In what seemed at the time to be a significant scoop, the Wall Street Journal last Aug. 25 carried a story that began, “The U.S. and Libya are on a collision course again, and the Reagan Administration is preparing to teach the mercurial Libyan leader another lesson.” White House Spokesman Larry Speakes described the report as “unauthorized but highly authoritative.” That was enough to send U.S. news organizations scrambling after a yarn that promised to involve terrorist plots and possible U.S. retaliation. Given the bloody history of recent terrorist attacks and the resulting U.S. bombing raid on Tripoli and Benghazi in April, American reporters had good reason to go after the story. But they were chasing a will-o’-the-wisp. The Washington Post claimed last week that the rumors over Libya had been instigated by the Administration in a “secret and unusual campaign of deception” to destabilize Muammar Gaddafi. The newspaper’s famed Watergate sleuth, Bob Woodward, unearthed a damning document to back up the charge: a memo from National Security Adviser John Poindexter to President Reagan. In it Poindexter outlined a plan that “combines real and illusionary events — through a disinformation program — with the basic goal of making Gaddafi think that there is a high degree of internal opposition to him within Libya, that his key trusted aides are disloyal, that the U.S. is about to move against him militarily.” According to the Post, this disinformation policy was approved on Aug. 14 at a meeting of the National Security Planning Group, made up of Reagan, Poindexter and nine officials from relevant departments. The President later signed a National Security Directive putting the plan into effect. As news of the high-level hoax stirred a furor in Washington last week, the Reagan Administration denied that it had orchestrated a campaign to mislead the public. “We didn’t tell any lies,” said the President, although he admitted “there are memos back and forth . . . I can’t deny that.” A quick report from the Senate Intelligence Committee seemed to support Reagan’s disavowal. Whether or not some Government officials leaked false information, explained a member of the committee’s staff, there was no deliberate policy behind it. The Administration readily acknowledged its policy to mislead Gaddafi as to U.S. intentions — a deception the President endorsed. “We would just as soon have Mr. Gaddafi go to bed every night wondering what we might do,” said Reagan. Secretary of State George Shultz agreed. “Frankly, I don’t have any problems with a little psychological warfare against Gaddafi,” said he. Citing the example of Winston Churchill’s efforts to mislead the Nazis about the site of the D-day landings during World War II, the Secretary said of the situation with Libya, “We don’t have a declaration of war, but we have something pretty darn close to it.”
