Propaganda and Persuasion

Chapter 1 What Is Propaganda, and How Does It Differ From Persuasion?

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Figure 1.4 Deflective source model

SOURCE: Reprinted by permission of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc., Westport, CT, from Victoria O'Donnell and Garth Jowett, "Propaganda as a Form of Communication," in Propaganda: A Pluralistic Perspective by T. J. Smith III. Copyright by T. J. Smith III and published in 1989 by Praeger Publishers. from East Berlin who repeated the story. Subtle variations continued to appear in the world press, including an East German broadcast of the story into Turkey that suggested it might be wise to get rid of U.S. bases because of servicemen infected with AIDS. On March 30, 1987, Dan Rather read the following news item on CBS Evening News: A Soviet military publication claims the virus that causes AIDS leaked from a U.S. Army laboratory conducting experiments in biological warfare. The article offers no hard evidence but claims to be reporting the conclusions of unnamed scientists in the United States, Britain, and East Germany. Last October, a Soviet newspaper alleged that the AIDS virus may have been the result of Pentagon or CIA experiments. ("CBS Spreads Disinformation," 1987, p. 7) Increasing evidence indicates that disinformation is widely practiced by most major world powers, and this reflects the reality of international poli tics. For a long time, the United States denied using disinformation, yet a U.S. disinformation effort charged the Sandinistas in El Salvador with cocaine running. The Iran-Contra hearings in 1987, along with Admiral Poindexter's papers, however, revealed that the CIA and the Contras were involved in a massive Central American drug-smuggling connection. The CIA had conducted a complex covert anti-Sandinista guerrilla movement that was financed through the illegal sale of parts to the Iranian air force. Other disinformation stories planted by the United States during the Cold War were about carcinogenic Soviet spy dust, Soviet sponsorship of