Posted on 01/30/2021 9:41:20 PM PST by nickcarraway
The covert disinformation campaign was secretly codenamed ‘Operation INFEKTION’.
In July 1983, an Indian newspaper in New Delhi published an article alleging “U.S. experiments” were the likely cause of a new mysterious disease dubbed ‘AIDS’. Five years later, CBS anchor Dan Rather announced to millions of concerned Americans allegations that their own military might have been behind the deadly virus.
On that very day, a few KGB operatives in the secret agency’s Lubyanka headquarters in Moscow likely praised each other for a job well done.
The story about U.S. military experiments that might have produced AIDS caught up slowly but eventually started spreading on the African continent and beyond like a bushfire.
“Yankee business, not monkey business,” “Experts slam ‘silence’ over man-made AIDS,” “AIDS is germ warfare by the U.S. Gov’t against gays & blacks!” were only a few of countless headlines that appeared in the press all over the world, including the London-based Daily Express, from 1983 to 1987, before it eventually gained TV coverage inside the U.S.
"The story about U.S. military experiments that might have produced AIDS caught up slowly but eventually started spreading on the African continent and beyond like a bushfire." s “A Soviet military publication claims the virus that causes AIDS leaked from a U.S. army laboratory conducting experiments in biological warfare,” announced CBS anchor Dan Rather on March 30, 1987, to millions of unwitting Americans, who had virtually no way of verifying the validity of the Soviet report.
At the crux of this brewing international scandal was a little known local publication in New Delhi, India, as it was the first to link the Pentagon to AIDS. In summer 1983, the Indian daily newspaper ‘Patriot’ claimed that AIDS was “believed to be the result of the Pentagon’s experiments to develop new and dangerous biological weapons”. It also asserted that the disease mostly struck Haitian immigrants inside the U.S., as well as American “drug addicts and homosexuals”, an implicit allegation that the virus’s “creators” purposefully targeted marginalized groups of people in their sinister and inhumane experiment.
As it turned out, the story in the Patriot newspaper had been planted by the KGB.
The first letter of the alphabet — ‘A’ — was assigned to an analytical department with an unusual task: to prepare and conduct “clandestine initiatives and campaigns to influence foreign governments and publics, as well to shape perceptions of individuals and groups hostile to Soviet interests”.
The agents in department ‘A’ used to set honey traps, plant false stories and oversee their development in a way favorable to the Motherland.
Deceased Ladislav Bittman, who in a later stage of his life went by the name of Lawrence Martin, had been a KGB operative in department ‘A’ before he defected to the U.S. in 1968. Bittman participated in many of the KGB’s clandestine operations.
At the beginning of his career, he established “a whore house” in Germany to compromise politicians and planted fake Nazi documents at the bottom of a lake “to stir up anti-German sentiments”.
During one of his last interviews before his death in 2018 at the age of 87, Bittman, a fragile-looking old man, did not hesitate a bit before he provided a sharp definition of “disinformation” — his lifelong occupation and expertise, also called the “active measures” in the KGB circles.
“[It is] deliberately distorted information that is secretly leaked into the communication process in order to deceive and manipulate,” said Bittman.
Yuri Bezmenov, Bittman’s former colleague at the KGB, who also defected to the U.S. in 1970 and assumed the name of Tomas David Schuman, claimed that over 80 percent of the money the Soviet KGB spent abroad was used to fund “ideological subversion”, a process that destabilized economic, political and ideological systems of the country in question.
In 1981, a few employees from the U.S. State Department, CIA, FBI, Department of Defense and other U.S. agencies formed what became known as ‘Active Measures Working Group’ (aka ‘The Truth Squad’) — an interagency team whose task it was to counter Soviet disinformation.
“Everybody was working part-time on the issue. We all sat around the table once every week or two, those who could volunteer the time to come in did,” Kathleen C. Bailey, Deputy Assistant Secretary at the Department of State and a member of the ‘The Truth Squad’ at the time, described the strangely laid-back approach of the U.S. government to counter the Soviet disinformation efforts.
In the meantime, the AIDS story started hurting the U.S. interests abroad for real. The allegations that the U.S. military bases overseas had passed AIDS to a local population of host countries undermined prospects of extending lease contracts for the bases. U.S. military personnel were compromised in countries like Germany, South Korea, Nicaragua, Panama, Turkey, Kenya, Zaire and others.
"The allegations that the U.S. military bases overseas had passed AIDS to a local population of host countries undermined prospects of extending lease contracts for the bases."
“I was so angry that they accused the U.S. of creating the AIDS virus, because I knew how effective that was going to be as a tool against us. It angered me deeply. For them to think that [the U.S. created AIDS] damages their view of the United States, not only as a culture, but it taints all our policies. It’s in the backs of their minds every time they discuss anything with us,” said Bailey in an interview she gave years later.
In 1987, Bailey hosted a press conference at the State Department where she presented a report detailing the KGB’s efforts to spread the AIDS story and link it to the U.S. government. “U.S. image abroad is damaged and U.S foreign policy is complicated by disinformation. The primary origin of disinformation about the U.S. abroad is the Soviet Union,” said Bailey.
Surprisingly, Bailey’s efforts had also been unwittingly supported by the Soviet medical community. Soviet scientist Viktor M. Zhdanov, who headed the Ivanovsky Institute of Virology in Moscow for 26 years, attended international conferences and gave interviews to mass media where he always categorically denied AIDS was artificially created.
Soviet scientist Viktor M. Zhdanov categorically denied AIDS was artificially created.
In an interview with Soviet publication ‘New Time’, Zhdanov said: “Indeed, the most diverse views are expressed. I must say with regret that these were mostly the views of non-specialists. The AIDS virus appeared naturally and seems to be undergoing rapid evolution.”
The best defense against this kind of thing is for DOD, CIA, FBI, etc to be utterly honorable so that such an accusation would be laughable on it’s face.
After Tuskegee, after the tests of LSD on unwitting soldiers, after we protected the Jap leader of Unit 731, the Soviets could float stories like this and a lot of people were willing to believe it.
Federal agencies have lost all credibility with most people because of their near-constant lying and dishonest activities like Fast and Furious, Russiagate, the stolen election, etc.
As I read it. I thought of an equally as improbable title, “How the liberals convinced the world that joe biden was fairly elected”
but as to the article- i don’t think anyone really believed the US invented it to get rid of gays and blacks- we knew pretty early on it was from Africa, likely from monkeys- I’ve also never heard any chatter from foreigners in forums about what the headline suggests- ever
Who needs the Russians anymore? We have internet forums, the “anons”, twitter, the media and our own intel agencies. People repeat the same kind of disinformation about COVID, vaccines, politics and the election every day. People love conspiracies. When your government and media are as dishonest and corrupt as ours, conspiracy theories spread like wildfires.
I guess it depends on what you read, but I remember hearing black Americans saying they believed AIDS was made in a U.S. lab. Given the crap put out by the likes of Farrahklan, I can see why.
the only thing i remember black folks saying back then was that the gov was putting stuff to sterilize them in chicken- That probably came from farakan too, but not sure where it started-
but yeah, i was m ore talking about folks from overseas saying stuff like that- i never heard it- i read a lot- always have- but m ore so when i was younger- voracious reader- then i got into forums online- and i just never heard anyone saying they thought the government had done that to gays and blacks- outside the us- perhaps the crazier conspiracy forums might hav-e that i don’t know- but normal forums, nope- Far left sites like DU might have also- i don’t know- never read stuff from sites like that-
Now this is really funny, NOT. Hey hold on! It is written right here in American Newspapers plus our government said so. MUST BE TRUE!!!!
Oh My Golly, is this for real... I already puked today..... I got go again....
How do you spell pathetic, in American?
I’ve come across crap on you tube, but then that’s what I expect from morons on that site.
It’s a long term anti-Reagan myth in the gay and black communities that HIV/AIDS was cooked up by his government. He created crack too, distributed by the CIA to inner cities to undermine the black community... another perpetual leftist claim.
The Soviets called it ‘Disinformation’. Nanzi calls it ‘The Wrap Up Smear’.
I remember hearing early on that it came from Haitian voodoo rights and contact with animal blood. Gays would vacation there.
I think most people know it came out of Africa maybe as early as the late 40’s.
“The best defense against this kind of thing is for DOD, CIA, FBI, etc to be utterly honorable so that such an accusation would be laughable on it’s face.
After Tuskegee, after the tests of LSD on unwitting soldiers, after we protected the Jap leader of Unit 731, the Soviets could float stories like this and a lot of people were willing to believe it.”
Actually, it was the dismantling of our spying on the Left in the 1970s that allowed the Soviets to move-in with their propaganda and get half of the US believing it. But I agree, to some extent somewhat, that we did some questionable/evil things in our past and the recent stuff against Trump was horrific and now our entire half of the country (the half that was inclined to trust the FBI, CIA, etc., at least somewhat) has lost all confidence.
It’s scary - we have a huge, powerful, government, which virtually no American trusts anymore (for various reasons). This cannot end well.
Tricky part here is that RBTH is a Russian state owned outlet. Likely that if they publish this story then they do so to soften it, perhaps twist some details or omit some facts, so that they would have a version of the story out there that makes them look better.
Yeah thats what we heard as teens, but they said it was due to bestia,ity with monkeys, but as high-school kids, you don’t know that the whole truth is sometimes. Likely it was just fro eating infected monkeys,
All, This report is true. The KGB’s profile was to plant false stories about the USA in 3d world media, it especially favored the Indian press. During my intel years, I saw this being practiced and saw the stories about Aids and the analysis behind them, especially how they were planted in overseas newspapers.
Seymour M. Hersh was particularly suspetible to “scoops” from the Indian press. The quesrion is was naive or was ahe a willing participant.
I think the classification on a lot of this stuff expired in 2018 and there were several articles written about it then.
I suspect RBTH (that is Russian state owned) just wanted to have an English language article they themselves wrote out there, where they are softer on Russia than the other ones.
Don’t know enough about the topic to spot distortions or omissions though.
Not to mention how we “forgave” Nazis who were beneficial to us in the Space Race and who knows how else.
And run by Bush 41.
I've read these stories too many times. It's amazing how widespread this is believed.
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