haw- *1 “ ‘W- AGENTS OF DECEI~'I'" * J 4-_. $6.50 The Penkovskiy Papers Protocol M The Rubottom Airgram The Biological Warfare Fraud The Bluebird Papers The Zinoviev Instructions The Rountree Circular . THESE are the tools of modern espionage, the “black arts” - some of the frauds, forgeries, and suspect documents that Paul Blackstock unmasks in this startling new book about political intrigue among nations. Mr. Blackstock thoroughly exposes the Cold War “paper mills” and the “personalized intelli- gence” hijinks of such adventurers as Colonel Ilius Amoss and Kenneth de Courcy, who man- aged to penetrate Washington with “vital facts” in 1964 while serving time in a British prison. The author’s evaluation of the recent Penkovskiy Pa- pers provides a fascinating insight into the shad- owy area of fraud and leads to the suspicion that American agencies are promoting counter-espio- nage propaganda with Madison Avenue effective- ness. These tactics of subversion are centuries old, as Mr. Blackstock explains in his discussion of the “Testament of Peter the Great” and that lingering canard, the “Protocols of Zion.” He carefully re- constructs the events surrounding the Zinoviev Instructions, which blocked American recognition of the USSR in the 1920's, and the Zinoviev Let- ter, which toppled a British Prime Minister. (continued on back flap) (continued from front flap) These case studies help dissolve the thick mist of legend that surrounds famous historical figures and events, and shows how today’s agents of deceit operate. More important, the author’s analysis poses serious questions for all govemments and sounds a clarion call for caution by diplomats responsible for the fate of nations. Evidence man- ufactured by nations determined to win political warfare at all costs can frequently backfire. Gov- ernments can be victimized by their own strate- gies. As Mr. Blackstock points out, “in political warfare, as in wartime, the first casualty is truth.” PAUL BLACl(sTOCl(’s previous book, The Strategy of Subversion, was widely acclaimed (see back of jacket) and established his reputation as “the thinking man’s James Bond” in the real world of power and intrigue. A former military intelligence specialist with the U.S. government, Mr. Black- stock has actual experience in covert operations in Europe during and after World War II. His other books include translations of Karl Marx’s The Russian Menace to Europe and Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s We Never Make Mistakes. He now teaches in the Department of International Studies at the University of South Carolina. COVER ILLUSTRATION BY DON WILSON -I" QUADRANGLE BOOKS, Inc. I ( Q I 130 North Wacker Drive M Ch.lC3.gO AGENTS OF DECEIT PAUL W. BLACKSTOCK AGENTS OF DECEIT FRAUDS, FORGERIES AND POLITICAL INTRIGUE AMONG NATIONS WITH AN APPENDIX BY GEORGE F. KENNAN CHICAGO QUADRANGLE BOOKS 1966 Copyright © 1966 by Paul W. Blackstock. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form. For information, address: Quadrangle Books, Inc., 180 North Wacker Drive, Chicago 60606. Manufactured in the United States of America. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 66-12134 To Marie ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I K E I T s predecessor, The Strategy of Subversion, this book has been the subject of careful security review by the Department of Defense and other agencies directly concemed. These agencies have stated for the record that they‘ have “no objection on the grounds of military security to open publication.” However, such review in no way implies endorsement of either the conclusions or the factual accuracy of content, for which the author assumes sole responsibility. For their kind assistance in either obtaining access to the National Archives or conducting research among diplomatic and presidential records, I wish to thank E. Taylor Parks, Historical Oice of the Bureau of Public Affairs, Department of State; W. Neil Franklin, Diplomatic, Legal and Fiscal Branch of the Na- tional Archives and Records Service; and Mrs. Carroll and Mr. Wolfe of the same branch. I am also indebted to the helpful cooperation of the Reference and Inter-Library Loan staffs of McKissick Library and to the Committee on Faculty Research and Creative Production of the University of South Carolina for the nancial assistance needed to conduct research in the National Archives. 8 Acknowledgments I wish to thank Mr. George F. Kennan for his encourage- ment and for permission to publish his excellent study of the Sisson Documents as an Appendix. Finally, I want to express my gratitude to Ivan Dee of Quadrangle Books for his counsel and cooperation in the editing of both The Strategy of Subversion and this book, and to Mrs. Cloris de Groot for her eicient and painstaking typing of the manuscript. P.w.B. Columbia, South Carolina, 1966 CONTENTS Introduction 1 3 The Testament of Peter the Great: From Legend to Forgery 25 The Protocols of Zion 38 Frauds and Forgeries of the 1920’s 56 American Recognition of the USSR and the Zinoviev Instructions 81 The British Zinoviev Letter: An Intelligence Evaluation 103 Frauds and Forgeries of the Classic Cold War Period 129 Cold War Paper Mills and Personalized Intelligence 149 Peaceful Coexistence and Political Warfare Forgeries 164 The Occupation Fund Documents: Fresh Historical Evidence 200 The Occupation Fund Documents: Pre—Content and Communications Analysis 223 Conclusions: Frauds and Forgeries in Political Warfare 240 APPENDICES 1. The Sisson Documents by George F. Kennan 247 2. The Soviet and Communist Bloc Defamation Campaign 277 NOTES 287 INDEX 311 AGENTS OF DECEIT 1 INTRODUCTION N H I s Gateway to History, Allan Nevins writes that “Mankind dearly loves a good story and dearly loves to believe it true.” Thus gen- erations of Americans have accepted as true Parson Weems’s invented tale of the boy George Washington chopping down a young cherry tree and confessing to his father that he had done so because he could not tell a lie. Similar apocryphal stories become the thick mist of legend that surrounds famous historical gures. Sometimes the legendary material is deliberately created over a period of years, as in the Soviet cult of Stalin, exposed and denounced by his successors after his death. This kind of legend-building and the inventions on which it is based are familiar to historians and present few problems that patient research cannot resolve, provided adequate sources-— archives, personal memoirs, and such—are available. Moreover, most hoaxes, which range from April Fool pranks to literary inventions, are relatively harmless. For the most part they provide the originator with amusement, and frequently prot, as exempli- ed in the long and lucrative career of the American impresario, P. T. Barnum. However, a popular study of some ve hundred Hoaxes by Curtis D. MacDougal indicates not only that human 13 I4 Aonurs o1= DECEIT gullibility is almost limitless but that a wide variety of frauds and forgeries have played a considerable role in shaping public opinion and occasionally the actual course of contemporary events. The detection and exposure of fraudulent or forged evidence is, of course, important to the courts if justice is to be done. The detection of historical frauds and forgeries is important to the establishment of historical truth, although few historians would accept without reservation MacDougal’s sweeping generalization that “throughout history, mobs have been formed and become hysterical, governments have fallen; reputations have been made and destroyed; international relations have been strained, and wars have been fought, all as a result of hoaxes which were exposed too late.” A hoax may be dened as “a deliberately concocted untruth made to masquerade as truth,” and frequently involves the inven- tion of written materials. These may range from the so-called “runic” inscriptions on the Kensington Stone (designed to prove that Norsemen had journeyed as far as Kensington, Minnesota, 150 years before Columbus reached the West Indies) to forged letters, telegrams, “oicial” government documents, personal mem- oirs, or even entire histories. A classic example of the latter is Father Hennepin’s journal, New Discovery of a Vast Country in America, in which he claimed to have reached the lower waters of the Mississippi two years before LaSalle. The term “forgery” is usually applied to specic documents that are falsely represented as having been written by someone other than the person (or persons) who invent them. The broader terms “fraud” or “fraudulent” are used to describe deliberately falsied and invented matter which may be mixed with a sub- stratum of truth. The element of motive is important in determin- ing whether the charge of “fraudulent” is applicable, not the mere presence of false information. As frequently happens in the case of an accident, there may be wide discrepancies in the reports of several eyewitnesses to the event—without any of them intend- ing to deceive. Only when an observer introduces deliberately invented or false information with intent to deceive can his testi- mony be properly labelled as fraudulent. (I shall not be con- cerned here with the judicial problem of weighing evidence.) The frauds and forgeries in this collection of case studies all Introduction 1 5 have one thing in common: they are either of Russian origin or concern Russia, from the time of Peter the Great to the present Soviet regime. Under both the tsars and the Soviets, Russia has been one of the most controversial actors on the European and recently the world political scene. Since the Bolshevik seizure of power in November 1917, the Westem world has been preoccupied with the threat of com- munism as a secular religion and revolutionary faith. Concern with the “Red Peril” has tended to obscure the older and more basic problem of Russia’s place in the European state system and the menace to that system of tsarist Russian expansion and ambitions.