Ronald Reagan Presidential Library Digital Library Collections This is a PDF of a folder from our textual collections. Collection: DeGraffenreid, Kenneth E.: Files Folder Title: Soviet "Active Measures" and the Freeze 07/14/1982 (1) Box: RAC Box 27 To see more digitized collections visit: https://reaganlibrary.gov/archives/digital-library To see all Ronald Reagan Presidential Library inventories visit: https://reaganlibrary.gov/document-collection Contact a reference archivist at: [email protected] Citation Guidelines: https://reaganlibrary.gov/citing National Archives Catalogue: https://catalog.archives.gov/ Statement of Stanislav Levchenko / SOVIET ACTIVE MEASURES Wednesday, July 14, 1982 U.S. House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on ~ntelligence Washington, D.C. The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:05 o'clock a.m., in Room H-405, the Capitol, the Honorable Edward P. Boland (Chairman of the Committee) presiding. Present: Representatives Boland (presiding), Mazzoli, Mineta, Stump, McClory, Whitehurst and Young. Also present: Thomas K. Latimer,' Staff Director; Michael J. O'Neil, Chief Counsel; Patrick G. Long, Associate Counsel; Sharon Leary, Assistant Clerk of the Committee; and Herbert Romerstein, Richard H. Giza, G. Elizabeth Keyes, Annette H. Smiley, and Diane E. La Voy, Professional Staff Members; and Ira H. Goldman, Counsel. P R O C E E D I N G S The Chairman. The Committee will come to order. We are delighted to have with us this morning, we welcome, Stanislav Levchenko, a KGB major who defected to the United States in 1979. Our understanding of Mr. Levchenko'i background as supplied by himself and also by those who are with the CIA is that he is one of the most knowledgeable people in the West on Soviet active measures. In fact, only Major Levchenko and Ladislav Bittman, who testified before this Committee in 1980, have had actual experience in running active measures and are available to the Committee and to the Intelligence Community. For the information of Mr. Levchenko, this Committee is split into a number of subcommittees, one of them being the Subcommittee on Oversight. We held hearings on Soviet use of propaganda and covert action against the United States two years ago; and those hearings concentrated on S~viet propa- ganda and forgeries which appare~tly, according to at least one recent press item, seem to be increasing. I am sure that you will have additional knowledge that you can expand on for the Committee. It is an area that we think is terribly important for the security of the United States, and yesterday we opened these hearin~s and had Mr. John McMahon, who is the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence Agency, and John Stein, the Deputy Di r e c to r f o r Op e r a t i o n s . Th e y we r e a c c o mp a n i e d b.y Ma r t i n Po rt ma n . It was the kind of a meeting where we wanted to get some information on the extent of Soviet propaganda all around the world, how effective it is, and how to counteract that kind of propaganda. I have read most of your statement. I think it is a fine statement, and the clear indication, of course, is that you have considerable knowledge on Soviet propaganda around the world and the kind of infrastructure that is built into this operation by the Soviet Union. So, we welcome you as a very knowledgeable witness to these hearings, and we are delighted to have you. page two Mr. Young? Mr. Young. Mr. Chairman, thank you. I would like also to welcome Major Levchenko to our hearing today. Maybe it is a coincidence, but I think it is appropriate that he be here today to testify on Bastille Day. Bastille Day, of course, is the day that symbolizes the fight for freedom that Major Levchenko continues to wage here in the United States. He has shown great courage in his defection from the KGB. He has been of significant help to our gover.nment in our efforts to understand the KGB threat, particularly active measures. I welcome Major Levchenko to our Committee, also to the fellowship of free men, and hopefully, in the future, as a fellow American. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Chairman. We would have held the hearings on your birthday, which will be on July 28, but that is too far away. So we decided on today. You are a relatively young ~an at the age of 41. You have had as much experience, I guess, in the field in which you operate as any particular person that we have knowledge of, and that of course gives us great confidence in your ability and in your knowledge. Are there any other statements by any of the members? So why don't you proceed as you wish. page three Statement of Stanislav Levchenko, Former KGB Major Mr. Levchenko. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I have the prepared text of my testimony which I, with your permission, would read. It is typewritten, but I as well have the original of this statement which I would like to be put in the record. Mr. Chairman, gentlemen, it is a great honor for me to testify to the representatives of the legislative body of the leading country of the free world. I would like to begin my testimony by first introducing myself with a summary of my life and my career. I would like also to point out the motives which brought me to resentment of the Soviet socialist system. I will be happy to answer afterwards all of your questions on the matters I personally witnessed during my career within the Soviet hierarchy. ----- My name is Stanislav Levchenko. I was bo~n on July 28, 1941 in Moscow, USSR. My father was a Major General and Department Ch i e f i n o n e o f t he So v i e t mi l i t a... r y re s e a r c h i n s t i t u t e s . By profession he was a chemical engineer. My mother died when I was three years old. Within a few years my father remarried. My stepmother was a pediatric surgeon. In 1958 I graduated from the special high school No. 1 of the Sokolniki District of Moscow. Some of the subjects in this school._were taught in the English language. That same year I became a student of the Institute of Asia and Africa affiliated with the Moscow University. For six years I studied Japanese language, history, economics and literature. After graduating fromMos,cow University, I was assigned to work for the Institute of Maritime Fishery as a junior researcher. In 1965 I was called to the International Department of the Central Committee, Communist Party, Soviet Union, and was proposed to work as a secretary-interpreter for the Moscow correspondent of the Japanese Communist newspaper Akahata. Formally, I was supposed to be on the payroll of the Soviet Red Cross, which according to the directive of the Soviet Communist Party leadership is paying monthly stipends to most foreign Communist newspapers' journalists assigned to Moscow. But, actually, I was to spy on a Japanese Communist journalist and page four V and to report his activities to the Japanese Sector of the International Department on a daily basis. I did not want that kind of job, and rejected it. I used the excuse that I already was passing exams to become a postgraduate student at the Institute of Peoples of Asia and Africa of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. In November 1965 I was formally admitted to postgraduate ·study and started to write my Master's degree thesis on the history of the Japanese peace movement. The above-mentioned institute is actually guided by the International Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, Soviet Union, and provides it with studies of political, economic and military situations in most of the third world countries. I also had to take part in several such studies. While being a postgraduate student in 1965-67, I was working as a part-time consultant for the Soviet Peace Committee, which is an active tool of the International Department of the Central Committee, Communist Party, Soviet Union, in manipulating one of the major Soviet front organizations: the World Peace Council, WPC. I was assigned to work as an interpreter to most of the delegations of the Japanese peace movement which had visited the USSR during these years. I had to collect information on the current situation in numerous Japanese leftist public organizations and to submit it to the International Department. In April 1966 I visited Japan for the first time as an interpreter of the Soviet Trade Union Delegation. But actually under ordersof the Sector for Japan of the Communist Party Soviet Union's International Department, I had to meet with several leading figures in the Japanese peace movement and to collect information on the latest developments in it and to report this information to the International Depart~ent. Since then, and before I was assigned to Japan as a KGB officer, I visited Japan about twelve times as a member of different delegations of the so-called Soviet public organizations, all of which are closely affiliated with the International or other departments of the Central Committee, Communist Party, Soviet Union. In 1966 I started to work full time for the Soviet Afro­ Asian Solidarity Committee, which manipulates the Afro-Asian People's Solidarity Organization, headquarters located in Cairo, as a referent.