ENCYCLOPEDIA OF Espionage, Intelligence, and Security Volume ...

DisinformationUniversity students protest against possible fraud in the 2000 elections in Peru. The word ‘‘SIN’’ refers to Peru’s national intelligence agency, which allegedlyused dirty tricks and intimidation to give the incumbent President Alberto Fujimori an unfair advantage over his opponent, Alejandro Toledo. Fujimori laterresigned and Toledo gained the presidency. AP/WIDE WORLD PHOTOS.purposes in peacetime. Rumors, lies, and other forms ofdisinformation were made public by the Soviet Union todiscredit the United States, the latter being the context inwhich the word is generally applied. The KGB coined theRussian word dezinformatsiya; it came into the Englishlanguage as disinformation. The technique of disinformationgoes back at least to 1918 with the end of World War I.Disinformation as a KGB weapon began in 1923 when I. S.Inshlikht, deputy chairman of the GPU, then the name ofthe KGB, proposed the establishment of a special disinformationoffice to conduct active intelligence operations.Soviet active measures. Soviet active measures refer to theinfluence operations organized by the Soviet government.These include white, gray, and black propaganda, as wellas disinformation. White propaganda was created by theInformation Department of the Communist Party and includedthose publicly identified Soviet channels as RadioMoscow, Novosti, and pamphlets and magazines as wellas official Soviet government statements. Gray propagandawas organized by the International Department ofthe Communist Party and used such channels as theforeign Communist Parties and the network of internationalSoviet fronts. Black propaganda was prepared bythe KGB and included agents of influence, covert mediaplacements, and until 1959, assassinations. Forgeries anddisinformation were used by the Soviets in all modes. Thefirst effective disinformation campaign was during theKorean Conflict. This was a major Soviet disinformationcampaign that generated media attention. The Americanswere accused of going into Korean villages during theKorean conflict (1950–1953) and shooting villagers, orkilling them with biological weapons and chemical warfare.In fact, the Soviets used anthrax in Korea to kill men,women, and children, and then blamed it on the Americans.An attempt is now underway with the Cold War HistoryProject at the Woodrow Wilson International Centerfor Scholars, Smithsonian Institution, in Washington, DC,to counter this account, especially through the work ofKatherine Weathersby who discovered that Soviet documentsobtained through a Japanese researcher beliedthese rumors and accusations. The issue re-surfaced inthe book United States and Biological Weapons: Secretsof the Early Cold War and Korea (Indiana University Press,332 Encyclopedia of Espionage, Intelligence, and Security