Special Hearings — Mandela United Football Club Hearings — 1997-11-24

JOHN LOUIS MCPHERSON: Mr Chairperson if I can explain what has happened here.  The Truth and Reconciliation Commission they have questioned me about the fact or the possibility, thinking of my past, that I was involved in the book of Katiza's Journey, and that's where Fred Bridgeland's name came up and I had more than 40, I had all my list of people, agents, contacts and then friends within the media I had with me, and they asked me do I know Fred Bridgeland which I then said yes and in any case he wasn't an agent or an informer, as I put it a friendly reporter.  But what has happened here on Wednesday Fred was sitting there and I heard somebody saying "Vic McPherson" and I walked over to him and I said Fred Bridgeland, and he said but you don't know me, I've never seen you before.  And I said yes, I've never seen you before but I have your name, I have your particulars, I had it in my own handwriting, so then I realised I mistook him, there was a person that came a few times to my office in Pretoria, another English reporter, and I thought that was the person.  But I said to him and I will say it again, I am very sorry if I misrepresented it to the Commission but I know he is somewhere probably in the audience and I said to him I will put the record straight.

MR PIGOU: Mr Chairman I approached Mr Bridgeland about this allegation and Mr Bridgeland has provided me with a two paragraph, very brief two paragraph response which he has requested that we be able to read into the record, and I am asking your permission to do that.

DR BORAINE: Ja go ahead.

MR PIGOU: "Until Wednesday of this week in this very hall I had never met Vic McPherson.  The TRC official pointed him out to me, I walked up to him and offered him my hand but he did not know who I was.  I told him my name and told him I had never seen him before.  He conceded that but said he had spoken to me by phone. I said I could recall no such phone conversations and he could provide me with neither dates nor subjects of these conversations.  As with his smear campaigns against distinguished South African journalists Max du Preez, Jacques Pauw and Philip van Niekerk defamed variously by McPherson as military intelligence, national intelligence service and CIA agents, I believe this is a sordid little smear attempt against me.  It results from the strong attacks against the security police throughout my book, Katiza's Journey, notably the bizarre and reprehensible behaviour of such colleagues of McPherson as Fred Dempsey, Henk Hesslinger and Hoothra Moodley".
 I think Mr McPherson should be able to have the opportunity again to respond to that.

DR BORAINE: ...I think we're going to end on that note then.  Would you care to respond to that?

PAUL FRANCIS ERASMUS: Well I of course deny the allegations that I have a smear campaign against these gentlemen.  Mr Philip van Niekerk I know very very well, the editor of Mail and Guardian and the other people I know them and I am not involved in a smear campaign against them.

DR BORAINE: Thank you.  No further questions Chair.

DR BORAINE: Mr Semenya.

MR SEMENYA: Thank you Chairperson, may we state that the statement read off Mr Bridgeland in our view is not enough, he must come and confirm that because we have information we believe goes against the essence of the statement he has made but for now I will continue with my questions Sir the senior superintendent.  How do you prefer me to address you Sir.

JOHN LOUIS MCPHERSON: You may call me Vic.

MR SEMENYA: Well Sir, you tell us that you were the head of Stratcom at a particular point.  Am I correct?

JOHN LOUIS MCPHERSON: I was head of Stratcom.

MR SEMENYA: You say, "in the period '89 up to '90 I was head of Covert Strategic Communications known as Stratcom"?

JOHN LOUIS MCPHERSON: That's correct Mr Chairperson.

MR SEMENYA: And we know that one of it's, as you call it major subjects was Mrs Madikizela Mandela.

JOHN LOUIS MCPHERSON: That is correct Mr Chairperson.

MR SEMENYA: Can you tell us of incidents that you know of that were said about her which were false?

JOHN LOUIS MCPHERSON: Incidents that I know of?

MR SEMENYA: Which were said about her which were false in this ...(intervention)?

JOHN LOUIS MCPHERSON: No I think perhaps it might be better to put those specific questions when it comes to the detail to Mr Paul Erasmus next to me because he was more actively involved with the actual applying of Stratcom on the ground level.

MR SEMENYA: No I'll get to Mr Erasmus, I'm saying you as a head in charge of an operation, some of it's primary motives is to discredit Mrs Winnie Mandela, are you able to tell us of one single event that was said about her which was false or no?

JOHN LOUIS MCPHERSON: No the way we have trained our people and instructed our people is usually to work on an actual or a factual incident or event and then perhaps add on and that will eventually lead say to disinformation or false, something extra to a story, but I can't recall a specific incident at this very moment.

MR SEMENYA: Seriously as head of Stratcom, you have one of what you call the major subject for which prominent attention was paid and you do not recall one single story about this prominent subject.

JOHN LOUIS MCPHERSON: There was a book that was written by Emma Gilby in America but there it again it wasn't about disinformation, it was just that we assisted Emma Gilby in supplying her with specific information about financial matters of Mrs Madikizela Mandela.

MR SEMENYA: Just tell us about them, what were you saying about her financial status?

JOHN LOUIS MCPHERSON: She, this is now Emma Gilby, had access to Mrs Madikizela Mandela's file where she needed to verify certain information.  I think it was the time that her house burned down and she needed money to repair the house and the money was coming in I think from Cuba and other donor countries and I can't recall the exact detail but Emma Gilby already had this information but she just wanted to confirm it.

MR SEMENYA: You know when I read the objectives or what you have as 12.1.1 to 12.1.3, to me they appear like lawful objectives.  You know they appear lawful objectives that are here.  Were you about pure lawful objectives.

JOHN LOUIS MCPHERSON: Which paragraph did you refer to again.

MR SEMENYA: Stratcom, let me refer you to Strategic Communication is, you see that's paragraph 12 I guess.

JOHN LOUIS MCPHERSON: Which page?

MR SEMENYA: Page 4.

JOHN LOUIS MCPHERSON: You  mean the definition of Stratcom?

MR SEMENYA: To me what you define there are things which appear lawful.  Were you just doing lawful things and nothing covert, nothing "not so lawful"?

JOHN LOUIS MCPHERSON: You know if you're busy with disinformation or say you're busy with pamphlets, distributing pamphlets, or whatever with say a half truth or so.  Of course it can't be lawful with say a half truth or so.  Of course it can't be lawful but that's why the operation is covert and it is because of the circumstances the country found itself in, a psychological warfare became necessary and these were the methods that were used.

MR SEMENYA: Ja but exactly what I'm saying there is nothing around that paragraph which says part of what you do is disseminating disinformation, you just neutralise hostel propaganda but there is nothing like dissemination or disinformation there.

JOHN LOUIS MCPHERSON: Yes but then we come to specifics.  This is the general definition of Stratcom. It's the, how you must see Stratcom in general but when it comes to specific operations, say there were about 30 operations, each operation had it's own objectives.  So you will come to an operation and there it will be about disseminating information by means of pamphlets or fronts. So then the word dissemination will come into that strategy of that specific operation.