Soviet Bloc Intelligence and Its AIDS Disinformation Campaign

Operation INFEKTION Soviet Bloc Intelligence and Its AIDS Disinformation Campaign

Thomas Boghardt

The practice of intelligence dif- weaken the USSR’s opponents— fered considerably between East first and foremost the “main and West during the Cold War. enemy” (glavny protivnik), the Western intelligence services were United States—and to create a most commonly tasked with gath- favorable environment for ering information, but their advancing Moscow’s views and Soviet bloc counterparts placed international objectives much greater emphasis on decep- worldwide. Our friends in Moscow tion operations to influence “ opinions or actions of individu- This is the story of one such mea- call it ‘dezinformatsiya.’ als and governments. 2 sure—a campaign to implicate Our enemies in America the United States in the emer- call it ‘active measures,’ These “active measures” (aktiv- gence of the AIDS pandemic that and I, dear friends, call it inyye meropriatia, as the Soviets appeared in the early 1980s. The ‘my favorite pastime.’ called them) included manipula- story both illustrates the nature of tion and media control, written Soviet and communist bloc disin- and oral disinformation, use of formation programs and foreign communist parties and demonstrates the potential long- front organizations, clandestine term consequences. —Col.” Rolf Wagenbreth, radio broadcasting, manipula- director of Department X (dis- tion of the economy, kidnappings, Editor’s Note: This article was the information) of East German paramilitary operations, and sup- recipient of an Annual Studies in foreign intelligence1 port of guerrilla groups and Intelligence Award in 2009. The terrorist organizations. Under references to end notes seen in Joseph Stalin, active measures this text are included only in the also included political article’s .PDF versions posted in assassinations. 3 The basic goal of the Studies in Intelligence collec- Soviet active measures was to tion in www.cia.gov.

Organizational Basics Directorate (foreign intelli- gence) was expected to spend 25 The KGB’s Service A was the percent of his time conceiving unit tasked with conducting and implementing them. 4 But active measures, and numerous active measures were well inte- KGB residencies abroad were grated into Soviet policy and assigned officers dealing exclu- involved virtually every ele- sively with them. Moreover, ment of the Soviet party and each officer of the First Chief

All statements of fact, opinion, or analysis expressed in this article are those of the authors. Nothing in the article should be construed as asserting or implying US gov- ernment endorsement of an article’s factual statements and interpretations.

Studies in Intelligence Vol. 53, No. 4 (December 2009) 1 The Creation and Perpetuation of a Myth

Deteriorating East-West relations formed the backdrop to Mos- cow’s decision to embark on an aggressive active measures of Germany was merely an campaign. incarnation of the Third Reich.8 In conducting disinformation state structure, not only the Moscow’s “total” approach to campaigns, Soviet bloc intelli- KGB. influence and deception opera- gence had to be mindful of the tions contrasted starkly with concerns, fears, and expecta- Active measures specialists the American concept of covert tions of their target audience. used newspapers, radio sta- action, which was carried out As Ladislav Bittman, deputy tions, embassies, and other offi- by a single agency—the CIA— chief of the Czechoslovak intel- cial institutions for whose budget for such opera- ligence service’s disinformation implementation and diffusion. tions made up a fraction of its department from 1964 to 1966, Services allied to the Soviets, overall expenditure and paled pointed out: in order to succeed such as East Germany’s Minis- in comparison to what the Sovi- “every disinformation message try for State Security (MfS), ets spent on active measures.7 must at least partially corre- were frequently enlisted as spond to reality or generally well. In 1980, a conservative Disinformation (dezinfor- accepted views.” 9 CIA estimate put the annual matsiya) was a particularly cost of Soviet active measures effective weapon in the armory at $3 billion. 6 of Soviet bloc active measures. The AIDS Campaign’s The term dezinformatsiya Backdrop and Origins denoted a variety of techniques A Note about Intelligence and activities to purvey false or Deteriorating East-West rela- Sources misleading information that tions formed the backdrop to Soviet bloc active measures spe- Moscow’s decision to embark on With the end of the Cold War, cialists sought to leak into the an aggressive active measures former Soviet and East German campaign in the 1980s. The intelligence officers confirmed foreign media. From the West- ern perspective, disinformation Soviet invasion of Afghanistan their services’ sponsorship of the in 1979 ended what was left of AIDS disinformation campaign. was a politically motivated lie, In 1990, the German TV news but Soviet bloc propagandists détente, and the newly elected magazine Panorama featured an believed their disinformation US president, Ronald Reagan, anonymous former intelligence campaigns merely highlighted adopted a hard line against the officer—probably Günter greater truths by exposing the USSR. At his first press confer- Bohnsack—who revealed his real nature of capitalism. ence, Reagan declared: “They department’s participation in the [the Soviets] reserve unto them- campaign. Later that year, selves the right to commit any Bohnsack and a fellow retired For example, the KGB began intelligence officer published more spreading rumors about FBI crime, to lie, to cheat in order to details of their department’s activ- and CIA involvement in the attain [world revolution].” ities against the West, including assassination of President John the AIDS disinformation F. Kennedy because the Soviets In short order, the new presi- campaign. 5 And in 1992, SVR earnestly believed the US mili- dent increased the defense bud- (Russian foreign intelligence) tary-industrial complex was get by 10 percent, suspended director Yevgeny Primakov con- involved in Kennedy’s murder. arms reduction talks, and rein- firmed the KGB’s participation. Likewise, East German intelli- stated work on MX missiles and Over the next years, the European B-1 bombers. The Reagan and the North American media gence routinely floated disinfor- repeatedly reported on Soviet bloc mation depicting West German administration’s hawkish intelligence sponsorship of the politicians as former Nazis, stance, in turn, stoked Soviet AIDS conspiracy theory. Archival because, from East Berlin’s per- paranoia, especially after Yuri sources, interviews, and other spective, the Federal Republic Andropov’s election as general material were used in this article secretary of the Communist as well.

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Party of the Soviet Union in The Soviet Active Measures Process 1982. A former KGB chairman, Andropov was intelligent and Center gives strategic go-ahead for a disinformation campaign. well-versed in foreign affairs, Ideas would be generated by residency officers assigned to read local press, but he was also a hardliner books, and magazines for material that could be used for disinformation with a proclivity for conspiracy purposes.12 theories, a trait perhaps exacer- Center would evaluate the ideas. According to a senior East European intel- bated by his terminal illness. ligence officer who defected in 1968,

During his short reign, Individual suggestions for special operations [active measures] which came from stations abroad were submitted for preliminary assess- Andropov became convinced ment.…the majority of the suggestions were discarded in the first stage that the United States planned of the selection process, leaving only those whose conception corre- sponded with our long-range plans and whose projected consequences for nuclear war, and KGB resi- suggested positive results. The suggestions were then transmitted to a dencies in Western capitals panel…where the author of the proposal faced many questions and were instructed to look for signs much criticism in an attempt to uncover any weakness. The composition of the critical board varied from case to case although several Depart- of a first strike. In keeping with ment D employees and experts on particular regions were permanent Andropov’s hostility toward the members. Further supplemented and polished, the proposal was then 13 Reagan administration, the submitted to the intelligence chief for approval. KGB’s First Chief Directorate Still at the Center, preparation involved disinformation specialists writing on 30 September 1982 in their native language, approvals by managers, and translation. instructed its residencies in the Targeting followed. The Center typically sought to launch a story outside United States to counterattack the Soviet bloc-controlled press to conceal Moscow’s hand. This was done Washington’s aggressive stance frequently through anonymous letters and newspaper articles in the with active measures.10 Third World. 14 Once published abroad, the Soviet media might pick up and further prop- Soviet active measures agate the item by referring to its non-Soviet source. worked best when pre-existing plans fit neatly into political- Types of Active Measures cultural environments and spe- According to the defector, two types of active measures existed: cific events. 11 In this case, Mos- The first category includes operations initiated and designed within cow had long realized that KGB ranks and usually employs such traditional disinformation tech- chemical and biological war- niques as forgeries or agents of influence. The KGB conducts hundreds of these categories every year even though their impact is rather fare was of great concern to limited.15 Western publics and could be exploited for disinformation Such single pieces of disinformation were not reinforced by additional prop- purposes. During the Korean agation efforts. War, the Chinese and North The second type was the result of a strategic decision at the top of the Soviet Koreans had broadcast “confes- active measures pyramid and directly approved by the Politburo. Campaigns sions” of captured American were usually planned to last several years and encompassed many elements pilots about the alleged US use of the Soviet state, including the International Information Department (IID), which directed official press organs, such as TASS, Novosti, and Radio of germ warfare. 17 During the Moscow; and the International Department (ID), responsible for liaison with Vietnam War, the KGB circu- foreign communist parties, international communist front organizations, lated a forged letter purporting and clandestine radios. to come from Gordon Goldstein The KGB, ID, and IID would cooperate closely in executing a particular cam- of the US Office of Naval paign with the means available to each—the KGB’s Service A, responsible Research. First published in the for forgeries and spreading rumors (“black propaganda”), the IID’s press Bombay Free Press Journal in organs for official stories (“white propaganda”), the ID for clandestine radio 1968, the letter “revealed” the broadcasts and the use of international front organizations (“gray existence of American bacterio- propaganda”).16

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In their conspiracy-driven world view, it was plausible to as- sume that AIDS was indeed the result of US biological warfare was indeed the result of US bio- experiments. logical warfare experiments. But ultimately, the true origins of AIDS were of secondary logical warfare weapons in Viet- response to the discoveries importance. 23 According to nam and Thailand.18 opened the door to rumors.20 Yevgeny Primakov, at the time The emergence of the mysteri- the first deputy chairman of the Moreover, Americans had ous illness so soon after revela- Soviet Peace Committee, a for- shown themselves politically tions about US biological eign propaganda front organi- sensitive to the behavior of warfare experiments therefore zation, the KGB conducted the their own government. In the provided Soviet active mea- AIDS disinformation campaign 1970s, a spate of press and con- sures specialists an opening to to expose the “perfidious” work gressional investigations publi- exploit. of US military scientists.24 cized several actual instances of US biological warfare research In addition, the Soviets were early in the Cold War. One extremely sensitive to charges The Campaign Opens example was the secret Special against them concerning biolog- Operations Division (SOD) at ical weapons. A US State The opening salvo of the AIDS the premier US chemical and Department report released on disinformation campaign was biological warfare research 22 March 1982 accused Mos- fired on 17 July 1983, when an facility at Fort Detrick, Mary- cow of using chemical toxin obscure newspaper in India, the land, which had created a num- weapons (“yellow rain”) in Patriot, printed an anonymous ber of germ weapons for the Southeast Asia. This allegation letter headlined “AIDS may CIA (codename MKNAOMI). may have provided an impetus invade India: Mystery disease Later, an SOD report surfaced, for the KGB to respond in caused by US experiments.” detailing a simulated biological kind. 21 The letter, allegedly written by warfare attack in New York in a “well-known American scien- the summer of 1966—Army All Moscow had to do was add tist and anthropologist” in New personnel had released aerosol a twist to its time-tested biolog- York, claimed that “AIDS…is clouds of a “harmless simulant ical warfare disinformation believed to be the result of the agent” into subway stations theme by introducing the idea Pentagon’s experiments to along the 7th and 8th Avenue that US government scientists develop new and dangerous bio- lines to assess the vulnerabil- had created the AIDS virus. In logical weapons.” It went on to ity of subway systems to covert the words of two former Soviet state that the United States biological attacks and to explore bloc disinformation officers, the was about to transfer these “methods of delivery that could AIDS disinformation campaign experiments to sites in Paki- be used offensively.” 19 “virtually conceptualized stan, where they would pose a itself.” 22 grave threat to neighboring In this environment, the key India. event was the emergence in the As in earlier disinformation early 1980s of the Acquired campaigns, the propagandists • Citing a number of publicly Immune Deficiency Syndrome, sought to expose what they con- available sources, the article AIDS, as a national health cri- sidered a greater truth about recounted a series of well- sis. Scientists had named the the “main enemy”—i.e., that established facts about disease in 1982, and the follow- the United States was an impe- AIDS—that there was great ing year a causative virus (HIV) rialistic, reactionary power con- concern about contaminated was identified. However, the trolled by a war-mongering blood donations; that AIDS origins of HIV/AIDS were still arms industry. In their conspir- was probably caused by a obscure. The lack of verifiable acy-driven world view, it was virus; and that AIDS regis- facts and the strong emotional plausible to assume that AIDS

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The idea for the AIDS disinformation campaign would have tered its first major outbreak been approved and polished at KGB headquarters. in the United States.

• The author then listed ele- charges made in 1982 in the of Army Labs in RDA” and spe- ments of the US biological Soviet media to the effect that a cifically referred to “the U.S. warfare program known to research laboratory sponsored Army Medical Research Insti- the public: government by the University of Maryland tute of Infectious Diseases records obtained through the in Lahore, Pakistan, was in fact (USAMRIID), Fort Detrick, Freedom of Information Act a bacteriological warfare Md,” which had—the journal by the Church of Scientology, facility. 26 AIDS itself was not of asserted—placed particular which had documented biolog- much concern to the average emphasis “on problems associ- ical agent experiments in the Indian in 1983, but any men- ated with medical defense 1950s; CIA-sponsored testing tion of schemes involving against potential biological war- of drugs on humans during India’s arch-foe Pakistan could fare agents, or naturally occur- the same time period; and the be expected to draw attention ring diseases of particular development of biological on the subcontinent. military importance and on the weapons until the late 1960s highly virulent pathogenic at Fort Detrick. The 17 July letter’s extensive microorganisms which require quoting of US sources—e.g., special containment facilities.”28 • Even though President Rich- U.S. News & World Report, ard Nixon had banned US Associated Press, and Army Once conceived, the idea for offensive bacteriological weap- Research, Development & the AIDS disinformation cam- ons research by executive Acquisition magazine—sug- paign would have been order in 1969, the letter in the gests that US-based KGB offic- approved and polished at KGB Patriot stated that the Penta- ers initiated the AIDS headquarters (the Center) in gon had “never abandoned campaign, or at least collected the Moscow suburb of Yasen- these weapons” and claimed the material that triggered the ovo. (See box on Soviet active that Fort Detrick had discov- idea. The KGB had large resi- measures process.) The task of ered AIDS by analyzing sam- dencies in New York City and pulling pertinent material ples of “highly pathogenic Washington, DC, both of which together and generating the let- viruses” collected by Ameri- were assigned officers who ter would have fallen to the can scientists in Africa and worked solely on active KGB’s disinformation special- Latin America. measures. 27 ists of Service A, under Gen- eral Ivan Ivanovich Agayants. • It concluded by quoting statis- One especially clear indicator By 1985, the service employed tics and publications on the of the US origins of the effort is roughly 80 officers at Yasenovo spread and lethality of AIDS, the Patriot letter’s reference to and another 30 to 40 in the and its particular threat to Army Research, Development & Novosti Press offices at Push- 25 developing nations. Acquisition,which was not kin Square. 29 widely available and would make unusual reading for a Although they had no particu- Indicators of Soviet “well-known American scien- lar training in psychology, these Inspiration tist” who also described himself specialists had honed their as an “anthropologist.” The skills over several decades and There can be little doubt journal would be a typical understood the dynamics of about the KGB’s authorship of source for a KGB officer seek- rumor campaigns intuitively. the letter. The letter’s argu- ing material for a disinforma- The responsible officer(s) would ments built on earlier disinfor- tion campaign, however. In fact, have composed the text first in mation campaigns involving US the magazine’s July/August Russian and then commis- bacteriological warfare and spe- 1982 issue focused on “The Role sioned a translation into cifically picked up on false

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As an opening salvo, the letter was a dud. eventually lead to the dissolu- tion of the USSR, but at the English by KGB-translators. Indian journalists and politi- time he refrained from interfer- Some translators were native- cians willing to take money. 31 ing with the KGB active mea- speakers, but most were Rus- sures program and generally sian speakers schooled in With respect to the left-wing supported its agenda. 34) Sec- English for this purpose. Patriot, the KGB had been ond, the spread of AIDS had involved in setting it up in 1967 become a much greater global The use of non-native speak- for the very purpose of circulat- concern and made it a poten- ers who may not have had ing Soviet-inspired articles. tially more powerful disinfor- much exposure to spoken With a circulation of about mation weapon than two years English, occasionally resulted 35,000, the Patriot was small by earlier. in stilted and syntactically Indian standards, but it quickly incorrect translations, as gained a reputation in intelli- Three events in 1985 might appeared in the Patriot letter. gence circles as Moscow’s have contributed to a Soviet The text included several gram- mouthpiece.32 decision to reactivate the AIDS matical errors, including a ref- campaign. erence to the “virus flu,” rather As an opening salvo, the let- than “flu virus.” Such linguistic ter was a dud. Though care- • A US government report slip-ups were typical give- fully prepared and planted, no released in February 1985 aways of Soviet bloc disinforma- media outlet picked it up at the claimed that the Soviets had tion stories. 30 time. Even though the letter broken the Geneva Conven- mentioned Pakistan, the Indian tion by producing biological press probably ignored it sim- weapons.35 Placement ply because AIDS was not then an issue on the subcontinent. 33 • An article in Lyndon H. Composed, approved, and That the Soviet media failed to LaRouche Jr.’s Executive Intel- translated, the letter needed to follow up, on the other hand, ligence Review accused the be inserted covertly into the may have been because the let- USSR of blocking the battle media. India, as a large, non- ter had fallen into that second- against AIDS. 36 aligned country with a diverse ary category of disinformation, English-language press, was an a single, if clever, piece con- • Concern about the spread of ideal staging ground. The ceived at the bottom of the AIDS within the USSR may Indian government put few Soviet active measures’ pyra- have prompted the leader- restrictions on the influx of mid and not reinforced by addi- ship to attempt to redirect 37 Soviet officials, and in the tional support measures. domestic concerns abroad. 1980s more than 150 KGB and GRU (military intelligence) The campaign reopened with officers served on the subconti- Reemergence of the an article in the newspaper Lit- nent. Many of them were busy Campaign. eraturnaya Gazeta, the KGB’s planting biased or false stories “prime conduit in the Soviet in Indian papers. According to The Patriot letter lay largely press for propaganda and KGB archivist and defector unnoticed for nearly three disinformation.” 38 On Vasili Mitrokhin, the KGB years. By 1985, a lot had 30 October 1985, the paper pub- planted 5,510 stories in this changed. First, a new, dynamic lished an article by Valentin way in 1975 alone and con- general secretary of the CPSU, Zapevalov, titled “Panic in the trolled 10 Indian newspapers Mikhail Gorbachev, had, with West or What Is Hiding behind and one news agency. KGB KGB support, taken over and the Sensation Surrounding officers boasted to one another ended the USSR’s period of AIDS.” 39 that there was no shortage of leadership disarray. (Gor- bachev’s reform agenda would

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Zapevalov began his lengthy Fort Detrick. As a result of tests piece by reminding readers that on unsuspecting victims—peo- East Germany’s Ministry for State Security AIDS was apparently spread- ple from the US “satellite coun- ing from the United States to try” Haiti, drug addicts, Modeled on the KGB, East Ger- the rest of the world (in fact, homosexuals and homeless peo- many’s MfS was a massive secu- most early AIDS cases were ple—the virus was then alleg- rity and espionage agency that included secret police and foreign reported among US homosex- edly unleashed. Zapevalov intelligence components. The for- ual men). He went on to accu- concluded by suggesting that eign intelligence branch (HVA, or rately describe the disease, US military personnel were Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung— quoting well-known publica- potential carriers of the virus chief reconnaissance division) was tions such as U.S. News & and expressed the hope that headed for many years by the World Report for statistical evi- “one of the victims” would sue urbane Markus Wolf. In the early dence. He then veered back to the CIA or the Pentagon to 1960s, the HVA set up its own dis- information section, Department his initial contention about the show the world that “all vic- X (or HVA X). By the 1980s, the provenance of AIDS, chroni- tims of AIDS are the result of a department had grown to include cling in some detail the early monstrous experiment.” roughly 60 officers, based at MfS spread of the disease, and ask- headquarters in the Normannen- ing rhetorically: “Why [did] The structure of the Literatur- strasse in East Berlin. naya Gazeta article bears a AIDS…appear in the USA and Headed throughout its history by start spreading above all in striking resemblance to the Col. Rolf Wagenbreth, HVA X towns along the East Coast?” Patriot letter. While both publi- focused primarily on West Ger- This leading question was fol- cations claimed that AIDS was many, but it was also active in the lowed by a laundry list of covert made in the USA, most of the Third World. (By the late 1970s it US biological warfare pro- information given in the text had expanded its overseas activi- ties to include China and the grams of the 1950s and 1960s was accurate—an essential ingredient of a successful disin- United States.) In the mid-1960s, already noted in the Patriot let- the KGB introduced structural ter; CIA-authorized testing of formation campaign. Much of reforms in the Soviet bloc intelli- drugs for mind-control pur- the data was taken from pub- gence network, permitting indi- poses; the case of Frank Olson, lished sources. As had the vidual KGB departments to work a Special Operations Division authors of the Patriot letter, directly with their territorial, (SOD) bio weapons expert who Zapevalov used verifiable facts counterintelligence and disinfor- committed suicide after he was about early Cold War US exper- mation counterparts in Eastern iments as circumstantial evi- Europe. Henceforth, HVA X administered LSD without his informed the KGB directly of dence for his claim that AIDS knowledge; and the delivery of active measures planned by East a toxic substance by CIA officer was the result of similar tests. Berlin, and HVA and KGB held Sidney Gottlieb to the Agency’s annual bilateral meetings, alter- nating between Berlin and Mos- station chief in Congo for use in Enter East Germany and assassinating President Patrice cow, to discuss operations against Dr. Jakob Segal the United States and other Lumumba. 40 nations.44 The Soviets frequently In the last third of the article, involved allied intelligence ser- the author reminded readers of vices and their disinformation The rest of this story is largely the biological warfare pro- departments in their disinfor- about the role played by a dedi- grams at Fort Detrick and mation campaigns. In this case, cated East German scientist stated that these experiments in turning to East Germany known to the KGB and East continued notwithstanding and to a particular East Ger- Germany’s Ministry for State President Nixon’s 1969 ban. man, the Soviets injected their Security, the MfS (colloquially The Patriot letter from 1983 campaign with an energy even known as the Stasi) and the was referenced as a source for they may not have expected. Soviet and East German prac- the alleged creation of AIDS at

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tice of exploiting unwitting ser- The Segal Arguments in AIDS—its nature and origins vants of seemingly good causes for their own ends. Segal and his coauthors mixed truth, to establish professional credentials, and fiction—the heart of their story. At the outset, the three detailed well While most of the KGB’s jun- established facts about the illness, including that it was caused by the HIV ior partner services conducted virus and disabled a body’s immune system. active measures to some extent, by the 1980s, East German Rejecting theories about the simian origins of the virus, the three asserted intelligence had emerged as the that Fort Detrick was “for a long time…the central laboratory of the Pentagon for the development of biological agents of war” and operated a “P-4 type” high KGB’s most valuable partner in security laboratory for gene manipulation in “building 550” since 1977. 49 loyalty, professionalism, and There, voluntary human test subjects were probably infected with the AIDS technical expertise. Having virus, which they alleged was the product of two natural, artificially synthe- decided to revive the AIDS cam- sized (“recombined”) viruses, VISNA and HTLV-I. When the test subjects paign, the KGB informed its showed no symptoms for six to 12 months, due to AIDS’ long incubation East German counterpart period, the Pentagon concluded its virus was ineffective, and the infected vol- unambiguously that Moscow unteers were released. 41 expected it to participate. Since the test subjects were criminals who had spent a long time in jail deprived of female companionship, the three argued, most of them had The East Germans were told become homosexuals. Many of the infected volunteers headed for New York, specifically to employ a “scien- mixing with the local gay population, thus initiating the epidemic whose first tific approach” 42 and produce victims were registered among homosexuals in that city in 1979—two years disinformation contending the after the alleged Fort Detrick experiments. Displaying a wobbly grasp of US AIDS virus had been developed urban reality, they added that it “was logical for the released prisoners to seek at Fort Detrick, from where it out a major city close by, but not Washington, where the political climate is spread to the general popula- rather unsuitable for criminals [in fact, Washington, D.C. had one of the high- est crime rates of the nation in the 1980s]. New York with its developed tion through human testing. underworld was more promising.” 50 Beyond those obligatory details, the East Germans were given a views who were not openly pro- gence probably originated in free hand in devising their own Soviet. Bloc intelligence those years. After the war, Segal strategy and spreading the referred to them as “agents of settled in East Berlin, where he story. The HVA code named the influence,” “subconscious multi- became head of the Institute for operation INFEKTION and plicators,” or simply as “useful Applied Bacteriology at East VORWÄRTS II [Forward II] idiots.” 45 Berlin’s Humboldt University in and henceforth was the KGB’s 195346 After his retirement, he junior partner and main ally The agent of choice in this case and his wife Lilli—also a scien- regarding AIDS.43 was the retired East German tist—developed an interest in biophysicist Professor Jakob AIDS, although neither of them The KGB was particularly Segal. Born in St. Petersburg in was an expert on the subject.47 keen on employing another of 1911, Segal grew up in interwar Both Segals were unwavering its standard active-measure Germany, where he studied biol- believers in international com- practices, the use of unwitting ogy, but as a Jew and commu- munism and staunch support- agents who were held in high nist he was forced to flee to ers of the GDR. As an esteem in their home countries. France when the Nazis assumed established KGB contact and an Such individuals did Moscow’s power. According to Segal, he MfS informer (Inoffizieller or East Berlin’s bidding completed his PhD at Sorbonne Mitarbeiter, or IM),48 Segal was through their speeches, publica- University in Paris, just before a known quantity, and Soviet tions, and personal networks. the German invasion in 1940 bloc intelligence had enough Often, these individuals were and joined the French resis- information to judge him politi- journalists, scientists, or other tance during the occupation. His cally reliable. public figures with left-wing connection with Soviet intelli-

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Segal became genuinely and passionately devoted to his How Segal was actually cause, and many people found him winsome and convincing. brought into the process is not known with certainty, but in all likelihood “evidence” of the US have met him, the theory’s conceded that the theory was origins of AIDS would have appeal [about the origins of based on circumstantial evi- been given to him in personal AIDS] may lie in the man him- dence, they concluded that the meetings, perhaps with a pro- self. Engaging and well-read, he “assumption that AIDS is a fessional colleague previously is sympathetic to AIDS suffer- product of the preparation of briefed by the MfS. In this first ers and wants to help out in the biological warfare can there- meeting, Segal would not have fight against the disease.”52 fore be quite plainly expressed.” been told explicitly that the According to press reports, material came from Soviet bloc Segal subsequently claimed the The Segal Contributions intelligence or that it was part project was code-named “MK- Naomi.”54 of a disinformation campaign. Segal’s first major contribu- Rather, he simply would have tion to the AIDS disinforma- HVA X had provided Segal been encouraged to look into tion campaign was a 47-page the matter. Given Segal’s back- with much of the material for pamphlet titled AIDS—its 55 ground, he would have been his pamphlet, which began nature and origin, co-authored circulating in Harare, Zimba- expected to reach the intended by his wife Lilli and Ronald conclusion. While Segal may bwe, on the eve of the Eighth Dehmlow, a fellow retired Hum- Conference of NonAligned have suspected the real source boldt University professor. 53 In of the AIDS material, it was Nations (1–6 September 1986). it, the authors went to great The conference was attended by common practice in the GDR lengths to refute the more and for authorities to share “back- representatives of more than more widely accepted theory 100 Third World countries—as ground information” quasi-con- about the African origins of spiratorially in one-on-one well as four HVA and 20 KGB AIDS, inter alia by pointing to officers, who were busily dis- conversations. Its validity was the fact that the epidemic’s first typically not questioned.51 tributing Segal’s paper to the cases were reported among the press and delegates.56 Segal’s gay populations of New York Segal’s selection as the cam- explicit repudiation of the the- and San Francisco, not in paign’s frontman was a master- sis that AIDS originated in Africa. Like the Patriot letter stroke. As a German, he could Africa was tailor-made for an and Zapevalov’s article in Liter- speak unfiltered to the popula- African audience, and his aturnaya Gazeta, Segal’s pam- tion of a major member of the claims subsequently appeared phlet tediously detailed several Western alliance, and as an in the press of 25 African coun- well-established facts about established scientist, he pos- tries. The East German commu- AIDS, and he described accu- sessed professional authority. By nist party leadership was rately how Western scientists concealing their hand, the intel- delighted to see Segal’s theses had identified HIV. Having ligence services ensured that included in the conference’s demonstrated his professional Segal would speak convincingly, final report and heaped praise expertise on the subject matter, with the voice of a true believer on the HVA for the operation.57 Segal then detailed his theory not that of a paid informant. about US government experi- In the event, Segal became mentation, specifically among Disappointment at the genuinely and passionately homosexual prisoners who went Politburo devoted to his cause, and many on to infect gay populations in people found him winsome and New York City and San Fran- Meanwhile, Segal began convincing. A Montreal Gazette cisco. (See text box on facing aggressively pushing his the- reporter, who interviewed him page: Segal Arguments.) Even ory at home. In late summer of in 1992, wrote: “For those who though Segal and his coauthors 1986, he asked for a meeting

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for having agreed that the HIV Segal Memorandums to the Ministry of Health virus had originated in Africa. After detailing what was wrong 1. If AIDS spread at the current rate, Segal predicted, American hospitals with the Soviet scientist—the would soon be overwhelmed, as every AIDS patient “is on average being hos- pitalized for 82 days until death and costs on average $49,348.” By 1990, the USSR’s top AIDS expert had in cost of care for patients would “ruin the country economically.” If one could 1986 pinpointed a case of HIV persuade Americans that AIDS was the result of war preparations, Segal infection in the USSR that pre- argued, the epidemic could become “an important political factor.” And since ceded the virus’s supposed birth a majority of AIDS victims were young men eligible for military service, the at Fort Detrick—Segal accused disease would lead to “a military and economic weakening…. Overall, the him of lying. United States is facing a decade of gravest economic problems.” Since AIDS spread exponentially, countries currently less affected—such as the Warsaw It is evident from the second Pact states—would be much better off for many years. “This optimistic prog- memorandum that Segal was nosis, however, has a reverse side,” Segal cautioned. Due to the expected rapid spread of AIDS in the West, the Americans would lose their capability solely interested in bringing to wage war against Moscow in the next 10 years. When the American pres- political pressure to bear upon ident became aware of this decline, “would he not contemplate the idea of a colleagues from bloc countries preemptive strike in the next years? With [President Ronald] Reagan and with opinions that differed from [Vice President George H.W.] Bush, such a reaction cannot be ruled out.”58 his own, rather than engage 2. In the second memo, Segal took swipes at his critics. One of these, Profes- them in a professional dia- sor Niels Sönnichsen, representing the GDR at an AIDS summit of the World logue. Indeed, as a political Health Organization in Graz, Austria, in April 1986, had concluded his lec- activist, Segal had reason to be ture by saying that AIDS originated—“as we know”—in Africa. “This state- upset with Zhdanov. The Soviet ment is, as a matter of fact, false,” Segal commented and added: scientist’s comments threat- “[Sönnichsen’s] remarks can only be viewed as a formal kowtow to the US- ened to pull the rug from supported thesis.” Then Segal took on Professor Viktor Zhdanov, director of the Ivanovsky Institute of Virology, the Soviet Union’s top AIDS expert, at underneath Segal’s own theory. the second international conference on AIDS in Paris in June 1986. Zhdanov When asked by a reporter had reported on the case of a 14-year-old girl who had contracted lymphade- whether the United States had nopathy, an early indicator of infection with HIV. Soviet scientists had traced developed the AIDS virus, the girl’s infection to a series of blood transfusions in 1974 and concluded the Zhdanov replied bluntly: “That AIDS virus must already have existed at that time—a blow to Segal’s theory is a ridiculous question. Per- of its 1979 origins in the United States. Segal indignantly pointed out, “One haps it was the Martians.” 60 could infer [from Zhdanov’s statement] that AIDS did not spread from New York to the rest of the world but was imported to America from the Soviet Axen referred Segal to Karl Union.” He then accused Zhdanov of lying.59 Seidel, head of the health department of the central com- with Hermann Axen, the East disaster, the US political situa- mittee of the SED (East Ger- German Politburo member tion would change drastically. many’s ruling communist responsible for foreign affairs, At the same time, he warned, party), and the two met on and offered two memorandums the economic consequences 17 September 1986. In this for consideration. The first would lead US leaders into des- meeting, Segal reiterated his memorandum demonstrated perate and warlike acts. (See “assumption” (underlined in the that Segal deemed AIDS to be Segal Memorandums in text minutes of the meeting) that both a medical problem and a box.) AIDS was the result of biologi- political weapon. As a medical cal warfare experiments at Fort problem for the United States, In the other memorandum, Detrick. Segal conceded that he predicted, AIDS would even- Segal took on East German and this assertion was merely “a tually overwhelm the nation’s Soviet scientists who contra- hypothesis, albeit a probable economy, and, if Americans dicted him. Segal charged the one.” Since the Soviet bloc was could be made to believe their East German with being sub- only minimally affected by government had caused the servient to the United States AIDS, Segal argued the GDR

10 Studies in Intelligence Vol. 53, No. 4 (December 2009) The Creation and Perpetuation of a Myth

West German media reported a mysterious visit of two “US dip- should abandon its “defensive lomats” to Jakob and Lilli Segal in East Berlin. publishing practice” and begin denouncing the “true culprit” of the AIDS epidemic, i.e., the mentioned anti-imperialist construed as an official United States. goal.”61 endorsement? In fact, Hager’s decision to keep Segal at arm’s Segal solicited guidance from Hager may not have been length was a clever move from a the SED central committee as aware of the details of the disinformation operation per- to how he should proceed and AIDS disinformation cam- spective. By keeping Segal at a expressed interest in working paign, but he probably knew distance, Hager maintained at with the Ministry of Health about it in general. 62 In any least a semblance of scientific AIDS task force under Profes- event, he rejected most of independence for the AIDS sor Sönnichsen—even though Seidel’s recommendations, campaign’s front man and one of Segal’s memorandums although he authorized the denied Western observers the disparaged Sönnichsen. Segal Segals’ participation in the opportunity to quickly dismiss also expressed disappointment AIDS task force. Hager con- Segal’s utterances as state-con- that officials had not paid suffi- cluded that the GDR should trolled propaganda. Another cient attention to his own work. maintain its restrictive AIDS reason for Hager’s reluctance to information policy, and “since endorse Segal was probably Seidel briefed Kurt Hager, a Comrade Segal himself speaks East German leader Erich hard-line Politburo member of a hypothesis, reproduction Honecker’s angling for an offi- and the SED’s chief ideologue, [of his theses] in official GDR cial state visit to Washington, on the meeting and suggested publications must be avoided. I DC. The last thing Honecker how to deal with Segal and the do not know to what extent his needed was to have an anti- AIDS issue. Seidel pointed out assumptions can be published American active measure of his that Segal’s theses, even if only in relevant foreign journals. Of own secret service blow up and partially substantiated, would course, he alone would be derail his cherished project.64 portend the “unmasking of answerable for them.”63 steps for biological war prepa- rations of US imperialism, For Segal, support from the A Mysterious Visit which is politically highly SED leadership would have car- explosive. Especially the well- ried obvious advantages. His Shortly after Segal’s corre- founded polemics against the AIDS hypothesis offered him spondence with the SED leader- long-tailed-monkey theory of the chance of a lifetime— ship, West German media the origins of AIDS [in Africa], advancing the cause of commu- reported a mysterious visit of should reinforce anti-imperial- nism while increasing his own two “US diplomats” to Jakob ist sentiments and activities of name recognition far beyond and Lilli Segal in East Berlin. numerous political forces in the scientific community and According to a report in the Africa who must perceive this East Germany. Segal doubt- weekly Der Spiegel—appar- theory as an insult and dispar- lessly also realized that his ently based on an interview agement by the schemes of US work would endear him to the with Segal—the two showed up imperialism.” He recommended SED leadership, which would at his doorstep in mid-October that Segal be allowed to pursue have supported his research 1986, flashed their credentials, his work without restrictions efforts and sponsored trips politely asked for permission to and that he and his wife abroad, a major perk for a GDR enter, and began to “cross- become consultants to the AIDS citizen. examine” Segal for two hours task force. He also suggested about his hypothesis. Segal was that the GDR publish more But why did Hager turn down “certain they were from the material on AIDS, which “also most of Segal’s proposals and CIA.” 65 He later elaborated that takes into account the above- avoid anything that could be the two visitors “wanted to

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Heym’s words carried significant moral weight … and his enlist- ment in the AIDS campaign was a major coup. operation must be rated a suc- cess. know where we got our infor- had no incentive to have him mation. They were interested to “cross-examined,” in Berlin or Another Dupe know whether the information elsewhere. was correct or not. They were On 18 February 1987, the merely looking for the traitor In all likelihood Segal’s visi- major West German daily news- [who had revealed the secrets tors were HVA officers intent paper tageszeitung published a to Segal]. In turn, they offered on building up Segal’s resolve lengthy interview by the us wonderful working condi- by posing as CIA men visiting famous East German author tions, which we did not accept, in diplomatic guise and raising Stefan Heym with Jakob Segal on AIDS. 69 Segal and Heym had though.”66 questions that allowed Segal to conclude that his theory had much in common. Like Segal, Segal appears not to have struck a nerve in Washington. Heym was a German of Jewish questioned the credentials of descent with communist sym- his visitors. With his conspira- Segal was unlikely to have pathies, and like Segal he left torial mindset, the incident invented the story. By this time Germany when the Nazis came must have confirmed his worst he was a sincere believer in the to power in 1933. Heym emi- suspicions; the appearance of veracity of his theory, and the grated to the United States in the two “CIA men” showed US invention of such a fairy tale 1935, became a US citizen, and authorities to be totally uncon- does not correspond with his served in a psychological war- cerned about the consequences missionary zeal for spreading fare unit of the US Army in of their “actions” and merely the “truth.” Moreover, a yarn World War II. In 1952, he interested in tracking and pre- about CIA operations in East returned all his American mili- sumably punishing those Berlin, published in the West- tary commendations in protest responsible for leaking the ern media, would have gotten of the Korean War, moved to secret. him into serious trouble with Prague, and in the following the GDR security apparatus. year to East Germany, where he However, the story can hardly Yet there were no repercus- quickly became a literary and be taken at face value. For one sions for Segal. political icon. thing, it is virtually inconceiv- able that CIA officers would Only one organization in East Heym’s words carried signifi- have “cross-examined” a well- Germany, the MfS, had the cant moral weight in East Ger- known East German scientist authority and wherewithal to many and beyond, and his with connections to MfS and carry out a deception opera- enlistment in the AIDS cam- KGB in one of the best moni- tion—if that is what it was. paign was a major coup for tored cities of the Soviet bloc. Günter Bohnsack, a former Segal and the HVA. Heym As one former CIA station chief HVA X officer deeply involved looked favorably on Segal’s the- in Germany wrote, “East Ger- in the East German AIDS dis- ses, but like his interviewee, he many’s ubiquitous security ser- information campaign, has lit- was probably unaware of HVA vice had such an iron grip on its tle doubt that the two visitors involvement. The tageszeitung people that almost no one dared were from the HVA, and he was an anti-status-quo, left-of- spy for the Americans.” 67 Had recalls “overhearing comments center newspaper, independent the CIA really wished to con- from M. Wolf to the effect that of Moscow but critical of the tact Segal, it could have done so the dear professor needed to be United States. As such, it repre- easily on one of his trips ‘propped up.’…This ‘CIA visit’ sented the perfect vehicle for abroad. But why would it? US was certainly staged.”68 Given Segal and the HVA, and the intelligence knew Segal’s the- that Segal repeatedly referred interview had the intended ory was humbug and therefore to the “CIA visit,” the HVA

12 Studies in Intelligence Vol. 53, No. 4 (December 2009) The Creation and Perpetuation of a Myth

The naive conclusion by a Western academic would have effect. As a contemporary pleased intelligence headquarters in East Berlin. reader observed:

Consider the peculiarity tronic surveillance) recorded a case long-term inmates of of the situation: Two well- phone conversation referencing a prison for men!—back to 72 known, respected East Simmel’s project and for- their cells. Germans publish a the- ory propounding the warded a copy to Department The book quickly became a notion that AIDS is X. The disinformation special- bestseller and spawned a popu- caused by a man-made ists spotted an opportunity and lar three-part TV program. virus produced by Ameri- decided to anonymously send can biological warfare Raving about his agency’s coup, Simmel material pertaining to Markus Wolf proudly piled 10 researchers—but they do 71 so in West Berlin. They Segal’s AIDS theory. copies of Simmel’s novel on his are not permitted to pub- desk. Bohnsack and his col- The result was, from the East lish their theory in leagues were both happy and newspapers in their own German perspective, phenome- surprised that Simmel accepted country, which is offi- nal. Released in mid-1987, Sim- the HVA material as genuine cially anti-American and mel’s 500-page novel, Doch mit especially vituperative and made such extensive use of den Clowns kamen die Tränen about the CIA. It is impos- it. 73 sible to give a verifiable [Along with the clowns came explanation for this reti- the tears] revolved around a Simmel’s uncritical accep- cence, but one may biological arms race between tance of the HVA’s disinforma- surmise that in the GDR the United States and the tion package most likely was the politics of AIDS has Soviet Union. The two super- remained the province of the product of naivety, moralis- medical personnel rather powers were portrayed as tic zeal, and eagerness to tell a than political equally cynical, ruthless, and good story. Shortly after the 70 propagandists. unethical in their pursuit of a book was released, Simmel said super germ. In the foreword, about himself more insightfully This naive conclusion by a Simmel insisted that “The mon- Western academic would have than he would have realized at strous experiments I report on the time: “Simmel is in a fatal pleased intelligence headquar- have already been successfully ters in East Berlin. way naive and starry-eyed. He conducted by some scientists.” may come across as cunning One protagonist cites Heym’s and clever, but he steps into Still Another Dupe interview with Segal in the ta- every trap that’s out there.”74 geszeitung as evidence for the The HVA’s biggest coup was monstrosity of the superpow- yet to come. In the mid-1980s, ers’ goals: Back to the USSR the Austrian-born best-selling author Johannes Mario Sim- He [Segal] is convinced Meanwhile, the Soviets’ own that genetic scientists at mel mulled over a book project propaganda machine went into Fort Detrick have experi- high gear. Moscow understood on the perils of genetic manipu- mentally generated the lation and biological warfare. AIDS virus HTLV III that repetition of a particular By that time, Simmel had [sic]. However, since the theme over an extended period already authored 20 novels, infection’s initial effect is of time was key to a successful numerous screenplays, and var- minor and the incubation disinformation campaign, 75 and period lasts two to five the Soviets promoted the AIDS ious short stories and chil- years, they didn’t con- dren’s books. His works had sider the virus viable in story’s worldwide dissemina- been translated into 25 lan- humans and sent the tion through radio broadcasts, guages and sold over 65 million infected test persons—yes, rumors, posters, handbills, forg- copies. By sheer coincidence, yes, yes, they work with eries, and leaflets (some of test persons there, in this HVA Department III (elec- which displayed pornographic

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The merger of the ethnic weapons and AIDS campaigns creat- ed a powerful narrative in Africa. greater extent than the popula- tion of friendly forces.” 82 caricatures of US soldiers). Turkey, the Soviets sought to In June 1987, Novosti news Soviet propagandists even lifted stir concern among the local agency editor Valentin Falin some stories about the US gov- population, create pressure on told a USIA official slyly: “And ernment’s alleged creation of US allies to send American given the US treatment of AIDS verbatim from a New troops packing, and generally American Indians, putting York gay magazine, the New discourage contact with Ameri- smallpox blankets on them, and York Native, which in Novem- can citizens.80 the placement of Japanese- ber 1986 called for a US con- Americans in detention during gressional investigation into The Soviets also began to the Second World War, the the origins of AIDS. 76 broaden the campaign’s focus, development of an ethnic merging it with other disinfor- weapon by the US sounds Soviet efforts promptly paid mation campaigns. A particu- pretty logical.”83 off. Third World media reported larly effective twist was the the AIDS falsehood widely, and claim that the US government even the established British had designed AIDS as an eth- The Impact in Africa newspapers Sunday Express nic weapon against black peo- and Daily Telegraph recounted ple. The “ethnic weapon” theme The merger of the ethnic Segal’s “findings” uncritically. had first appeared around 1980 weapons and AIDS campaigns By late 1987, the story had cir- in the Soviet active measures created a powerful narrative culated in the media of 80 coun- repertoire. In an effort to hitch that threatened to undermine tries, appearing in over 200 the United States to the widely America’s reputation in Africa. Allegations that Washington periodicals in 25 languages. 77 detested South African apart- “If media replay is an indica- heid regime, Moscow spread the was using AIDS as a racial tion of success,” noted a US offi- rumor that Washington was weapon against Africans began cial, “then this campaign has aiding Pretoria in the develop- circulating across the continent in the wake of the nonaligned been very successful.”78 ment of weapons to eliminate nations summit in Harare in nonwhites. 81 The Soviets paid special 1986, where HVA and KGB had attention to countries with US Since these claims were base- promoted Segal’s paper so military bases on their soil. In less, the Soviets employed the diligently.84 On 7 June 1987, late 1985, North Korea began well-established technique of the Patriot rejoined the fray its own AIDS propaganda oper- propping up their conspiracy with an article accusing the US ation, portraying US troops in theories with circumstantial Department of Defense of con- South Korea as carriers of the evidence. For example, an ducting experiments in Africa epidemic. Turkish broadcasts American military manual had to determine the “depopulating emanating from the USSR indeed noted in 1975 that “it is effect” of AIDS in strategically urged the closure of US bases theoretically possible to develop important areas of the conti- because they were allegedly so-called ‘ethnic chemical weap- nent like Zaire. breeding grounds for AIDS. And ons,’ which would be designed an English-language, Soviet- to exploit naturally occurring In early 1988, a Nigerian inspired broadcast in Asia differences in vulnerability newspaper varied the theme alleged that outbreaks of AIDS among specific population somewhat by claiming that the “are as a rule registered in the groups. Thus, such a weapon spread of AIDS in central and areas near American war would be capable of incapacitat- western Africa was the result of rich Americans testing contami- bases.” 79 By targeting nations ing or killing a selected enemy where American troops were population to a significantly nated polio vaccine on poor 85 based, such as South Korea and blacks during the 1960s. The tale was told and retold in a

14 Studies in Intelligence Vol. 53, No. 4 (December 2009) The Creation and Perpetuation of a Myth

Because the AIDS disinformation campaign jeopardized coop- number of variations in media eration with US scientists, Moscow began to listen to Washing- reports across the continent. ton’s complaints.

The US Watch over the ter. Zapevalov had not men- AIDS virus—VISNA and HTLV- Story tioned the date of the item, and I—were too distinct from one USIA only searched back to another to be cut and spliced In 1981, the US government 1 January 1984. State Depart- together. The State Depart- created the Active Measures ment spokesman Charles E. ment also pointed to recent Working Group (AMWG), an Redman responded in early findings that suggested AIDS interagency committee chaired November 1986 that no such had existed in human popula- by the Department of State, article had ever appeared in the tions since at least 1959—long and including representatives Patriot. 89 before the AIDS virus, per of the CIA, USIA, the US Arms Segal’s contention, had been Control and Disarmament The Soviets took advantage of created at Fort Detrick. Agency (ACDA), and the the mistake with gusto. On Departments of Defense and 19 November, Literaturnaya In addition, AMWG collected Justice. 86 AMWG officials moni- Gazeta printed a lengthy arti- opinions from reputable AIDS tored Soviet disinformation cle titled, “It Existed, It experts who contradicted Segal. campaigns, issued regularly Existed, Boy” that trium- The Americans were especially updated reports, talked to the phantly reproduced the first keen on airing the comments of Western press, personally page of the Patriot letter. Turn- scientists from the Soviet bloc, called editors of newspapers ing the US effort to pillory the such as Segal’s nemeses Dr. that ran Soviet-sponsored disin- Soviets’ disinformation cam- Zhdanov, who stated categori- formation stories, and occasion- paign on its head, the paper cally that “an AIDS virus has ally confronted Soviet officials referred to AMWG as a bureau not been obtained artificially,” directly about particular active for “disinformation, analysis and Dr. Sönnichsen, who told measures. Herbert Romerstein, and retaliatory measures” and Der Spiegel that “Segal’s com- who joined USIA in 1982, and lambasted Redman for his erro- ment is nothing but a hypothe- his assistant Todd Leventhal, neous claim: “We don’t know sis, and not a very original one played a critical role in moni- whether Redman is part of the at that. Others before him have toring and countering the AIDS personnel of the bureau of dis- claimed the same. If you open campaign for AMWG.87 information, but one could Meyer’s Dictionary under the boldly recommend him. He has term ‘hypothesis’ you can read: The disinformation campaign mastered the methods of hypothesis is an opinion first appeared on AMWG’s disinformation.”90 unproven by facts. That is my radar with its resumption in comment.” 92 the pages of the Literaturnaya Undeterred, US officials con- Gazeta in October 1985. Zape- tinued their counter-campaign. valov’s reference to the Patriot USIA officers repeatedly dis- The Environment Shifts as source of his allegations, led cussed the techniques and goals USIA to take a closer look at of Soviet disinformation with In the late 1980s, AIDS began the Indian newspaper. The the media. 91 And AMWG spent spreading through the Soviet agency was aware that the time and effort dissecting Union, and Moscow developed a Patriot was being financed by Segal’s theses and highlighting greater interest in exchanging the KGB and that its editor was their inconsistencies and con- medical research on the subject the recipient of the Stalin peace tradictions to lawmakers and than it had a few years before. prize.88 However, the Ameri- the public. For one, they Because the AIDS disinforma- cans were initially unable to argued, the two viruses Segal tion campaign jeopardized coop- locate the original Patriot let- claimed were used to create the eration with US scientists,

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As Moscow shifted its focus to subjects other than AIDS, the East Germans became the campaign’s primary sponsor. Concurrently, the Soviets con- ceived other, no less vicious dis- information themes. In January Moscow began to listen to gandists to stop saying the 1987, Moscow launched a cam- Washington’s complaints. In a opposite. Soviet media cover- paign to assign responsibility 23 October 1987, meeting with age of Segal’s theses did decline for the mass-suicide of over 900 Mikhail Gorbachev, US Secre- markedly in late 1987, but it members of the People’s Tem- tary of State George Shultz did not disappear altogether. ple in Guyana in 1978 to the charged that the USSR had On the same day that Izvestia CIA. Its centerpiece was the peddled “bum dope” on the published the Academy’s dis- book The Death of Jonestown: AIDS subject. avowal, Sovetskaya Rossiya Crime of the CIA by three repeated the AIDS disinforma- Soviet journalists who con- Shortly thereafter, the Soviet tion claims and defended the tended that CIA hirelings had Academy of Sciences, through Soviet media’s right to “report killed the cult members “for the government’s official news- different views.” 95 And on 13 their intent to gain asylum in paper Izvestia, disavowed the February 1988, Radio Moscow the USSR.” thesis that AIDS was artifi- broadcast an uncritical inter- cially created. 93 In the summer view with Segal who reiterated Another heinous disinforma- of 1988, the Academy’s presi- his theses. 96 tion campaign was initiated in dent, Dr. Vadim I. Pokrovskiy April 1987 when the Soviet followed up in an interview Even though Soviet bloc media began reporting false with the Russian federation’s media broadcasting of the AIDS allegations to the effect that official newspaper Sovetskaya disinformation campaign had wealthy Americans were Rossiya, by stating that “not a largely ceased by summer 1988, importing children from Latin single Soviet scientist, not a the story continued to appear in America and had them butch- single medical or scientific Third World papers with ered in order to use their body institution, shares this reputed Soviet links. On 3 July parts for organ transplants. 99 position.”94 1988, the Ghanaian weekly Like the AIDS disinformation Echo reiterated a Novosti arti- campaign, these disinforma- cle about the alleged link tion themes were designed to The End of the Campaign? between AIDS and US biologi- tarnish America’s image in the cal research, as did the Indian But did the Soviets genuinely world, and particularly to alien- Maharashtra Herald on believe in the wisdom of discon- ate developing countries from 26 August 1988. When con- tinuing their AIDS disinforma- Washington. fronted by US officials two tion campaign and did they months later, Novosti chief really tell their active mea- Falin issued a standard defense HVA X and Segal Still at It sures apparatus to stand down? by quoting alleged “foreign For one, Moscow had never pub- sources” and freedom of the As Moscow shifted its active licly acknowledged authorship measures focus to subjects Soviet press under glasnost. 97 of the campaign. The Soviet As late as 1989, AIDS disinfor- other than AIDS, the East Ger- Academy of Sciences merely mation appeared in over a mans became the AIDS cam- confirmed what many respect- dozen media reports through- paign’s primary sponsor. able Soviet and East European out the world, including in the Around 1987, HVA X gave scientists believed anyway and Soviet Union, India, Pakistan, Segal material “from secret ser- had uttered before—that AIDS West Germany, Brazil, Pan- vice circles” on the 1969 con- was not artificially created. ama, Yugoslavia, Peru, Turkey, gressional testimony of Donald MacArthur, then deputy direc- Great Britain, and Zambia.98 But the Academy’s statement tor of research and engineering could not and did not commit in the Office of the Secretary of Soviet intelligence and propa-

16 Studies in Intelligence Vol. 53, No. 4 (December 2009) The Creation and Perpetuation of a Myth

An HVA X influence agent in West Germany did the East Ger- Defense. In his testimony, Mac- mans’ bidding with loyalty and little regard for the historic Arthur stated that “within a changes sweeping through Europe. period of five to 10 years it would be possible to produce a synthetic biological agent, an The reference to NCI led West German and British TV agent that does not naturally Segal straight to another “vil- picked up Segal’s story. The exist and for which no natural lain.” It so happened that Rob- West German TV production immunity could have been ert Gallo, one of the pioneer “AIDS: The African Legend” acquired.” He elaborated fur- scientists involved in the identi- uncritically featured Segal’s ther that “A research program fication of HIV, was appointed disinformation claims. The to explore the feasibility of this head of the NCI’s Laboratory of “documentary” was broadcast could be completed in approxi- Tumor Cell Biology in 1971. In by Westdeutscher and Hessi- mately five years at a total cost his earlier publications and scher Rundfunk in the first half of $10 million.”100 utterances, Segal had dispas- of 1989, and by Britain’s Chan- sionately and largely accu- nel Four in January 1990.105 For Segal, the MacArthur tes- rately described Gallo’s There is no evidence of direct timony was near-certain evi- contribution to the identifica- HVA X involvement in this pro- dence that the Pentagon had tion of HIV, but he sharply duction, but East Berlin cer- not only contemplated an HIV- changed his tack in the late tainly rated the broadcasting of type virus since 1969 but also 1980s, when Gallo became the their disinformation by gullible had gone through with the key figure in Segal’s theory. In Western journalists—the “use- project within the 10-year time his final years, Segal developed ful idiots” of Soviet bloc intelli- frame MacArthur had sug- an apparent pathological gence—a major success. gested. Henceforth, Mac- hatred of Gallo as the man per- Arthur’s testimony became a sonally responsible for creating HVA X also used a tested cornerstone of Segal’s conspir- AIDS, and he seized every vehicle to spread Segal’s thesis acy theory. Segal ignored the opportunity to lambast the directly in the West German fact that MacArthur left the American scientist. media. One of the department’s Pentagon one year after his tes- influence agents in West Ger- timony to go into private In 1989, just one year before many was Michael Opperskal- business.101 East Germany’s demise, Segal ski, listed under the code name went on a lecture tour across “Abraham” in HVA X records. 106 Segal also continued to brush West Germany. Even though Opperskalski’s Cologne-based aside President Richard Nixon’s the SED leadership had magazine Geheim and its 1969 ban of offensive biological avoided endorsing Segal and he English-language edition Top research by contending that did not travel as an official Secret published crude Soviet such programs continued GDR representative, his trip bloc disinformation stories unabated under the guise of the was inconceivable without the throughout the late 1980s. National Cancer Institute Politburo’s knowledge and “Abraham” did the East Ger- (NCI). Part of the Bethesda- approval. In his presentations, mans’ bidding with loyalty and based National Institutes of Segal touted his latest piece of little regard for the historic Health, NCI opened a branch at evidence—the MacArthur hear- changes sweeping through Fort Detrick in 1971, which ing of 1969—and pilloried Europe. The summer/autumn focused on identifying the Gallo. 103 According to the recol- 1990 issue of Top Secret, pub- causes of cancer, AIDS, and lections of one of his listeners, lished on the eve of German related diseases—more than Segal referred to Gallo as “a reunification, carried an article enough circumstantial evi- huge gangster” [ein ganz by Jakob and Lilli Segal, titled dence to earn the institute a grosser Gangster] who was “AIDS—Its Nature and prominent place in Segal’s con- responsible for creating the Origins.”107 spiracy theory.102 virus.104

Studies in Intelligence Vol. 53, No. 4 (December 2009) 17 The Creation and Perpetuation of a Myth

Segal died in 1995, completely unrepentant and utterly con- vinced of the American origins of AIDS. Still Kicking, but Why? Neither the end of the KGB Segal’s last major accomplish- Post–Cold War HVA campaign, nor Jakob ment during the Cold War was Segal’s death, or the “confes- the publication in 1990 of his The end of the Cold War sions” of those responsible for book AIDS—die Spur führt ins threw the KGB into disarray, the AIDS disinformation cam- Pentagon [AIDS—the trail and the MfS disappeared alto- paign stopped the further diffu- leads to the Pentagon], which gether. Yet Segal continued his sion of the theory. Whence its incorporated the bits on Gallo crusade as vigorously as ever. longevity? and the MacArthur hearing In May 1991, he gave a lengthy into his original thesis. The interview to the left-of-center A few individuals involved in book was published by Neuer Berlin weekly Freitag. He reit- the original campaign carried Weg, a publishing house closely erated many of his earlier theo- on after the end of the Cold associated with the far-left, ries and claimed that “in War. 111 More importantly, how- Maoist Marxist Leninist Party Germany, only a single publica- ever, the conspiracy theory of Germany (MLPD). tion has contradicted us.” In assumed a life of its own. In August 1991, the Swedish sub-Saharan Africa, where By then, the HVA was already channel TV-2 featured an KGB and HVA had directed dissolving, and its employees uncritical news program with much of their firepower, media spent much of their time shred- Segal. In a February 1992 inter- and word of mouth spread and ding files. In the book’s appendix view with the Montreal Gazette, developed the legend of AIDS is an anonymous letter Segal, echoing past arguments, as a biological weapon, often addressed to Segal and his wife, focused on the economic ramifi- adding bizarre twists to the dated 8 October 1989 (one month cations of his thesis: “If the story. In March 1991, for exam- before the fall of the Berlin Wall). United States were recognized ple, a letter to the Zimbabwean The letter’s author relays infor- as the producer of the AIDS daily Bulawayo Chronicle mation allegedly obtained from virus, it would destroy the econ- charged not only that the someone linked to the US “mili- omy. Think of the compensa- United States had invented tary intelligence establishment.” tion claims! This is why they AIDS, but that the CIA had This person confirmed “every- will never admit it.” exported “AIDS-oiled condoms” thing you [Segal] have said—the to other countries in 1986.112 Pentagon grant, the work at Ft. When confronted by critics, Detrick, the experiment on pris- Segal stood his ground. A As AIDS took a progressively oners who first brought the virus former USIA consultant, who greater toll on Africans, the to the streets of New York.” The interviewed Segal in 1991, notion of a conspiracy became writer insinuated that it would recalled that the retired profes- more deeply entrenched on the be too risky to reveal his con- sor “presented himself as a die- continent. Zimbabwean Presi- tact’s name because “he truly hard Marxist, totally incapable dent Robert Mugabe once recounts so many amazing of accepting the demise of com- described AIDS as a “white things.…My God, it’s easy to munist East Germany. Segal, man’s plot.” And in 2004, Ken- become paranoid when looking then 80 years old, insisted that yan biologist and Nobel peace into these matters. These shit- his information on the origin of prize winner Wangari Maathai heads [Diese Scheisskerle]!”108 the HIV virus was solid, and he reportedly ascribed AIDS to the Whether the letter constituted a denied having any contact with machinations of “evil-minded final active measure of HVA X the Stasi.” 110 Segal died in scientists” and contended that disinformation or not, it was cer- 1995, completely unrepentant the disease was meant to “wipe tainly the kind of material that and utterly convinced of the out the black race.”113 Even had been fed to Segal through- American origins of AIDS. though reliable statistics are out the late 1980s.109 hard to come by, it seems rea-

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Soviet bloc intelligence had created a monster that has outlived sonable to conclude that many its creators. Africans believe the claims.114

The AIDS conspiracy theory observe the natural progression psyche, Soviet and East German has a firm hold in other places. of the disease—not surprisingly disinformation specialists In 1992, 15 percent of ran- leave African Americans predis- applied the techniques that stim- domly selected Americans con- posed to believe the AIDS con- ulate the growth and spread of sidered definitely or probably spiracy theory.116 rumors and conspiracy theo- true the statement “the AIDS ries—simplistic scapegoating, virus was created deliberately In addition, since the scien- endless repetition, and the clever in a government laboratory.” tific community was initially mixing of lies and half-truths African Americans were partic- unable to explain the outbreak with undeniable facts. Once the ularly prone to subscribe to the and spread of AIDS, groups dis- AIDS conspiracy theory was AIDS conspiracy theory. A 1997 proportionately affected—such lodged in the global subcon- survey found that 29 percent of as homosexuals and blacks— science, it became a pandemic in African Americans considered predictably sought a communal its own right. Like any good the statement “AIDS was delib- interpretation of the mysteri- story, it traveled mostly by word erately created in a laboratory ous disease. Indeed, conspiracy of mouth, especially within the to infect black people” true or theories about the US govern- most affected sub-groups. Hav- possibly true. And a 2005 study ment’s responsibility for creat- ing effectively harnessed the by the RAND Corporation and ing AIDS cropped up dynamics of rumors and conspir- Oregon State University independently of KGB and HVA acy theories, Soviet bloc intelli- revealed that nearly 50 percent manipulation in gay communi- gence had created a monster that of African Americans thought ties in the early 1980s.117 has outlived its creators.120 AIDS was man-made, with over a quarter considering AIDS the ❖ ❖ ❖ In Sum product of a government lab. Twelve percent believed it was Yet it would be mistaken to dis- Acknowledgements created and spread by the CIA, miss the Soviet bloc disinforma- The author gratefully acknowledges and 15 percent opined AIDS tion campaign as irrelevant or as the advice, comments, and support was a form of genocide against the US government’s knee-jerk provided by Klaus Behling, formerly 115 of the East German Foreign Ministry; black people. 118 reflex to “blame the Russians.” Laura M. Bogart, Harvard Medical Studies have shown that who- Certainly, beliefs in a govern- School; Lt.-Col (ret.) Günter ever makes the first assertion ment conspiracy to create and/or Bohnsack, HVA X; Peter Earnest and about an event or occurrence has Burton Gerber, both formerly CIA; spread AIDS cannot be ascribed a large advantage over those who Oleg Gordievsky, formerly KGB; Tif- solely to the Soviet bloc disinfor- deny it later.119 When AIDS fany T. Hamelin, US Department of mation campaign. The marginal- emerged in the early 1980s, State; Victoria Harden, formerly ization of homosexuals and the National Institutes of Health; Maj.- Soviet bloc disinformation spe- long history of oppression and Gen. (ret.) Oleg Kalugin, KGB; Todd cialists quickly recognized the discrimination of blacks made Leventhal, formerly USIA and cur- opportunity the mysterious epi- these groups inherently suspi- rently US Department of State; demic offered, acted with alac- Lawrence Martin-Bittman (Ladislav cious of government institutions. rity, and planted disinformation Bittman), formerly Czechoslovak And some disclosures—e.g. the only months after the scientific intelligence (disinformation); Peter infamous Tuskegee experiment community had coined the term Martland, University of Cambridge; sponsored by the US Public Herbert Romerstein, formerly USIA; “AIDS” and established the exist- Health Service, which deliber- and Kristina N. Terzieva, Woodrow ence of a causative virus. ately left several hundred Afri- Wilson International Center for Equipped with an intuitive can Americans suffering from Scholars. understanding of the human syphilis untreated in order to ❖ ❖ ❖

Studies in Intelligence Vol. 53, No. 4 (December 2009) 19 The Creation and Perpetuation of a Myth

Endnotes tions possibly involved in preparations for nuclear war and to report immediately any deviations from the norm. See Andrew and Gordievsky, KGB, 589. 11. House Intelligence Committee, Soviet Covert 1. In a lecture to Department X recruits in 1986, Action, 30. cited in: Günter Bohnsack and Herbert Brehmer, Auftrag: Irreführung: Wie die Stasi Politik im Westen 12. Bittman, Deception Game: Czechoslovak Intelli- machte (Hamburg: Carlsen, 1992), 19. gence in Soviet Political Warfare (Syracuse, NY: Syr- acuse University Research Corp., 1972), 125. 2. Michael Herman, Intelligence and Power in Peace and War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 13. Bittman, Deception Game, 125. 1996), 55f. 14. The West German security service publication 3. House Committee on Intelligence, Soviet Active Innere Sicherheit, 1 (20 March 1985), 2, noted that Measures, (Washington, DC: Government Printing such letters were typically provided not as originals Office, 1982), 31. but as photographs of alleged originals, so as to make it more difficult to detect the forgery. 4. Christopher Andrew and Oleg Gordievsky, Instructions from the Center: Top Secret Files on 15. Bittman, KGB and Soviet Disinformation, 44. KGB Foreign Operations 1975–1985 (London: Hod- 16. Innere Sicherheit 1, (3 March 1985), 2; US der & Stoughton, 1991), 3. Department of State, Soviet Influence Activities: A 5. For the Panorama broadcast of 28 January 1991, Report on Active Measures and Propaganda 1986–87 see Rote Fahne, 30 December 2004, and Bohnsack (Washington, DC: Department of State Publications, letter to author, 22 September 2008; Bohnsack and 1987), ix, 4; US Department of State, Soviet Influ- Brehmer, Auftrag: Irreführung. ence Activities: A Report on Active Measures and Pro- paganda, 1987–1988 (Washington, DC: Department 6. Statement by CIA Deputy Director of Operations of State Publications, 1989), 23. John McMahon, House Committee on Intelligence, Soviet Covert Action: The Forgery Offensive, (Wash- 17. US Department of State, Soviet Influence Activi- ington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1982), 6. ties…1986–87, 34f. The “confessions” had no basis in fact. 7. According to Michael Herman, in 1987, only 3 per- cent of the CIA’s staff was involved in covert action, 18. Andrew and Gordievsky, KGB, 503f. Again, the and only 5 percent of the agency’s budget went into Soviet claim was spurious. it. (Hermann, Intelligence Power, 56.) 19. Washington Post, 22 April 1980. 8. For information on the KGB’s planting of the 20. Lee Richards, “Whispers of War: The British Kennedy conspiracy theory, see Aleksandr Fursenko World War II Rumor Campaign,” The Intelligencer and Timothy Naftali, One Hell of a Gamble: Khrush- 16, no. 2 (Fall 2008): 54. chev, Castro, and Kennedy, 1958–1964: The Secret History of the Cuban Missile Crisis (New York: W.W. 21. Jonathan B. Tucker, “The ‘Yellow Rain’ Contro- Norton, 1998), 343–50; for East German Nazi disin- versy: Lessons for Arms Control Compliance,” The formation campaigns against West Germany, see Nonproliferation Review 8 (Spring 2001): 31. Hubertus Knabe, Die unterwanderte Republik. Stasi 22. Bohnsack and Brehmer, Auftrag: Irreführung, im Westen (Berlin: Propyläen, 1999), 121–52. 219. 9. Ladislav Bittman, The KGB and Soviet Disinfor- 23. Bohnsack letter to author, 6 March 2009. mation: An Insider’s View (Washington, DC: Perga- mon-Brassey’s, 1985), 49. In the same vein, see Ilya 24. Primakov, then SVR (Russian foreign intelli- Dzhirkvelov, Secret Servant: My Life with the KGB gence) director, made his remarks to graduate stu- and the Soviet Elite (New York: Harper & Row, dents in Moscow during an SVR recruitment drive in 1987), 304f. 1992; Boston Globe, 19 March 1992; Izvestiya, 19 March 1992. 10. Operation RYAN (the KGB codename) had KGB officers in Western capitals carry out a regular cen- 25. Patriot, 17 July 1983. sus of the number of cars and lighted windows at all 26. “Interagency Intelligence Study,” cited in House hours at government buildings and military installa- Intelligence Committee, Soviet Active Measures, 55.

20 Studies in Intelligence Vol. 53, No. 4 (December 2009) The Creation and Perpetuation of a Myth

These charges were intended to undermine the 39. Literaturnaya Gazeta, 30 October 1985. Zape- regime of the Pakistani president, General Muham- valov’s name was not a pseudonym. After the col- mad Zia-ul-Haq, a pivotal ally in Washington’s lapse of the Soviet Union, he became a successful efforts to assist anti-Soviet Afghan mujahideen. businessman, author, and spokesman for Russia’s arms-export agency Rosvooruzhenie. 27. Interviews with KGB Major-General (ret.) Oleg Kalugin, 1 October and 22 December 2008. 40. The station chief, Larry Devlin, decided not to carry out the assignment. Lumumba was later killed 28. Army Research, Development & Acquisition 23, no. by local rivals. See Larry Devlin, Chief of Station, 4 (July–August 1982): 48f. Congo: A Memoir of 1960–67 (New York: Public 29. Andrew and Gordievsky, KGB, 628. Affairs, 2007), 94–97, 113–14. 30. Bittman, Deception Game, 227; Todd Leventhal, 41. Bohnsack and Brehmer, Auftrag: Irreführung, “The origins of AIDS disinformation,” January 9, 219. 2009, available online at http://blogs.amer- 42. Bohnsack letter to author, 14 August 2008. ica.gov/rumors/2009/01/09/the-origins-of-aids-disin- formation/. Additional comments on the KGB’s use 43. Bohnsack and Brehmer, Auftrag: Irreführung, of non-native speakers as translators were provided 219f; Bohnsack letters to author, 25 July and 14 to the author by Todd Leventhal, 25 February 2009. August 2008. 31. Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, The 44. Bittman, Deception Game, 141; Bohnsack and World Was Going Our Way: The KGB and the Battle Brehmer, Auftrag: Irreführung, 40f, 218; Oleg Gordi- for the Third World (New York: Basic Books, 2005), evsky e-mail to author, 20 September 2008; Oleg 324; Andrew and Gordievsky, KGB, 507. Gordievsky, Next Stop Execution: The Autobiography of Oleg Gordievsky (London: Macmillan, 1995), 183. 32. The Patriot was established under the auspices of the KGB resident in New Delhi, Radomir Ale- 45. Innere Sicherheit, 1 (March 20, 1985), 3; ksandrovich Bogdanov, with the assistance of KGB Bohnsack letter to author, 14 August 2008. officer Ilya Dzhirkvelov, see Andrew and Gordievsky, 46. Segal provided his biographical data to edition KGB, 503, and Dzhirkvelov, Secret Servant, 303f. For monochrom in 1993, http://www.mono- a US assessment of the Patriot, see State Depart- chrom.at/segal. See also John O. Koehler, Stasi: The ment, Soviet Influence Activities… 1986–87, 44. Untold Story of the East German Secret Police (Boul- 33. David A. Spetrino, “Aids Disinformation,” Stud- der, Col.: Westview Press, 2000), 260f. ies in Intelligence 32, no. 4 (1988): 10. 47. Aktennotiz (note for the record) by Kurt Seidel 34. Andrew and Gordievsky, KGB, 608, 628. on conversation with Jakob Segal, 17 September 1986, SAPMO-BArch, DY 30/vorl.SED 36832 [hence- 35. Department of State, Soviet Influence Activi- forth SAPMO]. ties…1986–87, 34f. 48. Bohnsack letter to author, 25 July 2008. 36. Literaturnaya Gazeta, 30 October 1985. I am Bohnsack describes Segal as “partly a convinced sci- grateful to Kristina N. Terzieva for an English trans- entist, partly an operative assistant [operativer lation of this and a later article. Helfer], probably a colorful mix.” 37. Department of State, Soviet Influence Activi- 49. According to Todd Leventhal, who visited Fort ties…1986–87, 40. Detrick and saw building 550, it was an ordinary 38. Oleg Kalugin, The First Directorate: My 32 Years looking bungalow with a front porch; interview with in Intelligence and Espionage against the West (New Todd Leventhal and Oleg Kalugin, 22 December York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994), 158. See a statement 2008. Segal may have thought of building 470, to the same effect by Martin C. Portman of the CIA’s locally referred to as “anthrax tower,” a pilot plant Directorate of Operations in House Intelligence for testing optimal fermentor and bacterial purifica- Committee, Soviet Active Measures, 21. tion technologies. It was torn down in 2003. Also, he evidently meant “BSL-4” or “Level-4” rather than “P- 4” laboratories. BSL-4 or Level-4 laboratories handle

Studies in Intelligence Vol. 53, No. 4 (December 2009) 21 The Creation and Perpetuation of a Myth deadly diseases that have no cure; see House Com- 60. Department of State, Soviet Influence Activi- mittee on Energy and Commerce, Germs, Viruses ties…1986–87, 37. and Secrets: The Silent Proliferation of Bio-Labora- 61. Kurt Seidel, note for the record, 17 September tories in the United States (Washington, DC: Govern- 1986, SAPMO. ment Printing Office, 2007), 1, 54. 62. Bohnsack letter to author, 26 November 2008. 50. Jakob Segal and Lilli Segal, AIDS-Die Spur führt Bohnsack writes that MfS director Erich Mielke did ins Pentagon, second edition (Essen: Verlag Neuer not necessarily inform his Politburo colleagues about Weg, 1990), 138. ongoing active measures but that Hager was proba- 51. Behling e-mails to author, 30 and 31 March 2009. bly aware of the AIDS campaign. 52. Michael D. Morrissey letter to Noam Chomsky, 63. Hager to Seidel, 26 September 1986, with copy to 14 September 1989, http://educate-your- General Axen, SAPMO. self.org/cn/morrisseycorrespondencewithnoamchom- 64. Bohnsack letter to author, 26 November 2008. sky.shtml; Gazette, 16 February 1992. However, others considered Segal a “pompous ass” (pene- 65. Der Spiegel, 10 November 1986. tranter Wichtigtuer), Behling e-mail to author, 18 66. Jakob Segal interview, Freitag, 17 May 1991. November 2008. 67. Milt Bearden and James Risen, The Main 53. Jakob Segal, Lilli Segal, and Ronald Dehmlow, Enemy: The Inside Story of the CIA’s Final Show- AIDS-its nature and origin (no place, no date down with the KGB (New York: Random House, [1986]). I am grateful to US Department of State 2003), 385. Anti-Misinformation Officer Todd Leventhal for a copy of the pamphlet. 68. Bohnsack letter to author, 26 November 2008. Between 1970 and 1989, Bohnsack was HVA X liai- 54. Stefan Nickels, “Geheimprojekt ‘Naomi’: Um den son with the KGB and was thus informed about joint Ursprung von Aids ranken sich seit langem obskure East German/Soviet disinformation campaigns. Hypothesen,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszei- Bohnsack letter to author, 14 August 2008. tung, 17 October 2004. As mentioned earlier, MKNAOMI was the CIA codename for an early Cold 69. The interview was subsequently published in War bacteriological weapons research program at book form in Kuno Kruse (ed.), Aids-Erreger aus dem Fort Detrick. Genlabor? Die Diskussion der rätselhaften Krankheit, die die Welt bedroht (Berlin: Simon & 55. Behling e-mail to author, 15 July 2008, based on Leutner, 1987), 15–27. an interview with Bohnsack. In his 1986 pamphlet, Segal quotes an East German publication for his 70. John Borneman, “AIDS in the Two Berlins,” in allegations about Fort Detrick: Reinhard Pieckocki, Douglas Crimp (ed.), AIDS: Cultural Analysis/Cul- Genmanipulation: Frevel oder Fortschritt (Leipzig, tural Activism (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1988), Jena, Berlin: Urania Verlag, 1983). 234. 56. Department of State, Soviet Influence Activi- 71. Klaus Behling, Kundschafter a.D.: Das Ende der ties…1986–87, 35; Bohnsack letters to author, 25 DDR-Spionage (Stuttgart, Leipzig: Hohenheim Ver- July and 14 August 2008. According to Bohnsack, lag, 2003), 252f. the HVA deployed Capt. Hans Pfeiffer and “officer on 72. Johannes Mario Simmel, Doch mit den Clowns special assignment” [Offizier im besonderen Einsatz kamen die Tränen (Munich: Droemer Knaur, 1987), or OibE] Horst Schoetzki, officially a journalist rep- 9, 110f. resenting the GDR magazine Horizont, to the confer- ence. See also Christhard Läpple, Verrat verjährt 73. Wolf resigned his directorship in 1986 but, nicht: Lebensgeschichten aus einem einst geteilten according to Bohnsack, retained his secret service ID Land (Hamburg: Hoffman & Campe, 2008), 299f. card, personal driver, and assistant and remained as consultant and “guiding spirit” at HVA headquar- 57. Bohnsack letter to author, 25 July 2008; Spet- ters; Bohnsack letter, 25 July 2008. rino, “Aids Disinformation,” 11. 74. Der Spiegel, 7 September 1987. 58. Segal to Axen, 8 September 1986, memorandum regarding economic aspects of AIDS, SAPMO. 75. Department of State, Soviet Influence Activi- ties…1986–1987, 29; Shankar Vedantam, “Persis- 59. Segal to Axen, 27 August 1986, SAPMO.

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tence of Myths Could Alter Public Policy Approach,” 89. Murray Feshbach, “The Early Days of HIV/AIDS Washington Post, 4 September 2007. Epidemic in the Former Soviet Union” (paper pre- pared for the conference “Health and Demography in 76. Alvin A. Snyder, Warriors of Disinformation: the Former Soviet Union,” Harvard University, April American Propaganda, Soviet Lies, and the Winning 2005), 9, argues that the 1983 Patriot letter was a of the Cold War. An Insider's Account (New York: “ghost source” generated by Service A specialists to Arcade, 1995), 113f; Ladislav Bittman, The New enable Soviet propagandist to quote a non-Soviet Image-Makers: Soviet Propaganda & Disinformation source. Even though the technique of using “ghost Today (Washington, DC: Pergamon-Brassey’s, 1988), sources” was not unknown to Soviet bloc intelli- 25. gence, it was not employed in this instance. The 77. Spetrino, “Aids Disinformation,” 9, 11; Sunday Indian National Library at Kolkata holds a copy of Express, 26 October 1986; Daily Telegraph, 27 Octo- the Patriot, dated 17 July 1983, which carries the ber 1986. On the other hand, the London Times, AIDS letter. 31 October 1986, lambasted the Express for giving 90. Literaturnaya Gazeta, 19 November 1986. Segal a platform. (Translation by Kristina N. Terzieva.) 78. USIA official Herbert Romerstein, quoted in Tor- 91. See, for instance, Christian Science Monitor, 11 onto Star, 28 April 1987. December 1986, and New York Times, 8 April 1987. 79. Times, 31 October 1986. See also Der Spiegel, 10 92. Department of State, Soviet Influence Activi- November 1986. ties…1987–88, 33-36; Der Spiegel, 9 March 1987. 80. Department of State, Soviet Influence Activi- 93. New York Times, 5 November 1987. ties…1986–87, 33. 94. Snyder, Warriors of Disinformation, 182f. 81. United States Information Agency (USIA), Soviet Active Measures in the Era of Glasnost: A Report to 95. USIA, Soviet Active Measures in the Era of Glas- Congress (March 1988), 12; Department of State, nost, 11. Soviet Influence Activities…1986–87, 35. 96. Department of State, Soviet Influence Activi- 82. Robert Harris and Jeremy Paxman, A Higher ties...1987–1988, 2f. Form of Killing: The Secret History of Chemical and 97. Department of State, Soviet Influence Activi- Biological Warfare (New York: Hill and Wang, 1982), ties…1987–1988, 4. 240. 98. USIA, Soviet Active Measures in the “Post-Cold 83. Snyder, Warriors of Disinformation, 116. War” Era 1988–1991: A Report Prepared at the 84. Spetrino, “Aids Disinformation,” 11. Request of the United States House of Representa- tives Committee on Appropriations (Washington, DC: 85. Department of State, Soviet Influence Activi- Government Printing Office, June 1992), 71–75. ties…1986–87, 40; Spetrino, “Aids Disinformation,” Pagination according to online edition. 14. 99. USIA, Soviet Active Measures in the Era of Glas- 86. USIA, Soviet Active Measures in the Era of Glas- nost, 12–49. nost, 82, 86; Department of State, Soviet Influence Activities…1986-87, iii. The West Germans estab- 100. Behling, Kundschafter a.D., 253; House Com- lished a similar group, Innere Sicherheit [internal mittee on Appropriations, Department of Defense security], which included representatives from for- Appropriations for 1970 (Washington, DC: Govern- eign intelligence (BND) and counterintelligence ment Printing Office, 1969), 129. The text of Mac- (BfV) agencies; Bohnsack letter, 25 July 2008. Arthur’s testimony was made available to the public long before Segal “discovered” it. Paxman and Har- 87. Snyder, Warriors of Disinformation, 93, 113. ris, A Higher Form of Killing, 241, also quote from it. 88. Koehler, Stasi, 260. Koehler was then working as 101. Obituary, Donald Malcolm MacArthur, Wash- a consultant to USIA director Charles Z. Wick. ington Post, 29 November 1988. After leaving gov- ernment, MacArthur founded Dynamac, which

Studies in Intelligence Vol. 53, No. 4 (December 2009) 23 The Creation and Perpetuation of a Myth helped conduct anthrax sampling after the anony- of the Patriot. See also the MLPD newspaper Rote mous attacks in 2001 and performed cleanup at two Fahne, 30 December 2004. anthrax-contaminated federal buildings in Washing- 112. USIA, Soviet Active Measures in the “Post-Cold ton, DC. War” Era, 66. 102. Segal mentioned the MacArthur testimony first 113. Peta Thornycroft, “Mugabe Highlights in a reply to his critics in 1987, see Kruse, Aids, 51, HIV/AIDS Crisis in Zimbabwe,” Voice of America 55. Disinformation on the NCI’s alleged role was pro- News, 5 December 2006; New York Times, 10 Decem- vided by HVA X, see Behling, Kundschafter a.D., ber 2004. Maathai subsequently said her words were 253. taken out of context, but the African journalist who 103. Raimund Geene, AIDS-Politik: Ein neues first reported her remarks stood by his original Krankheitsbild zwischen Medizin, Politik und report. Gesundheitsförderung (Frankfurt a.M.: Mabuse, 114. Laura M. Bogart, Seth C. Kalichman, Leikness 2000), 294. C. Simbayi, letter to the editor, “Endorsement of a 104. Michael D. Morrissey letter to Noam Chomsky, Genocidal HIV Conspiracy as a Barrier to HIV Test- 14 September 1989; Chomsky replied that the Mac- ing in South Africa,” Journal of Acquired Immune Arthur testimony “sends a chill up the spine,” Chom- Deficiencies 49, no. 1 (1 September 2008): 115f. sky letter to Morrissey, 28 December 1989; 115. Ted Goertzel, “Belief in Conspiracy Theories,” http://educate-yourself.org/cn/morrisseycorrespon- Political Psychology 15, no. 4 (December 1994): 731– dencewithnoamchomsky.shtml. 33; Anita M. Waters, “Conspiracy Theories as Eth- 105. USIA, Soviet Active Measures in the “Post-Cold nosociologies: Explanation and Intention in African War” Era, 70, 73, 75. The producer, Malte Rauch, did American Political Culture,” Journal of Black Stud- not respond to an inquiry from this author regarding ies 28, no. 1 (September 1997): 117; Laura M. Bogart the making of his documentary. and Sheryl Thorburn, “Are HIV/AIDS Conspiracy Beliefs a Barrier to HIV Prevention Among African 106. Knabe, Der diskrete Charme, 170. Americans?” Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency 107. USIA, Soviet Active Measures in the “Post-Cold Syndromes 38, no. 2 (February 1, 2005): 215. War” Era, 62. 116. Goertzel, “Belief in Conspiracy Theories,” 740. 108. Segal and Segal, AIDS-die Spur führt ins Penta- 117. Kruse, Aids, 3. gon, 243. The book also contains a censorious essay on U.S. biological warfare research, titled “Biokrieg.” 118. Cf. Patricia A. Turner, I Heard It through the The author, Manuel Kiper, subsequently served as a Grapevine: Rumor in African-American Culture Green Party member of the German parliament (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 156, from 1994 to 1998. dismissing a statement by the CIA’s Coordinator for Academic Affairs Arthur S. Hulnick, who wrote her 109. Bohnsack comments: “Maybe he [Segal] wrote it on 23 August 1988 that his agency believed rumors himself, maybe the HVA did. Heaven knows, I don't linking the CIA to AIDS were the result of Soviet have a clue.” Bohnsack letter to author, 19 January disinformation. 2009. 119. Vedantam, “Persistence of Myths,” Washington 110. Freitag, 17 May 1991; USIA, Soviet Active Mea- Post, 4 September 2007. sures in the “Post-Cold War” Era, 64; Gazette, 16 Feb- ruary 1992; Koehler, Stasi, 261. 120. For an analysis of rumor dynamics, see Robert H. Knapp, “A Psychology of Rumor,” The Public 111. Gordon Schaffer, Baby in the Bathwater: Memo- Opinion Quarterly 8, no. 1 (Spring 1944): especially ries of a Political Journalist (Sussex: Book Guild, 26f on the importance of sub-groups. 1996), 240, 244; Schaffer was London correspondent ❖ ❖ ❖

24 Studies in Intelligence Vol. 53, No. 4 (December 2009)