Disinformation: Former Spy Chief Reveals Secret Strategies for Undermining Freedom, Attacking Religion, and Promoting Terrorism

485 Pages·2013·2.82 MB·English

by  Ronald Rychlak

DISINFORMATION
FORMER SPY CHIEF REVEALS SECRET STRATEGIES FOR UNDERMINING FREEDOM,
ATTACKING RELIGION, AND PROMOTING TERRORISM
Lt. Gen.
ION MIHAI PACEPA
AND Prof. RONALD J. RYCHLAK
ADVANCE PRAISE
“Disinformation is a history of a still-hidden part of the Cold War—the part
hidden as deeply as the KGB’s moles in Western intelligence services—which
has to be studied to truly understand how communism sought to subvert
everything in its path. Like Whittaker Chambers’ Witness, any study of the Cold
War without Disinformation would be profoundly incomplete.”
—JED BABBIN, former deputy undersecretary of defense and author of In
the Words of Our Enemies and Inside the Asylum: How the U.N. and Old Europe
Are Worse Than You Think “Challenging false histories and subtle slanders,
Pacepa and Rychlak take us on a journey through the Empire of Disinformation.
Here we learn the theory and practice of the Big Lie deployed against
Christianity—against popes and bishops. We learn how the Kremlin, even after
the collapse of Communism, continues its war against the West; we learn how
dezinformatsiya is used to inspire a deep hatred of the Jews in order to mobilize
Islam as a battering ram against Israel and America—to the benefit of Russia. If
you want to understand the forces at work behind the decline of Christianity and
the rise of militant Islam, you must read this book.”
—JEFFREY NYQUIST, author Origins of the Fourth World War, columnist, and
radio talk show host on WIBG (Ocean City, NJ) “As a Jew growing up in New
York, I hated even hearing Pope Pius XII’s name. But after seven years of
investigating and 46,000 pages of pertinent documents collected, I came to the
startling discovery that Pius XII was revered and praised as a hero by all Jews
during, and just after, the war. If you want to know how 1 billion people were
tricked into hating him, read this book by General Ion Mihai Pacepa and
Professor Ron Rychlak about the Kremlin’s still-secret dezinformatsiya. That
immense machinery accomplished the worst character assassination of the
twentieth century, and caused great strain between Jews and Catholics. But let
me warn you: this book is scary! When you read it, you will discover how you
were maneuvered like a chess piece to achieve a specific goal. You will also
learn that the dezinformatsiya enterprise is still dividing the Judeo-Christian
world with deadly international consequences.”
—GARY KRUPP, chairman of Pave the Way Foundation, dedicated to
reconciling relations among the world’s religions “Written by two foremost
experts, this book is an eye-opening, demystifying work of political and
historical archeology, a passionate and captivating endeavor to highlight the
communist techniques of cynical deception, vicious plots, and perversely skillful
concoction of propaganda legends masquerading as historical evidence. The
authors display impressive erudition and unique insights into the deep secrets of
the Soviet and post-Soviet disinformation machine. As a former highest-level
intelligence officer within the Soviet Bloc who broke with the system for moral
reasons and courageously exposed its terrorist underpinnings, Ion Mihai Pacepa
is a formidable witness to and a respected analyst of the communist intrigues,
schemes, and manipulations.”
—VLADIMIR TISMĂNEANU, author of Stalinism for All Seasons: A Political
History of Romanian Communism, director of the University of Maryland’s
Center for the Study of Post-Communist Societies, and president of Romania’s
Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes
DEDICATION
To Mary Lou, who helped me look at my past through American eyes.
—LT. GEN. ION MIHAI PACEPA
To my daughter Lindsey and all the Lindseys in my life.
—PROFESSOR RONALD RYCHLAK
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
—GEORGE SANTAYANA, The Life of Reason, vol. 1, 1905
In Russia, “duck,” aside from its normal meaning, is a term for disinformation.
‘When the ducks are flying’ means that the press is publishing disinformation.
—PAVEL SUDOPLATOV, Deputy Chief of Soviet Foreign Intelligence
Special Tasks (Memoirs), 1994
AUTHOR’S NOTE
For the transliteration of Russian, we have followed the guidelines of the
United States Board on Geographic Names, with the exception that iy and yy
have been condensed into a simple y when they occur at the end of first and last
names of individuals. A few familiar deviations have been retained, such as Yuri
Andropov.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction by R. James Woolsey
Foreword by Paul Kengor, PhD
PART I:
GLORIFYING THE GUILTY, FRAMING THE INNOCENT
Prelude
1. Drafted into the Securitate
2. The True Meaning of Glasnost
3. Defecting to America
4. The Black Art of Disinformation
5. The “Beauty” of Disinformation
6. Kremlin Framings
7. Stalin’s Encounter with Catholicism
8. The Kremlin’s New Enemy
PART II:
ANATOMY OF A DISINFORMATION CAMPAIGN: THE CREATION OF “HITLER’S POPE”
9. The Failed Birth of “Hitler’s Pope”
10. Cardinal Stepinac
11. Cardinal Mindszenty
12. More Framings
13. Global War on Religion
14. The Vatican’s New Crusade
15. Liberation Theology
16. Khrushchev’s War on the Vatican
17. Preparations for Framing Pius XII
18. The Deputy
19. The Play
20. Disinformation under Every Rock
21. KGB Fingerprints
22. The Deputy’s Anti-Semitism
23. The Deputy’s Ideological Roots
24. Rolf Hochhuth
25. A New Look at The Deputy
26. Khrushchev’s Political Necrophagy
27. Hitler’s Pope, The Book
28. Andropov’s Cocaine
PART III:
FRAMING THE US GOVERNMENT AS A PACK OF ASSASSINS
29. The End of America’s Innocence
30. Khrushchev: A Monument to Disinformation
31. Operation “Dragon”
32. New Hard Proof of the KGB’s Hand
PART IV:
UNRAVELING TODAY’S WEB OF DECEIT
33. From Disinformation to Terrorism
34. Putin Time
35. From “Hitler’s Pope” to September 11, 2001
36. The Kremlin’s Nuclear Terrorism
37. A KGB Empire
38. Keeping the Lie-Machine Going
39. The Antiwar Movement
40. Marx’s Ghost Lives On
41. Disinformation in Today’s America
42. From Disinformation to Assassination
43. Marxist Personality Cults and Heavy Water
44. How I Became a “Filthy Jew Traitor”
Epilogue
Notes
Bibliography
Index
INTRODUCTION
THIS REMARKABLE BOOK will change the way you look at intelligence, foreign
affairs, the press, and much else besides. Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa is the
highest-ranking defector we have ever had from a hostile intelligence service. As
chief of Romanian intelligence he was for many years in the key meetings with
heads of state and a participant in some of the most sensitive discussions by our
enemies during the Cold War.
For starters, General Pacepa tells us that intelligence collection is rather far
down the list of what Romanian, and other Soviet Bloc, intelligence services
were doing all those years. Intelligence collection, he says, “has always been
more or less irrelevant.” I might add that whether you agree or not that this is
accurate for the period of the Cold War, much intelligence collection is done
today by hackers sitting at keyboards, not by case officers fine-tuning the
location of dead drops.
So what were Romanian and Soviet spies spending their time on in the Cold
War years? General Pacepa would say “framing,” i.e. rewriting history and
manipulating records, documents, etc., to bring that about. To what end this
dezinformatsiya? Oh, little matters like using press leaks to destroy the
reputation of a national or religious leader, engendering the spread of anti-
Semitism, building up resentment against the United States or Israel in the Arab
world. Soviet leader and long-time KGB head Yuri Andropov, apparently a real
aficionado of dezinformatsiya, put it this way: “[Dezinformatsiya is] like
cocaine. If you sniff once or twice, it may not change your life. If you use it
every day though, it will make you an addict—a different man.”
So, one might say, it’s understandable during the Cold War, but why now?
And why are many governments in the Mideast essentially doing the same thing,
such as spreading the crazy stories about 9/11—that it was the CIA, or the
Mossad? I would imagine it’s fairly straightforward: dictators need enemies to
help them have more reason to suppress their people. And we’re very
convenient.
Another major understanding emerges from these pages. The communists had
something between no ideology and a dysfunctional one. We have one that
almost all Americans would sign on to: democracy, the rule of law, and America