DEFECTOR SAYS SPIES STIR UP WAR PROTESTS IN U.S.

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80-01601R000300340024-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 8, 2001
• Sequence Number: 24
• Publication Date: July 24, 1972
• Content Type: NSPR

MIAMI HERALD
NEW YORK - (AP) - A
former Czechoslovak intelli-
gence officer has charged
that Soviet and Czechoslovak
spy services have been send-
ing appeals to relatives of
Americans killed in Vietnam,
urging them . to carry out
anti-war activities.
Ladislav Eiitman, who was
a )najor?when he defected in
1968 because of the Soviet
invasion of Czechoslovakia,
says in a book to be pub-
lished in October:
"Soviet, Czechoslovak, and
probably other bloc intelli-
gence services gathered more
information from the Ameri-
can press, about fatalities in
Vietnam and. sent various ap-
peals to their survivors - ei-
ther anonymously or under
the name of a fictitious anti-
war organization - inciting
them to anti-e,'ar activity,
calculating on their natural
anti-war sentiment."
Wittman maintains that
this was part of the espio-
nage services' "disinforma-
tion,. program, also known
as "black propaganda,"
aimed at creating distrust
and confusion among . non-
Comhr.unist nations. A veter-
an of 14 years in Czechoslo-
vak. espionage, Dittman said
he was the first deputy direc-?
tor of Department D, which
administered the program.
Ile now is living in the Unit-
ed States.
"THE DECEPTION
Game," to be published by
the Syracuse University
Press, claims to he an expose
of numerous Czechoslovak
intelligence operations, in-
cl'uding the May 17, 1957,
bomb murder of the wife of
Andre-Marie Tremeaud, a top
French government official
at Strasbourg.
Mrs. Tremeaud was killed
when opening a box contain,
ing a bomb mailed to her
husband. F r e n c h police
linked the death with the.
"Fighting Group for an 'Inde-
as a 'Inde-
pend'ent
pendent Germany," identified
organization.
It was established that the
group was nonexistent. Pitt-
man says that in June 10:11,
Richard lfehihs, then assis-
tant director of the U.S. Cen-
tral Intelligence Agency, told
a Senate committee that he
thought the originator of the
"nee-Nazi" group and Mrs.
Tremeaud's assassin was the
East German intelligence ser-
vice.
"I-le was wrong," Rittman
writes. "The action was in
fact initiated and executed
by the Czechoslovak intelli-
gence service."
The former espionage offi~:
cer said it was carried out
under the direction of Soviet
officers because ''Moscow
needed a new opportunity to
point to the growth of fas-
cism in the German Federal
Republic and, with the help
of this specter, to intimidate
West Gernhany's European
and overseas allies."
B! 17,AN, who says . all
operations were carried out
only after approval by the
Russians, described how a
major effort was made in Af-
rica,to destroy the? image of
the United States with a 31-
p a g e pamphlet entitled
"America Has Colonized 20
Million Negroes."
The pamphlet was sent to
newspapers, diplomatic mis-
sions, government organs
and political organizations in
Africa, Asia, the Middle East
and to the Americas, Rittman
states. "Sonic of it was
mailed in United States In-
formation Agency (USIA) en-
velopes to escape detection
and possible confiscation by
police."
which, was named Operation
Thomas Mann.
This operation was to
"prove that American foreign
policy in Latin America had
undcrgone a fundamental re-
cvatuation and
lransforino,
lion after President ,John F.
Kennedy's death, diiccted at
j more severe economic txploi-
tation and even more inter-
ference in the internal condi.
lions of the countries of
Latin America.
"According to this fabri-
cated theory, the author of
the new policy, approved by
President Lyndon 13. John-
son, was Assistant Secretary
of State'1'honlas A. Mann."
BittmaiVcharges that the
operation also was designed
to warn the Latin American
public against the new hard-
line American policy, to in-
cite . greater anti-American
ou(bursts, and to brand the
CIA as tl;e "notorious perpe-
trators of anti-democratic' in-
trigues."
THE CAMPAIGN began in
1964 with the distribution of
a series of forged documents,
including a Bogus USIA press
release in Rio de Janeiro, ac-
cording to Bittman.
"'Tie final clement, of the
sequence was a forged letter
allegedly written 'by J. Edgar
Hoover, director of the Fed-
eral Bureau of Investigation,
to Thomas A. Brady (an FBI
agent). The letter accorded
credit to the FBI and CIA for
successfully executing the
Brazilian Putsch in April
196.1."
Wittman says the Czec'-;o-
slovak spy service would
have preferred to place all
the blame on the CIA.
STATINTL
I lTTMAN HIMSELF was
R .ichard iieh n sent to South America to
srts )icion `icn' participate in ? Operation
Al prove or R YL Sea2OOr /O3l/04a: CIA-RDP80-01601 R000300340024-9
1 0 i n t. Soviet-Czechoslovak
project, the initial phase of