"...an obvious forgery...designed to discredit the President..."

[Toucano]

So I digitally wandered over to the Carter library in search of some quotes for a Helen Thomas thread, and I discovered this pdf document.

http://www.jimmycarterlibrary.gov/documents/prmemorandums/prm46forgery.pdf

The second page is from a National Security Council memorandum dated September 17, 1980 that states in part:

"This document is an obvious forgery, but professionally done, and obviously designed to discredit the President, his African policy, and Dr. Brzezinski personally."

It goes on to say,

"...the 13-page document is often blantantly racist in tone, and obviously completely inconsistent with the tone and substance of the domestic and foreign policy of the Carter administration."

and concludes with,

"The case will be turned over to the FBI for investigation."

My questions for anyone who remembers are this:

1. Was there an investigation and what was the outcome?

2. Brzesinski was National Security Advisor. What policy did he advance that would have made him a target worthy of being discredited (less than two months before a Presidential election)?

3. Did you ever hear about this before? It's totally news to me.

[punpirate]

1. The news report seems to have appeared...

... September 17, 1980, but I cannot find, quickly, any references to the outcome of the investigation.

My best guess is that it was dropped when Reagan became president, with Ed Meese as attorney general. I doubt they were anxious for a dirty trick of theirs to be exposed.

[Toucano]

2. Good point.

Do you think it was just election related or do you think it goes deeper than that?

[punpirate]

3. Ostensibly...

... the memo is meant to be leaked to African countries. But, news travels fast, and I suspect that it was actually intended for the news to be reflected upon by the black community in the US. Reagan wasn't expected to get much support from blacks in the 1980 election, and it seems logical that his campaign would try to diminish that support any way they could.

Remember the context--in September, 1980, polls had the election in a virtual tie. There were occasional brief news reports that Carter was having some effect on the mullahs in Iran and that the hostages might be released. The circumstantial evidence strongly suggests that the Reagan campaign was trying to interfere with that process to convince the public that Carter was ineffective. I see it as logical that other means would have been taken, as well, to either influence voters to switch to Reagan or suppress those for Carter.

The implication of the memo is that black nationalism in Africa might affect relations with white South Africa and hurt business, and very subtly implies that the Carter administration should back apartheid policies for the good of US business interests without seeming to do so.

The suggestions of surveillance of black groups in the US by the CIA and the FBI would have been seen as contradictory to public statements made by Carter, and could have had severe political consequences with regard to black voters, since a central theme of many black political groups at that time was US relations with apartheid South Africa. And suggesting covert programs to weaken black solidarity would have likewise been viewed as subversive activity on the part of the Carter administration to undermine blacks--which surely would have, at the very least, lost Carter campaign endorsements that he could ill-afford to lose with a couple of months to the election, if the memo were to be exploited as genuine.

Cheers.

[Toucano]

4. There was also something about South Africa developing nukes.

In 1977 and 1978 (around the time the forgery is dated), there was a bruhaha about South Africa testing their nukes.

It's strange and interesting.

The Reagan administration illegally helped the South African program.