Office of Public Diplomacy

The Office of Public Diplomacy, officially known as the Office of Public Diplomacy for Latin America and the Caribbean, was part of a White House ordered PR plan in the 1980s to provide cover for the secret CIA war in Nicaragua. CIA director William J. Casey initiated the propaganda campaign after meeting with private sector PR men. Walter Raymond, Jr., a CIA propaganda expert, moved over to the National Security Council to get the program up and running. Raymond is reported to have instructed his OPD subordinates to "concentrate on gluing black hats on the Sandinistas and white hats on UNO [the contras' United Nicaraguan Opposition]." Raymond picked Otto Reich to run the new OPD, which was housed in the State Department. Despite the unraveling of the Iran-Contra scandal, the full story of the OPD -- a covert, illegal, inter-agency propaganda campaign aimed at US citizens and Congress -- never received full public scrutiny.

SourceWatch Resources

 * public diplomacy
 * Nicaragua Freedom Fund