Russia has often tried to influence elections, with little success

Laboratory of democracy

IN January 1984, Soviet KGB spooks reaffirmed a priority that was set by the Kremlin after the second world war. “Our chief task is to help to frustrate the aggressive intentions of American imperialism…We must work unweariedly at exposing the adversary’s weak and vulnerable points.” As Vasili Mitrokhin, a KGB archivist who defected to the West with a large number of KGB files, explained, “exposure” in the parlour of the KGB meant disinformation fabricated by service A, the active-measures branch of the First Chief Directorate of the KGB. This unit was charged with foreign disinformation, which it spread through a network of officers outside Russia.

At the height of the cold war, service A numbered some 15,000 officers who engaged in psychological warfare and disinformation. Their operations included planting stories about John F. Kennedy being killed in a secret CIA plot, AIDS being a virus developed by the Pentagon and sending fake letters from Ku Klux Klan to the Olympic committees of African countries. “We are opposed by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on...Continue reading

from United States http://ift.tt/2hRW1CS
via https://ifttt.com/ IFTTT