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

Document ForgeryForeign Intelligence Directorate plans, coordinates andsupports operations which are designed to backstop overtSoviet propaganda using such devices of covert actions asforgeries, planted press articles, planted rumors, and controlledinformation media. In particular, the number ofSoviet forgeries has increased dramatically in recent years.In the early 1970s, this section of the KGB was upgradedfrom “department” to “service” status—an indication ofits increased importance. Service A maintains liaison withits counterparts in the Cuban and the East Europeanservices and coordinates its overall program with theirs.“The ”U.S. Army Field Manual, FM 30–31B,“ also knownas ”Stability Operations-Intelligence,“ was the most ubiquitousforgery of recent years. In September, 1976, aphotocopy of this forgery appeared on the bulletin boardof the Philippine Embassy in Thailand, together with aletter addressed to Philippine President Marcos. The forgerysaid that the United States planned to use leftistterrorist groups in Western countries to promote U.S.objectives. It reappeared in 1978 in two Spanish publicationswhere it had been planted by a Spanish Communistand a Cuban intelligence officer. The next year, copies of aPortuguese language translation were circulated by theSoviets among military officers in Lisbon.The forged field manual had worldwide distributionin the late 1970s. In January, 1979, Covert Action InformationBulletin, published in the United States by CIA defectorPhilip Agee, reproduced the forgery as if it were anauthentic document. While the original forgery was atypescript, the magazine reset it in font that gave theimpression that it was a printed document.In 1983, the Soviets began to replay the story. In thenew version, the manual had been discovered in thepossession of the Italian Masonic organization P2, whichwas involved in an important scandal at the time. This wasan attempt both to link the United States government tothe scandal and to authenticate the forgery.Presidential review memorandum on Africa. On September17, 1980, White House press spokesman Jody Powellannounced that an unidentified group had sought to sowracial discord by circulating a forged presidential reviewmemorandum on Africa that suggested a racist policy onthe part of the United States. The first surfacing on theforgery appears to have been in the San Francisco newspaper,Sun Reporter (September 18, 1980). The SunReporter’s political editor, Edith Austin, claims in thatissue of the paper to have received the document from an”African official on her recent visit on the continent.“ Theforgery was replayed by the Soviet news agency TASS onSeptember 18, 1980, and distributed worldwide.Kirkpatrick speech. Former United States ambassador tothe United Nations Jeanne Kirkpatrick has been the targetof more than one Soviet forgery. On February 6, 1983, thepro- Soviet Indian weekly, Link published the text of asupposed speech by U.N. Ambassador Kirkpatrick outlininga plan for the Balkanization of India. The speech wasnever given, but this forgery has been replayed manytimes by Soviet-controlled propaganda outlets. Its mostrecent appearance was in the book, Devil and His Dart,published in 1986. The author, Kunhanandan Nair, wasthe European correspondent of Blitz, another pro-Sovietpublication.On November 5, 1982, the British magazine, NewStatesman published a photostat of a letter supposedlyfrom a South African official to Kirkpatrick. He was allegedlysending her a birthday gift. The U.S. Mission to theU.N. wrote the magazine on November 19, branding theletter a forgery. New Statesman countered this by printinganother photostat of the forgery with entirely differentspacing between the lines. The magazine claimed that theletter was authentic and that they had received it from asource in the U.S. Department of State. A comparison ofthis forgery with a letter sent by the South Africa official toa number of U.S. journalists announcing his appointmentas information counselor at the embassy revealed that thisletter was the exemplar. The real letter had been typed ona computer. The forgery based on it was typed on atypewriter and contained a number of misspellings.Los Angeles Olympics forgery. In the summer of 1984, twobizarre leaflets were mailed to African and Asian participantsin the Los Angeles Olympics, which were boycottedby the Soviets. Signed by the Klu Klux Klan, they threatenedthe lives of these athletes. These leaflets later provedto be Soviet forgeries, written in poor English. When theU.S. government exposed them and pointed out that thereis no organization in the United States called simply theKlu Klux Klan (the organizations bear individual nameslike White Knights of the Klu Klux Klan or Invisible Empireof the Klu Klux Klan), TASS, the Soviet official newsagency, responded on July 12, 1984, by claiming that theleaflets were signed ”the Invisible Empire, The Knights ofthe Klu Klux Klan.“ TASS attempted unsuccessfully tocorrect the error on the leaflets made by the KGB. Theforgeries were intended to preoccupy African-Americanand Asian-American athletes with intimidation, and negativelyaffect their performance. Despite the lack of Sovietcompetition, Americans won a record 83 gold medals atthe 1894 Olympics, led by the 23-year-old African-AmericanCarl Lewis.Weinberger speech and the Strategic Defense Initiative.During the summer of 1986, West European journalistsreceived a copy of the text of a supposed speech by U.S,Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger on the StrategicDefense Initiative (SDI). No such speech was ever made.The forgery contained five falsehoods: first, that the U.S.had a desire for military ”prevalence“ (superiority) overthe Soviet Union in order to be able to achieve victory in a”controlled nuclear exchange“ (limited nuclear war) or aprotracted war; second, that the United States would use348 Encyclopedia of Espionage, Intelligence, and Security