Influence Peddling Research Articles

South Africa's Propaganda War: A Bibliographic Essay

In the wake of revelations concerning the activities of foreign lobbyists in the United States, and especially the Koreagate scandal, increasing attention has been given in the press and on Capitol Hill to the effect on American policy-making. The most explosive instance of foreign influence peddling is the massive campaign of South African officials to improve that country's image in the western world. The most recent phase of South Africa's propaganda war, unleashed in 1972, has not only raised questions about official U.S. relations with South Africa but has provoked the worst political scandal in South African history. For several years there had been assertions by investigative journalists that the South African government was behind a variety of schemes designed to win friends and influence policy among its western allies. By 1979 it had become clear that many of the allegations were true. The South African Department of Information had spent $100 million on unconventional methods for this purpose in a seven year period. The man at the center of the scandal was Dr. Eschel Rhoodie, former secretary of the Department of Information, who revealed in some detail the secret projects his government had undertaken to buy influence. In an interview with BBC television in March 1979, Rhoodie made no pretense about the ruthlessness of the methods employed by his department to assure South Africa's survival in a world hostile to its apartheid policies. The intellectual underpinnings of the propaganda campaign are found in the book written by Rhoodie in 1969 entitled The Paper Curtain, a kind of Afrikaner version of Mein Kampf. The book has subsequently been withdrawn from circulation. The Paper Curtain told how a curtain of lies and communist propaganda had isolated South Africa from the west and argued the necessity of mounting a counterattack through unorthodox methods. The book attracted the attention of the Minister of Information, Connie Mulder, who appointed Rhoodie to his post and gave him responsibility for telling the country's story abroad. In that capacity Rhoodie was the architect of an ambitious program which ranged from engaging the services of legal and public relations firms to wooing black African heads of state and subsidizing various publications. In all, Rhoodie claimed that his department financed over one hundred secret projects.

Daniel Webster (review)

BOOK REVIEWS361 dimensional, complex personality: "a pacificist turned soldier, an educator turned politician, a preacher turned economist, a man of essentially literary tastes cast in the role of party chieftain, a husband who, at length, fell in love with his wife, and a man racked by self-doubts who was, at the same time, convinced of his high destiny." Peskin's biography does not resolve these contradictions; it explores them. Each of the crises in Garfield's life is examined thoroughly and objectively. In many cases Peskin's verdict is unfavorable: Garfield did maneuver to oust his rivals and become head of the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute; he married one woman while he was in love with another; he lent his name to the fraudulent schemes of an oil swindler, exhibited a "disturbing lack of candor" about his relationship to the Credit Mobilier, and was guilty of influence peddling in the DeGolyer scandal. On other, and perhaps more significant, points Peskinfinds that the evidence exonerates Garfield. In undercutting his commanding officer, General William S . Rosecrans, his conduct was "not . . . dishonorable , only somewhat disingenuous." On the silver question he put principle ahead of self-interest. And "by most standards" Garfield was not guilty of undercutting John Sherman in order to promote his own presidential candidacy in 1880. If Peskin's judgments are mixed, it is because Garfield's character was mixed. Those who knew him well spoke of his warmth, his charm, and his learning. John Hay thought that his years of service in the Congress made Garfield "the best-trained, best-equipped president since John Quincy Adams." But even those who admired the man had to recognize "his old weakness, lack of moral pluck." "Smooth, ready, pleasant . . . , not very strong," was the verdict of Rutherford B. Hayes. Henry L. Dawes concluded that hewas "morally . . . invertebrate. Hehad no bony structure." Echoing the same idea, President Grant judged that Garfield "has shown that he is not possessed of the backbone of an angleworm." Since Garfield was such a creampuff character, one is bound to ask whether he is worth the extraordinary amount of attention that has been lavished on him during the past few years. The answer clearly has to be "No." But, equally clearly, until the publication of Peskin's definitive biography it was not possible to be sure that there was less to James A. Garfield than met the eye. David Herbert Donald Harvard University Daniel Webster. By Irving H. Bartlett. (New York: W. W. Norton, 1978. Pp. xii, 333. $12.95.) Since 1966 no fewer than five book-length, scholarly monographs have 362CIVIL WAR HISTORY appeared, dealing with various aspects of the career of Daniel Webster. Irving Bartlett's book represents, in part, a gathering together of the findings of at least four of those studies in a single volume. As such it is largely successful. Using as well the invaluable Microfilm Edition ofthe Papers of Daniel Webster, Bartlett produces a readable, generally accurate account of Webster's public life from the time he first entered politics as a young Portsmouth, New Hampshire lawyer, opposing Jefferson's Embargo, until his death 44 years later in 1852. In this respect the book should certainly supersede the earlier full-length biographies, including those by Henry Cabot Lodge, Claude Fuess, and Richard Current. Bartlett's purpose, however, was to do something more: in fact to add a completely new dimension to our understanding ofhis subject. Noting at the outset that Webster was many things to many people, but above all to his admirers the "Godlike defender" and to his enemies "Black Dan"—a deeply flawed and finally corrupt défiler of all that he claimed to stand for—Bartletthopes to come to terms with both sides of this dual "image," no less than with "the man behind the image, who succeeded, failed, laughed, loved, and sometimes found himself ensnared in webs of his own making but beyond his understanding." This is a tall order, and a variety of strategies are called into play to fill it. In a manner surprisingly reminiscent of Lodge's treatment almost a century ago, Bartlett appears to find both parts of the Godlike-Black Dan construct about...

The special interest bias and government growth

In recent years, federal government has expanded dramatically. Despite public dissatisfaction, there is no clear indication that the observed trend will be reversed. I shall argue that the special interest bias in representative government may be one cause of the observed government growth. A special interest (SI) bias may occur with respect to the provision of any political good if benefits are individually large and concentrated among a small segment of the constituent population while costs are small and widely dispersed. The special interest bias is reinforced if the benefits are short run while costs are longer run. A legislator will attempt to provide the given SI political good if he perceives that political currency gained (votes, campaign contributions, etc.) will exceed political currency lost. Response to SI pressure is demonstrated through roll-call voting behavior and lobbying activities. Legislators vote to have SI goods produced and try to gain support from colleagues through vote trading and influence peddling. Assume that all legislators follow this general pattern. As the SI aspect of the legislative process becomes more clearly understood, more and more well organized and informed SI groups should appear. Each such group demands political goods and expects the costs of production (for example, taxes) to be absorbed partially by others. It is conceivable that, eventually, aggregate demand will be greater than the productive capacity of the political system with the existing resource base. When this occurs, (1) special interest pressures must be denied or the resource base must be expanded by either (2) increasing tax rates or imposing new taxes or (3) deficit spending. Alternatives (1) and (2) are individually dangerous. For any legislator, either choice may involve serious short run losses of political currency. Benefits will be characterized by spillover and free rider effects. I f legislator A in isolation chooses alternative (1) or (2), there will be more resources available for the SI constituents of B, though B has neither become less responsive to $1 pressures nor voted to increase taxes. Although (2) would expand the size of government and may be preferable to (1), a strong incentive exists to continue providing $1 political goods and finance these through deficit spending. Alternative (3) seems imminently viable because benefits are immediate, while costs may be postponed. Future inflation or tax increases appear likely to be presently discounted. Moreover, any given legislator might successfully argue that unwanted deficits are caused not by his own actions but by provision of political goods to other SI groups. Most constituents are probably members of some SI group. As such, we will continue to expect increased benefits and eschewed costs from production of political goods, thus creating incentive among legislators to produce such goods and consequently deficit spend. In a macro sense constituents will continue to abhor federal government growth. In a more realistic micro sense, constituent pressures are a primary cause of such growth.