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

Document ForgerySDI to ”prevent the development of unfavorable tendencies“in NATO and to control its allies was false; third, thatSDI would enable the U.S ”to threaten the Soviet Unionwith a knock-out blow“; fourth, that SDI would ”coerce theSoviet Union and make a practical contribution to theliberation of all nations enslaved by Communist totalitarianism,including, possibly, even the Russians themselves“were false; fifth, that SDI would enable the U.S. to maintaina technological lead over its ”rivals“ in the free world;and sixth, that the Soviets do not have their own form ofSDI were additional false statements. The Weinbergerforgery was intended to assist the Soviet active measurescampaign. However, it was exposed by the U.S. governmentand did not serve Soviet purposes.The Schweitzer-Pinochet letter. In July 1985, an Italianjournalist found a copy of a letter signed with the name ofGeneral Robert Schweitzer, the head of the Inter-AmericanDefense Board. The letter was a forgery addressed toPresident Pinochet of Chile asking him to provide troopsto fight on behalf of the United States in Central America.The journalist contacted the U.S. Embassy and within theday received evidence that the letter was a forgery. He didnot write a story based on the letter. A few days later,however, another Italian press service ran a story datelinedMexico City based on the letter. When they were advised itwas a forgery, they investigated and discovered that theletter had been provided to one of their writers by thepublic relations man for the Guatemalan insurgency, whichwas supported by Cuba and Nicaragua. The news serviceran an expose of the forgery, attributing it to the Cubansand Nicaraguans. This incident points to a problem theSoviets had in surfacing forgeries. On the one hand, thecommon technique of using a plain, unmarked envelopeto surface the forgery creates suspicion in the mind of therecipient. On the other hand, the use of a human being topass on the forgery provided a trail leading back tothe forger.Former United States Information Agency (USIA) specialistin Soviet disinformation Herbert Romerstein wrotea letter to General Schweitzer on August 16, 1985, providingbackground on the forgery, then sent a copy of thisletter to the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations,where he testified, for printing in a Congressional reporton Soviet active measures. Romerstein wrote the word”copy“ on the top of the letter then, at the request of aCzech diplomat, Vaclav Zluva, provided him with a copy ofthis letter. As a precaution, Romerstein drew a line underthe word ”copy“ on the original from which all subsequentcopies were made, which made Zluva’s letter uniqueand identifiable.In August 1986, the Washington Post and U.S. Newsand World Report received a forgery in a plain whiteenvelope signed with Romerstein’s name. The WashingtonPost called him in; he looked at it, explained theforgery, and the newspaper carried a story on it (August19, 1986). The forgery was on the letterhead of theUnited States Information Agency and was signed withEncyclopedia of Espionage, Intelligence, and SecurityRomerstein’s name. At the top of the forgery was the word”copy“ with no line under it. This made it clear that theexemplar for the forgery was the letter Romerstein hadgiven to the Czech. When Romerstein confronted Zluvaabout this, he admitted sending the exemplar to Prague.In the forgery, Romerstein made it appear as if he hadorganized a USIA effort to spread all of the false storiesthat had appeared around the world after the Chernobyldisaster. In fact, the false stories were generated by Sovietreluctance to reveal information about the accident. OnApril 26, 1987, the Soviet publication Moscow News admitted,”The formulation, not for the press, is being usedmore and more often. Why cannot our press use what isbeing regularly reported to the International Atomic EnergyAgency? There are some who do not understand thatrumours and hearsay are generated not by summariesand figures, but by their absence.“Reagan signature. In the 1980s, before the downfall of theBerlin Wall in 1989 and the Soviet Union in 1991, PresidentRonald Reagan’s signature appeared on a number offorgeries. The last to appear was in May 1987. It was asupposed memorandum to the secretaries of state anddefense, and the director of the CIA. In this forgery, whichbore the date March 10, 1983, the president was supposedlyordering the establishment of a U.S. military forcecalled the ”Permanent Peace Forces“ to intervene in LatinAmerica. This forgery received wide circulation in LatinAmerica and was designed to inflame nationalist and anti-American feelings.The usual path of a Soviet forgery was from the KGBto a target newspaper. When the target was a legitimatepublication it became difficult for the Soviets to succeed inplanting the forgery. They often used publications whichthey could control or influence for the initial surfacing.One publication frequently used this way was the Indiannewspaper, Patriot. In testimony before a British court onMarch 24, 1987, Ilya Dzhirkvelov, a former officer of theKGB, revealed that in 1962, on KGB orders, he participatedin setting up this newspaper.After a forgery appeared in a publication such as thePatriot, it was replayed by the Soviet press agencies TASSor Novosti. This provided copies in every language forKGB officers to plant in the world press through theiragents but not all forgeries were meant for publication.They were passed by KGB agents of influence to officialsof a target government in the hope that they would believeforgeries designed to increase anti-American feeling. Suchforgeries were often unknown to American officials, whohad no opportunity to refute many of them. With the fall ofthe Soviet Union and the relaxation of the American-Soviet rivalry, KGB forgeries lessened, but forgeries continueto remain a significant weapon of disinformationstories worldwide.Acknowledgement. The author wishes to thank HerbertRomerstein, former coordinator of Programs to Counter349