Cold War Disinformation: Solving the Problem of "Semantic Infiltration"
Author: Jim Guirard
Source: 1984 Paper for USIA and for US PD Commission
"Simply put, semantic infiltration is the process where by we come to adopt the language of our adversaries in describing political reality. The most brutal totalitarian regimes in the world call themselves ‘liberation movements.' It is perfectly predictable that they should misuse words to conceal their real nature. But must we aid them in that effort by repeating those words? Worse, do we begin to influence our own perceptions by using them?'
So warned Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY) in the Spring 1979 issue of Policy Review. Like the July 25, 1978 Senate speech which preceded it, this essay attacks the semantic masks behind which world communism hides its true character and intentions.
Borrowing his "semantic infiltration" theme from Dr. Fred Charles Ikle (one-time Director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and now Undersecretary of Defense for Policy), Senator Moynihan complained that such watchwords as "peace," "people," "democratic" and "liberation" were once democratic symbols "which the anti-democratic forces are somehow able to seize." He expressed grave concern that "our foreign affairs establishment should remain blind to what is happening."
The Senator reminds us that words are the primary tools by which the mind operates. False words move people in false directions, distracting them from the truth. Repeat the false word often enough, make certain the truthful alternative is never clearly perceived, and you are able to imprison people within their own minds.
According to political historian Robert Tucker, Soviet dictator Josef Stalin (like Lenin before him) felt that "of all monopolies enjoyed by the state, none would be so crucial as its monopoly on the definition of words. The ultimate weapon of political control would be the dictionary." Let Stalin choose the words by which you think and Stalin will tell you what to think -- or not to think.
So it is in George Orwell's classic work 1984. The totalitarian state -- not wanting the people to think negative thoughts about it -- simply removes from the language those words and phrases by which people might construct such thoughts. Inserted in their place are the well-known euphemisms of "Newspeak" -- War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength.
And so it is in the real your of our Lord 1984. Communist police states are called "people's democracies." Terrorist gangs are called "liberation movements." The word "peace" is being redefined to mean a state of forced tranquility in accommodation with Soviet strategic and economic interests. Single-party Marxist regimes label their brand of repression "social justice."
The lesson in each case is that the dictatorship, knowing that it has a vile and repulsive product to sell, must turn to a highly sophisticated science of mislabeling in order to promote itself and to denigrate the competition.
Democracies Asleep at the Switch
In contrast, the civil-libertarian democracies scarcely get into the fray. While we pay lip service to the so-called "war-of-words" in occasional speeches and op-ed essays, we do little toward mobilizing those forces of intellect needed to win the battle. One the one hand, we enact tough truth-in-advertising and truth-in-labeling laws; on the other hand, we mindlessly endure and collaborate in the most outrageous mislabeling of social, political, religious and ideological elements which compete for our minds and loyalties.
Often, we fail to recognize the semantics problem as a problem. So subtle, in fact, is the watchword factor that even such experts in Soviet disinformation as Arnaud de Borchgrave and Robert Moss overlooked it completely in their best seller novel "The Spike." They failed to demonstrate how a story too hot to be "spiked" -- kept completely out of the news -- can be distorted by manipulation of a single theme word or phrase. For example, referring to communist terrorists as "progressive forces" or as a "patriotic front" greatly legitimizes, even romanticizes, their cause.
One major arena in which control over watchwords may have grave consequences is in the ongoing tug of war in the United Nations over the future of the free press in the Third World. In this controversy many developing nations seek merely to gain better access to an objective world press.
But others seek to manipulate the proposed UNESCO guideline for the so-called New World Information Order to insure that the truth about themselves is never fully told. The latter group, led by the USSR and its colonies and puppet states, knows that it must control not only what news stories reach the people but also what particular watchwords and symbols are used to convey that news.
But we need not look as far as the New World Information Order to discover horror stories of warped semantics. Cases abound in our own foreign affairs vocabulary -- some of them cleverly contrived by Soviet propagandists but many of them due to our own carelessness.
In a world which despises colonialism, why not call twenty or more Soviet colonies by the name? We call them "satellites," but so is the Space Shuttle. Or we call them "client states," which falsely implies consent of the clients.
Why refer to communist imperialism in such positive terms as "adventure" -- e.g. "Soviet adventurism" in Afghanistan? The word is reminiscent of the heroic exploits of Marco Polo, Davey Crockett and Huckleberry Finn. Who would have labeled Hitler's 1939 blitzkrieg of Poland an act of NAZI "adventure?"
Consider the travesty by which one-party police states call themselves "democratic" republics. How shall we instruct our children or remind ourselves that our pluralist, multi-party system is worth defending if such dictatorships as East Germany, South Yemen, Vietnam and -- alas! -- Cambodia and Afghanistan are all "democracies," too?
We use the same word -- "socialist" -- to refer both to such one-party tyrannies as the USSR, Vietnam and Cuba and also to such multi-party, civil-libertarian democracies as France, Denmark and Sweden. Since the communists will surely continue calling themselves "socialist' (for that is in part what they are), welfare-state democrats must find some other label by which to distinguish themselves from the totalitarian-Left.
What about "revolution?" We can ill afford to have so powerful a symbol in sole possession of the communists. Since we cannot prevent their continued use (and abuse) of the word, we must somehow challenge their total control over its meaning. First, we might coin an appropriate new label for corrupted revolutions (Castro's, the Sandinistas') which no longer deserve to be called by that honorable name. Second, we need a word for a new, legitimate revolution. In Spanish, for example, combining "Nuevo" (new) and "revolucion" produces "nuevolucion." Or what about "el nuevorevo?"
Distinguishing Good From Evil
Such new labels would distinguish new from old, good from bad; there would be not only the grisly Marxist variety of a corrupt and failed revolution but a civil libertarian one, as well.
It is high time we recapture the word and concept of "liberation." It was clearly ours when we liberated Europe from Hitler's grasp. But since then the word has virtually been co-opted by the communists -- to whom it means the imposition of their special brand of tyranny. The problem is that we have almost forgotten how to speak it.
Even after we had freed Grenada from dictatorship and colonial status, we argued endlessly over whether to call it an "invasion" or an "incursion" or a "rescue" or what -- ignoring the most useful and truthful, symbol of all: liberation!
Other examples of semantic distortion abound in the press, the Congress, the churches, the universities, the State Department and among the general public:
- Poland's military dictator is a "martial law leader."
- Qaddafi's imperialism in Chad is "exporting mischief."
- Polish political prisoners are "internees" and "detainees."
- Iranian kidnapper/terrorists were "students."
- Communist assassins are "guerillas;" anti-communist ones are "death squads."
- Communist atheism masks as "Christian Marxism" and as "liberation theology."
- Negotiations at gunpoint are called "dialogue."
- Communist power-sharing without elections is called "political solution."
- For three years Fidel Castro headed the "Nonaligned" Movement.
- To us "détente" and "peaceful co-existence" mean accommodation, friendly dialogue and a bit of trade and aid; to the Soviets these words mean what "peace" (according to Clausewitz) meant to Lenin -- "the continuation of war by other means."
- To us "morality" means adherence to Judeo-Christian ethics and furtherance of human rights; to the communists it means, as Leonid Brezhnev proclaimed in 1977: "Anything is moral which furthers the construction of Socialism."
- Communists are now called "socialists" or "leftists" or even "progressives" -- anything to suggest that they are not thugs and barbarians.
The Most Serious Perversion of All
Which brings us to the most obscene semantic perversion of all -- the insidious lie hidden within the concept of ideological "far-left' versus "far-right." Language conditions us to see conflicting ideologies in a left-right continuum. Thus, when we recoil from the fascist evils of the ultra-Right, we tend to slide mindlessly toward its apparent opposite, the ultra-Left.
It was this left/right distortion of political reality which the liberal-intellectual author Susan Sontag discredited so completely in her February 1982 attack on the Soviet-sponsored military dictatorship in Poland. In a speech which caused great consternation among many leftists who feel that anti-communism is per se reactionary, Miss Sontag dropped the following bombshell:
"Not only is fascism (and overt military rule) the probable destiny of all Communist societies -- especially when their populations are moved to revolt -- but Communism is in itself a variant, the most successful variant, of fascism. Fascism with a human face."
Unfortunately, this neo-liberal view is still a feeble voice in so-called "progressive' circles. Communism still enjoys the luxury of being perceived by too many naïve people as a proper and moral alternative to the fascism it really is.
In light of this misperception, how can a self-respecting progressive rise up against what his vocabulary and his mind's eye tell him is the opposite, and therefore the enemy, of fascism? And why react against the threat of enemies so apparently unthreatening as "democratic" socialism or "progressive' forces or "liberation" movements?
These same human rights advocates would surely answer a call to arms against the spectre of world fascism. After all, what true civil-libertarian would knowingly hold hands with fascists? The tragic irony is that this is exactly what so many confused liberals are doing -- however unintentionally. Those wishing to understand this phenomenon would do well to read Paul Hollander's Political Pilgrims (Oxford University Press, 1981).
And those who fail to discern the clone-like similarities between Communism and Fascism/Nazism should study both A. James Gregor's The Fascist Persuasion in Radical Politics (Princeton University Press, 1974) and Paul Johnson's Modern Times (Harper and Row, 1983).
In his famous 1978 speech at Harvard, Alexander Solzhenitsyn wondered why so many Americans seem to lack the willpower, the patriotic resolve and the spirit of sacrifice to oppose the Soviet plan for world domination. Such traits, he should have realized, must be rooted in a clear perception of what good it is we stand for and what evil it is we are supposed to be mobilizing against.
At present, perverted words and symbols (many of them facilitated by the left/right fallacy) tend to deny us this perception. We are confused not only about the identity and ambitions of our enemies but, even, worse, about the propriety and justice of what we ourselves stand for.
Former Defense Secretary and CIA director James Schlesinger may have described the dilemma best. Contending that while most people favor "good" and oppose "evil," they need to know which is which. They need to know "who the fellows are in the white hats and who the fellows are in the black hats."
If we permit the communists to choose the words and images by which the distinction is made, it is obvious who will be wearing the black hat and who the halo. By controlling and perverting the vocabulary of idealism and morality, as they did in Vietnam, the Soviets will continue to succeed in their systematic denigration of the West and in their portrayal of the "forces of Socialism" as being in a state of irreversible ascendancy.
In seeking our way out of this quagmire, we should realize that not all mislabeling derives from a clever conspiracy by Soviet propagandists. A combination of civility, passivity and wishful thinking prompts most of us -- the press, the Congress, the Government, academia -- to select soft labels until we become certain that harsher ones are deserved.
This is probably as it should be, except for the fact that by their very use and repetition these insufficient symbols assume an almost indestructible life of their own. Not only by habit of language but also by the peer pressure of others who are using them, these words seem to defy replacement by more appropriate and truthful ones.
Recommended Initiatives
To be truly adequate, our program to encourage truth-in-labeling will need to explore the many different sources of mislabeling, as well as the equally numerous mechanisms for effecting change in our foreign affairs vocabulary. Among others, the following projects might prove helpful:
- The Administration should convene an in-house task force, preferably under the auspices of the National Security Council, (a) to evaluate the extent of the problem of warped semantics in the conduct of foreign affairs, (b) to recommend appropriate short-term solutions thereto and, (c) to recommend an appropriate means of institutionalizing long-term solutions.
- The United States Information Agency (USIA) should establish a program directed specifically at improving the choice of words, phrases and symbols by which U.S. Government officials communicate with the world on the subject of U.S. foreign policy.
- The Office of Research of the USIA should carry out or commission a comprehensive study on the role of semantics in the formulation, the conduct and the public perception of U.S. foreign policy.
- Congress should conduct informational hearings on the subject of "semantic infiltration" and its effects on public opinion, the legislative process and the conduct of foreign policy.
- The Library of Congress and the private sector committees which select the national debate topics for high schools and colleges should be encouraged to designate topics for 1984-85 school year which relate appropriately to the subject of "truth-in-labeling' in the formulation and conduct of foreign policy.
- The Library of Congress should compile a comprehensive bibliography on the subject of semantics in foreign policy affairs.
- Private sector research institutes and foundations, especially those relating to the press, the churches and academia, should be encouraged to sponsor conferences, symposia and research projects on the effects of mistaken verbal symbolism on public opinion and formulation of policy in foreign affairs.
- The working press, both printed and electronic, should be encouraged to establish peer review committees whose function is to encourage accuracy and objectivity in the choice of the theme words and symbols around which news stories are constructed.
Of course, there will be those who argue passionately that our program of truth-in-labeling in foreign affairs might "disrupt détente" and reignite the "Cold War." Indeed, this may at first appear to be the result, for the Soviets will surely protest having their semantic masks removed. But to these honest concerns there are sufficient answers.
First of all, a "détente" based on false words and erroneous perceptions is inherently dishonest. Secondly, the "Cold War" has never ceased, as a review of the pages of Tass and the broadcasts of Radio Moscow over the past twenty years will forcefully attest. Third, these undertakings should take care to avoid rhetoric which is patently propagandistic or unduly strident; a calm and intellectually-honest correction of the mislabeling now in use should in no event prompt us to mimic the rhetorical excesses of the perfidious Soviets.
If U.S. Government agencies are held to current standards of objectivity, the tendency will be not toward undue stridency but, rather toward a measured departure from current patterns of word selection. Not only for fear of being accused of "propaganda" and "cold war rhetoric" but also because of habit-of-language, individuals and institutions alike will tend to modify their choice of words all too slowly.
Ludwig Wittgenstein, in his Philosophical Investigations, described the tenacious hold which language has on our ability to think clearly and objectively. "A picture held us captive," he recalled of an earlier incident among the people of his youth, "and we could not get outside it, for it lay in our language, and language seemed to repeat it to us inexorably." Today, it is the disinformational left/right picture which holds us captive. Our minds cannot readily get outside it ...etc....
Since we have no choice but to live on the same planet as the Soviets and their system of collectivist fascism, we should at least do our best to understand exactly who they are and how best to protect ourselves and mankind from their plans for world domination. Our policy toward them must be based on truth, strength and clear-thinking. It cannot be the mindless by-product of the left/right confusion and resultant doubletalk which, as in Wittgenstein's example, are repeated to us inexorably by our language.
Jim Guirard -- TrueSpeak Institute 703-768-0957 Justcauses@aol.com
Jim Guirard is a Washington, D. C. lawyer, writer and government affairs consultant. He served for many years as Chief-of-Staff to Democratic U.S. Senators Allen Ellender and Russell Long of Louisiana. His new TrueSpeak Institute is devoted to truth-in-language and truth-in-history in public discourse.