Letters

[H2O Man]

"The letter-writing campaigns generated by the White House were designated to give the impression to the recipients of the letters of a broad base of support for positions advocated by President Nixon, while the letters also served as a vehicle for publicizing the Administration’s position on various matters." – The Senate Watergate Report; Chapter III: Use of the Incumbency – Responsiveness Program; page236.

All politicians understand the need to use the media to their best advantage. Politicians hire media advisers to help them during their campaigns and while serving in office. A large part of the media consultants’ jobs involve the high-profile things that we associate with the politician; in a campaign, for example, these include commercials, speeches, press releases, and the "spin" after debates. All of these are the professional attempts at "perception management."

Another type of media manipulation involves the organized effort to work behind the scenes, to create the image of public support for a politician, or the politician’s position on a specific issue. These efforts attempt to make the public support appear separate from the campaign headquarters or the politician’s office. Two examples would be individual’s support from the grass-roots level, or groups/organizations that are not affiliated with the politician/campaign.

Even a brief introduction to the art of media manipulation could be the stuff of a fun college course. If we were to conduct such a course at our internet hedge school, we might start with one of the more interesting examples that involves the Nixon administration. While we can all agree that this was a gang of criminals posed a serious threat to our Constitutional democracy, it is possible to learn some lessons of value by studying their operations.

H.R. Haldeman served as President Nixon’s White House Chief of Staff, and Assistant to the President. (All the President’s Men; Bernstein & Woodward; page 9) Jeb Stuart Magruder served first as Haldeman’a aide, and Deputy Director of White House Communications, then as the Deputy Campaign Director of the Committee to Re-Elect the President (CREEP). (All the President’s Men; page 10) Together, they would be in charge of the media manipulation during the beginning of Nixon’s first term.

In an October 11, 1969 memo to Magruder, Haldeman wrote about the need to organize a program of "sending letters and telegrams, and making telephone calls to the senators, blasting them on their consistent opposition to the President on everything he is trying to do for the country. This program needs to be subtle and worked out well so they receive these items from their home districts as well as other points around the country." (Senate Watergate Report; Exhibit 000; page 237)

Three days later, on the bottom of a Magruder memo to Haldeman, the president’s Chief of Staff wrote, "this was an order, not a question, and I was told it was being carried out and so informed the P." The "P" is, of course, President Nixon. (ibid)

Two days later, Haldeman followed up with another memo to Magruder: "This should be reported orally – or at least in a confidential memo." (ibid) The Senate Watergate Committee identifies a number of areas that the Haldeman operation was focused on. They included attacking moderate republican senators who opposed Nixon on some issues; the three who were identified were Goodell, Percy. And Mathias. Other issues that they focused on included attempts to support Nixon’s nomination of Harold Carswell to the U.S. Supreme Court, and Nixon’s speech about the attacks in Cambodia in May, 1970.

Magruder would then seek the help of Patrick Buchanan. Senate Committee Report; interview with Magruder, 10-1-72; p.1; page 237) At the time, Buchanan was an Assistant to the President, and one of Nixon’s top speech writers. (The Final Days; Bernstein & Woodward; page 9)

Also involved was Betty Nolan, who was hired by the RNC in May, 1970. Her duties included the letter-writing campaign. She reported to RNC officials, and to Magruder at the White House. (Senate Committee; interview with Nolan on 9-3 & 28 - 73, p. 3; page 237)

Originally, the letters that she wrote were "signed" by people within the operation, using false names. Nolan would claim that she couldn’t recall who suggested this. This changed under Buchanan. Nolan would write anywhere from 35 to 70 letters per week, and distribute them to people around the country to sign and mail, primarily to publications. Buchanan had found that the White House and RNC could find enough people willing to put their name to letters-to-the-editor by using "volunteers" from groups such as the Young Republicans.

Letters were sent to newspapers in general, and to some specific individuals. The operation attempted to influence Washington newspapers, and also Katherine Graham and Eric Sevareid. One of Magruder’s top aides, Ron Baukol, noted in a memorandum to Charles Colson that they viewed having two or three printed from every 30-35 sent as being successful. He noted the operation was being expanded "slowly, so the security of the program will not be breached." (Senate Committee Report; Exhibit 000; page 238)

The same Senate Committee exhibit contains a note that Gordon Liddy sent to John Mitchell on 5-15-72: "Betty Nolan hit four of the senators with 195 letters. In addition, early yesterday morning she had over 70 letters sent to the New York Times protesting its May 10 editorial" Liddy also noted all "staffers were instructed at the May 11 staff meeting to write similar letters to the Times."

Another figure playing a role in this operation was E. Howard Hunt. In his testimony to the Senate Watergate Committee, Donald Segretti told about a 5-8-72 call from Hunt, stating that Nixon was preparing to take "very decisive action in Vietnam," and that they needed to be prepared to counter the "expected reaction of the peace groups." Segretti, an attorney recruited to conduct political "dirty tricks" to sabotage the democrats in the 1972 campaign, contacted two other operatives in Florida to set up tables in public places, to have citizens sign telegrams of support to be sent to the White House. Segretti also sent two telegrams "that contained several hundred false names" to the White House; these were used to claim the President enjoyed wide support among the majority of people across the country.

These later operations often involved "citizen’s committees," which were used to manipulate the media and public perception, by making it appear that there were grass roots organizations, distinct from the administration, that supported Nixon’s policies. The Senate Watergate Committee Report has an additional section on the uses and abuses associated with these "citizen committees."

It’s interesting to note that while Patrick Buchanan was focused on having individuals send the prepared letters to newspapers, television stations, and politicians, that two figures associated with intelligence – Liddy and Hunt – focused on "front" groups. Those individuals interested in using the power of letters to influence newspapers’ editors, reporters, and readers, can find valuable lessons in the Nixon White House’s operations.

[KoKo]

1. K&R....thought you might be working on something....good to see this! n/t

[BrotherBuzz]

2. Astroturf

Senator Lloyd Bentsen, himself a long-time Washington and Wall Street insider, is credited with coining the term "astroturf lobbying" to describe the synthetic grassroots movements.

Unlike genuine grassroots activism which tends to be money-poor but people-rich, astroturf campaigns are typically people-poor but cash-rich. Funded heavily by corporate largesse, they use sophisticated computer databases, telephone banks and hired organizers to rope less-informed activists into sending letters to their elected officials or engaging in other actions that create the appearance of grassroots support for their client's cause.

[Me.]

3. Rove Has Been Doing A Version Of This From Day One

but using people they paid, like Armstrong Jones. Fake letters to Stars & Stripes, direct consultations with journalists are other methods they've used. Another version, in my opinion, has been bringing the brainwashed into the administration and having them do the dirty work, the Goodlings of this world.

[Me.]

4. PS

Wonder what Buchanan, no admirer of this admin, thinks of such tactics now?

[Gregorian]

5. Something occurs to me as I read your post.

There is a reason for the media manipulation by the higher levels of government. What it tells me is that they rely upon this as their means of obtaining, and remaining in, office. Otherwise, they wouldn't do it. They know that they need to do it.

So what I begin to think is that the reason they feel the need to do this is that Americans in general are more liberal than it would seem. We know that we won the 2000 and 2004 elections. And that was under some severely restricted conditions.

And therefore it begs the question, if America is indeed more liberal than it seems, and yet the government has continued to veer to the right, isn't there a point at which the gap between the two will be great enough that a sort of critical mass effect will occur?

I'm not sure it makes much sense. But there is something to the fact that they feel the need to cheat. A lot of this comes back on the integrity of the media. They can make up for the lack of collective memory of the society.

Thanks for bringing this up. I continue to marvel at how long this method of operation has been going on.

[H2O Man]

6. I think that this

goes along with the recent OP about writing letters to elected representatives. While many DUers already know some of these basic skills, it's important to have threads that provide details for everyone here.

The same goes for understanding how and why the media is used the way that it is. It isn't enough to think in terms of the "corporate" media -- there are different interests that sometimes compete, and other times coordinate efforts.

Combining these threads into a coordinated effort might benefit the grass roots democratic activists as we prepare for the 2008 elections.

[Gregorian]

8. My greatest disappointment is apathy.

I am learning that my voice can be heard. Now I'm discovering that it may be diluted. But one thing that is most frustrating is to see how many Americans do not participate. I believe this is our biggest hurdle. And perhaps that is ultimately the final result of what I was implying in my post here. Maybe, as the gap grows between what the people want and what the people get, there will be greater participation. But I pessimistically believe that usually happens as a result of crisis, and not comfortable choice.

But you are wise in alerting us to past and present facts. First we must know the game, and then we must be willing to play. Or maybe it's the other way around.

What many do not know is that WE do have the ultimate power. I always keep that in the back of my mind. It's the oldest truth. And the least used. In fact, as an aside, I sometimes wonder what would happen if the conservative agenda came to total fruition. It's almost laughable. I believe it would result in a nonfunctional world. It's ultimately a failure.

Well, I've blabbed quite enough here. And I appreciate being able to do so. :)

[H2O Man]

9. Apathy is a problem.

I think that we have a system that induces apathy. It injects it into people's daily lives. It demands apathy.

There was a documentary on a couple weeks ago, about former AIM leader John Trudell. In he, he said that in order for the system to be able to pollute the environment -- to an extent that threatens the lives of many species on earth, including our own -- and to be able to do so without organized resistance from the public, that system must also pollute those same people. Apathy is one of those pollutants.

Others include self-doubt and self-hatred, those things that Minister Malcolm X taught were able to handcuff a man or woman to the belief that they were powerless. Frequently, when I read some of the threads on DU, I hear Malcolm's voice asking, "Who taught you to hate yourself?" And, of course, it is the system that devalues those who are different, those who once dared to feel, those who had the potential to change the system arond them, be it on a small, medium, or large level. The system targets them.

Yet we have the ability to change that. We can harness that energy that is wasted by apathy, or that is even more damaging, when it becomes misdirected hatred, spite, and anger. We could take that force, and clean house. Re-arrange within the system, and from the margins, and from outside.

It can be done.

[Gregorian]

14. It demands apathy. Brilliant statement.

And again, we come back to the media. Without that apathy, Nixon and Bush and Raygun would not have gotten away with their acts. I believe the same letter writing campaign might have been used in order to con the people into thinking the drug war was warranted. What we need now is skepticism.

Noam Chomsky has said that the corporations are doing things in our name that, if we had a media that reported the facts, would never be tolerated by Americans. But we are uninformed.

And I say that we are willing to be uninformed as long as it keeps us comfortable. Out of sight, out of mind. 600,000 dead Iraqis.

I'm quite bothered that there are only 103,000 members of this forum. But then it takes effort to go out of our way to inform ourselves in lieu of an honest media.

Well, my mind is wandering towards the warm and blue skies outside my window. I cannot resist going out and petting the cats. Even I need comfort once in a while.

[Joe Chi Minh]

16. Oh, they're all the same aren't they, H2O? what's the point in voting, eh?

That's what I ask myself. What's the point? (Now, of all kites and crows, I don't expect you to take me to task, misinterpreting my intended irony!) I love Hunter S Thompson's line: "she (a young woman) thought politics was some kind of game played by old people, like bridge."

That man was some genius. I'm re-reading Fear and Loathing On The Campaign Trail for the second time in five months or so. And the passage concerned is a little master-piece of understatement, scarcely revealing the profundity of his understanding of the madness of our world and his compassion for its hundreds of millions of victims. And the young woman concerned could scarcely have individually personified their tragedy more poignantly. I was tempted to quote the page or so on her plight in the general folder, as it must be so much worse in the US now; as indeed it is in the UK.

[H2O Man]

17. I hear you ....

...and, of course, I hear the "but they are all the same" fairly often. What makes it difficult to respond to that is that sometimes that can seem to be accurate. Minister Malcolm X used to say that far too often, the differences between democrats and republicans were about the same as the differences between a fox and a wolf. However, despite all of Bill Clinton's faults, I am confident that Malcolm would agree that the differences between Clinton/Gore and Bush/Cheney are the same as the difference between sugar and shit.

[Joe Chi Minh]

20. Yes, such half-truths are much more dangerous for their truth content - so,

when it comes to voting, such thinking should nevertheless always be considered anathema.

The lesser of two evils can be crucial in our broken world. We in the UK have the choice between Judas-type Labour party ultra-corporatist impostors with enough savvy to leave a little clear water between themselves and the current crop of Tories (throwing a few bones, dismantling piece-meal, instead of demolishing in one fell swoop), who are simply wild animals; and those same Tories.


Fortunately in Scotland, we can vote for the Scottish Nationalists, who are more to the left than the others, but in England I would feel obliged to vote for our New Labour corporatists.

But that's what this thread is about, isn't it, not being seduced into apathy by the greed heads and their MSM stenographers.

[H2O Man]

11. I want to go back

to the issues discussed on a thread that I thought was very important, and deserving of more attention than it got. And that was the one which stated that in contacting our elected representatives in Washington, DC, it is better to write a letter than to send a petition.

Petitions have their place. They can and should be used. However, most politicians in Washington DC do not count 100 signatures on a petition as equal to 100 letters from citizens. As was pointed out in that thread, they put it on a 20-1 scale, so the petition is viewed as equal to 5 letters.

A petition has power, however. The best place that a petition can be used is on the "local" level. If you present a petition to your mayor, he or she will count it as more meaningful than the politician in your state capital, who counts it as more meaningful than the politician in Washington. The petition has more power at the base of the pyramid.

Petitions are also a means of generating media attention at the local level. If I have a petition with 500 signatures, the newspaper in my local community will be far more likely to give it some attention, than would the NY Times.And all politicians are aware of the significance of that small story (or LTTE) about your petition that appears in the home-town paper. That is as true of the politician in Washington as it is of the mayor.

Also, petitions that are taken up in public places tend to generate some degree of public awareness. They can make people think about and discuss an issue. Many people will feel good about signing a petition, and that "good feeling" can be used to motivate them to taking another step involving a given issue. It could, for example, make them more likely to attend the public meeting. And that looks good in the report covering the community meeting in your home-town paper.

Now back to contacting your elected official in Washington. Write a letter and send it "snail-mail" for the most attention. These get more attention that the numerous e-mails that are counted, though they are not as likely to be read thoroughly. And there is some truth to the belief that a letter that is from the pen gets more attention than one from a type-writer or computer key board.

A letter is most likely to get attention if it is in a simple format. Three or four paragraphs should be the length of most letters. And 3 to 4 sentences per paragraph. State the issue; your opinion; what you expect the official to do; and end with a request for a response.

When you get a response, use it as the foundation for a LTTE of your local paper. Local newspapers generally will give this type of letter a better spot on the editorial page than the usual LTTE. And the politician in question will be aware that you are serious, and active.

A letter to a politician will be slow in arriving if you seal it in an envelope. Instead, use a method I first learned on DU: fold the letter as you would to put it in the envelope, but instead, tape or staple it shut. It is thus "open" on the ends, and will berecognized as "safe" in that it does not contain any dangerous substances that envelopes are screened for. Stamp and address the folded letter the same as you would the envelope, and drop it in the mail.

Grass roots activism can be fun.

[Me.]

12. Good Reminder

Forgot about the no envelope technique

[truedelphi]

19. Media manipulation - Two examples

Do you remember in the first bursts of fire during the first Iraq war that there were three or four previously unheard of, unknown newsmen from CNN in Baghdad?

Two of them went on to become CNN top correspondants and talking heads. (A black reporter named Sanders (sp?) was one of them.)

Well part of the reason for that is in order for CNN to position reporters on the ground in Baghdad on that historic day, they had to get them into the country first.

Saddam Hussein was given a long list of American newscasters - and all the big heavies were vetoed by Hussein as he considered them to be CIA. (It may be true that some of them were not "officially" CIA - they had not signed any official paper work or anything - but as long as you "act" in accordance with how the shadow government wants you to act, you can be considered as CIA.) So the only people that CNN could put in as newscasters were unknowns.

Several years klater, I happened to be at home during the week leading up to the Tonya Harding skating incident. (Wherein Tonya had er friends slam Nancy whatever her name was leg in to prevent her from competeing)

There was a small time revolution going on in Chiapas Mexico that week. WHat was amazing wa sthat allt he major networks started covering it. One of them, I think CBS, even had an hour or half hur special on what was happening - how poor the peop0le were, how "just" their fight to better their lives was,etc.

I was amazed. I had never seen TV so compelling (not since Murrow's day)

It was announced on Thrusday of that week that coverage would be on-going all through the weekend.

Then on Friday morning, there was a huge announcement about the Tonya Harding event. There was nary a mention of the Chiapas events for maybe another ten days, and then only minor little announcements.

What happened? It took me years to find out - eventually Rolling Stones magazine mentioned in a related article how Citibank had pulled the plug on the networks ability to cover events in Chiapas.

[KoKo]

7. ...

[Me.]

10. Mon. Morn

:kick:

[The Count]

13. Astroturf was a news item a few years ago - then faded - while still going strong

Everything Nixon, Raygun started, these guys got the entire government doing on a national scale. And I mean, everything illegal and evil, just to be clear. :evilgrin:

[vickitulsa]

15. This is important stuff! We need more kicks and recs to get more

visibility and input!

I'm one of those people who writes snail mail letters, often when I don't even bother to sign petitions (esp online ones) or send emails to my own reps and senators -- or any other politicians -- or to media outlets.

I also repeatedly mention the importance of snail mailing whenever contacting news orgs or political officials or groups comes up in a thread.

I have been using the good ol' U.S. Postal Service to contact others for a very long time and have always been pleased with the responses I get -- pleased that I do GET responses, I mean. I've never had one ignored by a political officeholder, that I can recall anyway.

I like your suggestion about sending snail letters sans envelope, too, H2OMan! Don't know why I never thought of that before -- or learned about it elsewhere. One question about that technique, however: Do you think sending snail letters that way will degrade their value in the eyes of the recipients? Just the fact that they might not appear to be letters from "regular" constituents or readers of print media makes me wonder about the tactic.

My entire point in writing snail letters is to put all the weight I have as a concerned citizen and voter into the process of contacting officials or media or anyone involved. I'd be disappointed if switching to "open" letters to get my words to my targets ended up backfiring by getting them tossed as "junk mail."

BTW, I highly recommend TAPING such open letters rather than using a staple! Those damn things can hang up in the sorting machines, whereas tape does not (AFAIK).

Thanks for another great OP, H2OMan. I didn't have a clue what this one was going to be about, but I checked in just because it was one of yours. ;)

[H2O Man]

18. I had kind of hoped

that we could start getting a small, semi-organized effort made for getting a few concepts featured in a LTTE campaign over the summer months.