Propaganda Soap

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32385, 26 August 1970, Page 8

Propaganda Soap

(N.Z.P. A.-Reuter—Copyright} WASHINGTON, Aug. 25.

Soap with hidden messages which are uncovered as the soap is used away layer by layer is being used in a previously secret large-scale American mili-

tary propaganda campaign in Asia, Congressional testimony disclosed this week. Senate Foreign Relations Committee investigators discovered the psychological warfare campaign, complete with soft soap and hard-line radio propaganda broadcasts, by looking through a telephone directory of American military units in Japan. The programme was at least partially disclosed when the Senate Foreign Relations sub-committee on United States security agreements and commitments abroad published a censored transcript of its closed-door hearings held in January on the American military involvement in Japan and Okinawa. During the hearings, Mr Walter Pincus, a staff investigator of the panel, took the unusual step of testifying directly on the programme to the senators. He said that this was the only way the information could be put on the record because military officials refused to testify about the programme during the hearings, although they had discussed 1 it when he visited Japan and Okinawa last year. Mr Pincus said that the operations were conducted by 1 the Army’s Seventh Psycho- I logical Operations Group i which had about 600 officers i

and enlisted men and a budget of $9,300,000 in 1969. During questioning by Senator Stuart Symington (Democrat, Missouri), the sub-committee chairman, Mr Pincus said: “One of the programmes we were told about was a Thai soap which was brought into Thailand, that was made in Taiwan, and apparently as you wash yourself with it at each level there is a new message.” He said the soap was distributed “out in the hinterlands” of Thailand where the Bangkok Government has

• been fighting three relatively small Communist-backed in- ' surgencies. i The United States had been i assisting the Bangkok Gov- ■ ernment wiih its phychologi- ■ cal warfare campaign, Mr : Pincus testified. He said that the American unit, known as 7th Psyops, had distributed about 10,000 1 bars of soap in Thailand. He added: “I do- not know what the message is. It is probably a secret message.” Mr Pincus testified that the Psyops unit’s propaganda operations also included radio broadcasts to North Korea by “The Voice of the United Nations Command.” He said that some people in the United States Information Agency told him they thought the radio broadcasts took too hard, a line, “a hard approach, a more antiCommunist, anti-North Korean line.”

Policy On China Senator Symington suggested this might be contrary to the Nixon Administration’s policy of attempting to lower tensions with China. Under proddings from the sub-committee, the Administration provided the panel with a previously top secret document outlining the Psyops operations in general. The document and testimony by Pincus disclosed that other operations included psychological warfare assistance to Taiwan, the printing of leaflets for air drops on North Korea, and publication of cartoon books for the Thai Government praising the role of the 8000-man Thai combat unit in Vietnam.