corrente

"...the strategy paper recommended ways to influence various groups of Americans to "correct" the impressions..., what another planning document would call "perceptional obstacles." "Themes will obviously have to be tailored to the target audience," the strategy paper said." ~ Robert Parry / 1996.

Then and Now:

Office of Public Diplomacy | From SourceWatch

The Office of Public Diplomacy, officially known as the Office of Public Diplomacy for Latin America and the Caribbean, was part of a White House ordered PR plan in the 1980s to provide cover for the secret CIA war in Nicaragua. CIA director William J. Casey initiated the propaganda campaign after meeting with private sector PR men. Walter Raymond, Jr., a CIA propaganda expert, moved over to the National Security Council to get the program up and running. Raymond is reported to have instructed his OPD subordinates to "concentrate on gluing black hats on the Sandinistas and white hats on UNO [the contras' United Nicaraguan Opposition]."[1] (http://www.consortiumnews.com/archive/lost12.html) Raymond picked Otto Reich to run the new OPD, which was housed in the State Department. Despite the unraveling of the Iran-Contra scandal, the full story of the OPD -- a covert, illegal, inter-agency propaganda campaign aimed at US citizens and Congress -- never received full public scrutiny.

"prohibited, covert propaganda activities"

[Excerpts follow] See all documents: National Security Archive / GWU.edu / Public Diplomacy and Cover Propaganda The Declassified Record of Ambassador Otto Juan Reich / A National Security Archive / Electronic Briefing Book / Edited by Thomas Blanton / March 2, 2001:

The Bush administration has floated the name of Otto Juan Reich for possible nomination as Assistant Secretary of State for Latin American Affairs (see Al Kamen, “In the Loop,” The Washington Post, 15 February 2001). Mr. Reich served in the Reagan administration as assistant administrator of the Agency for International Development (AID) from 1981 to 1983, then as the first director of the State Department’s Office of Public Diplomacy for Latin America and the Caribbean (S/LPD) from 1983 to 1986, and finally as ambassador to Venezuela.

Mr. Reich’s tenure at the Office of Public Diplomacy generated major controversy during the exposure of the Iran-contra scandal and left an extensive document trail, some of the highlights of which are included in this Briefing Book. For example:

* The Comptroller-General of the U.S., a Republican appointee, found that some of the efforts of Mr. Reich’s public diplomacy office were “prohibited, covert propaganda activities,” “beyond the range of acceptable agency public information activities….” The same September 30, 1987 letter concluded that Mr. Reich’s office had violated “a restriction on the State Department’s annual appropriations prohibiting the use of federal funds for publicity or propaganda purposes not authorized by Congress.” [...]

Edited for length. Due to additional quoted material entire post can be found here: farm runoff

Related - see Lambert's post below:
...Towards a Grand Unified Theory of Republican Governance

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