Demanding Candor

The American Society of Newspaper Editors has added its voice to the chorus demanding an end to the deliberate disinformation policy of President Reagan, and so it should.

Some leading American newspapers were made unwitting instruments of the policy when it was applied to President Moammar Kadafi of Libya last August. Matters were made all the worse by White House protestations that the end justified the means. The betrayal of principle and truth would inevitably have done more harm than good for Washington even had the plan succeeded.

“This calculated technique of falsehood, commonly employed by totalitarian governments as an instrument of policy, is repugnant to American democratic principles and destructive of the role of the press in a free society,” the editors said, in a message to the President. They in turn addressed fellow editors with an appeal “to safeguard against any attempt by any source, under the cloak of anonymity, to mislead the American people.”

Vice Admiral John M. Poindexter, the President’s national security adviser, devised the disinformation campaign against Kadafi, but it is now clear that he did not act in isolation. Secretary of State George P. Shultz went on record to cheer the plan after it had failed.

The editors were right in urging prudence in dealing with all sources, for an enormous amount of disinformation is planted by those eager to diminish American influence.

The timeliness of the editors’ message is reflected in the response of the U.S. government to the capture of an American engaged in clandestine arms shipments to insurgents in Nicaragua. No government may answer every question, for there are areas of legitimate security secrecy. But that cannot justify false statements when they are, as appears the case in this situation, designed to hide a violation of the law by high officials.