Signed, Sealed & Planted

SECRET PAPERS LEAK! the headlines of London's Daily Express shrilled. U.S. SECURITY MEN CALLED IN! The "secret" papers were purported dispatches from Secretary of State Christian Herter and Secretary of the Army Wilbur Brucker to U.S. diplomats abroad. Presumably chary of publishing Western secrets, the Daily Express merely confided to its 4,130,069 readers that the papers in question "related to 'defection' of Russian nationals."

The documents carried a plausible-sounding file number (CA 974) and an official seal. But they were forgeries, and only the latest of a series with which the Communists have plagued the West in recent years. Chief Communist forgery center seems to be a clandestine installation in East Berlin's outlying OberSchoeneweide. Most forgeries have been designed to sow discord between the Western allies or between them and the uncommitted nations of the world. Usually they are suitably low-keyed and close enough to the real thing to achieve at least passing effect.

Dismayed Ally. In 1958 there was a rash of 18 forgeries. One, an ingeniously planted U.S. diplomatic dispatch, purportedly came from Elim O'Shaughnessy, then chief of the political section of the U.S. Embassy in Bonn. It counseled the backing of neofascist groups in West Germany that were known to be plumping for the return of Alsace-Lorraine to the fatherland. Though false, the "document" created real dismay at the Quai d'Orsai.

Then there was the phony dispatch from U.S. Admiral Laurence Frost, chief of the Bureau of Naval Intelligence, which alarmed Indonesia by "revealing" U.S. backing of antigovernment rebels ("We will continue to give assistance to you through Taiwan and the Philippines"). Two other forgeries attributed to Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and Assistant Secretary of State William Rountree respectively, incensed the United Arab Republic by tipping off purported U.S. efforts to undermine the U.A.R.'s prestige in the Arab world. A forged secret annex to a British Cabinet paper gummed up relations between British trade unions and their counterparts in Africa's new nations, most of which have been organized with the help of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions. The document purportedly ordered British unionists to infiltrate the I.C.F.T.U. "as an alternative instrument of Western influence [in Africa] . . . since it is difficult to accuse the trades unions of serving colonial ends." The forgery was widely reprinted in Africa, was accepted as genuine by many Africans despite 17 misspellings.

One of the forgers' most sustained efforts followed a 1957 Khrushchev newspaper interview deploring the "dangers" of SAC's airborne alert system: "when planes with hydrogen bombs aboard take off, that means that people will be in the air piloting them. There is always the possibility of a mental blackout . . ." Shortly thereafter, the so-called "Berry letter" surfaced in East Berlin's Neues Deutschland. In it, U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense, Dr. Frank B. Berry, was "caught" reporting to his chief, Neil McElroy, that "we have obtained statistics showing that 67.3% of U.S.A.F. personnel are psychoneurotic, involved in sexual ercesses, drug taking . . ." A quick follow-up came from the Soviet embassy in London in the form of a letter purporting to be from a U.S.A.F. pilot who threatened to drop an A-bomb in the North Sea in order to awaken Britain to the dangers of having atom-armed U.S. planes patrolling in British skies. Despite quick exposure for what they were, the forgeries nonetheless created in some minds a picture of the U.S. as irresponsibly indifferent to the safety of its allies, fired the zeal of British and Japanese "ban the A-bomb" rioters.

Imagination Game. The challenge of the forgeries has sharpened the West's countermeasures. Fed the same canard as the Daily Express, two other European newspapers checked with U.S. authorities before rushing into print--and were persuaded to hold back. Western governments, who used to sulk secretly over forgeries indicating skulduggery by allies, now check these "documents" with each other to establish authenticity. And last July a phony aimed at Latin America was handily aborted by U.S. authorities. It professed to be secret instructions from Under Secretary of State Douglas Dillon to U.S. diplomatic posts in South America. Orders were to pressure Latin American governments to stay away from a Castro-sponsored "Conference of Hungry Nations" scheduled to meet in Havana. "A blunt approach will be necessary," the forgery read. It was supposed to surface in Guatemala, but U.S. agents intercepted a copy along the way, and circulated it even before the original forgery had time to arrive in Guatemala.

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