soviet agents to use disinformation, forgery, bribery, and the spreading of fake news to further their cold war agenda. 24 minute program includes >> u.s. information agency directed public the honesty from a 1953 until it was disbanded in 1999, producing many films for overseas audiences. this information is absolutely central to soviet tragedy were debating what they inl the -- soviet strategy defeating the united states without firing a shot. they are involved in intelligence gathering information for extra measures-- authorve to admit i am a

of a number of forgeries. intelligencelogin zachoslaviakian informationroduced that the generic and government -- that the american government was planning an assassination of the egyptian president. >> agents of information and overall dirty tricks are part of a broad range of soviet activities called active measures. this program is about these soviet active measures. we'll hear from the journalists like newsweek former correspondent and french authors and former kgb officer and echmer shackles login -- cz

intelligence officer. we will also talk to the man whose job it is to respond to these active measures. [drums beat] ♪ in the mid-1960's, he was deputy director of the czechoslovakiaian department of disinformation. he defected to the united states. information is -- dis

thermation is leaked into communication system of the opponent with the expectation it would be accepted as genuine eithertion and influence the decision-making process or to influence public opinion. announcer: he was director of france's leading newsmagazine for a number of years. today he is the author of a long list of books on politics and philosophy. [speaking french] not justormation is lies or falsification, it is the art of your enemy saying what you want them to say. this consists of conditioning

western journalists in such a -- even sometimes theseial reasons, journalists would write with the soviet union would want them to write, after which they take even thet and say western press is saying that. active measures consist of making up completely false a document which is they try to have distributed as authentic western documents. have many famous examples.

matter of ronald reagan to the king of spain where he said you must adjoin or else you will see what will happen to you. techniques have enormous importance in the strategy of mental destabilization of the west by the soviet union. he is an expert in the field of soviet active measures. in the middle 1970's, he was a major in the kgb. he formally worked with a major soviet department. he was in the department which plans and overseas soviet -- active measures for the soviet union. he was chief of accident measures -- of active measures at the kgb office in tokyo. in 1979, he defected the ninth

date. -- to the united states. inthe soviets are involved active measures in any country in the world. the number of operations they are running can be comparable to the thousands. talking about many thousands of people, at least a few thousand people who in the soviet union and outside of the soviet union are involved in this kind of action on a daily basis. at the very top of the pyramid -- they prove the mess to germanic and large-scale global and regional active measures. but daily the business is being

run by the international department. department isnal responsible for planning coordination and implementation of the soviet active measures abroad. the main difference is when soviets are running an active , for instanceion planting a major story in the newspaper in france, west --that, japan, elsewhere kind of article would normally be written by a local, prominent journalist who expresses his or

her own opinion. these kinds of rings. about 40%-40% soviet union citizens stationed abroad are kgb officers. another 60% are cooperating with kgb. aery soviet union who is official is involved in active measures activity. one way or the other. until 1966, the czechoslovakiaan service was involved in measures against the united states, undermining american policy in western europe and developing countries.

at the same time they were thinking about making a thatentary about -- actually brought the disinformation department an idea to use it. he actually prepared a series of .ocuments for that purpose ests at thed four ch bottom of the black lake. we do not have the documents. then came the czechoslovakian team. i was one of the divers. they did not know i was a intelligence officer.

official.ht i was an i led the diving team to the area where these chests were placed on the bottom and were discovered. and the minister of the interior and out at a special press conference that historically important documents were discovered in the late and that was the beginning of a campaign that lasted two years. the purpose was to revive the nazism and say west germany is still a danger to you. announcer: one of the major themes is forgery. dr. witten explains. developing countries where

the governments and did not have to analyzese properly these corporations. very cheap forgery excepted anti-american forgeries -- acce pted anti-american forgeries are accepted. damaging the most measures of disinformation occurred in ghana where the number two man in the government held a press conference and waved a document around and said i have the proof. this document a report in the west german embassy of a conversation with the american ambassador where he explained how and why the americans were going to overthrow that a

government. this led to a sharp between ourn governments. eventually they accepted the west german expedition of why this was a -- west german explanation of why this was a fake document. announcer: they were not the only forgeries. >> at this time the east german intelligence service started a worldwide campaign to undermine, to paralyze operations of cia and they came up with the incentive to publish a book called who is who in the cia. the information came from czechoslovakian and east german archives. the book contains a number of

operatives.edly cia about 50% of the names in that book are truly cia agents, cia operatives and then there is a number of names of various american diplomats, public journalistsudges, who never worked for the cia. >> u.s. army field manual, 3031 b which goes back to the middle 70's and it is supposed to be a manual on how to destabilize countries. it has appeared in about 20 different countries. occasions -- many

white gloves in the drawers of , secret packages would come in the mail and i would know each time there would be some forgery there. movies.spy you are not supposed to leave --to believe in the traces. forgers work on forgeries using gloves. the soviets and the bulgarians have had terrible levity in the possible --the possible for gary and -- bulgarian connection, and it appeared in

this magazine -- a story based telegrams supposedly written by the american embassy proposing how the u.s. could take it vantage of the assassination to orchestrate the press in europe in such a way that the soviets and bulgarians would be criticized. fortunately they were on their two and not to this down as fake telegrams. in the case of the wrong there were a number of mistakes made. they forgot to put a cable number on it. all american embassy kilograms of a number on it. that was in the first of eight.

second mistake was in the addressee line in washington. this was supposedly a suggestion from infancy rome to usia in washington. no telegram would go out if it was a uscis telegram. many mistakes civil service and bureaucrats make but they get the name of their organization right. >> forgery is only one kind of active measure. thanviets also have more two years of experience running so-called soviet fronts. they are organizations that plan to be public -- that claim to be public but they are run by international department of the central committee of the communist party of the soviet union.

the council that has headquarters in helsinki, and whatever the world peace council does, the leadership of the world peace council is disapproved by him. your member in the nine states in june of 1982, we had the largest demonstration since the vietnam war about the nuclear issue. that were 28 members of demonstration, of that 28 54 members of communist party or members of the u.s. affiliate of the world peace council. the five were able to convince the other 23. the focus was on nato missiles and not on the eastern missiles.

it was a further reinforcement of the line they were trying to push hard. announcer: another type of active measure is the agent of influence. he has firsthand knowledge of this activity. >> they use practically any type actions to try to get to people's cooperation/ people'sto get cooperation. first of all they are trying to recruit agents of influence. without agents of influence, the soviets would never be able to implement any measures. recent example came in west germany where he turned out to be an east german by.

-- spy. able to supposed to be opinion orublic business circles our government circles -- or government circles. importantthe most oviet agent of influence was --by the time soviets approached -- he was one-time member of the japanese government. he started to exchange the delegations between the japanese parliament and the parliamentarians of the soviets.

the soviets are using him to spread disinformation. announcer: one technique of active measures is the use of rumors. >> for example, at the time of the tragedy at the mosque in mecca, in 1979 when it was attacked, there were rumors spreading that the cia was behind it. time, there was a test match, a cricket match between india and pakistan taking place and one of the broadcasters on that cricket ed to which was listen all over india and pakistan, he mentioned on the radio this report that he had heard a report that the united states was behind the attack of the mosque in mecca.

the next day the united states in the sea in the form of -- in islamabadn was attacked and burned. announcer: some questions remain unanswered. what is the effect of all these active measures and why did the soviets engage in these activities? be socourse, we cannot naive to think that one success will disinformation operation can totally change the balance of power but they believe that these operations have cumulative effect. >> one way of looking at the , they of these activities

have gone on for many years, since the 1950's. you are speaking of 30 or so years. think of a drop of water falling on a stone. five minutes, 10 minutes, one day, nothing happens. five years, 10 years, 15 years, you have worn a hole in the stone. toit is hard for journalists admit to this is going on. they have to admit they have been ripping off their leaders -- their readers. it is important to educate people about these techniques and i would say particularly people involved in international relations and international communications. basice them aware of the elementary techniques of disinformation and active measures so they develop particular devices so it makes it more difficult for the

people to misuse these because in many cases the messengers of do not know that they are being used. >> if the democracies do not regain their self-confidence, i am very pessimistic because of the soviet union is extremely skilled in its propaganda techniques. the reality of our future lies in what i would call the reconquest of the truth. ♪ [drums sound] ♪ ♪ announcer: you're watching

american history tv, 48 hours of programming on american every weekend on c-span3. follow us on twitter at c-span history for information on our schedule and to keep up with the latest history news. announcer: sunday on q&a, the house of truth, a washington political salon and the foundation of american liberalism. we talked with an author about a group who met regularly to debate politics and the future of the country. race was not a sailing issue for them. they cared about the rights of workers and it took oliver wendell holmes junior and some of his opinions including a 1923 cases known as moore versus

dempsey that found that the mob dominated criminal trials of southern blacks violated the constitution. -- a violated the due process clause. fair criminal trials on the liberal agenda. announcer: sunday at eight eastern on c-span's q&a. announcer: next on american history tv, we hear intelligence discussed some of the most notable espionage sites in the nation's capital including embassies, hotels and even walking paths. it focuses on their new book dc."sites of washington this event is about 90 minutes. >> welcome, we are delighted to see you.