Current Issue

Disinformation 
as a KGB Weapon in the Cold War
by HERBERT ROMERSTEIN -- abstract

KGB disinformation was not only to defame or denigrate an enemy or potential enemy, it was also to confuse and even to cause him to take an action beneficial to the Soviet Union. Such activities continued until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and included the training in disinformation techniques of other Eastern-block secret services such as the German 'Stasi.' Yet, valuable as disinformation might have been for the KGB during the Cold War, it could easily become a two-edged sword when the United States exposed its Soviet origin.
An early Cold War disinformation campaign accused the United States in 1952 of using germ warfare in Korea. Furthermore, a most sensational story was the allegation that the United States deliberately created AIDS to be used in biological warfare. 
Soviet forgeries boomed during the years of the Reagan administration. In 1980, the CIA agreed to brief the House Intelligence Committee on Soviet disinformation and forgeries. Herbert Romerstein, in 1983, joined the staff of the United States Information Agency with the responsibility of exposing Soviet active measures. Starting in 1988, he participated in working level meetings with Soviet officials in order to clear up misunderstandings – while Americans complained about specific disinformation activities, the Soviets complained about stories in the media and even works of fiction, supposedly unaware that the U.S. government had no control of such matters.