SMITH: SOVIETS FAKED KKK OLYMPICS THREATS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00806R000200860003-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 24, 2010
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: August 7, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/24: CIA-RDP90
ARTICLE APP
QN PAGE BOSTON GLOBE
7 August 1984
Smith: Soviets faked liiiii
Olympics threats
By David Ring
Special to The Globe
CHICAGO - The Soviet Union,
through the KGB, used forged let-
ters pruportedly written by the Ku
Klux Klan in an attempt to dis-
courage 20 Asian and African na-
tions from participating in the
Summer Olympics, Attorney Gen-
eral William French Smith said
yesterday.
The letters "were not produced
or sent by the Ku Klux Klan. They
were instead manufactured and
mailed by another organization
devoted'to terror: the KGB," Smith
said in a keynote address to the
American Bar Assn.
The letters were "openly racist
and disgusting, and they threaten
violence against Asian and Afri-
can athletes who participate in
the games," Smith said. "Fortu-
nately, none of the nations that
received these letters succumbed
to the attempted intimidation."
The Soviet Union and many
other Communist countries are
boycotting the Olympics in Los
Angeles with most claiming, as
the Soviets did, that the United
States couldn't guarantee the
safety of the athletes. Soviet media
have given wide publicity to the
"Klan" letters.
Smith declined to amplify on
the KGB efforts or to spell out
what the US government might do
about them.
In his address, he said he could
not "detail all of what we know
about these documents [letters] for
fear of helping the authors to re-
fine their efforts." But, he said, "a
thorough analysis - including lin-
guistic and forensic techniques -
reveals that they are classic exam-
ples of a Soviet forgery or disinfor-
mation operation."
Smith also repeated recent
Reagan Administration charges
that communist nations - he re-
ferred specifically to Cuba. Bulgar-
ia and Nicaragua - and certain
groups were involved in drug traf-
ficking to support terrorism.
He pointed to a 1982 federal
grand jury indictment in which he
said four "high-ranking" Cuban
officials were alleged to have pro-
vided a "safe haven" for suspected
Colombian drug trafficker Jaime
Guillot-Lara as he transported
drugs from Colombia to the US by
boat.
In return, Smith said, the Cu-
bans received hard currency used
to fund Latin American revolu-
tionary groups. In addition, he
said, the Cubans smuggled arms
through Guillot-Lara to the "19th
of April Movement," a Colombian
terrorist organization.
He also said the Justice Depart-
ment believed the Bulgarian gov-
ernment "has encouraged and
aided drug trafficking" through
its import-export agency, Kintex.
In return for drugs, which Smith
said are also sold by the Bulgar-
ians for hard currency, non-Bul-
garian traders gave weapons to
terrorist groups, primarily in Tur-
key and Lebanon.
Turning to Nicaragua, he said
a federal grand jury indictment
filed last week in Miami charging
11 persons with involvement in a
cocaine shipment to the US via
Nicaragua Included a defendant,
Federico Vaughan, who Smith
said was an aide to the Nicara-
guan government minister of the
interior.
Smith said the indictment al-
leged that Vaughan, with the help
of Nicaraguan officials, had se-
cured the release of a drug dealer
following the dealer's arrest on
June 3 in Managua.
The dealer then flew to Florida,
he said, returned to Nicaragua
with cash and equipment ordered
by Vaughan, and left for the US
again with 700 kilograms of co-
caine.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/24: CIA-RDP90-00806R000200860003-2