262 THE END OF THE COLD WAR
policy. Republican Congressman Dan Lungren was emphatic that this
activity had to stop if the Soviet leaders truly hoped for a rapproche-
ment with America. The Party Secretariat and KGB made use of a
range of outlets, including the Western peace movement, to undermine
NATO’s purposes.^30 CIA Director Casey pointed out that international
friendship societies and various other ‘front organizations’ were
favourite means for disseminating the contents of Politburo policies.
Newspapers in Africa and elsewhere were another avenue whereby the
KGB infiltrated misinformation into the world’s media. Bribery of for-
eign editors and reporters was common. Forging Ameri can official
documents was also a favourite technique.^31
Reagan had appointed a Hollywood film director, Charles Wick, to
the United States Information Agency. Wick’s task was to carry the
fight to the Soviet leadership. He received a budget that soon amounted
to $820 million.^32 His agency and Radio Free Europe received $1 bil-
lion annually and the CIA’s disinformation activity received $3.5
billion. Wick was an inspired choice. Despite admitting to a slender
knowledge of international affairs, Wick had superb expertise in pre-
senting America in the best possible light. He was equally effective in
challenging Soviet misrepresentations – and this was where he laid
emphasis in his work, if only because the Moscow media themselves
were doing a superb job of exposing the abusive nature of communist
rule past and present. Wick and his officials hardly needed to devote
effort to denunciation.
He nevertheless felt the need to counteract the slurs about Ameri-
can official activity that continued to enter the public domain on a
global basis. One such story was that it had been scientists at Fort
Detrick, Maryland who had deliberately created the AIDS virus.
Pravda printed a cartoon of a US general handing over cash for a test
tube of the contagious virus. An additional ingredient of nastiness was
suggested by depicting each germ as a swastika. Another slur was that
America had developed an ‘ethnic weapon’ designed to be lethal for
Africans and people of African descent and harmless for people of
European ancestry. The charge of racist militarism received space in
a number of newspapers around the world. (This was too outrageous
an item for even Pravda to publish it.) A third was that America was
violating the 1972 Bacteriological and Toxin Weapons Convention
whereas the USSR dutifully abided by it. The Soviet media were awash
with allegations in 1986–1987. They accused the CIA of having perpet-
rated the Jonestown massacre in Guyana in 1978 as well as of having