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Disinformation in the Reagan Years and Lessons For CONTENTS Introduction 1 Disinformation in Perspective 2 Declassified: The Reagan Years 3 What’s Old is New Again 7 About the Author 8 America is an enemy; and second, that Russia is a “besieged fortress, surrounded by enemies.”3 At least partially, Russian eforts to undermine the United States and the West in general are a predictable consequence of those narratives. With respect to the 2016 election, using disinformation as a primary means to sow derision has clear benefits for Russia in that it is efective and remarkably low cost.4 And, perhaps more importantly, modern Russia does not need to develop a new strategy for this kind of attack, as its Soviet predecessors left a well-developed playbook from which to borrow many methods and objectives. R STREET POLICY STUDY NO. 164 February 2019 Using these low-cost disinformation campaigns to divide America, undermine the West and undercut the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) efectively serves the greater purpose of increasing Russia’s power relative to the West. Russian President Vladimir Putin and his circle are making use of the underlying nature of democracy to turn DISINFORMATION IN THE REAGAN these objectives into reality. For example, people within YEARS AND LESSONS FOR TODAY1 democracies ultimately decide what happens in their soci- eties, including the future of foreign and military policy.5 By Megan Reiss Accordingly, if it can successfully divide the people or per- suade them to push for what are, in fact, Russian policy pref- INTRODUCTION erences, Russia may be able to gain power while weakening elatively speaking, after the end of the Cold War, the the United States. United States appeared immune to Russia. Despite Russian military attacks against Estonia, Georgia, the Eforts to study Russia’s recent attempts to conduct disin- Ukraine and others in the ensuing years, the United formation campaigns are already clarifying exactly how they RStates was large and powerful, and any real, residual threat take advantage of social media platform tools (like trend- was neutralized when the Soviet Union dissolved. However, ing hashtags) to bolster their eforts.6 Yet, focusing on recent the end of the Cold War did not mean an end to history. And eforts alone may be insufcient, either to thoroughly analyze indeed, America’s false sense of security was made appar- the recent disinformation campaigns or to identify new ones ent when Russia intervened in the November 2016 elections. in their nascent stages. Indeed, along with academic analyses of previous Russian eforts, the large number of declassified In hindsight, the United States should have expected that archival documents, especially coming out of CREST—the Russia would search for new purpose after its empire col- lapsed. The transition from superpower to “something else” 3. Ibid., pp. 307 and 312-27. was, in part, a search for Russian identity.2 And although Rus- 4. See Michele A. Flournoy in Nicholas Burns et al., eds., The World Turned Upside sia has yet to settle on the principles of this new “nation- Down: Maintaining American Leadership in a Dangerous Age (The Aspen Institute, hood,” it has returned to two very old narratives: First, that 2017), pp. 177-79. For similar analysis from the early Cold War, see Harold D. Lasswell, “The Strategy of Soviet Propaganda,” Proceedings of the Academy of Political Sci- ence: The Defense of the Free World 24:2 (January 1951), pp. 66-78. http://media. leeds.ac.uk/papers/pmt/exhibits/2944/Lasswell2.pdf. 5. Timothy P. McGeehan, “Countering Russian Disinformation,” Parameters 48:1 1. This is the first draft of a paper prepared as part of the University of Pennsylvania (Spring 2018), p. 50. https://ssi.armywarcollege.edu/pubs/parameters/issues/ Law School Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law’s Conference on “Democracy in the Spring_2018/8_McGeehan_CounteringRussianDisinformation.pdf. Crosshairs: Cyber Interference, Dark Money, and Foreign Influence,” Nov. 1-3, 2018. 6. Jared Prier, “Commanding the Trend Social Media as Information Warfare,” Strate- 2. Arkady Ostrovsky, The Invention of Russia: The Rise of Putin and the Age of Fake gic Studies Quarterly 11:4 (Winter 2017), pp. 50-85. https://www.airuniversity.af.edu/ News (Penguin Books, 2017), pp. 217-27 and 265-70. Portals/10/SSQ/documents/Volume-11_Issue-4/Prier.pdf. R STREET POLICY STUDY: 2018 DISINFORMATION IN THE REAGAN YEARS AND LESSONS FOR TODAY 1 vault of declassified Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) docu- That said, it was during the twentieth century that an incred- ments—reveals significant insights into the development and ible surge in disinformation brought with it significant execution of historic Soviet disinformation campaigns that advancements in developing efective campaigns. An early are relevant to Russian eforts today. and infamous example of Russian disinformation, the 1905 forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, provided fodder In view of this reality, the present study is comprised of three for deadly anti-Semitism policies in Russia and abroad.12 parts: First, it briefly reviews Russian disinformation eforts Despite being exposed as a forgery in 1921, it still pops up as prior to the Cold War. It then examines a series of disinfor- justification to oppose and oppress Jewish people today. This mation campaigns launched during the Reagan administra- demonstrates the lifespan disinformation can have when it tion for lessons about why and how the Soviets executed speaks to what people want to hear. them. And finally, it reviews lessons learned in an efort to inform today’s response to recent Russian disinformation Yet, much of the early Soviet disinformation was borne out eforts. of real concerns about opposition movements in the wake of the Russian civil war that brought the Soviets to power.13 One note before proceeding: This paper primarily uses the The 1920s saw a successful disinformation campaign with terms “disinformation and propaganda,” or just “disinforma- what the Soviet Union called TREST—a six-year deception tion,” in part, because this is the terminology the U.S. gov- operation that claimed monarchs were conspiring to take ernment uses to describe foreign government campaigns over the government. In fact, TREST was conceived by Sovi- to manipulate information.7 Notably, these terms and oth- et intelligence—the GRU—and was used to root out Soviet ers were also used during the Cold War. The Soviets them- opponents.14 Historian Christopher Andrew argues that selves called it “dezinformatsiya,” which refers to techniques TREST and another early Soviet operation called SINDIKAT they used to get false information into the foreign media.8 showed that the Soviets were more advanced in human intel- Likewise, the State Department-led Active Measures Work- ligence operations than their Western counterparts; in fact, ing Group that studied Soviet influence activities described it was not until the British Double-Cross System that a West- propaganda as “information that reflects the perceptions ern state showed similar sophistication.15 While TREST and or perspectives of a government,” which is spread through SINDIKAT fooled intelligence agencies in the West, both “deceptive operations that attempt to manipulate the opin- campaigns were geared primarily toward addressing imme- ions and/or actions of individuals, publics or governments.”9 diate threats within the Soviet Union—which is to say that Active measures of propaganda included “the use of front their primary focus was not to alter policies abroad. groups or the spread of disinformation (lies).” 10 During wartime, campaigns in the Soviet Union and the West became more sophisticated, targeting both troops in war and DISINFORMATION IN PERSPECTIVE civilian populations in ways that hid their origin. Many of the Attempts to alter public opinion or change the outcome of actors participating in World War II, for example, engaged public decisions is a decidedly old phenomenon. From The- in disinformation of some sort. German broadcasts target- mistocles’ disinformation campaign in ancient Greece to ing U.S. civilians at home imitated domestic broadcasts as Julius Caesar’s use of symbols to manipulate populations much as possible, even including faked commercials for Kel- in ancient Rome and Sun Tzu’s lessons on manipulating logg’s Rice Krispies.16 However, it was the impact of Soviet the enemy in The Art of War, state actors have strategically eforts that made them remarkable. In fact, German leaders employed propaganda and disinformation for millennia.11 7. See, e.g., the establishment of the Global Engagement Center aimed at exposing 12. The publication date is disputed. See, e.g., Svetlan Boym, “Conspiracy Theo- foreign propaganda and disinformation campaigns in Section 1287 of S. 2943, Nation- ries and Literary Ethics: Umberto Eco, Danilo Kiš and The Protocols of Zion,” al Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017, 114th Cong. https://www.govinfo. Comparative Literature 51:2 (Spring 1999), pp. 97-122. https://www.jstor.org/ gov/content/pkg/BILLS-114s2943enr/pdf/BILLS-114s2943enr.pdf. See also, “Execu- stable/1771244?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents; and Robert Singerman, “The tive Order on Imposing Certain Sanctions in the Event of Foreign Interference in a American Career of the ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion,’” American Jewish History 71:1 United States Election,” The White House, Sept. 12, 2018. https://www.whitehouse. (September 1981), pp. 48-78. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23882005?seq=1#page_ gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-imposing-certain-sanctions-event-foreign- scan_tab_contents. interference-united-states-election. 13. Sarah Davies and James Harris, Stalin’s World: Dictating the Soviet Order (Yale 8. Thomas Boghardt, “Operation INFEKTION: Soviet Bloc Intelligence and its AIDS University Press, 2014), pp. 59-91. Disinformation Campaign,” Studies in Intelligence 53:4 (December 2009), pp. 1-2. 14. Mikhail Agursky, “Soviet Disinformation and Forgeries,” International Jour- 9. “Soviet Influence Activities: A Report on Active Measures and Propaganda, 1986- nal of World Peace 6:1 (January-March 1989), pp.
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