the early 1950s, a constant theme of Soviet active measures was
“peace campaigns,” designed to portray the United States as a hawk-
ish and irresponsible nuclear power. Active measures often centered
on the placement of misleading or false newspaper stories to impact
popular opinion. For example, during the Korean War, false stories
were planted in the press alleging U.S. complicity in spreading
plague and smallpox in Korea and China.
KGBChair Aleksandr Shelepinmade Ivan Agayants head of a
Service D (the D apparently stood for Dezinformatsiya) in the late
1950s and insisted that the First Chief Directorate, which was re-
sponsible for foreign intelligence, expand its campaigns against the
American leadership. Shelepin apparently believed that such cam-
paigns could be directed to drive a wedge between the Americans and
their NATO allies. The KGB gave active measures an important role
in Soviet diplomacy. In a 1986 report from KGB Chair Viktor Che-
brikovto Mikhail Gorbachev, the KGB chief trumpeted: “Intelli-
gence systematically carried out active measures to aid the imple-
mentation of the Soviet state’s foreign policy initiatives and to expose
the foreign policy of the United States and its allies. Active measures
were carried out to discredit the American ‘Star Wars’ plan, to aggra-
vate and deepen imperialist contradictions, and to step up the anti-
war movement in Western countries.”
A major target of KGB active measures was the Central Intelli-
gence Agency (CIA). In the 1960s and 1970s, the KGB sponsored
“exposures” of CIA operations in many Western and neutral coun-
tries. The KGB in the late 1960s paid for the publication of books
blaming the CIA for John F. Kennedy’s assassination. In Great
Britain, these publications were successful enough to lead 32 Labour
members of Parliament to sign a petition calling for the expulsion of
the CIA station from London. Articles and books were published list-
ing the names and addresses of CIA officers, leading to the assassi-
nation of a CIA officer in Greece. In the 1980s the KGBplaced a
number of stories in Indian and African newspapers claiming that
AIDS had been designed by the U.S. government to destroy the pop-
ulation of Africa. The articles were designed to raise anti-American
sentiment in African countries where the United States hoped to base
naval units. These articles then appeared in the European and Amer-
ican press and were believed by tens of millions of people.ACTIVE MEASURES •306-313 A-G.qxd 7/27/06 7:54 AM Page 3