The Propagation and Power of Communist Bloc Dezinformatsiya

By Max Holland

    One of the KGB’s most effective active measures during the Cold War was the use of disinformation (dezinformatsiya) to defame the U.S. government or at least prominent elements of it, such as the FBI and CIA.

    The false allegations leveled via disinformation ranged from charges that Washington had deployed biological weapons in the north during the Korean War, to assertions that elements of the U.S. government (chiefly, the CIA) were involved in the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

    This article about Communist bloc dezinformatsiya originally appeared in the International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, Vol. 19, No. 1 (2006), and may be purchased from Taylor & Francis by clicking here.