The current global political environment has raised the spectre of Russian interference and disinformation, this time in regard to its treatment of Ukraine. In his war on NATO and the western world, Vladimir Putin, the ex-KGB agent who cut his teeth in Dresden, East Germany, has come to rely heavily on disinformation.
As the purposeful dissemination of false information to mislead, discredit or malign one’s opponents, disinformation can take many forms. It can be ‘fake news’ and doctored images on social media or entire conspiracy theories such as Russia’s 2022 claim that Ukraine had bioweapons labs. Social media has added a new dimension to disinformation but much about the Kremlin’s playbook is the same as it was forty years ago.
Cold War disinformation
Disinformation was one of the staples of the Soviet secret police, the KGB, and the East German Stasi during the Cold War. At the time disinformation was difficult to detect. It is only since former Eastern bloc communist countries have declassified their secret police files that we are able to gain a better picture of these campaigns, even though Moscow still refuses to open its archives. Fortunately, the KGB has left an incriminating paper trail in neighbouring countries.
It was in the Bulgarian archives that historians Douglas Selvage and Christopher Nehring first uncovered evidence of a major disinformation campaign designed by the KGB. On 7th September 1985 the KGB sent a telegram to Bulgarian state security requesting help in a special operation in connection with AIDS.
The KGB had already tested an AIDS disinformation campaign in India when it placed a letter in a newspaper that was a known front for the KGB. The letter had claimed the Pentagon was behind the spread of the AIDS epidemic and that the virus had originated in the US not Africa.
The story was in fact a curious mixture of untruths and conspiracies already in circulation. At the time India’s loyalty to the Soviet Union was in doubt and the KGB wanted to sow distrust about the US. The KGB soon had the consent of the Stasi to cooperate on a joint covert operation in which it wanted to “create a favourable opinion for us.”
Sound familiar?
The KGB and the Stasi’s “Operation Denver”
“Operation Denver” was the codename the East Germans gave to the ‘active measure’ to malign the US, that it launched with the KGB in 1985 along with their Bulgarian and Czech “brother organs.” The Stasi contributed by enlisting the support of a biologist at the Humboldt University in East Berlin, Jakob Segal and his wife Lilli.
The Segals were the authors of a book, “AIDS—Nature and Origin,” that peddled the theory that it was impossible for the AIDS virus to have spread from animals to humans by accident. It must have been the result of genetic manipulation. Moreover, the Segals were convinced AIDS came from a military laboratory in Fort Detrick in Maryland. It had escaped when it was tested on prisoners who spread it after their release.
With the backing of reputable scientists, the AIDS story now had legs. The Stasi even sent its Bulgarian “comrades” copies of the Segals’ book. The Stasi claimed credit for copying and disseminating a brochure based on the Segals’ research at an AIDS summit in Harare, Zimbabwe.
The AIDS conspiracy theory spreads
Shortly after, in 1987, the story was picked up by media outlets around the world. The Stasi also worked to bring the Segals together with foreign journalists while the Soviet press agency Novosti did the same. It should come as no surprise that the US broadcaster CBS also ran the story in 1987.
Of the 80 countries that picked up on the story, one was Australia. The Canberra Times printed a brief news item on 1 April 1987 on page 4, stating that a Soviet military bulletin had claimed the US military was “conducting bacteriological warfare experiments” in Ft Detrick, which had caused the virus to leak. The source of the information was the Soviet’s own news agency, and one of the largest world-wide, Tass.
Australian student newspaper runs AIDS conspiracy theory
But it was in the student newspaper of the University of NSW, Tharunka, that the conspiracy theory gained most traction. In an article titled “AIDS – Man made in the USA?” in the 19 May 1987 issue, the author, Bernhard Huber, presented a scientific case for the unnatural origins of AIDS. According to him, the leak of the virus was in violation of international laws banning research on bioweapons. Huber cites his source as “Prof. Dr Jakob Segal,” whose opinions he declares, “are not shared at all (this must be emphasized) by the East German Government.”
Nothing could have been further from the truth. As a professor, Jakob Segal belonged to an elite political class in East Germany whose explosive views would certainly have been known to his government. In fact, the Stasi registered the couple as “contact persons” under the codename “Diagnosis.” It is unclear if the Segals arrived at their conclusions about AIDS independently or via the Stasi. At any rate it was the Stasi who propagated their theories to the world. The article that appeared in Tharunka, it transpired, was adapted from an article in the left-leaning West German newspaper, Die Tagezeitung (taz).
Gorbatchev distances himself from KGB disinformation
Curiously, the Kremlin distanced itself from the AIDS conspiracy theory soon after with Gorbatchev even issuing an apology to the US government in 1987. Yet, the bioweapons AIDS narrative was not so easy to quell. Not even subsequent admissions from two Stasi officers of the Stasi and the director of the KGB campaign could put the rumours to bed.
In 1989, the West German public broadcaster, the WDR, aired a documentary about AIDS in which it repeated uncritically the conspiracy theory. In the UK Channel Four broadcast an English version of it. When Selvage and Nehring suggested the Stasi had co-financed the film, the West German broadcaster placed an embargo on the publication of their research, which was eventually lifted.
Over thirty years later, in 2020, the taz issued an apology, saying it was “guilty of spreading fake news.” It had been “instrumentalized” by eastern bloc secret services. It regretted it had taken the Stasi’s “bait” of the AIDS story.
Lessons from Cold War history
The AIDS disinformation campaign is a salutary reminder of the power of bad international actors and the importance of fact-checking. Within the current global dynamic, there is much that is reminiscent of the Soviet’s playbook—from disinformation, paid assets, useful idiots to coordinated operations to influence public opinion and spread lies. Our only consolation is that we are now better armed with knowledge of how the Kremlin operated under the Soviets and continues to operate as long as Putin is in power.
