RUSSIA, Soviet Active Measures: Deception, Disinformation, and Propaganda A-Z

Atkinson, James. The Politics of Struggle: The Communist Front and Political Warfare. Chicago: Regnery, 1966. [Petersen]

1. The Soviet Cultural Offensive. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1960.

3. Soviet Image of the United States: A Study in Distortion. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1950.

Binyon, Michael. "US Was Main Target of Dirty Tricks." Times (London), 13 Sep. 1999. [http://www.the-times.co.uk]

"America was the top target for most KGB operations, but most were dirty tricks that were often as crude as they were farcical....

"Among the more successful was an attempt to throw suspicion on the CIA for involvement in the assassination of President Kennedy, the allegation that Martin Luther King was in the pay of President Johnson and the assiduous cultivation of rumours that J. Edgar Hoover, the veteran head of the FBI, was a closet homosexual and cross-dresser.

"But there were also numerous attempts to smear American politicians, operations to stir up racial hatred by disseminating forged pamphlets denouncing black people as 'race monkeys' and attempts to recruit Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter's National Security Adviser, as a Soviet agent."

1. The Deception Game: Czechoslovak Intelligence in Soviet Political Warfare. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Research Corp., 1972. New York: Ballantine, 1981. [pb]

Pforzheimer sees this "one of the best available books on Communist peacetime deception operations." Constantinides believes the work "could have been even more thorough had the author written less on the events of 1968 ... and more on such matters as agent of influence operations."

2. The KGB and Soviet Disinformation: An Insider's View. McLean, VA: Permagon-Brassey's, 1985.

Unsinger, IJI&C 1.2, identifies Bittman as a member of Czech intelligence from 1954 to 1968. "At times his examination is superficial, and for depth into some specific events, the reader will have to look at Bittman's earlier work."

Phillips, IJI&C 1.3, notes that "Chez Espionage regulars consider" this "an excellent study," and they consider Bittman "the top authority on disinformation in the U.S."

3.The New Image-Makers: Soviet Propaganda and Disinformation Today. Washington, DC: Permagon-Brassey's, 1988. [Petersen]

Bittman, Ladislav, ed. "The Messages from Moscow 1989." Propaganda- Disinformation-Persuasion 3, no. 1 (Summer 1990). [Published by Boston University, College of Communication, Program for the Study of Disinformation Papers.]

1. Jiri Hochman, "Soviet Media in 1989: The Party and the Independence of the Press," pp. 1-13;

4. Pierre Rigoulot, "Soviet Propaganda and Disinformation in France in 1989," 52-70;

Bittman, Ladislav, and John Ost, eds. "Thievery, Deception, and Disinformation in International Affairs--Scientific, Technological, and Commercial." Propaganda-Disinformation-Persuasion 4 (Spring 1991). [Published by Boston University, College of Communication, Program for the Study of Disinformation Papers.]

1. Ladislav Bittman, "Scientific, Technological, and Economic Thievery and Deception in International Affairs," pp. 1-19;

2. Stanislav Levchenko, "Deception in High-Technology Acquisitions by the USSR," pp. 20-58;

3. Paul Anastasi, "Soviet Theft of Technology in Greece and Disinformation Cover-Ups," pp. 59-82;

4. Yuri Maltsev and Gregory Katsenelinboigen, "Reliability of Soviet Statistical Data in the Era of Peristroika," pp. 83-93;

5. Evgueni Novikov, "The Use of Soviet Scientists, Scholars, and Educators for Propaganda and Disinformation," 94-112;

7. Michael Lenker, "The Third World Perpetrators: The Libyan Connection," pp. 135-149.

1. "From the Russian Perspective: The Cold War Atomic Intelligence Game, 1945-70." Studies in Intelligence 48, no. 2 (2004). [http://www.cia.gov/csi/studies/vol48no2/article01.html]

This article examines "the Soviet nuclear denial and deception (D&D) campaign from 1945 until 1970" designed to prevent the West from learning about its nuclear program. "To thwart foreign intelligence operations, the Soviet Union built an elaborate, multi-layered system of denial and deception, the main elements of which included the restriction of access to nuclear facilities and personnel, strict information protection measures, an enhanced counterintelligence posture, and technical countermeasures....

"[L]ong-range, stand-off technical systems proved to be the best collection sources for the United States, allowing for successful tracking of many aspects of the Soviet nuclear program. Overhead imagery enabled the detection and analysis of critical elements of the Soviet nuclear infrastructure. The USAEDS system, designed to monitor radioactive effluents from nuclear explosions and nuclear material processing, yielded important data on the development of Soviet nuclear weapons science and technology. Because of denial and deception countermeasures, however, the USSR's nuclear program was an exceptionally hard target. The lack of reliable on-the-ground intelligence made it difficult for the West to understand important developments inside the Soviet nuclear complex, which resulted in significant intelligence gaps."

2. "US Atomic Energy Intelligence against the Soviet Target, 1945-1970." Intelligence and National Security 19, no. 4 (Winter 2004): 655-679.

Bukovsky, Vladimir. "The Peace Movement and the Soviet Union." Commentary 73, no. 5 (1982): 1-36. [Petersen]

Campbell, Kenneth J. Moscow's Words, Western Voices. Washington, DC: Accuracy in Media, 1995.

Surveillant 4.2: Campbell "traces how four prominent journalists -- I.F. Stone, Alexander Cockburn, Walter Duranty, and Wilfred Burchett -- repeated Soviet propaganda themes consistently during their careers." The author "systematically analyzes their major writings and shows how political orientation skewed the reliability of what was passed off to readers as 'objective reporting.'"

Casey, William J. "Soviet Use of Active Measures." Current Policy 761 (Nov. 1985).

Address by DCI Casey to the Dallas Council on World Affairs, Dallas, Texas, 18 September 1985.

Charters, David A., and Maurice A.J. Tugwell, eds. Deception Operations: Studies in the East-West Conflict. New York: Macmillan, 1989. London: Brassey's (UK), 1990.

Clark comment: The text is divided into two parts: "Part I: Studies in Eastern Deception Operations"; "Part II: Studies in Western Deception Operations."

Surveillant 1.1 comments that the two Canadian authors have presented "a fine analysis of deception." For Campbell, I&NS 6.1, "[o]ne of the many attractions of the collection is that the contributors, while scholarly, are not at all squeamish about being judgemental."

Dailey, Brian D., and Patrick J. Parker, eds. Soviet Strategic Deception. Lexington, MA: Heath/Hoover Institution, 1987.

According to Petersen, this work contains "dozens of articles on various aspects of Soviet deception, many of them well-documented."

Glantz, I&NS 3.1, sees this work as "valuable ... because of its sophistication and comprehensive approach to the subject.... Contributors..., who span both the official intelligence community and the heights of academia, address strategic deception from a host of perspectives to form an imposing mosaic of deception capabilities."

Daniel, Donald C., and Katherine L. Herbig, eds. Strategic Military Deception. New York, Pergamon, 1982.

Pforzheimer notes that this work "for the serious student" is comprised of papers on the theory of deception and on the application of those theories to case studies from World War II to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.

Disinformation. Editors. "Shake-up in Top Soviet Active Measures Personnel." 3 (Summer 1986): 1, 6-7. [Petersen]

1. "The Growing Disinformation Problem." International Security Review 6 (Fall 1981): 333-353. [Petersen]

Ebon, Martin. The Soviet Propaganda Machine. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1987. [Wilcox]

Epstein, Edward Jay. Deception: The Invisible War Between the KGB and the CIA. New York: Simon & Shuster, 1989.

Thomas Powers, NYRB, 17 Aug. 1989, calls Deception "a richly suggestive but ultimately inconclusive work, which comes closer than Angleton himself ever did to laying out his case."

According to London, IJI&C 4.1, Epstein "points out in exquisite detail and breathtaking logic" that "the target of disinformation ... must be in a state of mind to want deception." This is a "much needed antidote to the overheated rhetoric of the moment [1990]."

To Cram, Moles, Epstein's work now has "the smell of attic dust.... The first 105 pages explain Angleton's theories.... The remainder ... describes various forms of deception." The author dismisses glasnost "as simply another massive KGB deception." The book contains "many errors and misinterpretations.... Like Legend, it is propaganda for Angleton and essentially dishonest." It is "[o]ne of many bad books inspired by Angleton after his dismissal that have little basis in fact."

NameBase comments that the "second half of this book examines some major deceptions in the twentieth century: the Soviet 'Trust' in the 1920s, Hitler's armament inventory in the 1930s, Soviet faking for our spy satellites, and the mole wars. Then Epstein looks at Glasnost in the Soviet Union.... Epstein is ... worth reading, even after Angleton has been largely discredited and Epstein's premise is forced to fly in the face of almost all available evidence."

Epstein, Edward Jay. "Disinformation: Or, Why the CIA Cannot Verify an Arms-Control Agreement." Commentary 74 (July 1982): 21-28. [Petersen]

Fischer, Benjamin. "Hitler, Stalin, and 'Operation Myth.'" Center for the Study of Intelligence Bulletin 11 (Summer 2000): 4-8. [http://www.cia.gov/csi/bulletin/csi11.html#toc5].

The author discusses Operatsiya Mif (Operation Myth) by which Stalin sought to convince either the West or himself that Hitler was still alive.

Glantz, David M. "Surprise and Maskirovka in Contemporary War." Military Review 68 (Dec. 1988): 50-57.

Golitsyn, Anatoliy. New Lies for Old: The Communist Strategy of Deception and Disinformation. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1984. London: Bodley Head, 1984.

According to Pforzheimer, the focus in this book is "on what [the author] thinks are major Soviet disinformation operations.... The book is more solid when [he] considers activities that are within his own KGB career span."

While acknowledging that "some of Anatoliy Golitsyn's more controversial views ... border on the incredible," Milivojevic, I&NS 2.2, notes that, nonetheless, "Golitsyn is unusually qualified to analyse KGB Active Measures operations against the West." He provides "a masterly analysis of communist disinformation methods, Western vulnerability to such methods, and the lack of a Western counter-strategy."

Gordon, J.S., ed. Psychological Operations: The Soviet Challenge. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1987. [Wilcox]

Grant, Natalie. Deception: A Tool of Soviet Foreign Policy. Washington, DC: Nathan Hale Institute, 1987.

Gurdon, Hugo. "Dirty Tricks II: How Moscow Faked CIA Plot to Kill Kennedy." Electronic Telegraph, 13 Sep. 1999. [http://www.telegraph.co.uk]

According to the upcoming book by Vasily Mitrokhin and Christopher Andrew, "[t]he KGB forged a letter purporting to be from Lee Harvey Oswald and leaked it to unwitting conspiracy theorists to spread the idea that the CIA was involved in the assassination of President Kennedy."

The KGB also targeted Martin Luther King, planting "unfavourable articles in African newspapers in the hope that more radical black Americans would take his place."

1. Olympic Sports and Propaganda Games: Moscow 1980. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1982.

3. Soviet Propaganda: A Case Study of the Middle East Conflict. New York: Wiley, 1976.

Heuer, Richards J., Jr. "Strategic Deception and Counterdeception: A Cognitive Process Approach." International Studies Quarterly 25, no. 2 (Jun. 1981).

Holland, Max. "The Power of Disinformation: The Lie that Linked CIA to the Kennedy Assassination." Studies in Intelligence 11 (Fall-Winter 2001): 5-17.

In a sad-but-true story, the author details how a "successful deception" by the Rome daily Paese Sera "turns out to be a major reason why many Americans believe, to this day, that the CIA was involved in the assassination of President Kennedy." The linkage between Jim Garrison's investigation and the paper's piece of disinformation is summed up this way: "The epicenter of Garrison's prosecution, and the wellspring for his ultimate theory of the assassination, was the DA's belief in a fantasy published by a Communist-owned Italian newspaper."

Holland, Max. "The Propagation and Power of Communist Security Services Dezinformatsiya." International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 19, no. 1 (Spring 2006): 1-31.

The author surveys the KGB's use of disinformation against the United States. He sees the allegation that U.S. forces used CBW weapons in the Korean war as "one of the most effective disinformation efforts ... in the Cold War's first decade.... One of the most singular and persistent efforts at disinformation revolved around the spate of assassinations [particular that of President Kennedy] that occurred inside the United States in the 1960s."

Kaznacheev, Aleksandr I. Inside a Soviet Embassy: Experiences of a Russian Diplomat in Burma. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1962. London: Robert Hale, 1963.

Pforzheimer notes that Kaznacheev took asylum in the United States in 1959, and calls this book "a rare look into the operation of intelligence in a Soviet Embassy."

For Constantinides, the book is "valuable" and "interesting" for its "first-hand account of Soviet disinformation and covert psychological warfare operations.... This book should be on any list of works on Soviet deception."

Kirkpatrick, Lyman B., Jr., and Howland H. Sargeant. Soviet Political Warfare Techniques: Espionage and Propaganda in the 1970s. New York: National Strategy Information Center, 1972.

Constantinides points out that this work is actually two separate, brief essays, Kirkpatrick's on espionage and Sargeant's on Soviet overt propaganda. Kirkpatrick's presentation is a broad overview but does put the subject into "proper perspective." Sargeant discusses the role of propaganda as an offensive weapon.

Koch, Stephen. Double Lives: Spies and Writers in the Secret Soviet War of Ideas Against the West. New York: The Free Press, 1993. Double Lives: Stalin, Willi Münzenberg and the Seduction of the Intellectuals. London: HarperCollins, 1994. Rev. ed. New York: Enigma Books, 2004.

Surveillant 2.5 calls Double Lives the story of the "Soviet secret apparatus that successfully manipulated" Hemingway, Hellman, Dos Passos, Brecht, and others "to work on a propaganda campaign on behalf of the Comintern. One man masterminded the effort -- the German communist publisher Willi Munzenberg."

Aldrich, I&NS 11.3, says that Koch "demonstrates effectively the direct Soviet manipulation of ... many important figures in the 1930s."

Kruglak, Theodore E. The Two Faces of TASS. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1962.

Lendvai, Paul. The Bureaucracy of Truth: How Communist Governments Manage the News. London: Burnett, 1981. [Cummings]

McMeekin, Sean. The Red Millionaire: A Political Biography of Willi Münzenberg, Moscow's Secret Propaganda Tsar in the West. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004.

From publisher: "Willy Münzenberg -- an Old Bolshevik who was also a self-promoting tycoon -- became one of the most influential Communist operatives in Europe between the World Wars. He created a variety of front groups that recruited well-known political and cultural figures to work on behalf of the Soviet Union and its causes, and he ran an international media empire that churned out enormous amounts of propaganda and raised money for Communist concerns."

Mihalka, Michael. "Soviet Strategic Deception, 1955-1981." Journal of Strategic Studies 1 (1981): 40-93. [Rocca and Dziak]

Mowbray, Stephen de. "Soviet Deception and the Onset of the Cold War: The British Documents for 1943 -- A Lesson in Manipulation." Encounter 62 (Jul.-Aug. 1984): 16-24.

Rocca and Dziak: "Discusses Soviet strategic political deception in the period 1943-1945 and the concomitant roles of Communists, near Communists and Soviet agents in influencing official British thinking and therefore policy towards the USSR."

Pincher, Chapman. The Secret Offensive: Active Measures, Deception, Disinformation, Subversion, Terrorism, Sabotage, and Assassination. New York: St. Martin's, 1986. [Wilcox]

Radvanyi, Janos. Delusion and Reality: Gambits, Hoaxes and Diplomatic One-Upmanship in Vietnam. South Bend, IN: Gateway Editions, 1978.

Rocca and Dziak: A former senior Hungarian diplomat writes about "Soviet political action, deception and disinformation with particular reference to Vietnam."

Risen, James. "K.G.B. Told Tall Tales About Dallas, Book Says." New York Times, 12 Sep. 1999. [http://www.nytimes.com]

According to a new book by Christopher Andrew, based on files supplied to British intelligence by defecting KGB archivist Vasili Mitrokhin, the KGB "took several steps designed to link the CIA to the [John F.] Kennedy assassination."

These activities included "forging a letter from Lee Harvey Oswald to a CIA officer, E. Howard Hunt, asking for information 'before any steps are taken by me or anyone else'.... The Oswald letter was supposed to have been written about two weeks before Kennedy was gunned down in Dallas ..., but was actually created by the KGB in the mid-1970s.... The letter was then passed anonymously to three conspiracy buffs and entered circulation in the United States when it was picked up by one writer of self-published assassination books.... [A] congressional panel that re-investigated the Kennedy assassination in the late 1970s later concluded that the letter was probably a forgery....

"Mitrokhin first attempted to defect to the United States [in 1992], but ... received a lukewarm reception from a CIA officer when he approached the agency in a Baltic country.... Officials say that the CIA's Soviet/East European Division had decided that the KGB was no longer a threat and had instituted a controversial new policy that led CIA officers in the field to turn away many defectors."

1. "The Active Measures Apparatus Tries to Carry On." New Counterpoint 7, no. 2 (Winter 1992): 1-2.

2. The KGB Enters the 1990s. Alexandria, VA: Center for Intelligence Studies, 1990. [Petersen]

3. Soviet Active Measures and Propaganda: Influence Activities in the Gorbachev Era. Canada: Mackenzie Institute, 1989. [pb]

Surveillant 1.1 calls this an "important small monograph by the U.S. expert." Question: Is the above the same as the following? Soviet Agents of Influence: Center for Intelligence Studies Issues Series 3. Alexandria, VA: Center for Intelligence Studies, 1991.

Surveillant 1.6 notes that "Romerstein, former head of USIA's department to counter Soviet active measures, provides an informative update of Soviet efforts and deceptions in this area from the 1980s to the present.... [He] shows that supposed changes are more apparent than real and that the KGB is more polished than ever."

Romerstein, Herbert. "Disinformation as a KGB Weapon in the Cold War." Journal of Intelligence History 1, no. 1 (Summer 2001). [http://www.intelligence-history.org/jih/previous.html]

From abstract: "KGB disinformation was not only to defame or denigrate an enemy or potential enemy, it was also to confuse and even to cause him to take an action beneficial to the Soviet Union. Such activities continued until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and included the training in disinformation techniques of other Eastern-block secret services such as the German 'Stasi.'"

Shultz, Richard H., Jr., and Roy Godson. Dezinformatsia: Active Measures in Soviet Strategy. New York, London: Pergamon-Brassey's, 1984. [pb] 1984.

According to Pforzheimer, this book "has been well received by knowledgeable students.... Written in straightforward, readable prose,... it is of value to the intelligence officer, members of the academic community, journalists, and the general public.... Chapter V is given over to interviews ... with two major defectors in the field of active measures - Stanislav Levchenko ... and Ladislav Bittman."

Milivojevic, I&NS 2.2, praises the work as a "systematic, well-documented and convincing analysis." He views Chapter 4 as "the most interesting and original in the entire book, analysing Soviet covert political techniques used against the West between 1960 and 1980."

Sleeper, Raymond S., ed. Mesmerized by the Bear: The Soviet Strategy of Deception. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1987.

Smith, Charles L. "Soviet Maskirovka." Airpower Journal 2 (Spring 1988): 28-39. [Seymour]

Thomas, David. "KGB Anti-CIA Literature: A Preliminary Review." Foreign Intelligence Literary Scene 5, no. 4 (Jul./Aug. 1986): 1.

U.S. Congress. House. Select Committee on Intelligence. Soviet Covert Action: The Forgery Offensive. 6 and 19 Feb. 1980. 96th Cong., 2d sess., 1963. Washington, DC: GPO, 1980.

U.S. Congress. Senate. Subcommittee on Internal Security. Testimony of Lawrence Britt [pseud., Ladislav Bittman]. 5 May 1971. 92d Cong., 1st sess. Washington, DC: GPO, 1971.

U.S. Information Agency. Soviet Active Measures in the 'Post-Cold War' Era, 1988-1991. Washington, DC: U.S. Information Agency, 1992.

"A Report Prepared at the Request of the United States House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations." Click for TEXT of this report.

Wettig, Gerhard. Broadcasting and Detente: Eastern Policies and Their Implications for East-West Relations. London: C. Hurst, 1977. [Cummings]

1 posted on 03/21/2006 6:24:02 PM PST by strategofr

Thanks. Have bookmarked for casual usage as time permits. Obviously the Internet documents are most easy to obtain, if still in some archived site.

2 posted on 03/21/2006 6:43:27 PM PST by Marine_Uncle (Honor must be earned)

the Soviet Union might be gone, but US enemies still use those propaganda tactics and still have their US allies (ie the democrap party)

3 posted on 03/21/2006 6:45:41 PM PST by Palpatine (Every single liberal is now an enemy of the republic!)

Cold war were with Soviet Union not Russia. I thought that Stratfor anaylists at least educated.

4 posted on 03/22/2006 2:05:57 AM PST by RusIvan ("THINK!" the motto of IBM)

"the Soviet Union might be gone, but US enemies still use those propaganda tactics and still have their US allies (ie the democrap party)"

And the most important of these enemies still reside in the Kremlin.

5 posted on 03/22/2006 8:50:55 AM PST by strategofr (Hillary stole 1000+ secret FBI files on DC movers & shakers, Hillary's Secret War, Poe, p. xiv)

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794