Chapter 21 Exercises: Cold War Propaganda and the Battle for Minds

Exercise 1: Tracing Operation INFEKTION — From Soviet Fabrication to Contemporary Persistence

Type: Individual Research and Investigative Report Estimated time: 3–4 hours Deliverable: 1,500–2,000 word research report

Background

Operation INFEKTION is among the most consequential and best-documented Soviet disinformation operations of the Cold War. What began as a planted story in a Soviet-backed Kenyan newspaper in 1983 migrated across international media, contributed to delayed public health responses in communities that believed the fabrication, and persists in modified forms to this day.

Research Tasks

Part A: The Origin (1983–1985)

Using Thomas Rid's Active Measures (2020) and the 2018 State Department report "Soviet Disinformation: The AIDS Story" as primary sources, reconstruct:

  1. The specific mechanism by which the Operation INFEKTION story was first planted. Which publication ran the initial story? What was the exact claim made? How was it framed to appear credible?
  2. What role did the East German Stasi play in amplifying the original Soviet story? What does the declassified Stasi documentation reveal about coordination between Soviet bloc intelligence services?
  3. How did the story migrate from the Patriot (Nairobi) to international circulation? Trace the specific sequence of publication, amplification, and re-publication.

Part B: The Escalation (1985–1987)

  1. When did Soviet state media — TASS and Pravda — begin reporting the Fort Detrick claim openly? What was the political context for this escalation?
  2. How did the story reach Western mainstream media? Identify at least two Western publications that reported on the claim during this period. How did they frame it — as a conspiracy theory, as a legitimate question, or as fact?
  3. What was the U.S. government's response? Why was it slow and, initially, ineffective?

Part C: The Persistence Problem (1990s–Present)

  1. Research contemporary survey data on belief in the AIDS-as-bioweapon claim among African-American communities. The RAND Corporation and Annenberg Public Policy Center have conducted relevant surveys. What percentages of respondents expressed belief in or uncertainty about the claim?
  2. Why is this particular community disproportionately receptive to this specific fabrication? What is the relationship between the Tuskegee Syphilis Study (1932–1972) and Operation INFEKTION's persistence in certain communities?
  3. How did the COVID-19 pandemic produce new versions of the Fort Detrick claim? Research the 2020–2021 circulation of claims about COVID-19's origins at Fort Detrick. What is similar and what is different about this iteration compared to the original INFEKTION operation?

Part D: Analysis

  1. Applying Rid's framework from Active Measures: was INFEKTION primarily a persuasion operation or a destabilization operation? What evidence supports your assessment?
  2. What does INFEKTION demonstrate about the persistence of disinformation? Why do fabrications that exploit genuine historical grievances have longer operational lifespans than fabrications that do not?
  3. What would an effective counter-campaign against INFEKTION have looked like? Why was the actual U.S. government response ineffective?

Report Format

Your report should be organized as: (1) Origins and Mechanics; (2) Spread and Amplification; (3) Persistence and Contemporary Versions; (4) Analytical Conclusions. Include a bibliography of all sources consulted.

Exercise 2: Comparing Broadcasting Strategies — VOA/RFE Credibility vs. RT's "Question More"

Type: Comparative Media Analysis Estimated time: 2–3 hours Deliverable: Structured comparative analysis (1,000–1,500 words) plus two annotated source samples

Background

Voice of America and Radio Free Europe developed their Cold War strategy around a specific proposition: accurate, credible journalism was more effective propaganda for a democratic nation than manipulative messaging. Russia Today (RT), launched in 2005 as a Kremlin-funded international broadcaster, operates under a different doctrine, summarized in its slogan "Question More" — which critics argue is designed to encourage skepticism of Western media and institutions rather than trust in RT specifically.

Comparative Analysis Tasks

Part A: The VOA/RFE Model

  1. Research VOA's editorial charter and its "firewall" policy — the policy that separates VOA's news operation from State Department political influence. What specific rules govern VOA's reporting? How is editorial independence maintained while VOA remains a U.S. government broadcaster?
  2. Find two examples of VOA reporting that reflected negatively on U.S. government policy or U.S. domestic conditions. (The VOA archive is publicly accessible at voanews.com and through historical databases.) How does the existence of such reporting function as propaganda, paradoxically?
  3. Research the RFE decision to broadcast samizdat texts to Soviet bloc audiences. What specific dissident works were broadcast? How was the choice of content made?
  4. What do defector and emigre accounts from Soviet bloc countries say about the role of VOA and RFE in their understanding of events? (Research Vaclav Havel's and Lech Walesa's statements about Western radio broadcasting.)

Part B: RT's "Question More" Model

  1. Analyze RT's stated editorial mission as presented on its website and in its founding documents. What does RT claim to be doing? How does it characterize its relationship to "Western media"?
  2. Find three RT stories on the same events that were covered by VOA, BBC, or another mainstream Western outlet. Create a side-by-side comparison. What specific techniques does RT use: omission, framing, source selection, false equivalence?
  3. Research the EU's 2022 ban on RT broadcasting following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. What was the stated justification? What was RT's response? What does this episode reveal about the difference between public diplomacy and state propaganda?
  4. RT frequently invites Western commentators — academics, politicians, activists — to appear on its programs. What is the propaganda function of this practice? How does it create a veneer of independence while serving state messaging goals?

Part C: The Comparison

  1. Construct a comparison table analyzing both broadcasters across the following dimensions: funding source and transparency; editorial independence; treatment of host-country government actions; audience trust levels (research available survey data); and stated vs. actual strategic purpose.
  2. Articulate the specific claim of VOA's credibility strategy: that being more accurate than state media is the most effective propaganda strategy for a democracy. Does the historical evidence support this claim? What are the limits of the credibility strategy?
  3. Does RT have a "credibility strategy"? If not, what is its operational goal? How does Rid's distinction between persuasion and destabilization apply to RT's model?

Deliverable Format

Submit the comparative analysis and two annotated source samples (one VOA, one RT) covering the same event, with annotations identifying specific rhetorical and framing techniques in each.

Exercise 3: Analyzing NSC-68 as Propaganda

Type: Primary Source Analysis Estimated time: 2 hours Deliverable: 800–1,000 word analysis using the anatomy framework

Background

NSC-68 is classified as a policy document. But its rhetorical structure, its strategic omissions, and its calculated alarmism make it also analyzable as propaganda — specifically, as internal government propaganda directed at the U.S. government's own decision-making apparatus.

The full text of NSC-68 is available through the Avalon Project at Yale Law School and the National Security Archive at George Washington University.

Analysis Tasks

  1. Read Sections I–IV of NSC-68 carefully. Note the rhetorical strategies: the characterization of the Soviet Union as uniquely dangerous, the language of existential threat, the framing of the available choices.

  2. Apply the anatomy framework: - Source: Who produced this document? What is their institutional interest in its conclusions? - Message: What specific action does the document want its readers to take? Is the message explicit or embedded in its rhetorical framing? - Emotional register: Catalog the specific emotional appeals in the document. Identify five specific phrases or passages that operate primarily through emotional register rather than analytical argument. - Implicit audience: NSC-68 was classified Top Secret — it was written for a specific audience of senior policymakers and the President. How does the language reflect this audience? What assumptions does the document make about what its readers already believe? - Strategic omissions: What questions does NSC-68 not ask? What alternatives to massive military buildup does it not consider? What uncertainties about Soviet capabilities does it not acknowledge?

  3. Compare NSC-68's characterization of the Soviet threat to what the intelligence community actually knew in 1950. Research the scholarly debate over NSC-68's accuracy: did it accurately characterize Soviet military capabilities and intentions, or did it systematically overstate the threat? (See Melvyn Leffler's A Preponderance of Power for the scholarly assessment.)

  4. Evaluate Paul Nitze's retrospective defense: Nitze later acknowledged that NSC-68's language was deliberately alarming. Was this rhetorical inflation justified? Apply the ethical framework from Chapter 6 (the ends-and-means debate) to Nitze's choices.

  5. Identify the propaganda technique: Which of the named propaganda techniques from earlier chapters is NSC-68 most clearly employing? Fear appeal? Transfer? Glittering generalities? Card stacking? Defend your identification with specific textual evidence.

Exercise 4: Research — The Congress for Cultural Freedom

Type: Investigative Research Estimated time: 3 hours Deliverable: Annotated research portfolio documenting CIA-funded publications and cultural events

Background

The Congress for Cultural Freedom (1950–1967) was one of the most elaborate covert propaganda operations in history. Its exposure in 1967 remains one of the most instructive episodes in the history of propaganda, demonstrating both the sophistication of covert influence operations and the catastrophic consequences when they are exposed. Frances Stoner Saunders's The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters (1999) is the definitive account.

Research Portfolio Tasks

Identify and document at least six CCF-funded publications or cultural events, including:

For each publication or event, document: - The name of the publication or event - Its purported editorial or organizational identity (what did it claim to be?) - Its actual funding relationship to the CCF/CIA - At least one example of the editorial content it published or the cultural figures it featured - Evidence of its influence on the intellectual or cultural milieu it targeted - The reaction of editors and contributors when the CIA connection was revealed in 1967

Required items to research: 1. Encounter magazine (Britain) — including the specific roles of Stephen Spender and Melvin Lasky 2. Preuves (France) and its position in French intellectual debate 3. The 1952 Boston Symphony Orchestra European tour 4. The promotion of American abstract expressionism through international exhibitions — research specifically the role of the Museum of Modern Art and its connection to CIA cultural programs 5. The CCF's sponsorship of the Berlin Festival (1951) 6. CCF-funded publications in Latin America or Asia — research Cuadernos (published in Paris for a Latin American audience) or Quest (India)

Analysis Questions:

  1. The intellectuals who contributed to CCF publications — including many who were genuinely anti-Stalinist liberals — generally did not know about the CIA funding. How should we evaluate their work given the context in which it appeared? Does the covert funding contaminate the intellectual content?

  2. What was the CIA's theory of change? Why did it believe that funding independent-seeming journals and cultural events would produce Cold War advantage? Was the theory correct?

  3. The 1967 exposure: trace the specific journalism that revealed CIA funding. What was the sequence of revelations? How did the CIA respond? What happened to specific CCF-funded publications after exposure?

  4. Draw the line between the CCF covert operations and contemporary "influence operations" — the state-funded social media operations documented by the Stanford Internet Observatory, the Oxford Internet Institute, and the EU DisinfoLab. What techniques are the same? What has changed?

Exercise 5 (Group Exercise): Design a Cold War Active Measures Operation — and the Counter-Campaign

Type: Group Collaborative Exercise Group size: 4–6 students Estimated time: 90 minutes in class + 2 hours preparation Deliverable: Two 10-minute presentations + written strategy documents

Overview

This exercise has two phases. In Phase 1, your group designs a fictional Cold War-era Soviet active measures operation targeting Western public opinion. In Phase 2, you design the counter-campaign. The goal is not to glorify propaganda but to understand, at the operational level, how it works — and what makes it difficult to counter.

Phase 1: Design the Active Measures Operation (35 minutes)

Your group will be assigned one of the following scenarios:

Scenario A: It is 1978. Your goal is to weaken NATO cohesion by making West German public opinion hostile to the stationing of U.S. nuclear weapons on German soil. Design an active measures operation.

Scenario B: It is 1983. Your goal is to influence the 1984 U.S. presidential election by amplifying domestic divisions around the issue of Central American policy. Design an active measures operation.

Scenario C: It is 1968. Your goal is to exploit the political crisis generated by the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. to deepen racial divisions in the United States and internationally discredit American democracy. Design an active measures operation.

For your scenario, design: 1. The false or misleading narrative you will promote 2. The genuine anxieties, grievances, or facts that your narrative exploits 3. The "laundry" — the chain of third-party channels that will make your narrative appear independent of Soviet sources 4. The target audiences and why they are specifically susceptible 5. The desired political outcome 6. The metrics by which you would evaluate the operation's success

Phase 2: Design the Counter-Campaign (35 minutes)

Now switch roles. You are now a U.S. government analyst who has identified the active measures operation your group just designed.

Design the counter-campaign addressing: 1. Can you rebut the false narrative? What is the risk of amplification through rebuttal? 2. Who are the most credible messengers to reach the target audience? (Consider that government spokespeople will be dismissed as self-interested.) 3. How do you address the genuine anxieties that the active measures operation exploited, without validating the false framing? 4. What is the timeline? Active measures operations often have a head start — how do you catch up? 5. What does failure look like, and what does success look like?

Presentations

Each group presents: - Phase 1 (5 minutes): The operation design, with analysis of why it might work - Phase 2 (5 minutes): The counter-campaign design, with honest assessment of its limitations

Reflection Questions for Class Discussion

  • Which was easier: designing the operation or designing the counter-campaign? What does this asymmetry tell us?
  • At what point, if any, did you feel uncomfortable designing the active measures operation? What does that discomfort indicate about the ethics of this kind of exercise?
  • How does the fictional Cold War scenario relate to documented contemporary influence operations? What has changed in the digital era, and what is structurally the same?