THE KGB'S MAGICAL WAR FOR PEACE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00806R000100130089-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 24, 2011
• Sequence Number: 89
• Publication Date: October 1, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/05/25: CIA-RDP90-00806R000100130089-9
~~~ARTICLE APPEARED
ON PAGE
The
Magical War for "Peace
READER'S DIGEST
OCTOBER 1982
N THE OLD LI: BYANKA PRISON
on Dzerzhinsky Square in
Moscow. the screams of the
tortured and the pleas of the
doomed are heard no more.
Drunken executioners no longer
tam pistols into backs of heads and
blow out the faces of "enemies of
the people." No longer must clean-
ing crews come every few hours to
wash blood from the stone walls,
swab gore off the oak floors and
cart away former comrades' remains.
Today the Communist Party
Wrturcrs and executioners perform
y their duties elsewhere, and Lu-
bvanka, whose name still kindles
iear.in Russians, has undergone a
reincarnation. Unknown to the
scncral public, its cells, torture
chambers and execution cellars
'.have been remodeled into offices
and made part of the "Center"-
the headquarters of the Committee
.,for State Security, or KGB.
Sitting in a mahoany-paneled
4'1"icc on the third floor of Lu-
branka is the new KGB chairman,
Vital, Fcdorchuk. He must still
concern himself, first of all, with
the continuing subjugation. of the
Soviet people on behalf of the Party.
-Brand his deputies must still super-
ue some 5000 KGB officers abroad
who daily endeavor to steal the
xicntifr. military and state secrets
bf olhcr nations. But today, as never
before, the KGB leadership is preoc-
cnp,cd with prosecution of what
the Russians call Active Measures.
As a result of a disastrous KGB
'?, the West has gained encyclo-
and key KGB operatives.
"Few people who understand
the reality of the Soviet Union will
knowingly support it or its poli-
cies," Levchenko states. "So by Ac-
tive Measures, the KC;B distorts or
inverts reality. The trick is to make
people support Soviet policy unwit-
tingly by convincing them they are
supporting something else. Almost
everybody wants peace and fears
war. Therefore, by every conceiv-
able means, the KGB plans and
coordinates campaigns to persuade
the public that whatever America
does endangers peace and that
whatever the Soviet Union pro-
poses furthers peace. To be for
America is to be for war; to be for
the Soviets is to be for peace. That's
the art of Active Measures, a sort of
made-in-Moscow black magic. It is
tragic to see how well it works."
Today, the Kc;B is concentrating
on one of the largest Active Meas-
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Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/05/25: CIA-RDP90-00806R000100130089-9