RED FILES: Soviet Propaganda Machine – Alexander Haig Interview

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Interview with Alexander Haig
Secretary of State 1981-1982

Interviewer: General
Haig, can you explain how important propaganda and counter-propaganda was
in foreign policy during the Cold War?

General A. Haig: Well ,it carried — dependant on the attitudes
and the outlook of the governments concerned, especially in the West, I
think the West in general was less adept. They’re certainly less intensely
concerned about propaganda. It was an important arm of the Soviet diplomacy
however, very important.

Interviewer: The Soviets had a propaganda machine and had propaganda
apparatus for a long time. How did America understand the value of psychological
persuasion as well as the Soviets did?

General A. Haig: Well, some American and Western leaders did and
some did not. I think that perhaps the classic propagandists of the — in
the second world war was Winston
Churchill. He was extremely skilled and adept at it. But if you look
at American presidents and their leadership during the Cold War, they carried
— in fact, many were confused about the banality of Marxist Leninism, and
that confusion contributed to what I call a more spotty application of propaganda
by the West. More often than not, Americans and Westerners overestimated
the power and capability of the Soviet Union. I think Ronald Reagan was
a very happy exception, because in the area of propaganda he was a past
master. He was a product of media and theater, and he understood all those
important vehicles in the psychological sense, and from the outset he took
a very aggressive stance against the evils of Marxist Leninism.

Interviewer: You’ve said in your books that media was very important
to the Reagan administration. Why was that, why was it not to others?

General A. Haig: Well, in the first place, he was what I call
a product of the media; he was a darling of the media, and rightfully so.
It was a well-earned reputation. He was an attractive public personality.
He oozed this self-confidence of sense of purpose, and he was also a —
very much a movie star, on top of that. So, I think he knew it was an asset,
and he used it to its utmost limit, and with considerable success. But it
would be wrong, in an historic sense, to conclude that the Cold War’s outcome
was a product of propaganda, or public demeanor. It was not — it was a
product first and foremost of the internal contradictions of Marxist Leninism.
Marxist Leninism in the Soviet model was doomed to failure from the day
it was instigated in the Soviet Union in 1900–in the 1919. But I think
it’s important to remember this, or we’ll get the impression, for example,
that the — standing tall in Grenada, or opposing Soviet Imperialism in
Afghanistan, or Star Wars brought the Soviet Union to it’s knees. That process
was inevitable. These propaganda steps, and some of them were that, certainly
Star Wars, and to a large degree, were catalysts. In the ultimate, er, failure
of Marxist Leninism in the Soviet model.

Interviewer: Do you think that you would describe Reagan as a
propagandist?

General A. Haig: No, I would not, because I think — what you
were seeing in Ronald Reagan was an expression of conviction. He always
believed that–that we had to stand up to Soviet Imperialism in a far more
effective way than we had on some occasions in Western history during the
Cold War. And he came in with a very aggressive posture; as you know, I
supported that posture and was part of it as his Secretary of State. And,
I think, in those first two years, we set a tone and a direction in American
foreign policy that he continued through the entire two terms of his presidency.
And I think it was a catalyst and a major contributor to the speed with
which the Soviet Union collapsed. Not to the fact of that collapse, that
was inevitable. I spoke to it in the early 70’s as a new NATO commander.
I said that we are witnessing the disintegration of Marxist Leninism in
the Soviet model and in our lifetime. If we stay together and stay strong
and credible, we would be the beneficiaries of that collapse, and indeed
we were, and it came more quickly than I would have anticipated. And I think
Ronald Reagan’s presidency and Margaret Thatcher’s Prime Ministership were
major contributors to that.

Interviewer: Do you think that propaganda within the Soviet Union
actually contributed to its downfall in the sense that, you know, you can’t
keep saying one thing and doing another. You know that, in the end, people
will stop listening?

General A. Haig: Well, I think in some respects, yes, because,
if your propaganda is built on lies, instead of fundamental logic, in the
long run it will collapse of its own weight. I think it, the Russian people,
and the Soviet repressed peoples concluded, long before the fall of the
Soviet Union, that their system was corrupt and was failing, and that they
were being lied to by their own government.

Interviewer: Can we go back to Star
Wars? Did you say that, in some ways, Star Wars was a bit of a propaganda
coup? I mean, after all, it was an idea at the stage that it really frightened
the Soviet Union.

General A. Haig: Well, the answer’s yes and no. I think the advocates
of Star Wars around President Reagan were genuinely of the conviction that
a strategic defense system had to be devised. And that it was within the
realm of reality to achieve that with sufficient expenditure of funds, and
we were spending almost 4 billions of dollars a year for solutions which
were really not achievable, in the final analysis. But that is not true
— to suggest that the advocates, and I was not one of them, but that the
advocates did not believe that they were recommending sound solutions for
the American expenditure of resources, and it wasn’t simply a propaganda
ploy. The facts are, however, that it created incredible nervousness in
the Kremlin. And so, in that context and unconsciously — it became a very
important propaganda tool.

Interviewer: Because the Soviets took up their usual propaganda
anti-American line, with–with Star Wars as well, didn’t they?

General A. Haig: Yes, they did, but, as is often the case with
a lot of dishonesty, comes from factual reality, too. And I think, you know,
we’ve seen that in the recent debate over the expansion of NATO. And there
was Great Britain’s Winston Churchill who said to a group of youth one day,
“Read history young man, read history, because only through history
does one learn the secrets of statecraft.” And too many of the modern-day
leaders in the Western world have not read history. And, thank God, enough
have, that we passed this NATO expansion recently.

Interviewer: Did do you think that Star Wars, though, was — made
a significant contribution in, at least, ending the arms race?

General A. Haig: No, not really. I think there was — questions
are yet to be answered. Clearly it would be very prudent and wise for the
United States and the West to develop a strategic defence capabilities,
both for rogue states – threats, and the reality that today, even post-Soviet
Russia still maintains the largest inventory of nuclear weapons in the world.
And they have the most capable systems for delivery, and they still exist
in large numbers. So it’s very naïve to suggest that the — suddenly
history has changed, that we’re in a whole New World Order. And George Bush
contributed to that somewhat with the myth of the New World Order — same
old dirty world we’ve always lived in. There are nations who believe in
rule of law and peaceful change, and nations who believe in the rule of
the bayonet. And I think it’s very, very important for the West to keep
its guard up and be able to deal with these in strategic defense systems
that fit in that category.

Interviewer: Do you think that the value of information is changing?
I mean, there’s not a sort of surfeit of information–very hard for the
public to tell what’s true and what’s not true.

General A. Haig: And very much so, and I think that one of the
greatest changes, and that’s what we should be describing as the post Cold
War world ,is a world of change, not a new world order. It’s the same dirty,
old world order. But the world of change has been propelled in–in a considerable
degree by the explosion of information sciences, real-time visual and audio
expansion into every household in the world. And advanced societies, and
in less advanced societies, one need only go to China or to Russia, and
every home has a TV antennae on it. This has changed the whole character
of statecraft. It means leaders must have instant answers, and it means
leaders must be experienced and have exercised the trade that they are now
engaged in–and, especially, their assistants. But they bring in political
hacks, who’ve never read a book on history or have never experienced the
tides of history. The high-risk thing which the same new, er, telegenic
age has created: We are too often looking for matinee idols instead of substantive
leaders.

Interviewer: General Haig, can we talk a bit about anti-Communism
in the 50’s in America? The Soviets saw it as propaganda; do you think it
was?

General A. Haig: As I look back at the span of the Cold War in
those early days, in the 50’s, for example, there was a great deal of Soviet
propaganda here in the United States, but it was clumsy, and it was anchored
to a lot of ideological support in certain circles in America itself. For
example, in our campuses, Marxist Leninism was a genuinely admired goal
for achieving just egalitarianism in a corrupt Capitalist society. And our
professors were teaching this regularly from the platform. It would be difficult
for young American students in the 50’s not to be infected by their enthusiasm
for Marxist Leninism. And if one looks at the collapse of the Cold War,
and the collapse of the Soviet Union today, one must look at it historically,
as not a result of propaganda victories, for example, or excess militancy
on the part of Ronald Reagan–the defense build up, but, rather, a failure
of the Marxist Leninist system to meet the demands of modern society. And,
if you look at today’s so called victory of the Cold War, it’s not a victory
of a — democratic values, it is more importantly a victory of free market,
private property, and all of the things that have made the Western industrialized
world the success story that it is today. The struggle for values continues
and, I must say, in many respects, we in the West are not doing quite as
well as we should. And we have some work to do.

Interviewer: But what about McCarthyism in the 50’s? I mean the
Soviets said that that was anti, you know, anti-Soviet propaganda. I mean,
it was “un-American”–was the thing they often used to say.

General A. Haig: There were a number of controversies in the 50’s,
such as McCarthyism, that would suggest a reaction to the propaganda of
Marxist Leninism in this country. And like all reactions, they harbour some
extreme attitudes as well. And we live in a– in what Emmanuel Kant or Hegel
would have called “a great dialectic.” And one excess begets another,
and that’s what happened in the 50’s, in my view. But it wasn’t to suggest
that some of the counter actions to Marxist Leninist propaganda were not
justified. We see now in–in getting into the Soviet archives, things that
were going on that, at the time, were denied by the liberal communities
of the West. And both vociferously denied, but they were actively penetrating
our organs of government. And they were actively involved in policies designed
to bring Western democracies to their knees. So you know there were some
truth and some excesses. We never can endorse the excesses, but we must
not overlook the truths.

Interviewer: Do you think that it antagonized the war of words
at a time when both governments should have been trying to find a way for
peaceful coexistence which came shortly after?

General A. Haig: Well, I want to believe that, as a result of
my experience in government — in uniform and out, that we must talk. We
must communicate. I’ve made a point in my recent book that the Chinese entry
into the Korean war in the 50’s was a product far less of their strategic
desires and objectives, and far more a direct product of our failure to
communicate with Beijing. And we risk doing that again today in the West,
because we, in the West, are not comfortable unless we have an enemy. And
with the collapse of the Soviet Union, we were suddenly looking for an enemy
in Beijing, despite the best intentions of the leaders of both countries
not to have confrontation. So, we have to be very careful of these trends
in a free society. And I wouldn’t change that, but I would be alerted to
it.

Interviewer: Can we go on to the Third World, how the developing
world or the Third World is important as a battleground for an ideology?

General A. Haig: Well, it certainly was. And it was certainly
a part of a long Marxist Leninist objective of a Communist world, an egalitarian
utopia. And that may have been sincerely felt as an honest objective of
Marxist Leninism, but the Third World was struggling.

During the conduct of the Cold War, it’s my own personal view that the
Soviets believed, from the outset, that they were no match for the West
in direct military — the West never understood that and was inhibited,
in the extreme, in most of our negotiations with them. But, be that as it
may, they then turned, of course, to the developing world as the battle-ground.
And there was so much confusion in the West as to how to deal with that,
and so much concern about the Soviets, that we frequently thought we could
conduct hearts- and-minds struggles, if you will, in local environments
and win a victory of democracy over totalitarianism, when the poor victims
of the Soviet activity were gonna be dominated by the power that was willing
to spend the most blood and money.

Interviewer: The Soviets poured a lot of propaganda into the developing
world though, I mean, did America?

General A. Haig: I think the United States generally didn’t do
well in communicating with the developing world, in many of those areas
of the developing world, especially in Africa, for example. The impression
developed that the Imperialist Capitalist West didn’t care about their inferior
economic status. Whereas, the Soviet propaganda machine provided a panacea,
if you will, a solution for their problem, and it had a tremendous appeal
for down-trodden people.

Interviewer: Great, can we talk about the Bay
of Pigs, do you think that that changed America’s understanding of the
importance of the–because, you know, the Soviets obviously leapt on it
as a way to say look, there they are Imperialist aggressors. So, I mean,
did it sort of change America’s understanding or raise America’s awareness
of the importance of developing countries?

General A. Haig: Did you say the Bay of Pigs?

Interviewer: Yeah.

General A. Haig: Well, let’s look, for example, at the areas in
the developing world where we were less than successful, and certainly the
Bay of Pigs, in the early Cuba history, is a very good example of that.
Where the United States, a superpower, manipulated so-called freedom fighters,
that trained and equipped them, and brought them to the scene of battle.
We were still recoiling from doing what was necessary to win. And that was
a result of timidity in the — around the Kennedy administration, especially
our United Nations ambassador who consistently demanded changes to the battle
plan. It was, of course, ironic that everything was blamed on the military;
it usually is. Their problem was they didn’t stand up and say no, which
they tried to do, but they tried to do it too politely. Now, having said
all that, that did raise a sensitivity of the American people to this Third
World battle, if you will. But I think the issue that really brought it
to a head was the propaganda on both sides associated with the Cuban missile
crisis. Because the American people were told, but for a few heroic moments
by a democratic American president — Jack Kennedy, the world was saved
the catastrophe of a nuclear holocaust. That’s nonsense. The Russians, at
that time, knew they were outgunned twenty to one by the United States.
Their missiles were all stone-age technology. They are not today, but they
were then. And they would never have contemplated a nuclear exchange with
the United States. Yet we believed that, and we told that to the American
people. Then we all set about — and I was an active part of that, working
for the Kennedy/Johnson Administration, and in the Third World struggle
in Latin America and Central America.

Interviewer: Do we go on to Vietnam? What do you think about Soviet
propaganda, I mean, this was another platform for them. They went out and
depicted America as, again, Imperialist aggressors. What do you think of
that, bearing in mind their own involvement?

General A. Haig: You know, it’s very clear, as one looks back
on history again of the Cold War that, following the crisis in Cuba, following
the Khrushchev — beating down of Jack Kennedy in Vienna, that President
Kennedy believed that we had to join the battle for the Third World and
the next crisis that developed in that regards was Vietnam.

Interviewer: [The Soviets]…used Vietnam as a platform to
say no Imperialist aggressors?

General A. Haig: Well, I think in the evolution of the Cold War,
as the developing world became the battle-field, so to speak, between East
and West, and the most dramatic example of that would be Vietnam. And that
conflict in which we Americans were told it was a struggle for hearts and
minds — struggle for social justice, in a very localized sense, but to
the Soviet propagandist it was, of course a battle-field in the Cold War.
And they were the logisticians, and the supply base, and the catachist for
Hanoi, although they didn’t totally control Hanoi. So, they conducted it
as a major battle with the free world. The free world tried to conduct it
as a localized situation, that we could control those events. And of course
we couldn’t, and we didn’t.

Interviewer: Do you think it changed in America, it sort of —
people lost faith there in this fight against Communism, this thing they’d
been hearing about for the last two or three decades?

General A. Haig: Well, you know, if you look back at the experience
of our failures in Vietnam, which were largely not a result of a — not
conducting the battle properly, but more importantly the failure of the
American people to continue to support a conflict in which we were not succeeding
by conscious policy decision. And so that, at the end of that conflict,
the American people, despite a Paris peace accord, were unwilling, or at
least the American legislature as spokesman for the American people, ended
all bombing and military action in South East Asia. That was a green light
to Hanoi to go ahead and take over the South, violating their peace agreement.
Secondly, we refused to continue to support Saigon — but the levels of
supply that we had guaranteed they would receive. And that again was legislative
action taken during the height of Watergate. And all of these irresponsible
acts by the American legislature left the impression here, among the American
people, that our involvements abroad were avenues to difficulties and troubles.
And the, so called, Vietnam Syndrome developed, in which the likes of Cap
Weinberger, our Secretary of Defence, could say that the American forces
will never be used again, unless there’s an overwhelming demand by the American
people. And they give the troops a ticker-tape parade down Broadway on their
way to the battle. And that the guarantees, before the commitment of those
troops are — that we will win, are assured and in hand. That’s no way to
run a railroad! And I hope and pray that we don’t do that; we certainly
didn’t do it in the Gulf war. And we certainly hadn’t done it in Bosnia.
But these are the attitudes that come out of misjudgements of leadership
and statecraft. “To every action there’s a reaction,” as I say,
and the American people reacted with the Vietnam Syndrome. I don’t think
that’s the majority of the American people. I think the new generations
in America, the America’s youth, no longer care about Vietnam. They don’t
want to hear anymore about it. They’re sick of it. They want to worry about
the future and their futures and the futures of their children. And, thank
God, that’s so we have a way of absolving ourselves of these reactions to
failure, and that’s good. Because societies rejuvenate themselves.

Interviewer: Do you think that if the public information had been
handled slightly differently over the Vietnam War, that support, public
support, might have been maintained for longer?

General A. Haig: That’s a difficult, difficult question when one
looks at the public information and the failures in Vietnam. I don’t think
public information can ever be a substitute for good policy. And, as you
recall, many blamed the press for the American loss in Vietnam. I don’t
blame the press, the press had at least enough sense to know that we were
conducting that conflict improperly. I would take exception with the press’s
ability to know why we were doing it improperly, and they generally drew
the wrong conclusions, but having said that, one can not rely on public
information alone. And it must be reinforced by sound policy, which can
be explained to the people, and in which the people can have confidence.
And so, I would be very careful to think that the public information could
be a substitute for statecraft.

Interviewer: What about (sound fails) both internationally and
in the Soviet Union?

General A. Haig: If one looks back on the declining days of the
Marxist Leninist system in the Soviet Union, one would have to consider
Afghanistan as a very important benchmark. First, the motivation for going
in, I think, was a reflection of the subjective assessment of failure in
the Kremlin. They, for example, felt that the threat of fundamentalism could
sweep through the CIS today, or the Eastern extremes of the then Soviet
Union. And so they felt they had to stand up and fight, even though they
didn’t derive the lessons that they should have derived from the American
failures in Vietnam. It was a more difficult issue, because our failures
involved misreading the role of the Soviet Union and standing up to the
Soviet Union in Vietnam in a broader sense than we did. This situation,
for Moscow, was a decision to try to hold back the tides of history in the
— with respect to fundamentalism. And, of course, they failed. They were
drained. And that combined with the already inherent contradictions in the
system also served to expedite the collapse. And Ronald Reagan’s support
for the freedom fighters, using Pakistan as our ally. And we seem to have
forgotten that they were our ally at that time, as I look at our treatment
of their — Pakistan today is a disgrace. It’s a disgrace. But having said
that, I think Ronald Reagan aggravated an already bad judgement, a misjudgement
on the part of Moscow.

Interviewer: Do you think, you know Afghanistan
a good example of; you can’t keep saying one thing and doing another. You
know in that — I think, particularly internal, that that was what had tired
out the Soviet people, that yet again they were saying the same old things
and doing something totally different.

General A. Haig: I think, as one looks at the failure of Marxist
Leninism and the Soviet model, one has to conclude that, in the long run,
lies and misinformation will snap back against reality. And, I think, among
the Russian people and the Soviet peoples, that they reached a point of
saturation with the lies of the Central Government. I think, as one looks
at Mr. Gorbachev as a figure of history, he is today a — I saw him after
his failed election — events working at Moscow two years ago. And I said,
“You know, if you had been running in the United States or London,
you would have been elected.” As it was — he didn’t get any votes
in among his own people, because they viewed him as the fellow that brought
the temple down. Now, he didn’t mean to bring the temple down. We in the
West had drawn that conclusion. What he wanted to do was preserve Marxist
Leninism by bringing in some reforms and greater honesty in the sense of
your interest in information. In that sense, we all made a great debt of
gratitude, but not because he wanted to change Marxist Leninism. He wanted
to preserve it. What we really owe him a debt of gratitude for is the fact
that he didn’t go to war to preserve the Eastern territories of Europe,
those that have now been added to NATO.

Interviewer: Can I ask you just a general question? Do you think
that propaganda is a dirty word?

General A. Haig: Yes and no. If propaganda is put to work in behalf
of the overall right — freedom, democracy, respect and dignity for the
individual, why then it is a disingenuous tool for the better good. If,
however, propaganda is used as it was in Nazi Germany and in Soviet Russia,
as a tool to overthrow the right, then it is a very dirty word, and it should
be dealt with as just that.

One looks at the word propaganda and the tendency is to view it as something
evil. I’d say yes and no. If propaganda, is labouring or applied in behalf
of a good cause, which is far more important than the information flows
are concerned in propaganda, then I would say it does not necessarily become
an evil. On the other hand, if it is put to a totalitarian use, a use which
is designed to deprive humanity of their individual rights and liberties,
then it is an evil. And because it is more adeptly used by totalitarian
states, whether it be Nazi Germany or Marxist Soviet Union, it tends to
be viewed as some kind of an evil today.

Interviewer: Why do you think it’s more adeptly used by totalitarian
systems?

General A. Haig: Because they care less about the truth. Totalitarian
systems, of course, have an ability to manipulate untruths. The more truthful
the government, the more honest the government, the more difficult it is
for such a government to conduct, what I call, classic propaganda.

Interviewer: So America’s government doesn’t ever lie with propaganda?

General A. Haig: I would say American governments fit that mould
rather well. We’re less than adept at handling state-run propaganda, because
we leak like a sieve, because the truth is generally more evident than it
is not evident, although one knows that power mechanisms can distort the
truth very successfully and frequently do in America today. And he who has
the power writes the contemporary history, and too often, we have to rely
on the work of scholars years later to dig out the truth. But, in general,
a free and open democratic society finds it more difficult to deal in propaganda
than the truth.

Interviewer: How important do you think image is in defining the
role of superpower in the world, for it’s own people, and to the outside
world?

General A. Haig: Well, I think this is really a reflection of
statecraft and the ability of national leaders to create the image and the
reality of integrity and goodwill and adherence to democratic values. That
is, of course, a large measure, a product of the most important power that
a president enjoys. And, if anything, in my experience of serving senev
or eight presidents, I’m more impressed by the limits on their power than
I am by the extent of that power. But the most important extension of that
power is what Teddy Roosevelt used to call the “Bully Pulpit.”
That’s the ability and the requirement for a national leader to get on today’s
television regularly with his people and explain why he is pursuing this
policy or that, and to let it stand the test of logical analysis among the
people. And presidents who do that, generally, are more effective in having
their way and leading. Those who fail to do it develop controversy and confusion.

Interviewer: Do you think that the Soviet Union, I mean, this
is an odd question really, I’ll just see what you think. Do you think the
Soviet Union, through its enormous propaganda machine deprived its people
of their history, in a way?

General A. Haig: If one looks at a government built on lies, like
the former Soviet Union, but one would have to conclude that the victims
of their leadership, their own people, were, of course, deprived of the
more important and universal — of their nationhood. We all know the Russian
people are wonderful people, and with great talents, and great courage,
and with a, perhaps, too high a level of pain — their ability to absorb
pain is very high. But, I think, we deprive those people through propaganda
and lies, of their own realization of their own merits.

Interviewer: Do you think, propaganda is going to become a more
important part of foreign policy in the world in the future, I mean, seeing
as we’re living in this information age?

General A. Haig: I would suggest that, because we’re living in
a real time age, where the view of actual facts occurring on the ground
overwhelm the dialogue accompanying those facts, that propaganda is becoming
less important, and truthful exposition as an accompaniment to visual fact
become far more critical. Because you can’t fool people that are watching
something very different to — one would think back to Tianamen Square,
where the images that were brought to the world were very different than
the words that were emerging from the government leaders of China. This
doesn’t mean that those images were accurate either, because most of us
viewed that incident as a repression of a freedom movement among students.
Wasn’t that at all! It was an economic uprising, by the people in Beijing
against the evils of reform, which were inflation, nepotism, corruption.
These were the true issues at stake at Tianamen. Of course we were never
told that by our leaders. It was too easy to portray it as some kind of
totalitarian repression of freedom. It wasn’t that.

Interviewer: Do you think that the level of propaganda has a direct
correlation to war? I mean, there’s a substance of propaganda and a success
of propaganda in the modern world — mean that there’s going to be more
room for negotiation, that people will have to negotiate more, because there’s
more truth?

General A. Haig: I think, as one looks at the new world, this
world of the — that’s witnessing the explosion of information sciences,
that more communication is inevitable–has always been desirable. It means
that propaganda will probably have a less significant role. Historically,
propaganda could stir up good and evil. We saw it here in our early history,
and the jingoist movements in the Caribbean in which there was a high emotional
level stirred up among the American people to get into Havana. We see it
throughout the totalitarian world, whether it was Nazi Germany or Soviet
Union. So, the fact that truth should be the product of the explosion of
information sciences, a greater acceptance of truth would suggest to me
that propaganda is gonna decline. As we look to the future. It doesn’t mean
that bad people won’t continue to try to use it; that’s the nature of statecraft
as well. (laughs)