Disinformation by Ion Michai Pacepa
Review by Scott Albright
Ion Mihai Pacepa is the highest ranking Soviet intelligence officer to ever defect to the United States of America. He was a Lieutenant General in the Romanian intelligence agency known as the DIE. He was in charge of running disinformation operations for the KGB out of his DIE office during the U.S.-Soviet Cold War. His revelations about the KGB’s use of disinformation, propaganda, and lies to discredit and attack their enemies is shocking, but not all that surprising considering the literature available on U.S. disinformation operations during the same time period.
What’s so shocking about what Pacepa writes is the incredible lengths to which the Russians would go to cover up their own operations and discredit their enemies in the Vatican and in the U.S. government. Pacepa reveals a ton of information about the deception and dirty tricks used to frame Pope Pius XII as a Nazi collaborator and shows how others working for the Vatican also had their names smeared and histories recreated by the KGB. The first half of the book is dedicated to explaining how the KGB got away with this re-writing of history for so long using plays, movies, books, and various literature to influence the beliefs of the global masses. The narrow focus of this book allows the reader to learn about KGB disinformation operations in descriptive detail, however readers should not absorb the information in this book alone if they want to know the larger picture of what was going on at the time. Stonor Saunders’ book The Cultural Cold War is highly recommended, as it will provide a balance to Pacepa’s revelations by showing what the CIA. was doing in Europe’s |
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pre-internet media and literary world after WWII. It is also important to question Pacepa’s own motivations for writing the book, who edited and cleared the book for publication, and the accuracy of the information itself. Is Disinformation just more disinformation? Who knows, but knowing what both sides were allegedly doing is important for understanding the type of disinformation campaigns that are going on today.
Pacepa leads up to the modern disinformation campaigns by way of explaining his role in spreading the conspiracy about U.S. President John F. Kennedy’s assassination. He says the conspiracy was created to help cover up KGB involvement in the act. Apparently Pacepa helped to spread the theory that JFK was assassinated by radical rightists inside the CIA. He says Jack Ruby was a Cuban agent used to kill Lee Harvey Oswald in case Oswald’s KGB ties were revealed. Pacepa says this is a classic case of how the KGB regularly blames the other side for the crimes they commit, using the nastiest tricks possible to cover everything up. This is fairly apparent from the news coverage we get in the U.S. of the ongoing crisis in Ukraine, but how much of that is American disinformation is questionable as well, making me wonder how well any of these disinformation campaigns work if nobody believes anything their told in the media anymore.
Pacepa claims that for the JFK conspiracy to work the KGB had people like I.F. Stone and Mark Lane on their payroll. Stone and Lane wrote several articles and books accusing rightist elements within the U.S. government of assassinating Kennedy. Oliver Stone’s movie JFK, which claims the Kennedy assassination was a local conspiracy of the highest degree, was inspired by a book written by Jim Garrison, the New Orleans District Attorney who was helped by Mark Lane in the arrest of Clay Shaw for his alleged involvement in the conspiracy. According to imdb.com, JFK brought in $205,405,498 in box office sales worldwide, all on a $40 million budget.
If what Pacepa says is true than who knows how many movies have been inspired, supported, or funded by foreign or domestic elements of the intelligence community. As for the more modern acts of KGB disinformation, Pacepa says he was personally involved in the spreading of anti-Americanism in the Middle East and across the globe by disseminating propaganda like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and supporting terrorist groups like Hezbollah and the Palestinian Liberation Organization in their fight against Israel and the U.S. He also claims the protest movements against the wars in Vietnam and Iraq were created through KGB disinformation operations. Pacepa says the U.S. Democratic party has been infected by this disinformation disease.
It’s easy to see why Pacepa is strongly anti-Communist and politically to the right, but I disagree with his theory that Obama is a secret socialist and that calls for the redistribution of the wealth is a bad idea. First off, Obama is not very secret about his socialist-like policies, but in the end capitalism has absorbed his socialist aims, just as representative democracy has absorbed the anti-war movements. Capitalism is the global economic system every country uses. China absorbed it into their Communist system, just as American capitalism absorbed socialism, which is more of a government program intended to provide a social safety net for the people rather than just serve as an economic system. And the American social safety net has worked far better than Russia’s or China’s under Maoism, Stalinism, or Putinism. This is not a bad thing at all, but rather a great asset which should continue unhindered.
Pacepa leads up to the modern disinformation campaigns by way of explaining his role in spreading the conspiracy about U.S. President John F. Kennedy’s assassination. He says the conspiracy was created to help cover up KGB involvement in the act. Apparently Pacepa helped to spread the theory that JFK was assassinated by radical rightists inside the CIA. He says Jack Ruby was a Cuban agent used to kill Lee Harvey Oswald in case Oswald’s KGB ties were revealed. Pacepa says this is a classic case of how the KGB regularly blames the other side for the crimes they commit, using the nastiest tricks possible to cover everything up. This is fairly apparent from the news coverage we get in the U.S. of the ongoing crisis in Ukraine, but how much of that is American disinformation is questionable as well, making me wonder how well any of these disinformation campaigns work if nobody believes anything their told in the media anymore.
Pacepa claims that for the JFK conspiracy to work the KGB had people like I.F. Stone and Mark Lane on their payroll. Stone and Lane wrote several articles and books accusing rightist elements within the U.S. government of assassinating Kennedy. Oliver Stone’s movie JFK, which claims the Kennedy assassination was a local conspiracy of the highest degree, was inspired by a book written by Jim Garrison, the New Orleans District Attorney who was helped by Mark Lane in the arrest of Clay Shaw for his alleged involvement in the conspiracy. According to imdb.com, JFK brought in $205,405,498 in box office sales worldwide, all on a $40 million budget.
If what Pacepa says is true than who knows how many movies have been inspired, supported, or funded by foreign or domestic elements of the intelligence community. As for the more modern acts of KGB disinformation, Pacepa says he was personally involved in the spreading of anti-Americanism in the Middle East and across the globe by disseminating propaganda like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and supporting terrorist groups like Hezbollah and the Palestinian Liberation Organization in their fight against Israel and the U.S. He also claims the protest movements against the wars in Vietnam and Iraq were created through KGB disinformation operations. Pacepa says the U.S. Democratic party has been infected by this disinformation disease.
It’s easy to see why Pacepa is strongly anti-Communist and politically to the right, but I disagree with his theory that Obama is a secret socialist and that calls for the redistribution of the wealth is a bad idea. First off, Obama is not very secret about his socialist-like policies, but in the end capitalism has absorbed his socialist aims, just as representative democracy has absorbed the anti-war movements. Capitalism is the global economic system every country uses. China absorbed it into their Communist system, just as American capitalism absorbed socialism, which is more of a government program intended to provide a social safety net for the people rather than just serve as an economic system. And the American social safety net has worked far better than Russia’s or China’s under Maoism, Stalinism, or Putinism. This is not a bad thing at all, but rather a great asset which should continue unhindered.
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