ANDROPOV' S MASTERFUL PUBLIC RELATIONS CAMPAIGN

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000100170037-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 23, 2010
• Sequence Number: 37
• Publication Date: December 6, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/23: CIA-RDP90-00552
ARTICLE AFFEALD THE WASHINGTON TIMES
o FAGss JI -A 6 DECEMBER 1982
Andropov's masterful public
relations campaign
American PR men should have
taken their hats off to Yuri
Andropov for the masterly
way in which he carried out his pre-
succession PR campaign in the
United States.
Contrary to his predecessors,
Andropov ascended the new czar's
throne with a sinister reputation -
that of a cruel jailer and torturer of
millions. It took him just a few weeks
to remove these blood stains from
his track record.
In May of this year, he left the
KGB to become party ideologue and
an heir to Brezhnev. In July, a PR
campaign designed to convince the
world that he is a nice guy was
already in full swing throughout the
West.
Like the well-attuned components
of a symphony orchestra, television
networks and major newspapers ran
comments and "reports from our
correspondents in Moscow," describ-
ing him as a "closet liberal," with a
bourgeois penchant for Western suits
and gypsy music. For them, Andro-
pov is a man of compassion, although
he has increased tenfold the num-
ber of psychiatric prisons in the
U.S.S.R., in which political dissenters
are held.
In 1956, as a Soviet proconsul in
Budapest, Andropov lured Hungar-
ian freedom fighters into negotiat-
ing with him before crushing them
mercilessly. His PR agents have
rewritten history, calling him instead
a "centrist" That PR campaign was
so successful that. even after noted
Russian exiles, such as Valdimir
Bukovsky, and those Hungarians who
once "negotiated" with Andropov.
publicly assailed his treachery and
BUI ANH TUAN
ruthlessness, a former secretary of
state and other luminaries contin-
ued to swallow it whole.
Th be accurate, Andropov's tour
de force was nothing unexpected.
Under him, the department of dez-
informatisya - disinformation -
was upgraded to a full "service"
The main task of dezinformatisya is
to use our free press and free insti-
tutions to destroy our society. Fur-
thermore, Andropov has, at his
disposal, right here in the United
States, a powerful apparat composed
of thousands of paid and unpaid
agents.
Sen. Steven Symms, R-Idaho,
quoted James L. Tyson, author of
Target America, the Influence of
Communist Propaganda on U.S.
Media (Regnery Gateway, Chicago,
1981), as saving that "there are more
than 4,000 full-time paid Soviet
propaganda agents inside the United
States, spending more than $250 mil-
lion a year on anti-U.S. propaganda
.inside America." "The total magni-
tude of the Soviet foreign influence
operation," according to Tyson, "is
estimated to exceed 53 billion per
year"
Who are these agents? Unfortu-
nately, neither the FBI nor the CIA
can answer that question. Worse yet,
the Soviet war of words is "an effort
most Americans do not realize even
exists"
But spies do exist. Geoffrey Prime,
who was recently sentenced by a
British court to 35 years in prison
for selling military secrets to Mos-
cow, was recruited by Andropov How
many Primes does Andropov have
in the United States? Neither the
FBI nor the CIA can answer that
question.
KGB spies posing as journalists
do exist. In 1980, a French journalist,
Pierre-Charles Pathe, was convicted
for acting as a Soviet disinformation
agent since 1959. A State Depart-
ment report says, "His articles -
all subtly pushing the Soviet line on
a wide range of international issues
- were published in a number of
important newspapers and jour-
nals..."
How many Paths does Andropov
have in the United States? Neither
the FBI, nor the CIA can answer
that question. This is regrettable
because. now with the Vietnam War
nearly eight years behind us, it is
no longer difficult to distinguish
between genuine journalists and
phony ones.
KGB-financed newspapers do
exist, too. The Soviets have used the
Indian news weekly Blitz to publish
forgeries. One of Andropov's coups
de maitre was to aid the launching
of a mass circulation daily in Greece,
Ethnos (The Nation) in 1981. Since
publication, Ethnos hasachieved the
country's second largest circulation.
Does Andropov have an Ethnos in
the United States? Neither the FBI
nor the CIA can answer that question.
Undoubtedly, the United States is
the strongest democracy on earth.
It is also the weakest one, in light of
its self-inflicted inability to cope with
the enemy from within.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/23: CIA-RDP90-00552R000100170037-4