USAGE IN 'PENKOVSKY' SAID TO PROVE FORGERY
Document Type:
Collection:
Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST):
CIA-RDP75-00149R000600250029-1
Release Decision:
RIPPUB
Original Classification:
K
Document Page Count:
2
Document Creation Date:
December 9, 2016
Document Release Date:
August 18, 2000
Sequence Number:
29
Case Number:
Publication Date:
November 16, 1965
Content Type:
NSPR
File:
Attachment | Size |
---|---|
CIA-RDP75-00149R000600250029-1.pdf | 218.94 KB |
Body:
'YRGHT
WASHINGTON POST NOV 16 1965
&ND TIMES HERALD
SovilarrigielMatte altErg-Vgaigt?1#24M29-1
Usage in 'Penkovsky' Said to
. By Victor Zorza
Manchester Guardian
Prove
orgery
OPYRGHT
would sound as strange in emies of the people, traitors, It was only irt 1964 that he
Russian as "united states and imperialist hirelings. This lost this post, nearly two
Amorica"s" or Driti "g La OA exercise beloved by anti y c-ai a sftel PtlikU v aky.h dt -
Communist propagandists, rest. It would appear that
established, the Russian man dio.s.Ly .6 iola uaasc. Mid figUi ea ,lki malty t., 1h1 someone compiling tne "ra-'
uscript of Penkovsky's mem- These are not mistakes in ? tracts. But a." true professional pers" more recently has con-
Mrs just does not exist, translation, but they ' arise would never make the mis- fused the two events and
When news of the imminent from ignorance of Soviet ter- take of listing Marshal Zhu- dates, making Penkovsky re-
publication of the Penkovsky minology. The stock Soviet kov as "Khrushchev's enemy" port something that occurred
Papers was reported in the phrase for the kind of politi- ?a phrase that would never after he was executed in 1963.
world press, the American cal deviation for which Mar- be used in an official Soviet Similar confusion is evident
publishers of the book were shall Zhukov, the Defense Min- textbook. Penkovsky would in Penkovksy's references to
inundated with requests for ister, was purged in 1957, is certainly have known it to be the removal by Khrushchev in
permission to serialize the sto- "I3onapartist tendencies." Yet wrong.
ry in newspapers and to pub- Penkovsky is made to report m_ eaningless Titles
lish it in foreign languages. Khrushchey as saying that
Among these requests was Marshal Zhukov was display- In listing the official func-
one from a small Russian lug "Napoleonic characteris- tions of high Soviet officers,
emigre publishing house in tics." No translator would de- he often describes them as
West Germany. All it could part so far from the original. "deputies of the Supreme
offer was $250. This was ac- But if the remark was insert- Soviet"?a meaningless digni-
cepted without any haggling, ed in English by someone ty on which the good spy that
since all the proceeds from writing some time after he he was would not waste his
the book are to go to had read an account of the I breath. However, a Western
the "Penkovsky Foundation'," Zhukov affair, a faulty mem- compiler might well have tak-
formed in the United States ory for phrases might have en these and ethe l? details
for this purpose. easily led him to use the as- from any good reference
That the American publish- sociated, but incorrect, _term. book, just to fill out the pic-
ers had accepted the book for Penkovsky is made to illus- ture for the inexpert reader.
publicatibn in good faith is trate the change in Sino So Penkovsky is m a d e to
shown by their willingness to
procure the Russian text for viet relations by remarking
the emigre publishing house. that the phrase "Great Chi-
But after several weeks and nas has now been replaced in
repeated requests to the "Pen- ?
uncial terminology by una-
kovsky Foundation," the RUS-
, d dorned "China." However, the the accurate measurements have bothered to write out
available and it looks as if it o I
sian tex as
Laken by western experts have long passages from a publicaH
, "Great China"?it was "the
official usage was never taken by
will be. put it at under 60 megatons:, tion which he had photo-
On Monday, the Russian 1
Great Chinese People." Similarly, he reports that graphed and dispatched to his
emigre publisher made a tele-
Penkovsky is made to refer several Soviet launches of western masters? This whole
phone call from Frankfurt to
to a' high party official as an
manned sputniks took the section, and a number of oth-
Doubleday the New York pub-
"R.S.F.S.R. Communist Party lives ' of their crews. In fact, ers in the book, is accompanied
:Ushers to get the final answer ,
Leader ?a phrase that would all Russian launchings have by repeated warnings from
which had been promised for ,
nevficiale k
Y1' he used by a Soviet of- been monitored by western ra- Penkovsky about the Soviet
, who would now that .
'
the beginning of this week. He
the R.S.F.S.R.?the initials ofdm and radar tracking devices determination to acquire a
, first strike posture, and to
was told by R. ;E. Banker, for
the Russian Republic ? has which would have revealed
lh
Doubleday, that they were no Communist Party distinct beyond any doubt, through aunc a surprise nuclear at
still unable to provide a Rus- from the Soviet Party. One of
isian text. However, they were the chapters begins with a ref-
prepared to let the Russian erence by Penkovsky to his
publisher go ahead?if he was recent rip to "Europe"?al-
prepared to re-translate the though a Russian returning to
PenkoVSky text from English Moscow would speak of a vis-
back into Russian. As for the it to the "West." But the ref-
' Russian- "original," Banker erence to a trip to "Europe"
i said, they had twice asked the would have come naturally to
"State Department" about it, an American compiler of the
, but were still not able to pro-
vide it.
LONDON----So far as can IN
lishman" would sound in or-
.1957 of the anti-Party group
of Molotov, Malenkov, and
Burganin?al though Bulganin
remained prime minister until
1958, without at first being
charged with membership in
the group.
Virtually the whole section
on the Soviet military doe
trine appears to have been
written by a western pen. It is
here that the references to
"Soviets" and "Soviet Rus
sians" are most obtrusive.
Penkovsky is made to explain
that he had sent out the full
text of the "Special Collection"
show his indignation at Khru- on military doctrine to the'
schev's recklessness in 1961 in West?!and at the same time
testing a 50-megaton bomb
to go on for pages on end,
which he describes as having
a yield of 80 and, elsewhere, giving long quotations_ from it.
of 100 megatons ? although Would Penkovsky really'
:Strange Phrases
The English text is pep-
pered with wordssand phrases
that no man with Penkovsky's
:Soviet background would use.
He is made to refer repeated-
ly to "Soviet Russians" or to
??sovieN913119v4iliktr931TRelftA
countrymen. These terms
the nature of the cornmunica-
tack on the West.
The chapter on, strategy is
tions passing between the made the main liehicle for the
satellite and the base, the message, and the long quota
presenceof a human being tions from the "Special Collec-
aboard. Western' exiserts have tion" are designed to give it
repeatedly disrnissed this par- an air of authority. But the
ticular rui-nor. , , impression is false, for Gen.
Confusion Over Events, ? ql-astilovich, on whose contri-
, : ?.4bation the compiler relies to
The report attributed tb drive the first strike lesson
papers. Penkovsky that M It r s h a 1 home, was strongly contradict-
Among Penkovsky's many Chuilsov, the commander-in- ed by equally authoritative
unlikely digressions, his ex- chief of the ground forces, contributors to the "Special
eursion into the history of the was dismissed from this post Collection." But the Penkov
Party appears particularly im- in 1961 and appointed chief of 'sky Papers give no hint of
probable ? and factuallY civil defense is wrong. It is this.
wrong. He provides a long list true that he got the civil de- ...?,
of Party leaders over the fense job at that time, but he ?s?ndoubted Forgery
years who, as successive edi- continued as the commander Gen. Kurochkin, a respected
n916RI:aAYA4,,,fAgef fl:h?; -ftfisissihis Soviet strategist, went so far
' P#1-pres sr.= -psmeeuss, mqet SISM1919pgrrOftlle-d as to describe some of the
and described variously as en-Ito him repeatedly as such. more extreme views as "anti-
Cant ni.1(3,e
Approved For Release 2001,
CPYRGHT
NOV 1 6 1965
. xis . is - a
that can he described without!
any hesitation as forged. The!
compiler of the book adds in I
soli to injury ,by making Pen-
kovsky say that "I am sorry
that I cannot copy here the
entire 'Special Collection' "?
or is it, perhaps, a private
joke inserted for the enter-
tainment of the compiler's col-
leagues? The use ? or mis-
use ? of the "Special Collec-
tion" in this way is a great
pity. Its publication in full
would have added greatly to
the understanding of Soviet
strategy among students in!
the West. But there is now!
reason to fear that the ac-
count given in the papers will'
prevent the full publication
which would inevitably show
up the imbalance of the Pen-
kovks3r book.
It map' be that some of the
errors pinpointed in this ar-
ticle are not necessarily
evidenc -, of forgery, bitthe
cuitul, ,0 weight of the evi-
dence ;too great to support
any other interpretation.
Work of CIA .
The book could have been
compiled only by the Central
Intelligence Agency. No other
organlotion in the West,
apart "' from British Intel-
ligence,- and certainly no indi-
vidual, could have had access
to the, information of which
the bhok. is made up. British
Intelligence officers did at
one time entertain the idea of
building Penkovsky up post-
humbusly as something of a
hero, but permission to pro-
ceed was withheld,
Th.o...CIA,has been repeated-
ly stung and provoked by the
attempts of the Disinforma-
tion Department of the Soviet
intelligence organization to
discredit its activities through-
out the world. The Penkovsky
Papers are the CIA's answer.
But in phychological warfare
of this kind the intelligence
agencies of the democratic
countries suffer from the
grave disadvantage that in at-
tempting to damage the ad-
versary they must also de-
ceive their own public. It is
Ithe function of a free press to
!uncover such deception. Sonic
of m best frie -Irjrc
1 their
must d ,seoirereci, they
t than this.
15)53. Victor Zorft
yehati
t?
II
50029-1
Approved For Release 2001/07/26 : CIA-RDP75-00149R000600250029-1