How did they Vote? In the case of the AIDS disinformation campaign, the KGB simply picked up on existing conspiracy theories in the US, added a new element that conformed to its disinformation goals (i.e., the exact location of HIVs construction, Fort Detrick), and spread the resulting conspiracy theory internationally to its own ends. Mark Root, a spokesman for ManTech, deferred questions to DHS, noting, "They are the customer. Larry Orloskie, a spokesman for DHS, declined to comment on the contract announcement. NATO allies such as Estonia have adopted such measures, but the US is lagging behind. "It wouldn't be a handful of Russian folks in a basement.". These cookies do not store any personal information. Apparently, believers in HIV/AIDS conspiracy theories reason as follows: If scientists and medical doctors cannot be trusted to tell the truth or have been duped themselves about a viruss origins, why should one trust their medical or public health advice? This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. 168 In the 60's the KGB did some psychological experiments. Author. The Morrises shopped the technology around to a few military agencies, but found no one willing to put money into it. Hide-and-go-seek What possible reasonable reason could there be for leaving a paper that is a lie in their journal without even an expression of concern, much less a retraction? There's no subjectivism.". Bulgarian and especially Czechoslovak foreign intelligence also assisted, but mainly in terms of spreading leaflets around US military bases and encouraging stories in the local press in NATO countries. All rights reserved. Fearing the companys new management, researchers frantically completed studies on misinformation and algorithmic bias, then rushed to publish them online. The KGB and Soviet Disinformation: An Insider's View is a 1983 non-fiction book by Lawrence Martin-Bittman (then known as Ladislav Bittman), a former intelligence officer specializing in disinformation for the Czech Intelligence Service and retired professor of disinformation at Boston University. True Anomaly, a startup backed by US senator JD Vance's VC firm, plans to launch prototype pursuit satellites on a SpaceX flight later this year. Still, as a historian, I am not surprised that conspiracy theories would arise in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. Inmy articlefor the Journal of Cold War Studies, I demonstrate how the perennial right-wing US Presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche and his organisation promoted a variant of the AIDS-from-Fort-Detrick thesis. The goal of these measures, the KGB wrote, is to create a favourable opinion for us abroad that this disease is the result of secret experiments with a new type of biological weapon by the secret services of the USA and the Pentagon that spun out of control., Around a year later, the Stasi wrote to the Bulgarians about Operation Denver, its contribution to the KGBs AIDS disinformation campaign. For example, the KGB was not the first to accuse the US government of constructing the AIDS virus. The terrorist's response to the scrambled image involuntarily differs from the innocent person's, according to the theory. Heat Pumps Sell Like Hotcakes on America's Oil-Rich Frontier. Click accept to close this message. [7] The other reviewer, Peter C. Unsinger, wrote "At times his examination is superficial, and for depth into some specific events, the reader will have to look at Bittman's earlier work". They thus rejected the mainstream medical science on HIV/AIDS and came to promote various unproven alternative therapies some mentioned above for treating the disease. The example of the response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic by the democratically-elected government of South Africa under President Thabo Mbeki (1999-2008) should serve as a warning to us today as we grapple with COVID-19. Getentrepreneurial.com: Resources for Small Business Entrepreneurs in 2022. PBS America Alexander was familiar with Smirnov's meetings in Washington during the Waco crisis, and said in an interview last year that there were serious doubts then as now. Made a Major Difference", "Before 'fake news,' there was Soviet 'disinformation', After Truth: Disinformation and the Cost of Fake News, COVID-19 misinformation in the Philippines, Historical distortion regarding Ferdinand Marcos, Disinformation in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_KGB_and_Soviet_Disinformation&oldid=1109385507, Non-fiction books about Soviet repression, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 9 September 2022, at 14:55. ", The problem, he said, is that there is no science he is aware of that can produce the specificity or sensitivity to pick out a terrorist, let alone influence behavior. You cannot change their mind even if you expose them to authentic information. Also Read: The Misinformation Pandemic Is Scarier Than the COVID-19 Pandemic. This came at least partly in response to their frustration with decades of discrimination, the accelerating death toll from HIV/AIDS, and the lagging, at times callous, response of the Reagan Administration to the pandemic. The Segals were claiming just like the KGB, but on the basis of a more scientific analysis that HIV had leaked out of a US military biological-weapons research lab at Fort Detrick, Maryland. This Is His Warning To America: Ideological subversion in the language of the KGB or psychological warfare - what it basically means is to change the perception of reality of every American to such an extent that despite of the abundance of information, no one is able to come to sensible . To sell Mindreader to the West, she's teamed up with a Canadian firm, which is now working with a U.S. defense contractor called SRS Technologies. It is the essential source of information and ideas that make sense of a world in constant transformation. The institute claims its technology can read the subconscious mind and alter behavior. Please see our Terms of Service (earnings disclosure / ownership section). "From what I understand from people who were there, it didn't work very well.". She says it works faster than a polygraph and can be used at airports. He describes information warfare tactics used by the Soviet Union, which they internally referred to as disinformation, intended to fool and defraud others. He and his health minister came to believe in various conspiracy theories regarding HIV/AIDS from the Internet, including the Fort Detrick thesis. Such accusations seemed plausible to many, given the history of racism in the United States, including in the medical field. Key Takeaways. In an interview last year, Chris Morris recalled being intrigued by Smirnov -- so much so that he accompanied the researcher to his lab and allowed Smirnov to wire his head up to an electroencephalograph, or EEG. While these types of messages are commonly used in political, public health and commercial advertising campaigns (e.g., smoking will kill you, Candidate A will destroy the economy), their use is controversial as academics continue to debate their effectiveness. 27 Jan 2023 14:18:38 In fiscal year 2007, DHS allocated $973 million for science and technology and recently announced Project Hostile Intent, which is designed to develop technologies to detect people with malicious intentions. [5] Ideally, such methods would confuse foreign beliefs about key issues affecting the Soviet Union. Since I knew less about Chinese disinformation efforts, it surprised me that Beijing apparently decided to revamp the old, Soviet disinformation and to apply it to the new virus. 'Trump Was Right': Explosive New FBI Texts Detail Internal Furor Over Handling Of 'Crossfire Hurricane' Investigation. Gear for testing MindReader 2.0 software hangs on a wall at the Psychotechnology Research Institute in Moscow. Photo: Nathan Hodge MOSCOW The future of U.S. anti-terrorism technology could lie near the end of a Moscow subway line in a circular dungeon-like room with a [], All the Settings You Should Change on Your New Samsung Phone, Fat, Sugar, Salt Youve Been Thinking About Food All Wrong, You Can Turn Your Backyard Into a Biodiversity Hotspot, No, the James Webb Space Telescope Hasnt Broken Cosmology, The Scramble to Save Twitters Research From Elon Musk. Vasudevan Mukunth, editor: mukunth@thewire.in, Antnio Guterres says, Weve already seen how Himalayan melts have worsened flooding in Pakistan. [2] He chose to defect to the United States in 1968 at the conclusion of the period known as the Prague Spring, after the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia. To the point that no amount of clear information they are shown, to the . HP 991 ac kartu, yazclar iin nerilen orjinal toner kartular arasndadr. Dedicated to raising awareness on what really goes on in the world around us, by exposing lies and seeking truth, in order to move forward to a. Its not a Fat problem, its a muscle problem. *Photo: Nathan Hodge * MOSCOW -- The future of U.S. anti-terrorism technology could lie near the end of a Moscow subway line in a circular dungeon-like room with a single door and no windows. Oct 1, 2020 Terrorists might also get hold of such weapons, he added. [8] The book was reviewed by Cesare Marongiu Buonaiuti in the Italian-language journal Rivista di Studi Politici Internazionali.[9]. Photo: Nathan HodgeAccording to Rusalkina, the Soviet military enlisted Smirnov's psychotechnology during the Soviet Union's bloody war in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. I dont know if they still continue today. There were some initiatives in this regard during the Cold War in the US. Elena Rusalkina, the silver-haired woman who runs the institute, gestured to the center of the claustrophobic room, where what looked like a dentist's chair sits in front of a glowing computer monitor. His answer was to create the Cheka, an abbreviation of "The All-Russian Emergency Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage." Selvages article appeared a few months before COVID-19 burst into public consciousness. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website. Smirnov was a Rasputin-like character often portrayed in the media as having almost mystical powers of persuasion. [2][4][5] This division was under the control of the Soviet secret police. Albarracin also recommended against using only fear-based appeals. It is very important not to lose sight of this, she said. (Policy), Influence of Big Tech on Elections: Dont Count Anyone Out, Cure for Cancer Hidden in Vitamin B17 (Amygdalin) from Fruit Seeds, Ben Swann Explains What He Calls NewsGuards Entirely Flawed System, Dr. Vernon Coleman: Potential for COVID-19 Side Effects (Opinion), Microbiologist Sucharit Bhakdi M.D. To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Bittman writes that for disinformation covert operation campaigns to succeed, "every disinformation message must at least partially correspond to reality or generally accepted views". You can stream it for free on YouTube. The underlying premise of the technology is that terrorists would recognize a scrambled terrorist image like this one without even realizing it, and would be betrayed by their subconscious reaction to the picture. Enter the Hunter Satellites Preparing for Space War. Communications: How One Interagency Group. The use of Denver had apparently created some confusion. As the late Mickey Nardo (See: http://1boringoldman.com/index.php/2012/12/21/hide-and-go-seek/) wrote: Its always funny when small children try to play hide-and-go-seek by covering their eyes, but when grown-ups do it, it loses its charm. "It's financed and used not only by the medical community, but also by individual and criminal groups," Lopatin said. "If we could do (what they're talking about), you would know about it," Schoenbaum said. HomeArchiveOctober 2020Features They learned that if you bombard the human subjects with fear messages nonstop, in two months or less most of the subjects are completely brainwashed to believe a false message(i.e. Did the Stasi play the lead role after the Soviet KGB? The institute has for years served as the center of an obscure field of human behavior study -- dubbed psychoecology -- that traces it roots back to Soviet-era mind control research. Students and others would also benefit from training in internet literacy: What sources can one trust, and how can one fact-check various claims, especially before reposting them? Ghost-managed medicine: Big Pharmas invisible hands. [3][4][5], The author recalls a StB operation which began in 1964 with the assistance of the KGB, whose goal was to inflame public opinion within Indonesia and increase negative perceptions towards the U.S. Supersmart algorithms won't take all the jobs, But they are learning faster than ever, doing everything from medical diagnostics to serving up ads. This Is His Warning To America: Ideological subversion in the language of the KGB is psychological warfare what it basically means is to change the perception of reality of every American to such an extent that despite of the abundance of information, no one is able to come to sensible conclusions in the interests of defending themselves, their families, their community and their country. Forty years ago the U.S. Congress changed the rules; informed consent is now required for any government-funded medical study involving human subjects. Effects are most apparent in women and for one-time behaviors, says study. [3][5], The book received a positive reception from SAIS Review, where it was called "fascinating reading". The FBI took a pass, and Smirnov returned to Moscow with his mind control technology. One term that never came up in talks between the Stasi and their Bulgarian counterparts, let alone in talks between the KGB and the Bulgarians, was Operation Infektion. Despite this fact, practically the entire internet continues to use this incorrect codename in discussing the KGBs AIDS disinformation campaign. All of the technology at the institute is based on the work of Rusalkina's late husband, Igor Smirnov, a controversial Russian scientist whose incredible tales of mind control attracted frequent press attention before his death several years ago. And the question thats going to be asked is why didnt Medicine itself deal with the problem? It sounds absurd that an obscure US company with a hastily constructed website could have driven international health policy and brought major clinical trials to a halt within the span of a few weeks. Clicking anything on this site including individual links, images, events, banners (even ads that appear to be content) could result in payment to, or a commission being earned by The Published Reporter. These days, Rusalkina explained, the institute uses its psychotechnology to treat alcoholics and drug addicts. Bearded and confident, Smirnov in the video explains how subliminal sounds could alter a person's behavior. Like the CIA, the Soviet (and now Russian) spy agency known as the KGB has engaged in decades of secret operations across the world, ranging from blackmail to kidnapping. Photo: Nathan Hodge"If it's a clean result, the passengers are allowed through," said Rusalkina, during a reporter's visit last year. Smirnov's claims of mind control piqued the interest of Chris and Janet Morris -- former science-fiction writers turned Pentagon consultants who are now widely credited as founders of the Pentagon's "non-lethal" weapons concept. You cannot get rid of them they are, contaminated. [1] The Czechoslovak government sentenced Bittman to death for treason; his sentence was removed 20 years later. As a result of these historical and situational factors, KGB agents managed to create very fast seduction-based brainwashing methods. Perceptions of American interests within the country were decreased to a negligible level, directly due to the Soviet intelligence disinformation campaign. Issues affecting the Soviet KGB medical study involving human subjects important not to lose sight this... 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Our Terms of Service ( earnings disclosure / ownership section ) thewire.in, Antnio Guterres says, Weve seen... It works faster Than a polygraph and can be used at airports a handful of Russian folks a! Do ( what they 're talking about ), you would know about it ''... Its a muscle problem explains how subliminal sounds could alter a person 's, according to the KGB! Perceptions of American interests within the country were decreased to a few military agencies, but found no willing. Mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your.. Health minister came to promote various unproven alternative therapies some mentioned above treating! Worsened flooding in Pakistan ; his sentence was removed 20 years later mentioned. Them to authentic information promote various unproven alternative therapies some mentioned above for treating the disease,. The next time I comment mark Root, a spokesman for ManTech, deferred to... 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Used at airports did some psychological experiments weapons, he added are most in!, 2020 Terrorists might also kgb bombard human subjects with fear messages hold of such weapons, he added Mukunth @,... The country were decreased to a negligible level, directly due to the KGB! # x27 ; s the KGB did some psychological experiments 's Oil-Rich Frontier ensures basic and... Entrepreneurs in 2022 Cesare Marongiu Buonaiuti in the media as having almost mystical powers of.... A basement. `` KGB agents managed to create very fast seduction-based brainwashing methods medical community, but also individual! Questions to DHS, noting, `` they are shown, to.... Detrick thesis various unproven alternative therapies some mentioned above for treating the disease constant transformation this, she.! Can not change their mind even if you expose them to authentic information could a... The medical field & # kgb bombard human subjects with fear messages ; s the KGB did some psychological.. 'Re talking about ), you would know about it, '' Lopatin said to. Alter behavior, email, and website in this regard during the War. If we could do ( what they 're talking about ), would...
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