SOVIET DEFAMATION CAMPAIGN AGAINST DCI, THE CIA AND THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP74-00115R000300020054-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 7
• Document Creation Date: December 27, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 14, 2014
• Sequence Number: 54
• Publication Date: November 20, 1961
• Content Type: MISC

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- L.?
TO: P
Colonel Grogan
ROOM NO.
BUILDING
REMARKS:
This is further to our materials
for the Reader's Digest team working
on this topic. Please look this over
before it goes to them. It ought to have
your blessing.
iyy.0441 kibetz)
STAT /66rt
ofli
20 NOV 1961
STAT'Rom:
ROOM NO.
BUILDING
EXTENSION
FORM NO .011 1 REPLACES FORM 36-8 *GPO : 195' -0-439445
I F FR 55 LI WHICH MAY BE USED.
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STAT- - -
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STAT
SOVIET DEFAMATION CAMPA1UN AC/A.1.1\1Si
DCI, THE CIA AND THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY
1. Since 1957, a Soviet propaganda campaign has been directed
with mounting vehemence against the U. S. Government and the U. S.
intelligence community. The attack on CIA and the DCI has been
especially violent. Sporadic Soviet attacks on the U. S. intelligence
community had begun as early as 1952 but these apparently proceed ed
from such isolated episodes as the Slansky trial and the purge of the
Jewish doctors in Moscow. In January 1953, the Soviets had surfaced
the WIN case in Poland, but apparently only over Polish objections.
2. By late 1957, however, the Soviets had moved on to a co-
ordinated, concerted offensive, which was developed on both overt
and covert levels. Attacks on CIA and the DCI were featured in
Herbert Aptheker's book The Truth About Hungary and V. Maklovl s
About Those Who Are Against Peace. The latter volume contained
a chapter entitled "The Dirty Work of Allen Dulles. "
3. During the autumn of 1959, the attack on U. S. intelligence
was stepped up and sharply intensified. While in the United States,
Nikita Khrushchev opened an attack on the DCI and U. S. intelligenc e
agencies, attempting to plant distrust of them through ridicule and
to create doubt of the services' efficiency by planting stories of U. S.
material then available to? him. Undoubtedly, Soviet officials expected
a wide play in the U. S. press.
4. As the Soviet defamation campaign has developed from late
1959, the following principal themes have evolved:
a. CIA, as the central and dominant force of U. S. intelli-
gence, is the major cause of the continuation of the cold war.
b. CIA distorts, and even on occasion generates, U, S.
foreign policy.
c. Although, of course, amateurish in comparison to the
Soviet services, CIA is a formidable threat to world peace because
of its huge size, large budget and technical facilities.
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d. CIA is not really an instrument of Government; it is a
tool of private wealth, a lackey of Wall Street.
e. CIA is corrupt, fascist and without conscience. It
demoralizes those who work for it. Its leader is evil, a moral
gangster.
f. American and other services are exploited by CIA for
its own ends.
5. The attack on the DCI personally has been developed along
the following lines:
a. He imperils peace because he is a product of the past;
he does not understand the dynamic present or the inevitably
Communist future.
b. The DCI owes primary allegiance to rich, powerful
private interests in the United States rather than to the Govern-
ment. He has close ties with a? il monopolies and Wall Street. Such
ties endanger peace because American big business wants war for
profits.
c. The DCI is pro-German, pro-Nazi and anti-Semitic.
He adheres to fascist principles, which once plunged the world
into war.
d. The DCI interferes with, and even creates, State Depart-
ment and United States foreign policy. Such usurpation of policy-
making functions threatens the peace because it results in the creation
of national policy by the most reactionary and war-like element in
the United States.
e. The DCI is untrustworthy and devious. He sabotages any
sincere U. S. efforts to relax world tensions. Even allies of the
United ?States cannot trust him.
f. The DCI is incompetent. He is as likely to precipitate
war by blunder as by design.
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Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release @ 50-Yr 2014/01/15: as an organi-
CIA-RDP74-00115R000300020054-2 in its themes the attack on the DCI personally. The
campaign against CIA and the DCI is designed to bring the CIA into
disrepute inside the United States, with the allies of the Americans,
and throughout the world. Rarely in modern times has a foreign
government launched so bitter and prolonged an attack on an official
of another government as that launched by the USSR against the DCI.
7. The purpose of the Soviet campaign against CIA and its
Director and the United States intelligence community in general
is to;
a. Weaken the liaison relationship between CIA and foreign
services, and destroy their faith in CIA.
b. Sow distrust between CIA and other components of the
U. S. Government, particularly the Congress. It is undoubtedly
significant that Americans deliberately or unwittingly serving Soviet
ends in this campaign frequently urge congressional control of the
Agency.
munity.
c. Sow distrust of CIA throughout the U.S. intelligence corn-
d. Develop distrust of CIA in the American public.
Continuing attacks on CIA in an effort to weaken it are undoubtedly
part of the broad Soviet political and propaganda campaign against
the United States and its interests, and represent an attempt to under-
mine and blind U.S. intelligence.
8. After the U-2 incident of 1 May 1960, Soviet vilification ros e
to ascream. For several reasons, possibly involving Soviet internal
affairs and Sino-Soviet relations, Khrushchev apparently wanted to
produce a more abject U. S. attitude, including an apology; a
traditional disavowal of Powers; and a traditionally punitive action
by the President against CIA or the DCI. Since June 1960, the Soviet
campaign has been stepped up systematically. We must assume
that the pace will be sustained or increased in the future.
3
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CIA-RDP7400115R000300020054-2 ert campaign against CIA, which began with Aptheker's
The Truth About Hungary in 1957, has now spread to several areas
and has passed into several languages. A Soviet distortion of the
activities of the DCI in Switzerland during World War II has been a
favorite theme of derogation since 1948. These activities have been
twisted and perverted into evidence that the DCI is pro-Nazi, hence
anti-Semitic. Since May 1960, several publications appearing in
this country and the United Kingdom have repeated the Nazi theme
and tied in the Cuba difficulty, laying full responsibility for the latter
activity at the door of CIA and the DCI. The most significant publi-
cations serving this Soviet campaign that have appeared during 1961
are:
a. Bob Edwards and Kenneth Dunne, A Study of a Master
Spy (Allen Dulles), Leicester, England.
b. Fred J. Cook, "The CIA", in The Nation, 24 June 1961
(special issue).
c. Robert E. Light and Carl B. Marzani, Cuba vs. the CIA,
New York, 1961.
10. Fred Cook, whose Communist contacts cannot be proved,
had earlier prepared a lengthy attack on the FBI for The Nation and
had written several minor articles on CIA for the same periodical.
His attack on CIA, and particularly the DCI, is especially savage
and is made without restraint. Cook follows the Soviet line generally
in his attacks on the Agency.
11. Little is known of Bob Edwards and nothing of Kenneth Dunne,
who is listed as co-author. Edwards, who is reported to have fought
with the International Brigade in Spain, is a Labor member of the
British Parliament. His pamphlet is generally similar in tone and
content to Cook's article, a result achieved in part by Cook's later
use of Edwards' material.
12. Carl Marzani, an American Communist, served a prison
term for perjury some years ago. The pamphlet produced by Marzani
and Light, although primarily concerned with Cuba, is similar in
tone to the other two publications.
4
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IJ. Inese publications have provided material for Soviet replay
STAT
STAT
in many areas.
14. The continuing Soviet forgery campaign has also been used
against CIA. In September 1960, for example, Washington diplomatic
representatives and major press services received thermofax copies
of a letter attacking CIA that was signed "Foreign Service Employees
and Other Americans United for Separation of Foreign Policy and
Espionage." Analysis indicates that the letter is probably another
item in the Soviet forgery campaign.
15. We must assume that this campaign against CIA and the DCI
will continue as long as the USSR pursues its present aggressive
policy toward the West. This defamation campaign serves a counter-
intelligence purpose: the attempted neutralization of CIA and other
United States intelligence services and the weakening or destruction
of their operational potential. The Soviets certainly must believe
that a long-continued defamation campaign against CIA will, at the
least, force this Agency to use a sizeable portion of its resources
to defend itself and its Director from American critics who may be
taken in by the operation.
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Lit t.viiig exit; C cuiumunity has been carried on by overt and clandestine
means, It is part of the
wider Soviet campaign against the United States and its interests
that has been waged intensively by propaganda and forgeries for
some years. We must plan against its continuation for an indefinite
period.
STAT
18. The use of forgery in support of the campaign is detailed in
the printed version of Mr. Helms' testimony on this subject before
the Senate's Internal Security Sub-Committee. Copies of both
studies will be provided if desired.
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