagan Administration plan for disinformation to undermine Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi has damaged the President’s credibility and could hamper future U.S. attempts to organize allied action against Libya, experts both in and out of government said Friday.

Administration officials confirmed that a program approved in mid-August led to a spate of misleading news accounts suggesting U.S. military moves might be undertaken against Kadafi. The purpose, the officials said, was to keep the mercurial Libyan leader off balance and perhaps to encourage a coup against him.

The plan was born from the Administration’s frustration after six years of attempts to dislodge Kadafi from his hold on power, they said.

But when information about the program came to light this week, experts said, the resulting damage to U.S. credibility was far more serious than the disinformation program was worth.

An Administration official conceded that, as a result of the current furor, “it will become more difficult to convey direct signals to Kadafi.”

The next time the United States tries to send an oblique warning to Kadafi, the Libyan leader may decide that the U.S. action is merely more disinformation and disregard it, he said.

“What we wanted to be a clear signal is now, at best, ambivalent,” the official said.

A former State Deparment official with long experience in dealing with Kadafi called the entire program “stunningly naive.”

“From the point of view of efficacy, the worst thing you could do--apart from putting it on paper--is to go out and tell the media,” the official said. “The people you are targeting (Libyan officials) will automatically discount the message.”

As part of the disinformation program, government officials leaked misleading information showing plans for an upswing of terrorist incidents attributed to Libya. Officials now concede that intelligence reports at the time showed Kadafi was in a “quiescent” period.

Some Deception Acceptable

Jody Powell, White House press secretary under former President Jimmy Carter, said that some government deception is acceptable but that the anti-Kadafi program was dangerously ill-advised. In addition to misleading Kadafi, it may also have misled U.S. allies, who must be able to trust U.S. diplomatic signals on highly sensitive subjects, he said.

“On terrorism matters, because of the need to protect intelligence sources and methods, we have to ask our allies and the general public to trust us,” Powell said. “By playing this sort of game, we make it less likely that we will be trusted in the future.”

At the height of the disinformation campaign against Kadafi, the Administration was forced to dispatch U.N. Ambassador Vernon A. Walters to Europe to reassure U.S. allies that no armed clash with Libya was at hand.

Although some of the details are still in dispute, the Administration has confirmed that what officials prefer to call a psychological warfare program against Kadafi was launched in mid-August. Later that month, the Wall Street Journal published a story, based on information from unnamed Administration officials, reporting increased U.S.-Libya tensions and suggesting that military action against Kadafi’s regime was under serious consideration.

The day after the Journal story was published, White House spokesman Larry Speakes described it as “authoritative,” in effect giving it the Administration’s stamp of approval and encouraging other publications to carry similar stories.

6th Fleet Movements

Later in August, U.S. warships in the Mediterranean moved into position for what could have been interpreted as an impending attack on Libya. The Pentagon described the action as a routine military maneuver at the time but, in light of the misleading reports, the news was given a more dramatic slant.

Secretary of State George P. Shultz, one of the primary authors of what he called the “psychological warfare” program, said that the Administration capitalized on the competitive instincts of the press to get its message across to Libya.

“We can absolutely bank on the fact that, if the (6th) Fleet does something, you (the press) will scream, and Kadafi will hear about it,” Shultz told a small group of reporters Thursday night. “The fleet may or may not be getting ready to do something. . . . It is not deceiving you but just using your tendencies to report things we (say we) want to keep secret. You are predictable in that sense.”

Shultz sketched the considerations that went into the Administration’s actions. He described Kadafi as a “menace” and an “outlaw” and said the United States was “pretty darn close” to a state of declared war with Libya.

‘Keep Him Off Balance’

“We do have various things going on . . . that keep him off balance,” Shultz said. “I don’t have any problems with a little psychological warfare against Kadafi. . . . If there are ways we can make Kadafi nervous, why shouldn’t we?”

From the start, some Administration officials doubted that the psychological campaign would do much good. Others suggested that Reagan’s and Shultz’s preoccupation with Kadafi gave the Libyan leader much too much importance.

“He is a major supporter of terrorism,” one official said. “To that extent, he is enemy No. 1. But he is not a central player even in the Middle East. He is a peripheral player.”

Some other officials and former officials applauded the Administration’s objectives but questioned its methods.

“The Administration has done something seldom practiced before, which is to use the U.S. media as a vehicle for disinformation,” said David Atlee Phillips, a retired CIA covert action specialist. “It seems to me that Macy’s window is not the place to conduct such operations. One of the elements that has to be weighed in any intelligence operation is the flap potential. Any operation that even touches on manipulation of the U.S. press should be shelved once that (potential for controversy) is considered.”

Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that the program produced more harm than good.

“Disinformation in the foreign sector is not good policy just as a general rule,” he said. “That is my own prejudice on the thing. I don’t think you can give up the importance of our credibility around the world. I even have some doubt whether it has a potential for some short-term gain . . . to give up the high ground.”