PART 6 :THE BIG BAMBOOZLE 911 & THE 'WAR' ON TERROR

THE BIG BAMBOOZLE
911 & THE 'WAR' ON TERROR
BY PHILIP MARSHALL

26

Not A Drill, This Is The Real World 

At 8:34 a.m., Atta again thought he was talking to the passengers, but instead broadcast to Boston Center. “Nobody move please. We are going back to the airport. Nobody make any stupid moves.” At the same time, Boston Center was making its first contact with the United States military with the sole purpose of launching the F-15's at Otis Air Force base in Falmouth, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod, 154 miles northeast of Manhattan. The jets were called to battle stations after Boston Center made it clear that this was no drill, this was real world. [1] 

The call went from Boston Center to the military on-duty battle commander for NORAD’s Northeast region, Colonel Robert Marr at Rome, New York. Colonel Marr immediately called Otis to order battle stations for the F-15's. Colonel Marr then called General Larry K. Arnold, at NORAD’s Continental Region**, headquartered at Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida, to get authority to scramble the F-15's. General Arnold gave the go-ahead and said he’d work on getting the shoot-down authorization. He testified to the 9/11 Commission that he told Marr, “Go ahead and scramble them, we’ll get the authorities later.” [2] 

After the first airplane hit the north tower, evidence indicates that U.S. military commanders made the correct assessment by quickly labeling hijacked commercial airliners as “hostile.” Fighter jets at Otis Air Force Base on Cape Cod were immediately scrambled after the military was notified. The pilots and their F-15's were airborne within 20 minutes of A.T.C notification. [3] 

The use of airliners as weapons may have come as a shock to most Americans, but the scenario had been practiced by the U.S. military on several occasions. And if there is one communication system that is superior to the airline industry’s, it is that of the command chain within the U.S. military that leads directly to the Commander-in-Chief**.

27 

American Heroes 

At 8:38 a.m., Betty Ong read off the seat numbers of the hijackers. She reported that they were all Middle Eastern, that one spoke no English and one spoke excellent English. They were in the cockpit, she said, and she didn’t know how they got in there. 

Remarkably, at 8:39 a.m., UA175, which had yet to be hijacked, crossed paths with AA11 just west of the Connecticut-New York border. Atta was at the controls of AA11 and the UA pilots were informed of the crossing traffic and that ATC wasn’t sure of his intentions. The United pilots reported seeing the traffic passing below them, without realizing that the plane was on a course for the north tower or they themselves were minutes from their own deaths. 

At 8:41, in Fort Worth, American Airlines Operations was well aware that American 11 had been declared a hijacking, that the plane was heading for New York City and that it was descending. There were numerous clear channels of excellent information being delivered. Communication is not a problem in the aviation world. 

At 8:44 Amy Sweeney stayed on the air phone to Forth Worth. “Something is wrong … We are in a rapid descent … We are all over the place … We are flying low … I see water … I see buildings … We are flying very, very low … We are flying way too low!” 

At 8:46, Amy Sweeney’s last words: “Oh my GOD, we are way too low.” At 8:46, American 11 slammed into the north tower. America’s hell had begun. The unsuspecting people in the World Trade Center would join Betty Ong, Amy Sweeney and the rest of the AA11 passengers and crew among the first of the almost 3,000 massacred that morning.

28 

Condi Rice Is Such A Dingbat 

By 8:50 a.m., every network was broadcasting a live shot of the fire at the north tower of the World Trade Center. Among the millions of viewers was the President of the United States, watching from the presidential limousine, which was equipped with a direct line to every agency in Washington. Surely the president could see the dense smoke pouring from all sides of the nation’s tallest building and a gaping hole that covered three stories of the building. Windows had blown out of all sides of the north tower as billowing black clouds rose into the brilliant blue sky. 

Air Force F-15's first appeared over Cape Cod on the radar recordings at 8:53 a.m. Unfortunately, American 11 had already slammed the north tower. Meanwhile, United 175 was in the process of another murderous takeover at 31,000 feet over New Jersey. The Otis F-15's would not reach Manhattan in time. 

By 8:55, there had been a flurry of communications through multiple systems: from hijacked American 11 to North Carolina to Fort Worth, from Boston A.T.C to American Operations in Fort Worth, from Fort Worth to Washington and Boston, from Boston A.T.C to NORAD in Rome, New York to FAA Headquarters in Washington to Otis on Cape Cod to Washington to Florida and back to Washington. A separate call was made from Washington to Florida; this one came from the National Security Adviser** to the presidential limo, which was in Sarasota. 

FAA Headquarters in Washington had been fully aware since 8:34 through multiple channels of communication that American 11, a Boeing 767 out of Logan, had been hijacked. Calls to the National Security Adviser** came from the official avenue of information at the FAA. The FAA call to the White House was solely because an airliner had been hijacked. 

As described in The Commission, a stonewall was set up at the White House** to avoid any explanation of the incompetent military response on 9/11. There were plenty of points toward a scary super-terrorist that was lurking behind a dark cloud of sketchy new threats while nearly three years would pass before Condoleezza Rice**, the National Security Adviser on 9/11, would finally testify before the 9/11 Commission in 2004. 

Dr. Rice testified that at 8:55, when she telephoned the President, after the Air Force had scrambled fighters and the World Trade Center was ablaze, she had informed the President that “a twin engine plane had crashed into the north tower” and “that’s all we know.” But, as we have seen, there was no mystery – among dozens at the FAA and in the federal communications loop – as to what had happened: American Airlines Flight 11, a heavy Boeing 767, had been hijacked and purposely crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center. By dodging questions we are left with one innocent explanation, that she simply forgot to tell the president that that twin engine airplane burning in the W.T.C was American 11 and forgot to tell him that fighters had scrambled from Otis to chase it down. Oops, I am so not remembering exactly what I told him. Is it time for lunch yet?

29 

Just Give Me A Moment 

General Larry K. Arnold was on duty on September 11, 2001, entrusted with scrambling Air Force fighter jets worldwide from the NORAD command center in Florida. He testified before the 9/11 Commission that after he launched the Otis F-15's he immediately began trying to reach the President. He had a direct line to the presidential limousine, but somehow never got through, a catastrophic failure in the world of military communications. Luckily, the president’s national security adviser** was in her office at the White House when the general called. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld** was already at his office in the Pentagon. Phones were ringing all over Washington. 

Meanwhile, two F-15's were shooting south from Otis, but would be too late to stop either AA11 or UA175. The hijackers’ tactical plan had already delivered a stunning defeat to the United States military. 

They were far from done. 

After an on time departure at 8:19 from Dulles Airport near Washington, D.C., American 77 had jetted west, directly away from the Pentagon. Every minute, every second was critical in beating the USAF fighters to the targets. From the perspective of the hijackers, the sooner they could turn the plane back east, the better. The race was on. 

The pilot/hijacker, Hani Hanjour, one of three we followed earlier in San Diego and his four Saudi muscle hijackers would fail to initiate the cockpit attack to match Atta’s (on American 11) performance at just 15 minutes after takeoff. The tactical plan for near-simultaneous hits needed the Boeing 757 turning back east by 8:44 and into the west wall of the Pentagon no later than 9:15. But each minute heading west after 8:40 would double the time required on the return. This would foil the plan for near simultaneous hits on the targets and would surely expose the plane to U.S. fighter jet interception. 

At 8:33, AA77 had leveled off at an initial cruise altitude of 29,000 just 105 miles west of the Pentagon, still within an acceptable takeover window, and began cruising at eight miles per minute away from the target. At 8:44, two minutes before American 11 slammed the north tower and just as United 93 took off from Newark, Washington Center (Air Traffic Control) handed American 77 off to the next controlled airspace to the west under the watch of Indianapolis Center. If he had turned around then, the impact on the Pentagon would have been somewhere close to 9:05. 

But that’s not what happened.

After a few routine exchanges with Indy Center, the flight was cleared for its flight plan altitude of 35,000 feet while the distance from Washington began to click up swiftly to 200, 230, 250 miles to the west. In the same minute that American 11 slammed the north tower, the cockpit door was opened on American 77, but the flight was 250 miles west of the Pentagon and still heading west. 

By the time Saudi Hani Hanjour was in the captain’s seat, he was 264 miles west of his target. Surely, this would be too far away, considering that fighters were based at Andrews AFB, and that a lethal missile defense system and sweeping radars protect Washington airspace. Surely, there would be a swift response to an unidentified target flying at 500 miles per hour for over 35 minutes straight for the nation’s capital while the country was under an air attack. Right? Isn’t this exactly why we have agreed to pay for the world’s top military protection? 

At 8:56, “American 77, Indy.” 

At 8:56:32, “American 77, Indy.” 

At 8:56:46, “American 77, Indy?” 

At 8:56:53, “American 77, Indy, radio check, how do you read?” 

At 8:55, 32 minutes after Boston Center had alerted the military on its hijacked 767, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice** was on the phone with the President**, who was in the limo outside an elementary school in Sarasota, Florida. He was far from New York, but had seen the live pictures that producers at ABC and CNN had already aired of the major fire burning within the north tower. It took three minutes from impact until the pictures showed up on television screens around the world and only that long for network producers to surmise that this was indeed a major tragedy. The caption on the screen read: “Disaster at the World Trade Center.” 

Surely, the national emergency channels that run straight through the National Security Adviser** and the Department of Defense** to the Commander-in-Chief** could match the TV networks’ time of three minutes. Flight attendants Betty Ong and Amy Sweeney had both been successful in being patched from a hijacked airliner, through a customer service agent in North Carolina, to American Airlines operations in Texas within seven minutes of the first sign of trouble. 

As for the tactical planners, undoubtedly they were holding their breath, waiting for results. The next ten minutes needed to produce reports of three more impacts. One down, three to go. Soon the new world, the Post-9/11 World, would be created. 

The plan at the moment was for Marwan al-Shehhi on United 175 to be in a screaming dive toward Manhattan before leveling out and crashing into the south tower. He would not disappoint them. The plan was also to have Ziad Jarrah bearing down on the Capitol dome and the all-Saudi crew diving at the west wall of the Pentagon. 

The 9/11 Commission would later attempt to learn why the entire system of defense had failed, from CIA** to FBI** to Air Force** to the Administration** to airline security. It was a total, catastrophic defeat of American nation security, so, naturally, they asked the National Security Adviser** for insight. After much resistance and painful negotiation between the 9/11 Commission and White House counselor Alberto Gonzales**, Rice** was finally placed under oath in testimony.April 8, 2004

If the matter had been left to Alberto Gonzales**, Dick Cheney** and the President**, they would have been happy if everyone had just decided to forget the un-American idea of investigating the greatest failure of American defense** and intelligence** in history. Trust them! The administration** would look into it and tell us, through the White House press secretary**, exactly what had happened and who was responsible. 

Philip Shenon, a New York Times reporter who was covering the 9/11 investigations, wrote an account of the stonewalling that transpired between the Bush-Cheney White House** and the 9/11 Commission. Shenon wrote that Alberto Gonzales** had outfoxed the commissioners by getting them to agree that Rice** would testify once and only once for a total of three hours. In hindsight, the commission needed something closer to three full days. Again, we see that those being investigated were setting the ground rules for the investigation. The commissioners later wrote that her tactic was obviously to “run out the clock” until the negotiated time was gone. A simple question would be asked and Dr. Rice** would ramble on unrelated topics; and she began her testimony by reading a ten-page, single-spaced statement that merely repeated what had been said before. [1] 

Well into the stalling, Commissioner Richard Ben-Veniste tried to stop the nonsense during the subject of the no less than forty pre-attack warnings that had been issued directly to George W. Bush** over the four months before the attack. 

His specific line of questioning pertained to the August 6, 2001, presidential daily briefing (P.D.B) entitled “Bin Laden Poised to Strike inside the United States” prepared by the CIA**. “If you could please answer the question!” 

Rice: “Well, first …” 

Ben-Veniste: “Because I have limited time …” 

Rice: “I understand, commissioner, but it’s important … ” 

Ben-Veniste: “Did you tell the president?” 

Rice: “It’s important that I also address … it’s also important, commissioner, that I address the other issues that you have raised … so I will do it quickly, but if you’ll just give me a moment … ” 

Ben-Veniste: “My only question is whether you told the president …” 

Rice: “I understand, commissioner, but I will … if you will just give me moment, I will address fully the question that you’ve asked …” 

This was followed by a two-minute repeat of old facts. When White House-friendly Republicans began asking questions, she would be allowed to ramble on without resistance. [2] 

Let’s see, Mr. Bush had seen the W.T.C ablaze and he’s spoken with his National Security Adviser who had information from the FAA who knew that a hijacked 767 was now burning in the nation’s tallest building and knew that USAF fighters had been scrambled. These actions are consistent with him waiting for confirmation that the attack was over. He didn’t get that confirmation;instead he got an update that only one of the four had reached it’s target. This could not have been good news. 

While the N.Y.F.D donned oxygen tanks and masks and began climbing those 80 stories of concrete stairs at 8:59, the President** closed his call with Dr. Rice**. Instead of a conference call with Rumsfeld** at the Defense Department, he opted to walk into a second-grade classroom as if a Boeing 767 wasn’t burning within a hell inside the World Trade Center. In hindsight, he was stalling. It’s another one of those “hard to fathom” situations that checker this entire plot.

30 

Wild West Show 

Although the president of the United States** was now sitting in a second-grade classroom in Sarasota, he held the key to the missiles beneath the wings of the F-15's that had been scrambled from Otis. A 10-minute video shot from the back of the classroom captures the actions of America’s Commander-in-Chief** in the nation’s most critical moments, just as the raiders were sweating the outcome of their brilliant tactical planning. While UA175, UA93 and AA77 were attempting to defeat the U.S. military, the Commander-in-Chief** strolled nonchalantly into the classroom. 

After his “briefing” of the towering inferno at the World Trade Center, George W. Bush prioritized a demonstration that American second-graders could actually read. To make certain, the second-grade teacher had practiced nonstop for a week the same lesson over and over, so the president could see, with his own eyes, that seven-and eight-year-old African-American students could read and pronounce words. The president had flown in an entourage of the Secretary of Education, the Lieutenant Governor of Florida, advisers Karl Rove**, Ari Fleischer** and Chief of Staff Andrew Card** to bear witness to this event. 

The seven-year-old's would probably have preferred a Wild West show or perhaps a puppet show, but may have been optimistic when the star of this show entered the room with a west Texas drawl, “Goo Moarnin!” Maybe it was going to be a Wild West show after all. 

Oblivious to the CNN live shot he had just seen over the caption “Disaster at the World Trade Center,” George Walker Bush introduced the tall black man with a suit as the Secretary of Education and another figure within the flashes of pictures as the Lieutenant of something and the teacher sure seemed uptight today as the seven-year-old's sat in their new clothes and at attention, ready to perform. It was very clear that they must pronounce everything and a mistake might bring the end of the world. 

“Great to meet everybody,” Bush forced a smile. “I’m real excited to be here. Good to meet you all.” He addressed the students, “I met your principal … Thank you for practicing … Really important.” 

Really important? 

The president took control and asked the teacher to sit down and begin the demonstration. From the very beginning of this classroom appearance, the president smiles briefly and nods and even laughs aloud a few times, but there are cycles of fleeting, nervous facial expressions with eyes that seem hollow and cold, before he returns to the forced smile and rigid posture. Understandable: He’s just seen a terrifying scene of an airliner burning inside the W.T.C. That’s one consideration.

Another consideration is that he’s sweating out the riskiest political move in American history and if his involvement is exposed by a failure to execute the Saudi tactical plan, an entirely different type of execution would take place. His. 

Under that scenario, we might expect a little fidgeting.

31

Positive Identification 

At 8:37 a.m., United 175, a 300,000 pound Boeing 767 had just reached its cruise altitude after departing Boston Logan. Flight planned to Los Angeles, the wide body held 40 tons of fuel or 12,000 gallons. Lets do some math: Considering that a Tomahawk missile weighs just 2,500 pounds total, a 300,000 pound 767 would be the world’s largest conventional missile—the equivalent of over 100 Tomahawks. [1] 

“United 175, Boston.” 

“United 175, go ahead, sir.” 

“Roger, do you have traffic, uh, look at your twelve to one o’clock about ten miles southbound, see if you can see an American 767 out there, please.” 

“Roger, we have him, looks about 29 to 28 thousand.” This sighting provided positive identification to A.T.C that the target they were following was indeed American 11. 

“Okay, thank you. United 175, turn thirty degrees right, I want to keep you away from this traffic.” 

“Thirty degrees to the right, United 175 heavy.” 

“Heavy” is added to all flight numbers of airplanes that weigh more than 250,000 pounds. This is to alert pilots and controllers of an increased wake turbulence that a heavy airplane produces, much like the wake of a large ship on the water. 

This exchange also provided confirmation to the FAA that a hijacked American Airlines Boeing 767 holding 12,000 gallons of fuel was heading straight for Manhattan. Ironically, the United 175 pilots were providing critical intelligence about a situation that would lead to their own murders in just fifteen more minutes. 

At 8:38, while Betty Ong read off the seat numbers of the American 11 hijackers, United 175 cruised in the bliss of one of those glorious weather days when visibility allows a view from Central Park to Philadelphia. This was about the time when the flight attendants would be bringing up the crew meals. Captain Vic Saracini was probably getting anyone’s final view of one of the most striking high-altitude landmarks on Earth, the Twin Towers in lower Manhattan, down to his left. He couldn’t know that this very airplane would be inside the south tower in just 22 minutes. 

At 8:39, “United 175, cleared direct Sparta … and contact New York Center on 127.17.

At 8:40, “Good morning New York Center, United 175 heavy at three one oh.” Three one oh is 31,000 feet. 

At 8:41, in Fort Worth, American Airlines Operations was well aware that American 11 had been declared a hijacking, that the plane was heading for New York City and that it was descending. There were numerous clear channels of excellent information being delivered. 

At 8:41, “New York, United 175 heavy.” 

“One seventy five, go ahead.” 

“Yeah, we figured to wait to go to you, center … we heard a suspicious transmission on our departure out of Boston, sounded like someone keyed the mike and said uhh, everybody stay in your seats.” 

“Okay, I’ll pass that along over here.” 

What the pilots couldn’t know was that, at that moment, Amy Sweeney was giving a play by play account as American 11 rocketed into the north tower. 

At 8:51:42, the New York Center controller saw a change in the transponder code of United 175. 

“United 175, recycle your transponder, squawk code one four seven zero.” 

At 8:51:52, “United 175, New York.” 

At 8:52:09, “United 175, do you read New York?” 

At 8:52:20, “United, United 175, do you read New York?” 

At 8:53:52, “United 175, New York?” 

At 8:54:33, “United 175, do you read New York?” 

Meanwhile, at the Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Florida, a young African American teacher was all business. We can suppose that she felt the entire weight of the world on her shoulders with the President of the United States watching her. A flying spitball wasn’t completely out of the realm of possibility and she hadn’t slept well, restless with thoughts of all that could easily go wrong with these energetic 7-year-old's. The class clown remained in her peripheral vision as her hands trembled. 

The whirring of the cameras was only part of this abnormal day, September 11, 2001. She prayed that the children were going to perform in this heavy environment. “Now read this word from the beginning … Get ready …” She pointed to the poster with a list of words and … “At.” The children sang in unison. 

“Yes! At.” She moved to the next word on the list that was mounted on the easel. “Read this word, the fast way.” The emphasis was on ‘fast’. 

“Ape!” They all responded perfectly, just as practiced. It was going very well 

“Yes, ape.” 

“Get ready to read all the words on this page without making a mistake …” 

The president seemed to find a comfortable spot to focus as he stared down to the floor between the students and the teacher’s chair, not smiling and not following along before catching himself and snapping a slight smile. The teacher was in the zone. “Read this word the fast way,” she commanded. 

“Cat!” 

“Yes, cat … Get ready …” 

“Can!” 

“Yes, can … Get ready …” 

The president seemed preoccupied. Fighters had been scrambled, but they were as useless as spitballs without shoot-down authority. The teacher, to his left, barked out another order. “Get ready to read these words the fast way …” She pointed with a pencil to the poster board. “Get ready …” 

“Cane!” 

“Yes, cane …” 

Bush seemed to perk up and smiled over the students with a mouth smile. 

The teacher: “Boys and girls, you’re going to read these words again…” 

The president’s smile disappeared. He briefly looked to the students with a head nod. 

“Remember,” said the teacher, “what you say when there’s an ‘e’ at the end of the word.” She glanced again over to the president. But he clearly wasn’t paying much attention. “Get ready …” 

“Can!” 

“Yes, can … Get ready …” 

The president stared back to the same spot on the floor without a smile. His posture had hardly changed since he took the swivel chair next to the teacher. He nodded his head.

next 

United 175

PART 2:NEW LIES FOR OLD LIES:THE COMMUNIST STRATEGY OF DECEPTION & DISINFORMATION

NEW LIES FOR OLD 
The Communist Strategy of 
Deception and Disinformation 
by Anatoliy Golitsyn

5 

The New Policy and 

Disinformation Strategy 

KHRUSHCHEV'S VICTORY in the power struggle in June 1957 marked the beginning of the end of the crisis in world communism. It opened up a period of stability in which relations between the members of the communist bloc were to be reestablished on a new and sounder basis and in which a new long-range policy and new strategies for putting it into effect were to be worked out. 

Within days of his victory, Khrushchev renewed the effort to restore party as well as state relations with the Yugoslavs, a course on which he had embarked at the time of his visit to Tito in May 1955. 

Already, by June 1957, the Soviet and Chinese leaders had reached an agreed assessment of Stalin and his distortions of communist doctrine. The Chinese contribution to this assessment is to be found in two articles by Mao, which were published in the Soviet press in April and December 1956.1 At the Eighth Chinese Communist Party (C.P.C) Congress in September 1956, the Chinese leaders supported the condemnation of the cult of the individual by the Twentieth C.P.S.U Congress of February 1956.2 

By the end of 1957 reconciliation between the leaders of all the communist states had been achieved. At a conference in Moscow in November 1957, they all agreed that Stalin had been responsible for damaging distortions of communist theory and practice. In varying degrees they had all resented Stalin's interference in their internal affairs and the rigid conformity he had demanded of them. But all (including the Yugoslavs, whose presence at the conference was deliberately concealed) were prepared to cooperate on a Leninist basis in a partnership of equals. The Soviets, in effect, agreed to abandon their domination of the communist movement. They even offered to forego references to their leading role in the declaration issued after the conference was over. It was at Chinese insistence that such references were included. The conference took an unpublicized decision to formulate a new, Leninist program for world communism that was intended to imbue the movement with the sense of purpose and direction it so badly needed.3 

The next three years were a period of intense research and consultation between the communist parties inside and outside the bloc while the new policy and strategies were worked out.4 The process culminated in the Eighty-one-Party Congress held in Moscow in November 1960. The leaders of all eighty-one parties committed themselves to the program set out in the conference's statement, or— as it is sometimes described—Manifesto. From that day to this the main binding force in the communist movement, inside and outside the bloc, has not been the diktat of the Soviet Union, but loyalty to a common program to which the leaders of many communist parties had made their contribution. Despite subsequent appearances, an atmosphere of confidence was created between the party leaders in which Soviet coercion became superfluous but Soviet advice and help were willingly accepted. 

The New Policy 

In 1957, as in 1921, the communist strategists, in working out their new program, had to take into account the political, economic, and military weakness of the communist bloc and the unfavorable balance of power vis-a-vis the West. Fissiparous tendencies in Hungary and elsewhere in Eastern Europe threatened the cohesion of the bloc in 1957 as nationalist movements had threatened the unity of Soviet Russia in 1921. The communist world faced hostility from Western conservatives and socialists alike. Western propaganda was keeping the communist regimes under constant pressure. The West in general was reluctant to trade with the bloc. And the bloc faced one completely new factor—the possibility of nuclear confrontation. 

Against this background, how could the communist leaders make their system more acceptable to their peoples? How were they to achieve cohesion and cooperation between the members of the bloc? And how could they advance the communist cause outside the bloc without provoking a greater degree of unity in the non-communist world? It was clear that a reversion to the Stalinist policy of mass repression at home would fail and that traditional revolutionary tactics abroad would only intensify confrontation with the West at a time when the balance of power was unfavorable. The precedent of Lenin's N.E.P seemed to provide many of the answers, although, of course, the new policy would need to be far more complex and sophisticated. 

The need for a new policy was felt with special keenness by the Soviet leadership. The older members, like Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Mikoyan, and Suslov, wanted to purge themselves of the taint of Stalinism and rehabilitate themselves in the eyes of history. The younger ones, like Shelepin, wanted the kudos due to innovators. All of them realized that only agreement on a long-range policy would preclude recurrent power struggles and give stability to the leadership. 

The Manifesto produced by the Eighty-one-Party Congress (November 1960) clearly betrays the influence of Lenin's ideas and practice, as does Khrushchev's follow-up speech of January 6, 1961.5 These two basic documents have continued to determine the course of communist policy to the present day. They explain in detail how the triumph of communism throughout the world is to be achieved through the consolidation of the economic, political, and military might of the communist world and the undermining of the unity and strength of the non-communist world. The use by communist parties of a variety of violent and nonviolent tactics is specifically authorized. Peaceful coexistence is explicitly defined as "an intense form of class struggle between socialism and capitalism." The exploitation by world communism of economic, political, racial, and historical antagonisms between non-communist countries is recommended. Support for "national liberation" movements throughout the Third World is reemphasized.

All parties, inside and outside the bloc, including the Chinese, signed the Manifesto—with the sole exception of Yugoslavia. For tactical reasons, Yugoslavia was not present at the congress but, as both Gromyko and Tito indicated publicly thereafter, Yugoslav and Soviet foreign policy coincided on many issues. 

Agreement between the communist leaders on a new Leninist program for world revolution was only half the battle. A strategy was needed for putting such a program into effect at a time when the subject populations in the communist bloc were seriously alienated from their communist regimes and when the militarily superior Western powers were determined to resist the further spread of communism. 

Some aspects of the strategy, such as united fronts with socialists in the advanced capitalist countries and support for national liberation movements in the Third World, were openly proclaimed. But the decision to use systematic, strategic disinformation as an essential component of the strategy clearly had to be carefully concealed. 

The Disadvantages of Apparent Unity 

The communist strategists appreciated that the major disadvantage of the pursuit by all the parties of the bloc of a uniform and openly aggressive policy was that a combination of ideological zeal with monolithic unity would alarm the non-communist world and force it into greater cohesion and possibly into a vigorous and coordinated response to the communist threat. This would lead at best to a continuation of the East-West status quo, and at worst to heavier pressure on the communist world from a West equipped with a superior nuclear arsenal. 

A unified strategy would have been even more hampering to the international communist movement. Experience had shown that the activities of the Comintern were handicapped by its identification as an instrument of Soviet policy. The same could be said of the Cominform, its successor. Communist parties in the non-communist world had failed to gain influence or, in many cases, even legal recognition because of their obvious subservience to Moscow. In 1958 more than forty parties were illegal.

From the historical experience of the Soviet Union and the bloc, the communist strategists identified the factors that had favored united Western action against communism. In the pre-N.E.P period, the West had felt threatened by Soviet ideology and militancy. The result was allied intervention on Russian territory. After the end of the Second World War, the threat of monolithic, Stalinist communism drove the West into military and political alliances, such as NATO, SEATO, and the Baghdad pact, and into other forms of military, political, economic, and security collaboration. 

Similarly the communist strategists identified the factors that had tended to undermine unity in the Western approach to the communist world. These were moderation in official Soviet policy; emphasis on the conflicting national interests of communist countries and parties at the expense of their ideological solidarity; and the dissolution of the Comintern in 1943, which caused many Western observers to believe that worldwide communist subversion had been abandoned. 

The Advantages of Apparent Disunity 

Communists regard unity between the Western powers as inherently unstable; it follows from the nature of the capitalist system that, in normal circumstances, divisive considerations of national interest outweigh tendencies toward solidarity and cohesion. The communist strategists therefore reasoned that, through projecting the right image of the bloc and the communist movement, they could help to dissolve the measure of Western unity that Stalinist policies had brought into being. Moreover, they decided not to await the appearance of natural contradictions and divisions in the West, but to take active political steps to create artificially conditions in which Western economic and political unity would tend to disintegrate and which would therefore prove favorable for the implementation of their long-range bloc policy. In their view, by consistent and coordinated efforts, the countries of the bloc would be able to influence the policies and attitudes of the governments and populations of the non-communist world in a direction favorable to themselves. They had before them the successful precedent of Soviet policy and intelligence operations during the period of the N.E.P. 

The naive illusions displayed in the past by the West in its attitudes and policies toward communism, the failure of the Western allies to develop a coordinated, long-range policy during their alliance with the Soviet Union in the Second World War, and the inclination of capitalist countries to pursue policies based on national interest were all taken into account in planning how to bring influence to bear on the West. 

The conclusion was reached that, if the factors that had previously served to forge a degree of Western cohesion—that is, communist ideological militancy and monolithic unity—were to be perceived by the West, respectively, as moderating and disintegrating and if, despite an increase in the bloc's actual strength, an image was to be successfully projected of a bloc weakened by economic, political, and ideological disarray, then the Western response to communist policy would be feebler and less coordinated; actual Western tendencies toward disintegration might be provoked and encouraged, thereby creating conditions for a change in the balance of power in favor of the communist bloc. 

In other words, common logic suggested that the bloc should proceed towards its aim of worldwide victory for communism by forging its own unity and coordinating its own policies as far as possible in secret while at the same time undermining the unity and resistance of the non-communist world by projecting a misleading image of its own evolution, disunity, and weakness. This was in fact the hidden essence of the long-range bloc policy adopted in 1958-60 and the basis of the various strategies developed from then onward in the execution of that policy. The Eighty-one-Party Congress in Moscow, in November 1960, could well have created a new, overt central coordinating body for the international communist movement as a successor to the Comintern and Cominform, but it did not do so. Instead, it ratified the use of varying tactics by individual communist parties within the framework of the long-range policy and, in place of a controlling center, called for the coordination and synchronization of policy and tactics between bloc and non-bloc parties. Thus, while coordination was in fact improved, the decision not to create a new, overt central body, the emphasis on "polycentrism," and the use of a variety of different tactics by communist parties were designed to create an effect analogous to that created by the dissolution of the Comintern in 1943. 

The Political Use of De-Stalinization 

The Soviet leaders recognized that mistakes had been made in the first phase of de-Stalinization. Too many rehabilitation's of Stalin's victims had been allowed too quickly; the party and the security service had been too passive in the face of the spontaneous reactions of intellectuals to the revelation of Stalin's crimes; above all, the Soviet leaders accepted that they should have consulted the parties of the other communist countries in advance. They realized that further uncontrolled measures of de-Stalinization could give rise to more revisionism and popular unrest. But they also realized that vigorous waving of the anti-Stalinist flag could help them undermine opposition at home and improve their image abroad; some of the damage done by Stalinism could be repaired. 

Controlled anti-Stalinism could be used to help stabilize the regime; through propaganda emphasis on the distinctions between the new policy and Stalin's policy, some internal and external opposition could be undermined. For example, former communist party members of all ranks who had suffered repression under Stalin, or their widows and families, could be brought into active collaboration with the regime in the implementation of a Leninist policy that ostensibly repudiated Stalinism. Controlled anti-Stalinism could create favorable conditions for political and diplomatic maneuvers against non-communist countries. It could be used to change attitudes toward communism and communist parties in the labor and social democratic movements. If the consequences of Stalinism, in the shape of personal dictatorship and the indiscriminate use of terror to suppress opposition inside and outside the party, had been fusion and alliances between the different types of opposition, it was arguable that emphasis on anti-Stalinism could lead to a weakening and disruption of such alliances. If Stalinism had led to cooperation between groups with different interests, between conservatives and social democrats in the creation of NATO, between Western capitalists and Yugoslav revisionist communists after 1948, between Russian emigres and Western governments, anti-Stalinism could be used to weaken these ties. If Stalinism had contributed to the decline in Soviet prestige, to diplomatic failures and a loss of allies, anti-Stalinism could be used to reverse the process, to recover old allies and gain new ones among Western intellectuals, liberals, social democrats, and nationalists. 

Between 1953 and 1956 genuine, improvised de-Stalinization was used to correct mistakes and improve the Soviet regime. In 1956 and 1957 notional de-Stalinization was exploited deceitfully by Khrushchev as a means of defeating his rivals while concealing the nature of his own methods. From 1958 onward calculated, deceitful use was made of notional de-Stalinization to help the new long-range policy achieve its domestic and external goals. 

By 1958 the real issues involved in Stalinism, anti-Stalinism, revisionism, and national communism having been resolved, they could be revived in artificial form as "issues" allegedly causing divisions between different leaders and different parties inside and outside the bloc. Individual communist leaders or groups of leaders (all of them committed Leninists) could be projected misleadingly and in contrast with one another as "Stalinist's," "neo-Stalinist's," "Maoists," "dogmatists," "hard-liners," "diehard's," "militants," or "conservatives" as opposed to "anti-Stalinist's," "pragmatists," "revisionists," and "national," "liberal," "progressive," or "moderate" communists. 

The objectives of disinformation on these "issues" can be summarized as follows: 

• By the revival of dead issues and the display of apparent differences of opinion over them, to present the communist countries as in a state of disarray in accordance with the weakness and evolution pattern of disinformation. 

• By projecting a false picture of nationalism and competing national interests in and between the communist regimes of the bloc, to conceal the actual unity of the bloc parties and governments in their pursuit of a common, ideological long-range policy. 

• To create favorable conditions for the implementation of that policy, internally and externally. 

• To provide a broad framework and convenient technique for specific disinformation operations on Soviet relations with Yugoslavia, Albania,China, Romania, Czechoslovakia, and certain West European communist parties. 

• To exploit these issues for disinformation about the alleged continuing power struggles and the unsolved succession problem, for shifts in communist domestic policy and in diplomatic tactics for implementing different phases of that policy. 

Sources of Inspiration 

The decision in principle to revert to the whole-scale use of strategic disinformation, taken in 1957, triggered off a spate of research into precedents and techniques. For example, the Central Committee called for secret publications on the subject held by the K.G.B and G.R.U, and in particular for a secret training manual for internal use only, written by a G.R.U officer, Popov, that described, in about eighty pages, the technique of disinformation, and for another manual written by Colonel Raina of the K.G.B entitled On the Use of Agents of Influence.6 

Popov's manual defined disinformation as a means of creating favorable conditions for gaining strategic advantages over the opponent. It specified that disinformation must function in accordance with the requirements of military strategy and diplomacy, and stipulated that in all circumstances it must be subordinate to policy. 

The book classified different types of disinformation as strategic, political, military, technical, economic, and diplomatic. It listed the channels through which disinformation can be disseminated as: 

• The declarations and speeches of leading statesmen and officials of the originating country. 

• Official government documents. 

• Newspapers and other materials published in that country. 

• Foreign publications inspired by agents working among foreign journalists and other experts. 

• Special operations in support of disinformation. 

• Agents of influence and other agents in foreign countries. 

Studies of particular facets of the N.E.P were commissioned by the C.P.S.U's Central Committee from 1957 onward. As well as government departments, specialized institutes of the Academy of Sciences, such as the Institutes of Law and History, contributed. Two projects of special significance for the reintroduction of strategic disinformation were undertaken in the K.G.B. One was a study on the use of K.G.B agents of influence in the Soviet intelligentsia (meaning in this context scientists, academics, writers, musicians, artists, actors, stage and screen directors, and religious leaders); the other was on the disclosure of state secrets in the interests of policy. 

Popov's manual was in fact the only available modern text dealing with strategic disinformation. Lenin left behind him no specific treatise on the subject, although his writings contain scattered references to it; deception and duplicity were essential elements in his political technique. Significantly the Soviet authorities chose to publish for the first time, between 1960 and 1965 in the fifth edition of Lenin's works, some of his documents relating to the N.E.P period and the use of disinformation, in particular in his correspondence with his commissar for foreign affairs, Chicherin. 

In one of his letters Lenin, commenting on the draft of a statement to be made by the Soviet delegation to the Genoa conference, advised Chicherin to omit any mention of "the inevitable forced coup d'etat and bloody struggle" and also to omit the words "our historical concept includes the use of violent measures and the inevitability of new world wars." "These frightening words," he wrote, "should not be used because they would serve the interests of our adversaries."7 

Chicherin responded enthusiastically to Lenin's ideas on disinformation. He wrote to him on January 20, 1922: "In case the Americans would insist on representative institutions, don't you think that, for solid compensation, we can deceive them by making a small ideological concession which would not have any practical meaning? For example, we can allow the presence of three representatives of the non-working class in the body of 2,000 members. Such a step can be presented to the Americans as a representative institution."8 

Lenin and Chicherin were not the only sources of inspiration for the revival of strategic disinformation. The ancient Chinese treatise on strategy and deception, Sun Tzu's The Art of War, translated into Russian by N. I. Konrad in 1950 (shortly after the communist victory in China), was re-translated into German in 1957 by the Soviet specialist Y. I. Sidorenko, with a foreword by the Soviet military strategist and historian General Razin.9 It was published in East Germany by the East German Ministry of Defense and was prescribed for study in East German military academies. A new translation and other studies of Sun Tzu were published in Peking in 1957 and 1958 and in Shanghai in 1959. Mao is known to have been influenced by Sun Tzu in his conduct of the civil war. 

This intense official interest in Sun Tzu on the part of both the Soviets and the Chinese at the very time when the new policy and strategy were being formulated is a good indication that the Chinese probably made a positive contribution to their formulation. 

The strategy of strengthening the communist bloc while presenting an appearance of communist disunity is neatly expressed in Sun Tzu's aphorisms: 

• All warfare is based on deception. Therefore, when capable, feign incapacity; when active, inactivity. 

• Offer the enemy a bait to lure him; feign disorder and strike him. 

• One who wishes to appear to be weak in order to make his enemy arrogant must be extremely strong. Only then can he feign weakness. 

To be credible and effective, a deception should accord as far as possible with the hopes and expectations of those it is intended to deceive. Since the communist strategists were aware, especially through their knowledge of the Bilderberg papers,10 that the West half expected and ardently desired the disintegration of the communist bloc, they could anticipate that the projection to the outside world of a fictitious disintegration of the bloc would be advantageous—provided always that it was accompanied in parallel by an actual, but partially concealed, implementation of the long-range policy of strengthening the bloc and changing the world balance of power in its favor. 

How, in practice, was this to be achieved? Study of the genuine Tito-Stalin split of 1948 showed that by no means all of its consequences had been adverse. Open defiance of Stalin had sent Tito's prestige soaring in his own country and throughout the world. Independence of the Soviet Union had enabled Yugoslavia to obtain substantial economic and military assistance from the West and to acquire the beginnings of political influence in the Third World and with West European socialist parties. Moreover, Tito had demonstrated in 1957-58 that, despite the Western support he had received, he remained a faithful Leninist willing to work wholeheartedly with the other leaders of the bloc.11 

A more remote, but equally instructive, precedent was provided by Lenin's Far Eastern policy in the 1920's. Realizing that Soviet Russia would be overstretched in defending all her frontiers simultaneously, Lenin decided voluntarily to "sacrifice" a substantial area in the Far East by setting up an independent "non-communist" buffer state, the Far Eastern Republic (D.V.R), in April 1920. It was independent and non-communist in form only, its policies being closely coordinated from the outset with those of Soviet Russia. Nevertheless, its existence, together with promises of economic concessions that did not materialize, relieved the pressure from Japanese and American interests in the area while the Soviet army and Comintern reinforced their capacity to deal with the threat from the White Russian emigre movement in Mongolia led by Baron Ungern. By November 1922 Soviet influence in the area was strong enough for the "independent" DVR to be openly incorporated into the Soviet Union as its Far Eastern region (kray). 

The combined lessons of the DVR and the Tito-Stalin split suggested to the communist strategists of the 1950's that spurious splits and independence in the communist world could be used to ease Western pressure and to obtain increased Western economic and even military aid for individual communist countries while the world balance of power was being shifted inconspicuously in communist favor. 

By the end of 1957 the issues that had caused actual and potential splits in the communist world, principally Stalinist interference in the affairs of other communist states, had been finally and decisively resolved. Common agreement had been reached on the abandonment of Stalin's acknowledged distortions of Leninist doctrine. The Soviet Union abides by the terms of the agreement in practical ways, for example, by making a total declaration of its former intelligence agents in China and Eastern Europe. 

The reasons for genuine splits having been removed, the way was open for the creation of spurious splits in accordance with Dzerzhinskiy's principle of political prophylaxis; that is, the forestalling of undesirable developments (such as splits or the growth of opposition movements) by deliberately provoking and controlling such developments through the use of secret agents, and by guiding them in directions that are either harmless or positively useful to the regime. 

Khrushchev had demonstrated in 1957 how misrepresentation of the Stalinist issue could be used to his own advantage in the struggle for power. The artificial revival of the dead issues related to Stalinism was the obvious and logical means of displaying convincing but spurious differences between different communist leaders or parties.

6 

The Shelepin Report 

and Changes in Organization 

THE ADOPTION OF THE NEW BLOC POLICY and disinformation strategy entailed organizational changes in the Soviet Union and throughout the bloc. In the Soviet Union, as elsewhere, it was the Central Committee of the party that reorganized the intelligence and security services, the foreign ministry, and other sections of the party and government apparatus and the mass organizations so as to be able to implement the new policy. Several highly significant alterations were made to the Central Committee's own apparatus in and after 1958. A new Department of Foreign Policy was set up to supervise all government departments concerned with foreign affairs and to coordinate Soviet foreign policy with that of the other communist states. It was under Khrushchev's direct control. 

A new practice was adopted in relation to the appointment of ambassadors to other communist countries. Prominent party officials, normally members of the Central Committee, were chosen to ensure that there was proper coordination of policy between parties as well as governments. 

Another new department of the Central Committee, the Department of Active Operations, was introduced. Its function was to coordinate the bloc disinformation program and conduct special political and disinformation operations in support of policy. It began by holding secret briefings of senior officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Committee of Information, and the security and intelligence services. The news agency Novosti was set up to serve the interests of this new department.

An important change was the transfer to the Central Committee apparatus of the Committee of Information, which had hitherto been subordinated to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. One of its new functions was to prepare long-range studies and analyses for the Central Committee. Another was to establish contacts with foreign statesmen and other leading figures, either in their home countries or during their visits to the Soviet Union, and use them to influence Western governments. Its head was Georgiy Zhukov, a former agent of the Soviet intelligence service, who had many contacts among Western politicians, journalists, and cultural figures. He was himself an able journalist. 

Perhaps the most significant changes of all were the appointments of Mironov and Shelepin. Mironov had been head of the Leningrad branch of the K.G.B. While in that post he had studied operation Trust, in which the Leningrad O.G.P.U had played an active part. He was a friend of Brezhnev and had easy access to him. Shelepin was a friend of Mironov. It was Mironov who first drew Shelepin's attention to the role of the O.G.P.U in the N.E.P period. 

In 1958 Mironov and Shelepin discussed with Khrushchev and Brezhnev the idea of transforming the K.G.B from the typical secret political police force that it was into a flexible, sophisticated political weapon capable of playing an effective role in support of policy, as the O.G.P.U had done during the N.E.P. 

They were rewarded for this suggestion with posts in the Central Committee apparatus. Shelepin was made head of the Department of Party Organs and, later, chairman of the K.G.B; Mironov was made head of the Administrative Organs Department. 

In the autumn of 1958 Mironov's and Shelepin's suggestion was discussed, in the context of the performance of the K.G.B and its head, General Serov, by the Presidium of the Central Committee. Serov had delivered a report to the Presidium on the work of the K.G.B at home and abroad, and it became the focus for sharp criticism. The leading critic was Shelepin. The K.G.B under Serov, he said, had become a very effective police organization that, with its widespread net of informers and agents throughout the country, had successfully detected and controlled opposition elements among the population as well as agents of Western intelligence services. It had failed, however, to influence the views of the population in favor of the regime or to prevent the growth of undesirable political trends either at home or among anticommunists abroad. He praised the recent successes of the K.G.B in penetrating the secrets of Western governments, but said that its role was too passive and limited in that it had done nothing to help the strategic, political, economic, and ideological struggle with the capitalist powers. 

Shelepin continued that the main reason for the unsatisfactory situation in the KGB was that it had departed from the traditions and style of the O.G.P.U, its predecessor under Lenin. The O.G.P.U, although inexperienced, had made a greater contribution to implementing policy than any of its successors. As examples of what he meant, he referred to the Eurasian and Change of Signposts movements and the Trust. Unlike the O.G.P.U, the KGB had degenerated into a passive, repressive organization. Its methods were self-defeating because they served only to harden opposition and damage the prestige of the regime. The KGB had failed to collaborate with the security services of the other bloc countries on political matters. 

Shelepin commended Mironov's ideas and said that the K.G.B should be concerned with positive, creative political activity under the direction of the party leadership. A new, more important role should be given to disinformation. The Soviet Union, in common with the other communist countries, had vital internal and external intelligence assets that had been lying dormant, especially in the persons of the K.G.B agents among the Soviet intelligentsia. 

The Presidium decided to examine the new role of the K.G.B at the Twenty-first-Party Congress, which was due to be held in January/February 1959. The Soviet press confirmed in general terms that this examination had taken place. 

Under Mironov the Administrative Organs Department became very important. Its function was to supervise and coordinate the work of departments concerned with internal order, like the K.G.B, the Ministry of the Interior, the prosecutor's office, the Ministry of Justice, and the law courts. Mironov was chosen in order that he should imbue these institutions with the style and methods of Dzerzhinskiy, the O.G.P.U's chairman in the 1920's. 

Shelepin was appointed chairman of the K.G.B in December 1958. In May 1959 a conference of senior K.G.B officers was held in Moscow. It was attended by Kirichenko, representing the Presidium; the ministers of internal affairs and defense; members of the Central Committee; and some two thousand KGB officers. 

Shelepin reported to the conference on the new political tasks of the KGB.1 Some of the more specific points in his report were as follows: 

The "main enemies" of the Soviet Union were the United States, Britain, France, West Germany, Japan, and all countries of NATO and other Western-supported military alliances. (It was the first time that West Germany, Japan, and the smaller countries had been so named in KGB documents.) 

The security and intelligence services of the whole bloc were to be mobilized to influence international relations in directions required by the new long-range policy and, in effect, to destabilize the "main enemies" and weaken the alliances between them. 

The efforts of the KGB agents in the Soviet intelligentsia were to be redirected outward against foreigners with a view to enlisting their help in the achievement of policy objectives. 

The newly established disinformation department was to work closely with all other relevant departments in the party and government apparatus throughout the country. To this end, all ministries of the Soviet Union and all first secretaries of republican and provincial party organizations were to be acquainted with the new political tasks of the KGB to enable them to give support and help when needed. 

Joint political operations were to be undertaken with the security and intelligence services of all communist countries. 

The report ended with the assurance that the Presidium had approved the new tasks of the KGB, attached great importance to their fulfillment, and was confident that the KGB staff would do its best to put the directive into practice. 

After the conference, a number of organizational changes were made in the KGB. The counterintelligence directorate was enlarged. Its three main tasks were: to influence, pass disinformation to, and recruit as agents members of the embassies of the capitalist and Third World countries in Moscow, as well as visiting journalists, businessmen, scientists, and academics; to carry out prophylactic political operations to neutralize and then use internal political opposition, especially from nationalistic, intellectual, and religious groups; and to carry out joint political operations with the security services of the other communist countries. 

Department D 

When Shelepin created the new disinformation department, Department D, in January 1959, he ensured that its work would be coordinated with the other disinformation services of the party and government machine: that is, the Central Committee, the Committee of Information, the disinformation department in the Soviet Military Intelligence Service, and the two new "activist methods" departments in the KGB (one serving Shelepin himself and the other serving the counterintelligence directorate). 

From the beginning Department D was subordinate to the Central Committee apparatus, which defined its requirements and objectives. It differed from the other disinformation services in that it used its own means and special channels available only to the KGB to disseminate disinformation. These channels are: secret agents at home and abroad; agents of influence abroad; penetrations of Western embassies and governments; technical and other secret means of provoking appropriate incidents or situations in support of policy—for example, border incidents, protest demonstrations, and so forth. 

Department D was given access to the executive branches of government and to departments of the Central Committee to enable it to prepare and carry out operations that required the approval or support of the party leadership or the government machine. Its closest contacts with the Central Committee were Mironov's Administrative Organs Department, Ponomarev's International Department, the Department of Foreign Policy, and the Department of Active Operations; and with the Soviet government through the State Committee of Science and Technology and the planning organs. There was particularly close cooperation between the new department and the disinformation department of the Military Intelligence Service. 

There were two experienced candidates for the post of head of the new department: Colonel Fedoseyev, head of the foreign intelligence faculty of the KGB Institute, who was a specialist both on internal KGB operations and on the use of emigre channels to penetrate American intelligence; and Colonel Agayants, head of the political intelligence faculty in the High Intelligence School and a specialist on the Middle East (Iran in particular) and Western Europe (France in particular). Shelepin chose Agayants. 

The new department consisted at the outset of fifty to sixty experienced intelligence and counterintelligence officers. Under Colonel Agayants was Colonel Grigorenko, a specialist in counterintelligence work at home and emigration operations abroad. He had been adviser to the Hungarian security service from 1953 to 1955, and then had worked in the counterintelligence directorate in headquarters as head of the department responsible for the surveillance of immigrants and repatriates. The department was abolished when Grigorenko moved to Department D. 

In the department were experts on NATO, the United States, Germany, France, Japan, and other countries; on the US intelligence services; on US, European, Asian, African, and Latin American labor; and on rocketry, aviation, and other specialized subjects. There was a specialist on Israel, Colonel Kelin, who as an officer in the security service had worked for twenty years against the Jews in Moscow. Colonel Sitnikov was the department's specialist on Germany, Austria, and NATO. Colonel Kostenko (who in the 1960's appeared in England under diplomatic cover) was its specialist on aviation. Indeed, the composition of the department made it clear that it had both political and military objectives. 

A disinformation section of some twenty officers was also set up in the KGB apparatus in East Germany under Litovkin, a specialist on penetration of the West German intelligence service.

7 

The New Role of Intelligence 

IN OUTLINE, the new tasks for the intelligence services of the bloc, in addition to their traditional intelligence-gathering and security functions, were, first, to help to create favorable conditions for the implementation of the long-range policy by disseminating strategic disinformation on disunity in the bloc and international communist movement in accordance with the weakness and evolution pattern; second, to contribute directly to the implementation of the policy and its strategies through the use of communist bloc and Western agents of influence; and third, to contribute to a shift in the military balance of power in communist favor by helping to accelerate the bloc's military and economic development through the collection of scientific and technical intelligence from the West and through the undermining of Western military programs. 

To take the last of these tasks first, it was considered by Soviet officials in 1959 that the communist bloc was lagging ten to fifteen years behind the United States, for example, in the field of military electronics. Through use of the bloc's intelligence potential, it was hoped to close the gap within five years.1 Conversely, through the disinformation potential of the bloc's security and intelligence services, it was hoped, as Shelepin put it, to confuse and disorientate Western military programs and divert them into useless, wasteful, and extravagant fields of expenditure. With this end in view, Department D, together with the Central Committee, took part in briefing Soviet scientists for their assignments at various international conferences where they have contacts with foreign scientists. 

Some of the other operations of Department D were known in outline to the author in their early stages. There were plans for an operation to influence the French government to leave NATO. Soviet experts were already convinced by 1959-60 that "contradictions" between the United States and France could be exploited to bring this about.2 

A long-term plan was in preparation to discredit anticommunist American labor leaders and to influence them to change their attitude toward contact with the communist trade unions. 

There was also a plan called "Actions Against American Institutions," in particular the CIA and FBI, details of which are not known to the author. 

An operation, carried out soon after Department D was formed, aimed to help isolate West Germany from NATO and the Western community. Experts in Jewish affairs in Department D prepared numerous letters for their agents to send to relatives in Israel and other countries that were calculated to arouse hostility to West Germany and to give a misleading impression of political developments in the Soviet Union. 

Of the greatest long-term significance was an order issued by Shelepin to Agayants at the end of 1959 to collaborate with the Central Committee's Department of Active Operations and with Albanian and Yugoslav representatives on a disinformation operation connected with the new long-range policy and relating to Soviet-Yugoslav-Albanian relations. 

A number of other reflections of the adoption of the new policy and the revival of disinformation came to the author's attention in the course of his work in Soviet intelligence. 

Early in 1959 a secret party letter warned party members against revealing state and party secrets. 

Genuine, potential Western sources of information on the new policy were suppressed. For example, the KGB arrested a valuable American agent in the Soviet Union, Lieutenant Colonel Popov of the G.R.U. 

Other potential openings for the West to obtain information on the policy were closed: for example, a special instruction was issued to KGB staff to step up the recruitment, compromise, and discrediting of Western scholars and experts on communist affairs visiting communist countries. 

An instruction was issued to KGB staff to give details to the disinformation department of all their existing intelligence sources and channels, so that, where appropriate, they could be used for disinformation purposes. 

New channels were planned and created for feeding disinformation to the West. In this context, three items deserve mention. Department D showed great interest in exploiting two special French sources belonging to Soviet counterintelligence: they asked for the controlling officer, Okulov, to be transferred to Department D. There is serious, unresolved evidence that Colonel Penkovskiy was planted on Western intelligence by the KGB. There has been publicity in the American press suggesting that an important FBI source on Soviet affairs, known as "Fedora," was under Soviet control while he was collaborating with the FBI in the 1960's.3 

The section of the KGB's Second Chief Directorate, led by Colonel Norman Borodin and responsible for the recruitment and handling of agents among foreign correspondents in the Soviet Union, was disbanded so as to avoid the creation of a central pool of agents all taking a suspiciously similar line. The agents were handed over to the appropriate geographical sections of the KGB to ensure that their disinformation activity was closely related to the particular situation in each country or area. 

Two former residents of Hitler's security service, with their nets of agents in the Ukraine, which were under KGB control, were prepared for planting on the West German intelligence service. 

In 1959 the head of Soviet counterintelligence, General Gribanov, issued an instruction to his staff to prepare operations to influence Western ambassadors in Moscow, in accordance with the requirements of the new policy. Western intelligence and security services—in particular, that of the French—had occasion to investigate Gribanov's activity against their ambassadors. Gribanov also instructed members of his staff, posing as senior officials of various Soviet government departments, to establish personal contact with, and exercise political influence over, the ambassadors in Moscow of all the developing countries. 

In 1960 a secret directive was issued by the KGB in Moscow to the intelligence service's representatives abroad and the security service at home on the influencing of foreign visitors to the Soviet Union, especially politicians and scholars; efforts were made to use, recruit, and discredit anticommunist politicians, journalists, scholars,and analysts of communist affairs during their visits to communist countries. For instance, an attempt was made to discredit a prominent American scholar, Professor Barghoorn, by harassing him in Moscow in 1963. Almost every Western security service has accumulated evidence on this subject. 

A special form of control over the Soviet press was established by the apparatus of the Central Committee so that the press could be used by the Central Committee and KGB for disinformation purposes. For instance, the KGB supplied Adzhubey, the chief editor of Izvestiya, with "controversial" material on internal conditions in the Soviet Union. 

The resources of the KGB's of the national republics were brought into play; for example, in the year 1957-58 alone, the KGB of the Ukraine put up for Moscow approval 180 operational proposals for the recruitment of, or the planting of agents on, foreigners inside or outside the Soviet Union. 

Direct attempts were made to exert political influence abroad. Instructions were issued to the KGB residents in Finland, Italy, and France to step up and exploit their penetration of the leadership of socialist and other political parties in order to bring about changes in the leadership and policies of those parties in accordance with the requirements of bloc policy.4 

In Finland, in 1961, the KGB resident, Zhenikhov, was working on a plan to remove from the political scene leading anticommunist leaders of the Finnish social democratic party like Tanner and Leskinen and to replace them with Soviet agents.5 

A KGB agent was planted on the leadership of the Swedish social democratic party. 

Assassinations were not excluded in the case of anticommunists who represented an obstacle to the successful implementation of bloc policy. For example, in 1959 the KGB secretly assassinated the Ukrainian nationalist leader Stepan Bandera in West Germany. This is known thanks to the exposures of the former Soviet agent Stashinskiy, who assassinated Bandera on Shelepin's orders. 

The list could be expanded. But enough has been said to indicate that the entire Soviet intelligence potential was used to carry out operations in support of the first phase of the new long-range bloc policy; the same can be said of the intelligence potential of the other countries of the communist bloc.

Since even professional analysts in the West do not always realize clearly what the intelligence potential of the communist bloc in action may amount to in terms of exercising influence favorable to the bloc, it is desirable at this point to give at least some theoretical examples. 

Suppose, for instance, that a particular non-communist country becomes the target of the bloc's intelligence potential. This would imply that all the intelligence and counterintelligence staff of all the communist countries would review all their intelligence assets and make suggestions about what could be done to bring political influence to bear on the government of the country and on its policy and diplomacy, political parties, individual leaders, press, and so forth. It would imply that all the intelligence staff of the bloc countries under diplomatic or other official cover in the country concerned, which could amount to several hundred highly trained professionals plus several hundred secret agents among the country's nationals, would all be directed to work in different ways toward one objective according to one plan. The agents would be guided not only to obtain information, but also to take certain actions or to exercise influence wherever and whenever the plan required. Their combined capacity to affect governmental, press, and public opinion could well be considerable. 

The same would apply if the target was a group of non-communist countries; or a specific problem, such as the defense program of a non-communist country; or a particular Western attitude to the communist bloc or one of its members; or world public opinion on a particular policy; or issues such as the Vietnam War, alleged West German revanchisme, or the Middle East situation. 

In his speech on January 6, 1961, Khrushchev, after alluding to the fact that "the dictatorship of the working class has emerged beyond the confines of one country and become an international force," said that "in the conditions of today, socialism is in a position to determine, in growing measure, the character, methods and trends of international relations." It was the reorientation of the Central Committee apparatus, the mass organizations, and the diplomatic, intelligence, and security services of the bloc that provided Khrushchev and his allies with the means to change the character and methods of international relations. 

Some elements of the new bloc policy—like the introduction of economic reforms in the industry and agriculture of the Soviet Union and other communist states or the emphasis on peaceful coexistence, disarmament, and the improvement of diplomatic, trade, and other relations with non-communist countries—all of them reminiscent of the NEP period, were themselves means of misrepresenting the bloc's intentions and influencing the non-communist world in the first phase of the policy. Even more significant, and again reminiscent of the NEP period, were the striking changes in the style, quantity, and quality of information revealed by the communist world about itself. These changes were reflected in the wider access permitted to foreign visitors to the Soviet Union and most East European countries. They coincided in time with Shelepin's report and the intensive preparation of a program of political disinformation operations. The coincidence in timing helps to explain the changes.