RUSSI PROPAG

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00806R000200700071-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 21, 2010
• Sequence Number: 71
• Publication Date: April 1, 1981
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/21: CIA-RDP90-00806R000200700071-4
ARTICLE APPE
ON PAGE__,Y
N THE SIXTEENTH of March,
1978, Aldo Moro, the President
of Italy's ruling Christian
.Democratic Party and a former Pre-
mier, was snatched from his auto-
mobile on a busy Roman street by des-
peradoes who gunned down his five
THE RETIRED OFFICER
APRIL 1981
bodyguards and carried him off into
hiding. The kidnappers were quickly By Cdr Merle Macbain, USN-
identified as members of the notorious
Red Brigades.
The Italian government spurned foreign power that it belongs to is
offers to release the famous man in re- United. States of America."
turn for 13 terrorists who were then on This charge was, of course, con
trial. On May 9, Moro's body with 13 ered ridiculous by America since
bullet holes in it was left in a car U.S. looked favorably on Moro's eff
parked near his party's headquarters. EE to provide Italy with a stable; fat
There had been hundreds of recent centrist government. But Mosco
personal attacks attributed to the-Red immediate target now was NATO
Brigades, an international band of ex- Italy. And they had another shoe
tortionists believed to have Commu- drop.
nist connections through the Soviet se- Back in 1975, a communist ag
cret police, the KGB. This time, the had secured a copy of t T.S. Army Fi
eminence of the victim and daylight Manual FM 30-31A, a routine classif
be!3ness of the crime focused world- document which, like other s
wide attention and brought on a politi- manuals, bore the signature of
cal crisis in Italy. After hastily passing Army Chief of Staff, Gen William West- forgers in the 1~remiin to suppvc. mcn
Draconian anti-terrorism legislation, moreland. With this authentic manual I charge that the CIA was an agent pro-
the government fell. in hand, complete with Westmore- vocateur in the murder of Moro. They
The Kremlin's farsighted propagan= land's well-known signature, it re- merely used one lie to lend credence to
da apparatus, however, was in no dis- mained only to rewrite the contents, another.
array. For openers, on March 16, the duplicate the typeface and label it FM The U.S. State Department received
very day of the kidnapping, Radio Mos- 30-31B. L some disturbed inquiries from friendly
cow in a worldwide broadcast in. En- - The text of the fake document sur- governments about FM'1 30-31B. The
glish called it a "crimeof reaction" and faced first in a' small, left-wing Turkish forgers, thinking perhaps 'to enhance
just another "attempt by a right-wing 1 newspaper in March 1975. In Septem- its attention value, had classified it as
force to aggravate the situation in Ita- her 1976, a photocopy of FM 30-31B Top Secret. It was; then, only necessary
ly." In an Italian language broadcast was tacked up on the bulletin board of for the U.S. to?point out that no Amer-
on March 18, Moscow quoted the the Philippine Embassy in Bangkok, icanArmyFieldManualwasevergiven
French Communist Party newspaper, Thailand, by a "concerned citizen."' It that high a classification.
L'Humanlte, as reporting that, "Secret reappeared again in 1978 when, with L But the truth never quite catches up
Services whose activity is -connected some unassuming help from a Cuban to an interesting lie.
with the NATO military base in Na- intelligence officer, it was made avail- DEZINFORMATSIYA"
ples," were involved. able to two Spanish newspapers. At
this point patience and a well-covered This bit of history is retold as an ex-'
SOVI ETS ACCUSE THE CIA trail paid off. The spurious- manual cellent and not unusual example of the
Afterhinting that the CIA must be in- together with ' articles concerning it Soviet Union's unique disinformation.
volved because the operation was too appeared in newspapers in more than program. The Russian word for it is 1
complex for local talent (teaching the 20 countries including Italy and the "dezinformatsiya," and the "dreaded
Red' Brigades the art of kidnapping United States. f Cheka'-the first Soviet state security
would be something like-teaching the The forged contents of this i apparatus,andallofitsseveraldescen-
Swiss how to' make -watches), the Jar-traveling pamphlet provided pur- dants down to the current KGB-have
Soviets got to the point.. Moscow ported guidance to U.S. Army intelli- hadaDisinformationDesk.In 1959 the
Radio's commentator, Anatoly gence officers for the subversion of host KGB established a full-fledged Disin-
Ovsyannikov, stated, "Well, to call a country officials. Specifically, it I' formation Department known as De-
.spade a spade, that service (master-
minding the kidnapping) is called the #+Q
rpntral 'Intel Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/21 : CIA-RDP90-00806R000200700071-4