MR

OSCOW SAYS: "The American Army is the loyal servant of the monopolists and plays the role of the butcher of freedom, democracy, and progress. The American military vulture was one of the main organizers of the intervention against the world's first government of workers and peasants."

One would not be surprised to hear or see such statements emanating from Red China, a land in the throes of violent upheaval, or perhaps even from Cuba, where, after only ten years of Communist rule, rabble-rousing and U.S.A. baiting are still the order of the day. But what about the U.S.S.R., the world's first, most prosperous and respectable Communist state?-a nation that wraps itself in peaceful Tashkent robes and claims for itself the mature leadership of the world's masses. No one expects the U.S.S.R. officially to heap praise on

the United States government or its military, but, strangely enough, few Americans seem to be aware of the constant flow of crude and virulent anti-American propaganda that is carried on within the Soviet borders.

As a recent returnee from two years' duty in Moscow, I am asked many questions about life there. The one answer which my questioners are most surprised to learn-even sometimes dubious about believing-is that of the uncalled-for and blatant anti-American campaign which continues today in the U.S.S.R.

In 1967, the 50th year of Soviet rule, the Communists diligently worked to establish an image of success, maturity, power, and leadership. The Soviets were very proud of this image and reacted with neurotic sensitivity to the literally hundreds of articles in the Western press describing their country. A few of

the articles, which many of us read, were rather sharp indictments of the failure of Communism, but most were at least grudgingly complimentary and many erred only on the side of overemphasizing Soviet achievements and painting too attractive a picture of the U.S.S.R. today. In spite of this the Soviets complained bitterly about the “polemics" in the articles and were insulted because the Western world did not force its press to be more polite and diplomatic in its treatment of their State. (To a country with complete control of the news media, freedom of those organizations elsewhere is incomprehensible.)

Not once during this same grand celebration, however, did the Soviets lessen or sweeten their internal program of anti-Western propaganda. The United States, West Germany, and Israel were still caricatured daily as vile, untouchable nations involved in enslaving, maiming, and exploiting mankind. Even the 50th year parade in Red Square featured floats depicting Uncle Sam as a dollar-mad creature poised with atomic bombs over the heads of the enslaved masses.

I do not mean to be unfair or overly critical of the Soviet people or their government. Indeed, today in the U.S.S.R. there are encouraging signs of genuine progress, maturity, and peaceful leadership. They have recorded outstanding accomplishments in education, industry, and scientific exploration, but I feel that more Americans should be aware of some other facts about the Soviet Union, such as the lies and distortions with which the communication organs of the Communist Party of the U.S.S.R. indoctrinate and saturate their populace. Indeed, only an awareness of this program can lead to action to stem it, and it must be silenced if there is to be any real hope for the peoples of these two great nations to learn to understand each other.

In November of 1967, posters depicting a U.S. soldier sticking a bayonet through a child and announcing the slogan of the U.S. Army to be "rape and destroy" were noted on many street corners in Moscow. Nor is the quotation with which this article begins fictitious. The use of "butcher" and "vulture" as descriptive of the American military is not from a propa

ganda broadcast beamed to backward parts of the world but a direct quotation from the 28 December 1968 issue of Red Star, an official Russian military newspaper with much larger circulation than our military publications. It is a daily paper found on every newsstand in the Soviet Union, and it carries world, party, and sport news as well as military articles. Red Star is frequently displayed in total on public billboards at bus stops and convenient locations, just like the more famous Pravda and Izvestia. The article from which the quotation was selected is a review of a new Soviet book entitled The US Army-What It Is Like. The book is an alleged exposé of our Army, calling it the force that has invaded almost every country in the world-a well-organized. armed-to-the-teeth army of low moral composition unlike its Red counterpart. The book purports to reveal several "expressions" of Gi's which exhibit their disdain for the Vietnamese people and their conditioned reflex to shoot unarmed Vietnamese without remorse.

Articles of this nature are not uncommon. Indeed, they appear almost daily, along with greatly distorted cartoons, either ridiculing, insulting, or maligning the United States, Israel, or West Germany. Even Red China, which for its part has elevated the U.S.S.R. to the status of public enemy number one, receives better treatment in the Soviet communication media than we do. Coverage of Communist China is given, but the articles tend to be objective narrations of the events rather than "distortive. name-calling" types. (The fact that factual accounts of current events in Red China are sufficiently damaging may explain this.)

Soviet propaganda organs in the recent past have concentrated their tirades on U.S. diplomats, bankers, former President Johnson. former Secretary of Defense McNamara, General Westmoreland, General Moshe Dayan, the "Sick Society," and particularly the U.S. military forces and their "junior partners," a name used at times to describe Canada, any and all members of NATO, Israel, South Vietnam. South Korea, and others. Currently the most popular area of attack seems to be U.S. chemical and biological weapon research. A long article in Pravda on 18 January 1969 is en

titled "The Poisonous Weapons of the Pentagon" and is typical of several that have described the evils of such warfare. This article broadly hints that the United States refused to ratify the Geneva Accords because she secretly planned to make effective use of the weapons it outlawed. The article states, quoting a Japanese source, that the United States has been illegally using poison gas in Vietnam and in 1964 alone killed 30,000 women, children, and old men through the wide use of chemical warfare. The article's author, a Soviet lieutenant general, writes, "The 'ruling circles' of the U.S.A. use their propaganda machine to bewilder the public and hide the 'beastlike' activities of the militarist." He closes with a statement calmly mentioning that the Soviet Chemical Corps is prepared and on guard to defend the innocents of the world against such evil weapons and then issues this warning:

Mr. Imperialist, you must not forget that those monstrous weapons of war cannot stop the progressive movement of mankind toward progress. Poisonous weapons of the Pentagonthey are the weapons for the advocates of a bankrupt strategy.

This provocative program is not limited to radio, the press, and television. The Soviets long ago recruited the arts as a weapon in their drive to "educate" the masses about the evils of the "capitalists." One of the most unpleasant nights I spent in the Soviet Union was in the city of Krasnodar, where I visited the local musical theater to see the play Moi Bezumni Brat (My Crazy Brother). This was in 1968, and the play was one of the new repertoire being offered to the people in all fifteen of the Soviet Republics. The play takes place in contemporary U.S.A., and—to give a nutshell synopsis-the story concerns a rich "yankee banker" who has decided to destroy the Soviet Union and perhaps start World War III. With no apology, he is portrayed as having the power to lift the phone and launch Strategic Air Command and to control all the police and government officials. The banker's twin brother ("crazy" because he does not approve of exploiting the masses and accumulating wealth) discovers the evil man's plans

and in an involved plot saves the day by sending the banker off to the insane asylum in his place. Every conceivable cliché of the "capitalist hater" is used in this play. Negroes are shown as slaves who are kicked and humiliated, the working class has escaped reality by drunken debauchery, and the police are gumchewing, fat servants of the banking clique. It was really funny until one realized that it was serious and that the Soviet audience was enjoying it-believing it to the point of pulling hard for the defeat of the degenerate banker. How long, how many times, do such pictures of the West have to be shown to a man before he believes? How wise does he have to become to reject this propaganda? And what chance for sound judgment exists when such propaganda is almost the only "information" he receives? As I thought of these questions and watched the audience reaction, my first response of humor turned to anger and sadness.

Arguments can be made that such propaganda serves many Communist purposes and needs. How else can the Soviet leaders, for example, while constantly espousing a love for and a revulsion from the rotten tools of peace war, justify to their own people the large and clearly evident role that they have given to chemical and biological warfare training and research? By what better way can they justify their increasing military expenditures to their deserving, demanding, and needy consumer population than by playing up the warlike and monstrous qualities of the capitalists? It has been noted that articles of the "all foreigners are spies" type get their biggest play close to Secret Police Day, and articles of the "U.S. warmongers and their ICBM's" type increase as Rocket Forces Day approaches. Still, one cannot help wondering if it has not become a conditioned response-not with the people but with the disseminators.

Envision a land that can join satellites in space, compete with respect and success in international athletic competitions, educate the once backward tribes of Tadzhik, and produce a scientist who can write:

The division of mankind threatens it with destruction. Civilization is imperiled by: a universal thermonuclear war, catastrophic hunger

for most of mankind, stupefaction from the narcotic of mass culture and bureaucratized dogmatism, a spreading of mass myths that put entire peoples and continents under the power of cruel and treacherous demagogues. . . .

In the face of these perils, any action increasing the division of mankind, any preaching of the incompatibility of world ideologies and

nations is madness and a crime.1

A land so well endowed has no real need for this kind of propaganda unless from fear-an irrational fear of the truth.

An awareness of this misuse of propa

ganda gives the United States a key indicator of the sincerity of Soviet détente moves. It would be an easy matter for the West to point out to the Soviets that this program creates an unhealthy atmosphere and is a barrier to any genuine understanding or agreement. We could refuse to negotiate any matter while such flagrant violations of international courtesy continue. The Soviets will continue the program only as long as it gains more for them than it loses-if they can negotiate and at the same time self-indoctrinate, they will. On the other hand, if negotiations which are

: mutually attractive are prohibited because of the propaganda campaign, the Soviets would be forced to re-examine it for need and purpose. Such an examination in the light of : world and current Soviet realities might find the program so lacking in both these areas that the Soviets would turn the valve and shut off the flow. Would this be a worthwhile Western objective? Many believe that it would. Recently the Secretary General of NATO, Manlio Brosio, stated that the real lesson of Czechoslovakia was that genuine détente will come only through improved relations with the

U.S.S.R. and that that is impossible until the Soviet people become convinced "that the Western World is not as hostile to them as the communist propaganda insists that it is. ..." The key factor in that misunderstanding is the program of distortion and exaggeration described herein.

We know that the United States is not a perfect country, but neither is it anything like it is portrayed to the Soviet people. Coexistence would become a more readily obtainable goal if the Soviet child in school and man on the street, who may become a Central Com