Black propaganda

Black propaganda is a form of

Governments conduct black propaganda for a few reasons. By disguising their direct involvement, a government may be more likely to succeed in convincing an otherwise unbelieving target audience. There are also diplomatic reasons behind the use of black propaganda. Black propaganda is necessary to obfuscate a government's involvement in activities that may be detrimental to its foreign policies.[5]

In the American Revolution

Benjamin Franklin created and circulated a fake supplement to a Boston newspaper that included letters on Indian atrocities and the treatment of American prisoners.^[6]

In World War II

British

In the United Kingdom, the Political Warfare Executive operated a number of black propaganda radio stations. Gustav Siegfried Eins (GS1) was one of the first such stations—purporting to be a clandestine German station. The speaker, "Der Chef", purported to be a Nazi extremist, accusing Adolf Hitler and his henchmen of going soft. The station focused on alleged corruption and sexual improprieties of Nazi Party members.

Another example was the British radio station Soldatensender Calais, which purported to be a radio station for the Wehrmacht. Under the direction of Sefton Delmer, a British journalist who spoke perfect Berliner German, Soldatensender Calais and its associated shortwave station, Kurzwellensender Atlantik [de], broadcast music, up-to-date sports scores, speeches of Adolf Hitler for "cover" and subtle propaganda.

Radio Deutschland was another radio station employed by the British during the war aimed and designed to undermine German morale and create tensions that would ultimately disrupt the German war effort. The station was broadcast on a frequency close on the radio dial to an actual German station. During the war most Germans actually believed that this station was in fact a German radio station and it even gained the recognition of Germany's propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels.^[7]

There were British black propaganda radio stations in most of the languages of occupied Europe as well as German and Italian.^[8] Most of these were based in the area around Bletchley Park and Woburn Abbey in Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire respectively.

Another possible example was a rumour that there had been a German attempt to land on British shores at Shingle Street, but it had been repelled with high German casualties. This was reported in the American press, and in William L. Shirer's Berlin Diary but was officially denied. British papers, declassified in 1993, have suggested this was a successful example of British black propaganda to bolster morale in the UK, US and occupied Europe.^[9]

Author

The German Büro Concordia organisation operated several black propaganda radio stations (many of which pretended to broadcast illegally from within the countries they targeted).^[11] One of these stations was Workers' Challenge which purported to be a British communist radio station and encouraged British workers to go on strike against their "capitalist" bosses.^[12]

Pacific Theatre

The Tanaka Memorial was a document that described a Japanese plan for world conquest, beginning with the conquest of China. It was widely referenced in official American anti-Japanese propaganda (such as The Battle of China and Know Your Enemy: Japan), but most historians now believe it was a forgery.

The following message was distributed in black propaganda leaflets dropped by the Japanese over the Philippines in World War II. It was designed to turn Filipinos against the United States:^[13]

     GUARD AGAINST VENEREAL DISEASES

     Lately there has been a great increase in the number of

venereal diseases

among our officers and men owing to prolific contacts with Filipino women of dubious character.

     Due to hard times and stricken conditions brought about by the Japanese occupation of the islands, Filipino women are willing to offer themselves for a small amount of foodstuffs. It is advisable in such cases to take full protective measures by use of condoms, protective medicines, etc.; better still to hold intercourse only with wives, virgins, or women of respective [sic] character.

     Furthermore, in view of the increase in pro-American leanings, many Filipino women are more than willing to offer themselves to American soldiers, and due to the fact that Filipinos have no knowledge of hygiene, disease carriers are rampant and due care must be taken.

— U. S. ARMY

Cold War black propaganda

Soviet Union

Prior to, and during the Cold War, the Soviet Union used disinformation on multiple occasions, employing the KGB's Service A of the First Chief Directorate in order to conduct its covert, or "black", "active measures".^[14] It was Service A that was responsible for clandestine campaigns that were targeted at foreign governments, public populations, as well as to influence individuals and specific groups that were hostile towards the Soviet government and its policies. The majority of their operations was actually conducted by other elements and directorates of the KGB.^[15]

United Kingdom

Declassified documents have revealed that the British government ran a secret black propaganda campaign for decades, targeting Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia with leaflets and reports from fake sources aimed at destabilising cold war enemies by encouraging racial tensions, sowing chaos, inciting violence and reinforcing anti-communist ideas.^[16][17]

Indonesia

One of the British campaigns played a part in the

• In the run-up to the
  terrorism, Islamic fundamentalists, and the Bali bombing suspects. A group of Sydney-based Liberal Party members were implicated in the incident.^[21][22][23]

• In November 1995, a
  Sunday Telegraph newspaper article alleged Libya's Saif al-Islam Gaddafi (Muammar Gaddafi's son) was connected to currency counterfeiting. The story's author, Con Coughlin, falsely attributed the claim to a "British banking official", but his information actually came from MI6 agents. This fact, and the fact that Coughlin had no other sources for the story, only came to light when Saif Gaddafi later sued the newspaper for libel.^[24]

  

• The
  Comintern president Grigory Zinoviev to the Communist Party of Great Britain. It called on Communists to mobilise "sympathetic forces" in the Labour Party and talked of creating dissent in the British Armed Forces. The Zinoviev letter was instrumental in the Conservative victory in the 1924 general election. The letter seemed authentic at the time, but historians now believe it was a forgery. Historians now agree that the letter had little impact on the Labour vote—which held up in 1924. However, it aided the Conservative Party in hastening the collapse of the Liberal Party
  that led to the Conservative landslide.

• In the "Roorback forgery" of 1844 the Chronicle of Ithaca, New York ran a story, supposedly by a German tourist called Baron von Roorback, that James K. Polk, standing for re-election as a Democrat to the United States House of Representatives, branded his slaves before selling them at auction to distinguish them from the others on sale. Polk actually benefited from the ploy, as it reflected badly on his opponents when the lie was found out.^[25] Afterwards the term "Roorback" was coined for political dirty tricks.
• During the
  Watergate Scandal. Segretti went to prison in 1974 after pleading guilty to three misdemeanor counts of distributing illegal campaign literature. Another of his dirty tricks was the "Canuck letter
  ", although this was libel of Muskie and not a black propaganda piece.

• The
  labor leaders, and Native Americans.^[26] The FBI's strategy was captured in a 1968 memo: "Consider the use of cartoons, photographs, and anonymous letters which will have the effect of ridiculing the New Left. Ridicule is one of the most potent weapons which we can use against it."^[27]
• "The Penkovsky Papers" are an example of a black propaganda effort conducted by the United States' Central Intelligence Agency during the 1960s. The "Penkovsky Papers" were alleged to have been written by a Soviet
  GRU defector, Colonel Oleg Penkovsky, but were in fact produced by the CIA in an effort to diminish the Soviet Union's credibility at a pivotal time during the Cold War.^[28]

• In 1955, the
  Soviet secret police chief Lavrentiy Beria. In fact, the book describes all of the practices Scientology opposes (brain surgery, psychiatric drugs, psychology, child labor laws, and income tax) as Communist conspiracies directed by Moscow, and it describes the greatest threat to "Communism" as being "The Church of Scientology" (the Catholic Church is barely mentioned as a threat to the Soviet Union, and the Eastern Orthodox Church, the dominant religion of the Soviet Union, is not mentioned at all). Additionally, "Beria" uses precise phrases that L. Ron Hubbard
  (creator of scientology) has coined, such as "pain-drug hypnosis" and "thinkingness".
• The Church of Scientology, under the leadership of L. Ron Hubbard, is alleged to have advocated the usage of "black propaganda" to "destroy reputation or public belief in persons, companies or nations" as a practice of "fair game" against suppressive persons.^[29] After the author Paulette Cooper wrote The Scandal of Scientology, the Church of Scientology ran a false flag operation that stole stationery from her in order to fabricate bomb threats.^[30]

Environmentalist black propaganda

• The "Let's Go! Shell in the Arctic"
  Royal Dutch Shell, but was in fact a fake produced by Greenpeace.^[32]

References