Deception, Disinformation, and Strategic 

Communications: How One Interagency Group 

Made a Major Difference

by Fletcher Schoen and Christopher J. Lamb 

Strategic Perspectives 11

Center for Strategic Research

Institute for National Strategic Studies

National Defense University
Institute for National Strategic Studies

National Defense University

The Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS) is National 

Defense University’s (NDU’s) dedicated research arm. INSS includes 

the Center for Strategic Research, Center for Complex Operations, 

Center for the Study of Chinese Military Affairs, Center for 

Technology and National Security Policy, Center for Transatlantic 

Security Studies, and Conflict Records Research Center. The military 

and civilian analysts and staff who comprise INSS and its 

subcomponents execute their mission by conducting research and 

analysis, publishing, and participating in conferences, policy support, 

and outreach.

The mission of INSS is to conduct strategic studies for the Secretary 

of Defense, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Unified 

Combatant Commands in support of the academic programs at NDU 

and to perform outreach to other U.S. Government agencies and the 

broader national security community. 

Cover: Kathleen Bailey presents evidence of forgeries to the press corps. 

Credit: The Washington Times
Deception, Disinformation, and Strategic

Communications: How One Interagency Group

Made a Major Difference

Institute for National Strategic Studies

Strategic Perspectives, No. 11

Series Editor: Nicholas Rostow

National Defense University Press

Washington, D.C.

June 2012

By Fletcher Schoen and Christopher J. Lamb

Deception, Disinformation, and Strategic 

Communications: How One Interagency Group 

Made a Major Difference
For current publications of the Institute for National Strategic Studies, please go to the 

National Defense University Web site at: www.ndu.edu/inss.

Opinions, conclusions, and recommendations expressed or implied within are solely those 

of the contributors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Defense Department or any 

other agency of the Federal Government. Cleared for public release; distribution unlimited.

Portions of this work may be quoted or reprinted without permission, provided that a 

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First printing, June 2012
Contents

Foreword. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Executive Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Active Measures and Small Interagency Group Performance. . . . . . . . . . . 8

Devaluing the Counter-Disinformation Mission: 1959–1977. . . . . . . . . . 12

Rebounding to Take the Offensive: 1977–1981. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

The “Reagan Revolution” and Countering Soviet Disinformation: 

Early 1981. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

The Founding of the Group: 1981–1984. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Momentum Carries the Working Group: 1984–1985. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

The Apogee of the Active Measures Working Group: 1986–1987. . . . . . . 58

Analysis of Variables Explaining Performance of Active Measures

Working Group. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

Atrophy and Decline: 1988–1992. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

Performance Assessment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

Observations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Appendix: Working Group Products. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

Notes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 

About the Authors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
1

Deception, Disinformation, and Strategic Communications

Foreword

In this era of persistent conflict, U.S. national security depends on the diplomatic, informational, military, and economic instruments of national power being balanced and operationally integrated. A single instrument of power—that is, one of the country’s security departments and agencies acting alone—cannot efficiently and effectively deal with the Nation’s most 

important security challenges. None can be resolved without the well-integrated use of multiple 

instruments of power—a team bringing to bear the capacity and skills of multiple departments 

and agencies. The requirement for better interagency integration is not, as some have argued, a 

passing issue temporarily in vogue or one tied only to counterterrorism or foreign interventions 

in failed states. Interagency collaboration has become a persistent and pervasive trend in the 

national security system at all levels, from the strategic to the tactical, and will remain so in an 

ever more complex security environment.

Because of its resources, expertise, and pool of highly developed leaders, the Department 

of Defense (DOD) will have an outsized role in the future integration of elements of American 

power. This makes it vitally important that military leaders gain an understanding of interagency best practices. This study on the Active Measures Working Group provides a window 

into one little known but highly influential interagency group and its methods. Although the 

study examines just one case, it makes some intriguing arguments about how and why this 

interagency process managed to work well. Its historical and organizational insights are immediately relevant to many interagency efforts that the military finds itself involved in today. 

Along with pointing to best practices, this study disproves some conventional notions about the 

interagency process. Most notable of these is that small interagency groups need to be far away 

from Washington to work well.

The diverse cast of officials involved in the story of the Active Measures Working Group 

demonstrates that many leadership values the military respects are resident elsewhere in government. Two of the group’s leaders, Dr. Kathleen Bailey and Ambassador Dennis Kux, practiced what some have called “360-degree leadership.” They accepted responsibility, exercised 

initiative, and took in the views of their subordinates, peers, and superiors in a respectful and 

forthright way. Expertise and a mission-focused attitude were valued above rank. It is important 

for military leaders to recognize that organizations such as the Department of State have such 

dedicated leaders, both political appointees and career civilians, with whom they can partner to 

overcome the institutional and cultural gaps that so often hinder interagency collaboration and 

high-performing small teams.
2 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 11

The study also reveals another telling lesson: DOD can support an interagency effort without having to lead it. Participants in the Active Measures Working Group commented on the 

resources and gravitas that military participation lent their successful effort. As readers will see, 

the presence of DOD representatives, civilian and military, encouraged and emboldened the 

group. The Active Measures Working Group experience illustrates the profound impact that 

military officers can have on an interagency effort without being in the lead and without providing a large amount of resources. It is supremely important that the coming generation of U.S. 

military leaders is educated on how to participate effectively in such interagency fora.

Finally, the strategic nature of the group’s mission highlights the value of the case study. 

In an increasingly connected age, America will need to protect its public reputation from those 

who would malign it to weaken our national security. Safeguarding the country’s reputation 

overseas is a whole-of-government endeavor requiring interagency coordination and collaboration. This study reveals how one small and remarkable interagency group made a major contribution in this area. Beyond its strategic and organizational relevance, this study is a historical 

behind-the-scenes look into a little known yet successful government effort to counter Soviet 

disinformation. It is a new and fascinating chapter in the history of the Cold War.

Dennis C. Blair

Former Director of National Intelligence

James R. Locher III

Former President and CEO

Project on National Security Reform
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Deception, Disinformation, and Strategic Communications

Executive Summary

This study explains how one part-time interagency committee established in the 1980s 

to counter Soviet disinformation effectively accomplished its mission. Interagency committees are commonly criticized as ineffective, but the Active Measures Working Group is a notable exception. The group successfully established and executed U.S. policy on responding 

to Soviet disinformation. It exposed some Soviet covert operations and raised the political 

cost of others by sensitizing foreign and domestic audiences to how they were being duped. 

The group’s work encouraged allies and made the Soviet Union pay a price for disinformation 

that reverberated all the way to the top of the Soviet political apparatus. It became the U.S. 

Government’s body of expertise on disinformation and was highly regarded in both Congress 

and the executive branch.

The working group also changed the way the United States and Soviet Union viewed disinformation. With constant prodding from the group, the majority position in the U.S. national 

security bureaucracy moved from believing that Soviet disinformation was inconsequential to 

believing it was deleterious to U.S. interests—and on occasion could mean the difference in 

which side prevailed in closely contested foreign policy issues. The working group pursued a 

sustained campaign to expose Soviet disinformation and helped convince Mikhail Gorbachev 

that such operations against the United States were counterproductive.

The working group was also efficient. It had a disproportionate impact that far exceeded 

the costs of manning the group, producing its reports, and disseminating its information overseas. The group exposed Soviet disinformation at little cost to the United States, but negated 

much of the effort mounted by the large Soviet bureaucracy that produced the multibilliondollar Soviet disinformation effort. Over time, the working group’s activities drove Soviet costs 

for disinformation production up even further and helped bankrupt the country.

The working group had its limitations, however, especially compared to the performance 

associated with the highest performing teams identified in organizational literature. Some members had trouble thinking of the group as a decisionmaking body instead of just an informationsharing enterprise. Concerning information-sharing, most parent organizations decided in advance what their representatives on the group could bring to the table. Most group products 

were drafted primarily by one organization’s personnel. Most members did not support the 

team’s mission at the expense of their parent organization’s equities when the two could not be 

reconciled. Finally, group productivity fluctuated, and the existence of the group was tenuous. 

At one point, the Secretary of State unilaterally moved to quash the group’s output, which led 
4 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 11

Congress to intervene and reassign the mission to another organization. For these and other 

reasons, the group does not meet the standards that organizational experts typically associate 

with high performing “teams.”

Nevertheless, the Active Measures Working Group stands out compared to typical 

small interagency group performance. The group was subject matter–centered and incorporated a range of experts from all levels of government. The members shared information 

well, including classified information. Cooperative decisionmaking and activities were the 

norm during the group’s highest periods of productivity. The group resolved interpersonal 

conflicts productively. Overall, its level of cohesion and trust was remarkable considering 

the group met only periodically and its members were not collocated. The group also demonstrated unusual resiliency, persisting through numerous leadership and environmental 

changes, including the departure of many of its most ardent supports following the IranContra scandal. In short, the working group not only worked, which is noteworthy, but also 

worked well, which is extraordinary.

This case study—based on a careful review of government records, secondary literature, and 

original interviews with group participants and observers—makes several notable contributions. 

It reveals the Active Measures Working Group’s interesting and previously little-known role in 

the Cold War struggle. It explains, for example, why U.S. attempts to counter Soviet disinformation had virtually disappeared by the late 1970s even though the Soviet Union was redoubling its 

efforts to blackguard the United States, and what it took to reverse this situation. The study also 

contributes to a more complete understanding of small interagency group performance in two 

ways: It highlights why it is difficult and unusual for interagency groups to succeed in the current 

system, and it identifies the factors that best explain the working group’s success.

Senior leader support was a necessary prerequisite for the working group’s existence 

and thus its performance. Congressional leaders generated a requirement for working group 

reports, promoted them, and lobbied for institutionalized capability to produce the reports. 

Within the executive branch, the group had supporters at all levels. Without them, the group 

would have been greatly handicapped, ignored, or disbanded. Political support was limited, 

however, and did not guarantee success. Senior leaders did not define the group’s purpose 

explicitly, delegate special authorities, or provide dedicated resources. Other factors allowed 

the group to operate effectively.

The group wisely limited its mission to countering Soviet influence operations that could 

be exposed in a compelling way with unclassified or declassified information. Given the vague 

definition of Soviet active measures, the mission easily could have been construed so broadly 
5

Deception, Disinformation, and Strategic Communications

that completing it would have exceeded the group’s political and substantive capacity. With the 

mission delineated in a practical way, the group could hold itself accountable for identifying disinformation problems, finding ways to resolve them, and producing actual results. It developed 

procedures and expertise necessary to complete the mission successfully. The group’s modest 

definition of purpose and holistic approach to the mission allowed it to concentrate on cases 

that were likely “winners” and to do so with few resources, which made cooperation from parent organizations more likely.

Unfortunately, the group’s success cannot be easily replicated for several reasons. Some 

interagency missions are so broad or nebulous that they cannot be construed in an end-to-end 

mission methodology that is results-oriented. In addition, the exceptional personnel that made 

the group a success are, by definition, hard to find. Moreover, the organizational milieu that the 

group operated in was atypical. The group was embedded in a lead agency—the Department of 

State—that was not supportive of the group’s mission but nonetheless provided working group 

chairs and some supportive senior officials who were. When these leaders protected and led the 

group well, they earned the trust and cooperation of other agencies that saw them acting in the 

national interest rather than the Department of State’s. This unusual condition helped the group 

coalesce and function at a high level.

The case study is valuable for several reasons. It demonstrates that even a typical small 

interagency group can be successful under the right conditions, suggests what those conditions might be, and explains why they are rare. The case yields hypotheses on successful small 

interagency group performance that can be used to guide further research and by practitioners. The case also reveals how little the current national security system does to ensure 

the success of small interagency groups. By demonstrating the exceptional value of one interagency group, the study foreshadows the enticing prospect of a better system that could 

routinely generate such high performance.

Finally, the case study yields insights on broader national security subjects. It summarizes the complex debate over American intelligence reform and explains its relation to strategic deception and strategic communications, particularly disinformation. It explains why 

national security leaders differ over the relative value of strategic communications, why the 

U.S. national security bureaucracy is often hostile to this discipline, and why America’s current security circumstances demand robust strategic communication capabilities and a dedicated counter-disinformation effort. It argues that such capabilities need to be explained to 

the U.S. public, managed by dedicated interagency organizations, and integrated into a larger 

national strategy.
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Strategic Perspectives, No. 11

Introduction

In 1983, the Patriot, a pro-Soviet Indian paper that often published pieces provided by 

KGB (Komitet gosudarstvennoy bezopasnosti, or Committee for State Security) agents, released 

a story claiming that the U.S. military created the AIDS virus and released it as a weapon. For 

a couple of years, the story appeared in minor publications that were mostly KGB controlled 

or sympathetic to the Soviets. After this incubation period, the slander was picked up in 1985 

by the official Soviet cultural weekly newspaper, the Literaturnaya Gazeta. After that, the story 

began to spread rapidly. In 1987 alone, it appeared over 40 times in the Soviet-controlled press 

and was reprinted or rebroadcast in over 80 countries in 30 languages.1

 The AIDS virus was terrifying and not well understood at the time, so this piece of Soviet disinformation was especially 

damaging to the U.S. image.

Despite years of American protests, the Soviets remained unrepentant and insisted that 

their reporting was accurate. Then, on October 30, 1987, the Soviet Union promised to disavow 

the AIDS accusations against the United States. The turnaround in Soviet policy was precipitated by a heated exchange 3 days earlier between Secretary of State George Shultz and Soviet 

Premier Mikhail Gorbachev. In the meeting, a “sour and aggressive” Gorbachev held up a wellmarked and underlined Department of State publication called Soviet Influence Activities: A Report on Active Measures and Propaganda, 1986–1987.

2

 Angry, the Soviet premier stated that the 

report contained “shocking revelations” and that it amounted to “nourishing hatred” for the Soviet Union.3

 The report that angered Gorbachev was a detailed exposé of Soviet disinformation. 

Among other things, it laid bare the factual and scientific falsehoods in the Soviet campaign to 

attribute the origin of AIDS to the United States. Shultz countered Gorbachev’s complaint that 

the report went against the spirit of Glasnost with examples of hostile Soviet behavior and the 

remark that the lies the Soviets were spreading about AIDS were “bum dope.”4

While Shultz refused to apologize for the report, in reality he had not read it; neither had 

many others for that matter. Released 3 months earlier, the report seemed, in the words of the

New York Times, “headed for the oblivion that describes the fate of most government reports.”5

Instead, Gorbachev’s rant drew the attention of the media to the report, which suddenly became 

a “must read” in the Nation’s capital. In a small, secluded conference room inside the Department of State where the members of a little-known interagency group that produced the report 

met, there was a brief moment of great satisfaction. Gorbachev’s reaction was taken as prima 

facie evidence that the group’s work was making a significant impact at the highest levels of the 

Soviet government.
7

Deception, Disinformation, and Strategic Communications

The Active Measures Working Group, which spent almost a year producing the report, is 

a fascinating case of interagency collaboration that merits study. The working group is one of 

the better examples of effective interagency collaboration on record. Going up against a large, 

well-established, and well-funded global Soviet disinformation apparatus, the small band of 

U.S. Government personnel eventually forced the Soviet Union to disavow a number of its most 

egregious lies, agree to face-to-face meetings on disinformation, and establish an early warning 

fax system where either side could lodge instant complaints about such activities.6

 As we show, 

the group’s work also led influential foreign media to conclude that American accusations of an 

orchestrated Soviet disinformation campaign were justified. These were big successes for a small 

group that only met part time and with no budget. Studying the group to identify the factors 

that made it exceptional can improve understanding of interagency groups and our ability to 

establish similar groups capable of high performance.

Studying the Active Measures Working Group also is valuable for the insights it offers on 

strategic communications. Foreign countries still practice disinformation, including Iran and 

its proxy Hezbollah, which have developed sophisticated public diplomacy and disinformation 

programs based on active measures.7

 Terrorists and other nongovernmental groups hostile to 

the United States also use disinformation. In addition, many of the Soviet lies have outlived 

the political system that produced them and to this day need to be dealt with.8

 The counterdisinformation mission thus remains an important requirement for the U.S. national security 

system. Understanding how the Active Measures Working Group was organized and operated 

provides insight on how to organize current efforts.

The rest of this report is organized as follows. In the next section, we clarify the topic that we 

are studying since both the Soviet use of active measures and the interagency organizations countering them for the United States are open to misunderstanding. We also identify rough standards 

for assessing small interagency group performance and explain why these groups in general have 

a reputation for poor performance. We then present a condensed history of how the Active Measures Working Group was created and performed. Doing so explains the motivations of the key 

leaders who created, nurtured, and protected the working group, and establishes the group’s actual 

output, providing an empirical basis for assessing its achievements. We then “enter the black box” 

and examine in detail what actually made the group function, using 10 performance variables extracted from organizational literature.9

 We close with observations about the group’s performance 

and the extent to which it might be replicated in the current U.S. national security system. We also 

offer some conclusions about the U.S. Government approach to strategic communications that we 

believe are well-illustrated by the working group’s experience.
8 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 11

Active Measures and Small Interagency Group Performance

Our friends in Moscow call it ‘dezinformatsiya.’ Our enemies in America call it ‘active 

measures,’ and I, dear friends, call it ‘my favorite pastime.’

—Col. Rolf Wagenbreth, Director of Department X, East German foreign intelligence10

The term active measures is a direct translation of the Russian aktivnyye meropriatia, which 

was a catchall expression used by the KGB for a variety of influence activities.11 Non-Russian 

sources sometimes define active measures narrowly as covert Soviet techniques to influence the 

views and behaviors of the general public and key decisionmakers by creating a positive perception of the Soviets and a negative perception of opponents (that is, perception management).12

KGB influence activities did include setting up and funding front groups, covert broadcasting, 

media manipulation, disinformation and forgeries, and buying agents of influence.13 However, 

this understanding of active measures is too narrow.

Soviet active measures went beyond overt and covert operations to manipulate perceptions and into the realms of incitement, assassination, and even terrorism.14 Soviet leaders made 

no major distinction between overt propaganda and covert action or between diplomacy and 

political violence.15 In practice, they all were tightly controlled by the Politburo and Secretariat 

of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union,16 which approved the major themes of active 

measures operations.17 In this regard, the Soviets were no different than many previous regimes 

that have integrated the full range of active measures to further their interests,18 including their 

predecessors, the Czars (see textbox 1).

With this background, it is easy to see that the name of the Active Measures Working Group 

could be misleading. The group’s activities did not address the full range of Soviet active measures. Instead, it focused on countering Soviet disinformation, although as we demonstrate, it 

sometimes publicized issues that went beyond disinformation when that would weaken the Soviet Union’s ability to exercise influence through third parties. Another potential point of confusion arises from the fact that the Reagan administration set up a classified working group on 

Soviet active measures that operated out of the National Security Council (NSC) staff, and some 

who attended these meetings were also members of the group operating out of State. The classified group at the NSC used a wider range of methods and addressed a broader set of Soviet active 

measures than the group at State.19 To be clear, the subject of this research is the unclassified interagency working group led by the Department of State (and later the United States Information 

Agency [USIA]), not the classified NSC group that managed complementary but much more 
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Deception, Disinformation, and Strategic Communications

Activities encompassed by the term active measures—for example, influence operations, covert subversion, information manipulation, and paid agents of influence—have 

been a staple of statecraft for centuries. For greater effect, they often are integrated with 

penetration of enemy groups by agents, provocateurs, and occasional acts of violence. For 

example, the czarist secret police (Okhrana) deployed the entire range of active measures 

to marginalize or defeat domestic dissident groups such as the nihilist People’s Will, which 

wanted to overthrow the Russian monarchy. Abroad, the Okhrana conducted surveillance 

and penetrations of émigré dissident organizations in France.1

 Sometimes, they were able 

to lure dissident leaders back to Russia where they were killed. Okhrana operatives also 

cultivated agents of influence in the European press to help manage perceptions of czarist Russia. French writer Marquis de Custine found this out when he published a highly 

critical travelogue entitled Russia in 1839. A known propagandist for the Russian government characterized the book as a “tissue of errors, inexactitudes, lies, calumnies, injuring 

in recompense for hospitality,” adding “Scratch a marquis [Custine], and the Jacobin shines 

through.”2

 The Okhrana successfully subverted every anti-czarist political movement in Europe except one: the Bolsheviks. They only managed to educate them. During their long 

underground struggle, Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks had firsthand experience with 

the Okhrana’s techniques.3

 Later, the leader of the first Soviet secret police organization, 

Felix Dzerzhinsky, applied these lessons to opponents of communism.

1 Ronald Hingley, The Russian Secret Police: Muscovite, Imperial Russian, and Soviet Political Security Operations (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1971), 80.

 2 Astolphe Custine, Custine’s Eternal Russia: A New Edition of Journey for Our Time 

(Miami: Center for Advanced International Studies, 1976), 7.

3 Robert Conquest, “Ideology and Deception,” in Soviet Strategic Deception, ed. Brian D. 

Dailey and Patrick J. Parker, 124 (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1987).

Textbox 1. A Historic Example of Active Measures

sensitive operations. Unless otherwise specified, all references to the Active Measures Working 

Group in this publication denote the Department of State’s unclassified interagency group.

To assess the performance of the Active Measures Working Group, a basis for comparison 

is helpful. Small interagency groups have been a prominent feature of the post–World War II 

national security system but not a particularly successful one. The success of any given interagency group must be judged in light of its intended output (see table 1). A low standard for 
10 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 11

interagency group performance is information exchange sufficient to avoid having departments 

and agencies work at cross-purposes. Even judged by this simple purpose, interagency groups 

do not enjoy a good reputation for effectiveness. Many historical accounts of interagency group 

performance reveal that parent organizations carefully manage the information that their representatives share in order to protect their equities.

A higher standard is coordinating activities so that different agencies can work in 

concert. Many NSC staff–led interagency groups operate with this purpose in mind. They 

concentrate on generating policy guidance and managing national-level events (summits, 

negotiations, and so forth) so that all national security organizations have guidelines and 

milestones for cooperation. Here, too, interagency groups have a checkered performance 

record. Ever since the Eisenhower administration made interagency groups a prominent 

feature of that administration’s NSC staffing system, they have been criticized for failing to 

produce clear, authoritative policy and strategy. A 1961 congressional report argued that 

the Eisenhower administration’s 160 formal interdepartmental and interagency committees played a role that was “essentially critical and cautionary, not creative.”20 The heads of 

Table 1. National-level Interagency Group Effectiveness

Standards

Low Medium High

Purpose

Deconfliction: 

Agencies do not work 

at cross purposes.

Coordination: 

Agencies adjust 

behaviors in response 

to one another.

Collaboration: 

Agencies subordinate 

their equities to 

benefit larger mission.

Requirements*

(for example, 

information-sharing 

and integrated 

decisionmaking)

Some Routine Pervasive

Measures of 

effectiveness

Inputs: 

Is sufficient 

information shared?

Products and 

Events: 

Are policies and 

strategies promulgated 

and milestone events 

taking place?

Results: 

Is progress toward 

mission success 

empirically evident?

*These requirements are illustrative, as is the entire table. The group attributes required to 

fulfill the purpose of an interagency group are more extensive than information-sharing 

and common decisionmaking but vary depending on the purpose of the group and its 

operating circumstances.
11

Deception, Disinformation, and Strategic Communications

departments and agencies rarely conceded authority for policy development or execution to 

interagency committees. Instead, they tried to avoid them, and when this was not possible, 

they participated only halfheartedly. Often the result was “lowest common denominator” 

agreements that did not bind members and their organizations to courses of action that went 

against their core interests.21 Some believe the 1961 congressional criticism of the Eisenhower administration was overly political, but 50 years later the concerns expressed in that 

report persist and remain widely acknowledged.22

These same limitations were evident during the Reagan administration (when the Active 

Measures Working Group was operating)23 and remain so today. Indeed, many of the people 

interviewed in the course of this research, who have extensive experience on interagency groups 

before and since their participation on the Active Measures Working Group, substantiate the 

view that most such groups are ineffective. One veteran of interagency groups stated that they 

do not work well because members believe information is power, and husband it jealously.24

Another person observed that interagency groups that she participated on (other than the Active Measures Working Group) were so ineffective that members “would send replacements or 

were there in body but not mind—just note taking.”25 Yet another experienced interagency hand 

noted that “Usually [interagency] working groups have a light work load, not many meetings, 

and a lot of work done on paper.” They tend to be long-winded and “a pain in the neck.” When 

the principal members stop coming, the group realizes that its “work is not that important.”26

Another person with vast interagency experience stated that at high levels—for example, the 

Deputies Committee composed of all the second-ranking members of national security departments and agencies—decisions get made but without the sustained attention they deserve: 

“I went to many [Deputies Committee] meetings and it was appalling that so many decisions 

were made at the last minute and with so little knowledge.”27 For these reasons and others, most 

interagency groups are established to allow information-sharing or limited decisionmaking on 

broad policy positions. Few are expected to meet the highest standard of performance—a direct 

and discernible impact on the security environment through the management of actual programs, operations, and output.

In some situations, low levels of interagency cooperation are all that is required. For example, 

small interagency groups may perform well enough if one agency has a well-recognized lead for 

the mission and simply needs technical assistance from other agencies, or if an interagency group 

in the field already has a coordinated national position for its mission and just needs amplifying guidance. One member of the Active Measures Working Group observed that Washington 

interagency groups backstopping interagency negotiating teams in the field can work well in part 
12 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 11

because “the operational requirements (and tempo) of providing day-to-day guidance to an interagency delegation meant that all agencies with [representatives] on the delegation had a common 

incentive to work out reasonably clear instructions.”28 Others have argued that some interagency 

groups rise to higher levels of performance even when assigned more challenging missions. David 

Tucker argues, for example, in his authoritative study of counterterrorism policy, that one Reagan 

administration counterterrorism committee was able to cooperate effectively to make interagency 

policy. He observes that over time, the steady composition of the group, its shared experiences, 

and growing trust allowed the group to function well as a team.29

The Active Measures Working Group is another example of an interagency success, but 

before examining the group’s performance in detail, we need to explain why it was created and 

why its mission ran counter to well-established practice. By 1975, the U.S. national security 

system was offering no meaningful resistance to Soviet disinformation. This posture had to 

be reversed before the Active Measures Working Group could be established. The short explanation of why and how that happened is that new leaders assumed office during the Reagan 

administration who believed Soviet disinformation and influence operations were real threats 

and that countering them required better counterintelligence and dedicated interagency efforts. 

A deeper explanation of the new leaderhip’s motives is essential, however, for explaining the 

origins of the working group and putting its achievements into perspective.

Devaluing the Counter-Disinformation Mission: 1959–1977

I suspect Angleton secretly still has an office out there at Langley.

—James Schlesinger, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency,

warning Admiral Stansfield Turner on old-guard CIA culture just prior to his taking the 

position in 197730

The inclination to challenge Soviet disinformation declined over the 1960s until, by 1975, 

there was no organized, overt effort to expose Soviet disinformation at all. Trends in strategic thinking, intelligence reform, and national security organization all reinforced the system’s 

predilection for avoiding the issue of Soviet disinformation. These three trends were mutually 

reinforcing, but to simplify, each is explained in turn.

The foundation for U.S. strategic thinking during the Cold War was the policy of containing rather than fighting the Soviet Union. The American and Soviet political and economic 

systems were ineluctably hostile to one another, but any direct fighting between the two nations 

might escalate into a nuclear exchange that would be ruinous to both. Containing the Soviet 
13

Deception, Disinformation, and Strategic Communications

Union thus required a delicate balance between cooperation and confrontation. American leaders wanted to confront and compete with the Soviet Union when doing so would moderate 

Soviet behavior and safeguard the American way of life, and they wanted to cooperate with the 

Soviet Union to lessen the chances of accidental conflicts that could spiral out of control. Getting the balance between cooperation and competition right was a subject of endless debate. 

Over the tumultuous late 1960s, the debate swung in favor of the view that more cooperation 

was desirable and possible, so the United States adopted a policy of détente with the Soviet 

Union. President Richard Nixon entered office in 1969 promising that “the era of confrontation 

in East-West relations has given way to an era of negotiations.”31

A principal architect of détente, Henry Kissinger, has argued that negotiating with the Soviets 

was a practical necessity given the political fallout from the Vietnam War, which included plummeting support for defense spending in Congress and disillusioned allies in Western Europe.32 In 

any case, détente and negotiations conferred legitimacy on the Soviet Union and indicated that the 

United States considered the regime a historical reality that could not be eliminated. Accordingly, 

during the 1970s, the United States signed a series of treaties with the Soviet Union designed to 

relieve tensions, regulate behaviors, and channel military competition along more stable paths. 

Détente also meant that less important areas—such as Soviet disinformation—could not be allowed to sidetrack progress on more important issues such as strategic arms control.

The second factor militating against a conscious effort to counter Soviet disinformation was 

the conclusion to the domestic debate over intelligence reform in 1975. During the 1960s as President Lyndon Johnson fought to retain domestic support for the Vietnam War, he became convinced that the antiwar and Black Power movements were controlled by foreign communists.33

He ordered the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to monitor American citizens in the United 

States to detect this foreign subversion. Called CHAOS, the operation compiled files on thousands 

of Americans.34 Director of Central Intelligence Richard Helms reported to President Johnson 

in November 1967 that the program had not uncovered evidence that antiwar activists were in 

contact with foreign embassies in the United States or abroad, but the program continued and was 

later expanded by President Nixon who expressed the same concern about foreign ties.35 The CIA 

sometimes collaborated with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which was concurrently 

running a program called COINTELPRO (Counter Intelligence Program)36 that was ostensibly 

created to counter subversion.37 The program involved agents harassing and discrediting domestic 

groups as diverse as the antiwar movement, Communist Party USA, and Ku Klux Klan.

COINTELPRO was officially terminated in 1971, but was exposed in 1973 on the heels of 

the Watergate scandal, which also involved government agents (actually, former CIA officers). 
14 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 11

CHAOS was closed down after Watergate prompted an internal study commissioned by the 

CIA director, who ordered employees to self-report possible violations of the Agency’s charter. 

When the director’s study was completed in May 1973, it came in at 693 single-spaced pages, 

each one of which described a possible violation.38 In 1974, the New York Times revealed the 

report to the public and the story was confirmed by then CIA Director William Colby in December.39 Congress and the public were outraged, and by early 1975, the White House faced 

eight separate congressional investigations and hearings on the CIA. The revelations about intelligence programs transgressing American civil liberties ushered in a period of intense public 

and congressional scrutiny. The scandals forced a reevaluation of the role of intelligence organizations in a free society. What emerged in the aftermath of the debate was a new American 

conception of intelligence that further inclined the national security system to ignore Soviet 

disinformation. This assertion requires a brief explanation.

William Colby assumed the position of CIA director in 1973 after President Nixon moved 

his predecessor, James Schlesinger, to the position of Secretary of Defense. Before assuming 

leadership of the CIA, Schlesinger had conducted a major study for President Nixon in 1971 

on the need for reform in the Intelligence Community attributed to rising costs, advancing 

technology, and organizational inertia.40 Colby supported the study’s reform agenda, and the 

1973 scandals gave him the opportunity to implement reform. By the time he was relieved from 

his position by President Gerald Ford in 1975, the CIA was a different organization. The debate 

over intelligence reform was intense, controversial, and complex, but it must be simplified and 

summarized here to explain its impact on the Agency’s approach to Soviet disinformation.

Colby’s reforms had the net effect of replacing what may be called a “traditionalist” view 

of intelligence with a “reformed” or uniquely American view, one that effectively downgraded 

the importance of disinformation and deception.41 First, Colby decided in favor of complete 

openness, revealing all the tawdry secrets of the CIA (sometimes referred to as “the Family 

Jewels”), ranging from failed assassination attempts of foreign leaders to spying on American 

citizens. Colby believed the CIA must be accountable to Congress not only as a Constitutional 

requirement, but also as a practical means of surviving the revelations about its past activities. 

Second, Colby oversaw a reprioritization of intelligence functions that reduced the emphasis on 

covert action, counterintelligence, and human intelligence sources in favor greater reliance on 

technical means of collecting information and better analysis.42 Past public support for covert 

action had evaporated, and “rightly or wrongly, a certain euphoria about détente signified to 

many that there was now [less need for] covert operations as a ready, effective weapon in our 

country’s Cold War arsenal.”43 Third, in pushing for better analysis, Colby promoted emerging 
15

Deception, Disinformation, and Strategic Communications

social science methodologies because he thought they would improve the CIA’s ability to support decisionmaking and would do so in a manner more consistent with a free society. He even 

believed that the Intelligence Community could become a “world class think tank,” participating in a “free trade of intelligence,” whereby nations recognize the “mutual benefit from the free 

flow and exchange of information, in the fashion that the strategic arms control agreements 

recognize that both sides can benefit from pledges against concealment and interference with 

the other’s national technical means of verification (satellites etc.).”44

Traditionalists believe that Colby’s reforms were based on a fundamental misunderstanding. 

Reforms designed to make the American intelligence establishment more socially acceptable obscured the fundamental purpose of intelligence, which was driven by the need for secrecy:

For the “traditional” view . . . the fact that an adversary is trying to keep vital 

information secret is the very essence of the matter; if an adversary were not 

trying to hide his intentions, there would be no need for complicated analyses of 

the situation in the first place. These different stances toward the importance of 

secrecy reflect basic differences with respect to what intelligence is. If, according 

to the “traditional” view, intelligence is part of the real struggle with human 

adversaries, we might say that in the new view, intelligence, like science in general, 

is a process of discovering truths about the world (or nature). . . . The paradigmatic 

intelligence problem is not so much ferreting out the adversary’s secret intentions 

as it is of predicting his behavior through social science methodology. . . . The same 

tendency to say that counterintelligence occupies a marginal place in intelligence 

also affects the importance accorded to deception and counter-deception. By 

categorizing intelligence as akin to a social science endeavor, the new view ignores, 

or at least minimizes, the possibility of deception. Nature, while it may hide its 

secrets from scientific investigators, does not actively try to deceive them.45

Traditionalists argued that by downgrading covert action and making research and analysis the 

core function of intelligence, reformers made the CIA more acceptable but also less useful to the 

free society it served. The traditionalist and reformer views on intelligence were fundamentally 

at odds,46 which helps explain why the implementation of the reforms was so bitterly divisive 

within the CIA, and why it required a massive turnover of staff to accomplish.47

Here we are concerned not with the merits of Colby’s reforms but with the way that 

the reforms inclined the U.S. national security system to diminish the importance of Soviet 
16 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 11

disinformation. Colby’s insistence on complete openness in confessing the CIA’s transgressions reinforced the American penchant for believing that the truth always emerges. This belief encouraged the complacent notion that Soviet lies eventually impugned their reputation 

more than they damaged ours. The reformers’ confidence that national technical means of 

collection and social science methodologies were not as susceptible to denial and deception 

techniques made these topics a lesser concern as well. Greater reliance on national technical 

means meant less dependence on human intelligence sources that could be manipulated and 

deceived more easily.48 Thus, Colby felt justified in forcibly retiring the CIA’s longstanding, 

eccentric, and “paranoid” master of counterintelligence, James Angleton (see textbox 2), and 

most of his staff as well.

These developments had the effect of reducing CIA attention to covert Soviet disinformation 

activities such as the use of forgeries and other propaganda tools to influence foreign audiences. 

They were resisted by intelligence traditionalists who believed that it was dangerous to think intelligence collection could ever be a cooperative endeavor that the Soviet Union would support in 

the mutual interest of reducing tensions and promoting arms control. They argued that the Soviets 

could, would, and did use deception—including double agents and technical operations—to fool 

U.S. national technical means of verifying arms control agreements, thereby passing disinformation to the U.S. Intelligence Community and ultimately deceiving U.S. leaders. Moreover, they saw 

covert action as an integral part of intelligence, including disinformation and attempts to counter 

disinformation. In their view, the reforms amounted to unilateral intelligence “disarmament.” In 

the words of one intelligence traditionalist, the CIA’s counterintelligence staff basically “lobotomized itself.”49 Some traditionalists retired or were forced out, but many of those who remained 

were determined to limit, counter, and reverse the impact of the reforms. Such individuals played 

a critical role in establishing the Active Measures Working Group.

The third interrelated and mutually reinforcing factor predisposing the national security 

system to ignore Soviet disinformation was organizational structure. After the CIA redefined 

Soviet deception from a strategic enterprise to influence U.S. policy by reducing the entire U.S. 

intelligence system to a more limited, ad hoc manipulation of U.S. media and decisionmakers for tactical gains, the topic assumed a less prominent position in bureaucratic structure 

and processes.50 As a former deputy director of the CIA notes, the Agency was aware of Soviet 

deception activities but did not analyze them: “Surprising as it may seem—shocking, in fact—

while the Directorate of Operations collected information on Soviet covert actions around the 

world . . . and their propaganda networks, these reports were regarded as ‘operational’—not 

substantive—and were rarely shared with the analysts. . . . We tracked military and economic 
17

Deception, Disinformation, and Strategic Communications

The end of James Angleton’s career marked a shift in the way U.S. intelligence agencies 

handled counterintelligence and responded to Soviet active measures. Angleton’s career in 

intelligence began during World War II while working in the counterintelligence branch of 

the Office of Strategic Services (OSS, which was the predecessor of the Central Intelligence 

Agency [CIA]). Angleton was one of the first Americans to suspect that the Soviets had 

penetrated and compromised anti-Soviet Russian émigré organizations in Europe before, 

during, and after World War II. Such suspicions were later confirmed when, among other 

things, the Soviets revealed that the Wolność i Niezawisłość (WiN, the Polish anti-communist resistance army) had been a fake. During the war, Angleton served in London as 

an OSS liaison to British intelligence, which performed a remarkable counterintelligence 

feat by successfully turning every known Axis spy in England and sending false information back to Germany. The British were less successful with Soviet spies, however. While in 

London, Angleton met the Soviet mole Kim Philby. Later, after a tour for the CIA in Italy, 

he met regularly with Philby in Washington, DC, where the British had assigned Philby in 

1949 to liaise with the CIA. Philby, who escaped capture by defecting to Moscow in 1951, 

was instrumental in helping the Soviets tailor the WiN lies to fit American perceptions.

Angleton’s experience with the British and Philby convinced him that the most effective strategic deception was only possible if the deceiver had reliable feedback from someone within the organization being deceived. He reasoned that the Soviets needed reliable 

feedback on the effects that their deception and active measures generated. In this regard, 

planting moles in a foreign intelligence service is analogous to what the military calls “bomb 

damage assessment.” Without rapid and reliable bomb damage assessment, the military can 

waste resources bombing the wrong targets or the same targets over and over. Similarly, 

without inside sources to provide “deception damage assessments,” the Soviet Union could 

misconstrue the effects that it was creating with deception efforts and overemphasize or 

reinforce the wrong themes. By extension, good U.S. counterintelligence that prevented 

Soviet penetrations would limit the effectiveness of Soviet active measures.

Angleton had a chance to act on his belief that penetration and deception were inextricably linked when he was appointed the head of the CIA’s powerful and autonomous 

Counter Intelligence Staff in 1954. He thought the Soviets were using deception, disinformation, and other “active measures” to manipulate what the Western democracies believed 

Textbox 2. James Angleton, Counterintelligence, and Soviet Active Measures
18 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 11

Textbox 2. James Angleton, Counterintelligence, and Soviet Active Measures (cont.)

about the Soviet Union, thus weakening the West’s unity and resolve.1 More specifically, he 

worried that the Soviet Union was using layers of secrecy in its own government, and moles 

in the U.S. Government, to manipulate CIA assessments of the Soviet Union and deceive 

the entire U.S. intelligence apparatus. During Angleton’s tenure, the CIA categorized Soviet 

active measures, including forgeries and agents of influence, as part of this counterintelligence puzzle, so his counterintelligence staff had primary responsibility for dealing with 

them.2

 Over the next 20 years, he single-mindedly pursued the counterintelligence mission, 

enjoying close relationships with every director until William Colby in 1973.

Angleton’s complex theories of deception, methods of investigation, and zealous hunt 

for a mole in the Soviet Division of the CIA—which terminated careers and disrupted intelligence collection—alienated many CIA colleagues.3

 The backlash was so strong that after 

Colby had relieved Angleton, the Agency stopped training for or analyzing strategic deception. The Directorate of Operations prevented such activity, arguing that an excessive 

preoccupation with deception had proven counterproductive.4

During the Reagan administration, interest in the topic revived and senior leaders 

insisted on looking at Soviet strategic deception. They argued that Soviet active measures 

supported strategic deception and that both were underappreciated by the Intelligence 

Community. Thus, the debate over active measures and what to do about them was linked 

to the debate about strategic deception and U.S. counterintelligence. In the mid-1980s, the 

argument in favor of taking counterintelligence and strategic deception more seriously was 

buttressed by the discovery of Soviet moles in the Intelligence Community. It became clear 

that the Soviet Union had an abundance of insider perspective on how their deception and 

disinformation efforts were affecting perceptions within the U.S. Government. One such 

Soviet mole, Robert Hanssen, attended and even led the Active Measures Working Group 

for a short period.5

1 A Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) secret history of Richard Helms’s term as director 

of the CIA declassified in 2007, as quoted in Tim Weiner, Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA

(New York: Doubleday, 2007), 275.

2 Interviewee 18, a senior intelligence official, May 13, 2011. The CIA Directorate of 

Operations was also involved in the debriefing of defectors and other covert activities surrounding active measures. Agents picked up examples of forgeries in the field and reported them back 

to Washington.
19

Deception, Disinformation, and Strategic Communications

assistance and Soviet diplomatic activities pretty thoroughly, but CIA analysts neglected the 

seamier side of Soviet activities around the world.”51

KGB deception activities were only tracked by a handful of CIA analysts who were isolated 

from broader attempts to characterize Soviet strategic intentions. The CIA did not consider 

them worthy of study and countermeasures, an attitude that new leaders in the Reagan administration would attempt to correct later through reorganization. Similarly, the FBI, Department 

of State, and Department of Defense (DOD) had only a few low-level disinformation experts on 

staff by the late 1970s, and their views were not influential.

Over the same period that dominant U.S. strategic thinking, intelligence reform, and organizational priorities and structure were disposing the U.S. national security bureaucracy to 

ignore Soviet disinformation, the Soviets were reemphasizing the importance of deception and 

disinformation and redoubling their efforts in these areas.

In May 1959, the Soviet leadership had transformed the KGB from a domestic repressive apparatus into a more sophisticated tool for influencing foreign affairs, one that included a KGB active 

measures department called Department D. According to CIA testimony in 1961, the KGB produced 

at least 32 forgeries of official U.S. documents in the previous 4 years (some went undetected) covering diverse topics but all portraying the United States as a major threat to world peace with imperial 

designs on the Third World. In 1971, the Soviets again upgraded Department D, making it a “Service” 

(Service A) and placed it under the direction of a KGB general. In this organizational structure, the 

Soviets built up a formidable disinformation bureaucracy of some 700 officers52 and integrated it with 

their larger active measures and strategic intelligence operations, which involved thousands of other 

personnel.53 As CIA Director William Casey would later note, “perhaps the most important characteristic of the Soviet active measures program [was] its centralization and integration”:

There are three basic organizations responsible [for active measures]. Each of 

these organizations pursues its own programs—but these programs are carefully 

Textbox 2. James Angleton, Counterintelligence, and Soviet Active Measures (cont.)

3 Angleton’s theories on Soviet deception are dealt with in depth in Edward J. Epstein, 

Deception: The Invisible War between the KGB and the CIA (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989).

4 Jim Bruce, senior political scientist for RAND Corporation and former CIA analyst, 

phone interview by authors, November 1, 2011.

5 David Major, interview by authors, May 5, 2011; Active Measures Working Group member who prefers anonymity, interview by authors, February 8, 2011.
20 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 11

orchestrated and integrated into an overall campaign. The Soviet Communist 

Party’s International Information Department is responsible for developing and 

overseeing the implementation of Soviet media campaigns. Another organ of 

the Communist Party, the International Department of the Communist Party, 

coordinates the activities of various front groups and friendship societies, as well 

as the role of foreign communist parties. Finally, Service “A” of the KGB provides 

covert support to Soviet disinformation efforts.54

Integrating these diverse activity sets allowed the Soviets to react quickly to historical developments. For example, after President John F. Kennedy’s assassination in November 1963, the 

KGB paid an American communist and Soviet agent in New York City to publish and distribute 

a book that used KBG forgeries to support the claim that Kennedy was killed by a right-wing 

racist conspiracy with help from the FBI and CIA.55 The book came out less than 10 months 

later and just before the Warren Commission released its findings that Lee Harvey Oswald acted 

alone. By contrast, U.S. efforts to counter Soviet disinformation were anything but centralized, 

integrated, and timely—indeed 15 years later, attempts to counter Soviet disinformation had 

virtually disappeared.

Rebounding to Take the Offensive: 1977–1981

Despite détente and the intelligence reforms of the mid-1970s, some people remained convinced of the need to counter Soviet disinformation and deception. This view was not popular 

in the intelligence bureaucracy and even less so in academia, but in Congress it found fertile 

ground in a number of offices. Several congressional staff and investigators on the Senate Intelligence Committee and House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, notably Herbert 

Romerstein, Angelo Codevilla, and Kenneth deGraffenried, were interested in studying and 

exposing Soviet deception and active measures. These staffers used their positions to push the 

intelligence agencies to start reporting again on active measures—something the CIA had not 

done since 1965—particularly during the final 2 years of the Carter administration when support for détente was wearing thin in the face of aggressive Soviet behavior.56

On April 20, 1979, CIA Director Stansfield Turner was testifying before the House Intelligence Committee on new regulations that prevented the CIA from using American media. 

Congressman John Ashbrook (R–OH) suddenly changed the subject and asked if the Soviets 

used agents of influence in non–Eastern Bloc countries’ media.57 The director stated that he 

thought so but that the Agency had no hard evidence. Ashbrook then asked the CIA to produce 
21

Deception, Disinformation, and Strategic Communications

a report on the issue as an appendix to the report on the hearings. The following year, in February of 1980, Congressman C.W. Young (R–FL) requested CIA testimony to the House Intelligence Committee on Soviet forgeries during hearings entitled “Active Soviet Measures: The 

Forgery Offensive.” The interventions by Ashbrook and Young did not receive much attention, 

but they were notable as the first signs of congressional interest in the topic in 19 years. Herbert 

Romerstein, who was close to Congressman Ashbrook and an important House Intelligence 

Committee staff member interested in Soviet influence operations, would become the Nation’s 

leading expert on Soviet active measures and the key subject matter expert on the Active Measures Working Group (see textbox 3).

Some sympathetic congressmen and a few of their staff, along with a small number of 

supporters in academia,58 managed to shine some of the national spotlight on Soviet active 

measures, but the general deterioration in U.S.-Soviet relations was a more important development shaping the U.S. response to Soviet disinformation. America began to take a more 

confrontational attitude toward the Soviet Union. President Jimmy Carter began the process by challenging Moscow on its human rights record. President Ford had refused to meet 

with Soviet dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in order to safeguard progress on détente. In 

contrast, the Carter administration, which took office in 1977, emphasized human rights. 

It confronted the Soviet Union over its suppression of the Solidarity movement in Poland 

founded in late 1980 by Lech Wałęsa and other trade-union organizers. As Robert Gates later 

noted, Soviet leaders perceived Carter’s support for human rights as a threat to their legitimacy: “Through his human rights policies, [President Carter] became the first president since 

Truman to challenge directly the legitimacy of the Soviet government in the eyes of its own 

people. And the Soviets immediately recognized this for the fundamental challenge it was: 

they believed he sought to overthrow their system.”59 President Carter’s human rights agenda 

shifted the delicate balance that U.S. leaders maintained between cooperation and confrontation with the Soviet Union toward the latter.

However, it was the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979 rather than 

Soviet human rights violations that doomed détente. President Carter adopted “punitive” 

measures against the Soviet Union including a grain embargo and an American boycott 

of the Moscow Olympic Games, but the Iranian hostage crisis and interagency squabbling 

limited the administration’s ability to rebuild a commitment to a new strategy of confrontation.60 Relations between Carter’s Secretary of Defense and Secretary of State were so bad 

that the officials were not even talking. The President told National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski to work it out, but he was not able to. Interagency stalemate over how to 
22 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 11

Herbert Romerstein has been described as an “institution.”1 Certainly he made a major 

impact in countering Soviet disinformation, something his entire life experience positioned 

him to do well. As a teenager, he was an ardent Stalinist, but he soon had a complete change of 

heart. As one friend notes, “he emerged from the belly of the whale” totally committed for the 

rest of his life to exposing totalitarian methods as a threat to a free society.2

 By the end of high 

school, he was informing the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) about the activities of his 

communist classmates and teachers.3

 After serving in the Korean War, he worked for the New 

York State Legislature’s investigation into communist summer camps and charities. In 1965, 

he moved to the Federal Government and became the chief investigator on the Republican 

side for the House Committee on Un-American Activities, a position he held until 1971. He 

remained the minority chief investigator for the committee until 1975, and served as a professional staff member for the House Intelligence Committee from 1978 to 1983.4

In all these positions, Romerstein augmented his passion for investigating and exposing the activities of American communists and the KGB with a knack for forming alliances 

with like-minded activists. He readily shared his knowledge and made friends easily. The 

number of people who counted him as friend and tutor on active measures was extensive.5 

He had a large network among congressional staff and knew many Congressmen. He also 

developed professional contacts with think tank researchers and academics. In the executive branch, Romerstein knew and worked closely with FBI experts and Defense Intelligence Agency executives. When he moved to the United States Information Agency (USIA) 

in 1983, it was not long before he had a warm relationship with the director, Charles Wick. 

He also was welcomed in highly classified meetings on active measures at the National Security Council staff, where some of his former allies in Congress had positions during the 

Reagan administration. He also had extensive contacts overseas in intelligence and diplomatic circles, especially in Europe and Israel, which he used to get the message on disinformation out. Romerstein readily introduced his contacts to one another.6

His critics accused him of never losing the Stalinist mindset despite switching sides. 

His admirers pointed out that those who denigrated Romerstein refused to argue with him. 

He had an unparalleled ability to comprehend, expose, and rip apart arguments favoring 

Soviet policy positions, which he revealed time and again in public and private gatherings. 

He once chided the Soviets for an incorrect quotation of Lenin in a public forum, leaving 

Textbox 3. Herbert Romerstein’s Career and Network
23

Deception, Disinformation, and Strategic Communications

the Soviet representatives dumbfounded that a USIA official outquoted their own Lenin 

expert. He was relentless in pursuing Soviet disinformation, and the Soviets paid homage 

to his success by trying to discredit him.

For example, they attacked Romerstein (and, by extension, the Active Measures Working 

Group) with a forgery in hopes of implicating the United States in its own disinformation campaigns.7

 The forgery of a letter from Romerstein to Senator David Durenberger (R-MN) falsely 

outlined a campaign to inflate the death toll of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor disaster, which 

at the time was the subject of much speculation in the Western press. The Soviets took the letterhead and signature block for the forgery from an authentic copy of a letter Romerstein had 

written to another U.S. official detailing, ironically, a forgery used against that official. The Soviets arranged for a Czech diplomat to request a copy of the letter. Romerstein agreed to provide 

the copy but discreetly marked it so that it could be identified later if used for illicit purposes. 

When the forgery surfaced in August 1986, it carried the unique marking, which USIA quickly 

used to expose the forgery in a press conference.8

 Instead of a news report on scandalous U.S. 

disinformation, the Soviets got a Washington Post story on Soviet forgeries. 

After moving to USIA as the head of its counter Soviet disinformation office in 1983, 

Romerstein devoted himself full-time to exposing Soviet disinformation, often through the 

efforts of the Active Measures Working Group. He retired in 1989 just as the Soviet Union 

was beginning to unravel but continued to work as a consultant to the U.S. Government 

while teaching and writing about Soviet intelligence.

1 Interviewee 18, a senior intelligence official, May 13, 2011.

2 Richard H. Shultz, phone interview with authors, July 29, 2011.

3 Jacob Weisberg, “Cold War Without End,” available at <www-personal.umich.

edu/~sanders/214/other/news/19991128mag-weisberg.html>.

4 Romerstein’s biography for an Ashbrook Center colloquium, available at <www.ashbrook.org/events/colloqui/2001/romerstein.html>.

5 For example, Romerstein had Jim Milburn invited to Dr. Godson’s events in the Consortium for the Study of Intelligence, and he introduced John Dziak to Bill Houghton at the Federal 

Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

6 Herbert Romerstein, “The Interagency Active Measures Working Group: Successful 

Template for Strategic Influence,” in Public Diplomacy, Counterpropaganda and Political Warfare, 

ed. J.M. Waller, 200 (Washington, DC: Institute of World Politics Press, 2008).

Textbox 3. Herbert Romerstein’s Career and Network (cont.)
24 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 11

manage U.S.-Soviet relations handicapped the administration’s ability to mount a concerted 

response to the Soviets, including a response to Soviet active measures.61

The Soviets were not similarly constrained. They even went so far as to target President 

Carter himself with disinformation in September 1980.62 The KGB produced a forged NSC document that was then run in an American communist newspaper under the title “Carter’s Secret 

Plan to Keep Black Africans and Black Americans at Odds.”63 The case is illustrative of both 

Soviet tactics and the lack of American readiness to respond. TASS (Telegrafnoye agentstvo 

Sovetskovo Soyuza) picked up and distributed the article, and the KGB disseminated the TASS 

piece around the world through Soviet embassies. In under a month, the KGB had produced 

a forgery, published it through an American agent, disseminated the disinformation via TASS 

stringers who wrote an article citing the American article for legitimacy, and then redistributed 

it to their agents of influence around the world.64 In contast, the few U.S. experts on Soviet disinformation within the national security bureaucracy had no high-level access or organizational 

vehicle for coordinating a response. Therefore, the White House had to answer the charges directly if it felt the need, which it did. It held a press conference on September 17 to protest the 

forgery. It was a partial success. The Washington Post reported the White House’s exposure of 

the forgery on page two. However, the White House spokesman, feeling the need to be cautious, 

refused to identify the source of the forgery. As a result, the Post’s reporter was left to speculate 

about the forgery’s origins, raising the question of whether Carter’s political foes—specifically 

Ronald Reagan—were responsible.65 As the saying goes, “the lie was halfway around the world 

while the truth was still getting its boots on.”

Such shenanigans did nothing to improve U.S.-Soviet relations, which were already on a 

downward trajectory for multiple reasons, but particularly because of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. In the United States, “most experts would probably have agreed that [the global balance of power] had been titling in Moscow’s favor through most of the 1970s”66; the invasion of 

Afghanistan seemed to put the exclamation mark on this realignment. With U.S. leaders trying 

to limit damage from the Vietnam debacle, stem strategic disengagement by Congress, and over7 FBI, “Soviet Active Measures in the United States, 1986–1987,” unpublished report, June 

1987, 10–12.

8 The diplomat later admitted sending the letter that he had been given to Prague where it 

probably passed to Moscow and the KGB. See Soviet Influence Activities: A Report on Active Measures and Propaganda, 1986–1987 (Washington, DC: Department of State, October 1987).

Textbox 3. Herbert Romerstein’s Career and Network (cont.)
25

Deception, Disinformation, and Strategic Communications

come the agonizing self-doubt inflicted by Watergate and other scandals, some believed that the 

United States was on the strategic defensive and in danger of irreversible decline. One scholar who 

would later play a key role in establishing the Active Measures Working Group worried that the 

Soviets were on the verge of “psychologically anesthetizing Americans” against the implications 

of expanding Soviet power.67 He and other national security conservatives desperately wanted to 

reverse the situation, and the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan helped them do so by alarming the 

American public and facilitating the electoral shift that brought Reagan to office.

President Reagan’s election ushered in an entirely different political philosophy and made 

confrontation with the Soviet Union a much more salient feature of American foreign policy. Reagan challenged Soviet power rhetorically, strategically, and covertly, and sought to reassert American leadership and geopolitical strength. Many of the men and women who had rung the alarm 

bell on Soviet active measures now entered the Reagan administration and set about reinvigorating intelligence, and public diplomacy in particular. In doing so, they emphasized the need to 

counter Soviet active measures and set the stage for creating the Active Measures Working Group.

The “Reagan Revolution” and Countering Soviet Disinformation: 

Early 1981

Ronald Reagan entered office with an agenda that promised a volte face in U.S.-Soviet relations and with an apparent popular mandate for that agenda. He had defeated a more moderate Republican in the primaries, and then won 489 out of 538 electoral votes and the popular 

vote by almost 10 percentage points.68 He also had, for the first time in 28 years, a Republicancontrolled Senate to help execute his national security initiatives. He ran on a platform that asserted “the premier challenge facing the United States, its allies, and the entire globe is to check 

the Soviet Union’s global ambitions.” The platform argued the Soviet Union was “accelerating its 

drive for military superiority,” “intensifying its . . . ideological combat,” and mounting a threat 

greater than any other “in the 200-year history of the United States.”

Reagan’s approach was straightforward. He told Richard Allen, who would become his first 

national security advisor: “My idea of American policy towards the Soviet Union is simple, and 

some would say simplistic. It is this: we win and they lose. What do you think of that?”69 With such 

an approach, the delicate balance between cooperation and confrontation tipped strongly toward the 

latter. The party’s platform was equally straightforward in depicting how U.S.-Soviet relations would 

be managed in the Reagan administration. The platform called for “immediate” increases in critical 

defense programs and sustained spending “sufficient to close the gap with the Soviets, and ultimately 

reach the position of military superiority that the American people demand.”
26 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 11

The platform also made clear that the Reagan administration would “undertake an urgent 

effort to rebuild the intelligence agencies” in order to “improve U.S. Intelligence capabilities for 

technical and clandestine collection, cogent analysis, coordinated counterintelligence, and covert 

action.” In other words, it promised to undo what intelligence traditionalists considered some of 

the deleterious effects of the reforms from the 1970s. The fact that Reagan’s running mate, George 

Bush, was a former director of the CIA reinforced the impression that the Reagan team was serious about delivering on these promises. Similarly, the administration promised to rebuild public 

diplomacy organizations and “spare no efforts to publicize to the world the fundamental differences in the two systems,” “articulate U.S. values and policies,” and “highlight the weaknesses of 

totalitarianism.” Above all, Reagan insisted that the government put an end to “self-censorship” to 

preserve good relations. On the contrary, it would aggressively “counter lies with truth” and consider fighting the “idea war” as important as military and economic competition.70

Like all incoming administrations, the Reagan team had to pursue its agenda with initiatives executed by the bureaucracy. The administration communicated its intention to put 

U.S.-Soviet relations on a new track through public pronouncements and symbolic gestures.71

It also considered forceful options for shaking up the bureaucracy, such as abolishing the Arms 

Control and Disarmament Agency, but ultimately relied on strong leadership of the individual 

departments and agencies to overcome entrenched resistance to its agenda.72 To revitalize intelligence and elevate public diplomacy, Reagan brought two close friends with big resumes to 

Washington to run the CIA and USIA, respectively: William Casey and Charles Wick. Casey 

was Reagan’s campaign manager and served on the transition team following the election. During his confirmation hearings, which were held quickly (on January 13, 1981), he emphasized 

his intention to end the CIA’s period of “institutional self-doubt.” He thought previous criticism 

of the Agency had been excessive and that intelligence capabilities had to be rebuilt.

Casey found that the CIA was not collecting much intelligence on Soviet active measures, 

and that it was not inclined to analyze the issue either. Early in March 1981, he pushed his 

deputy, Admiral Bobby Ray Inman, to pay greater attention to propaganda, subversion, terrorism, and other less tangible threats to U.S. interests. In April, Secretary of State Alexander Haig 

helped by asking for an interagency assessment of Soviet subversion and support for terrorism 

by June 1, which kicked off a huge bureaucratic struggle in the Intelligence Community.73 To 

help circumvent bureaucratic resistance, Casey created a new Office of Global Issues in 1981 

as part of a larger reorganization of the CIA’s Directorate of Intelligence. The office looked not 

only at transnational issues such as narcotics and terrorism, but also at the “underside” of Soviet 

behavior, including covert action.74 Casey tasked the Agency to collect more information on 
27

Deception, Disinformation, and Strategic Communications

Soviet active measures75 so that by late 1981, all CIA stations were “to submit a monthly report 

on Soviet covert action (‘active measures’) in their respective countries as a way of permitting 

more aggressive counter operations.”76

Casey’s reorganization and taskings helped move the CIA toward production of a Top 

Secret/Codeword study called “Soviet Active Measures.” The study was chaired by Dick Malzahn and included experts like Benjamin Fischer and Jack Dziak from the Defense Intelligence 

Agency (DIA).77 It was released in July 1981 and quickly had an impact in the war of ideas. In 

an August speech, President Reagan used material from the study to highlight the magnitude of 

the Soviet disinformation campaign against North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) nuclear force modernization in Europe: “We have information that the Soviet Union spent about one 

hundred million dollars in Western Europe alone a few years ago when the announcement was 

first made of the invention of the neutron warhead, and I don’t know how much they’re spending now, but they’re starting the same kind of propaganda drive.”78

The President cited the CIA estimate of Soviet expenditures as a fact, but in doing so successfully made the larger point that the Soviet Union devoted major resources to disinformation because 

it worked. Once the CIA started monitoring Soviet disinformation, Reagan wanted Wick to pursue a 

more aggressive public diplomacy campaign at USIA to counter such Soviet disinformation.

Wick cochaired Reagan’s inaugural committee, so he was in Washington with Reagan early 

on. However, his confirmation hearings were not held until the end of April. Once confirmed, 

he moved out forcefully calling for “a wartime urgency” in pursuing public diplomacy initiatives to confront the Soviet Union. He advocated adding a television arm to USIA’s radio station 

in West Berlin and a worldwide live television program to celebrate Poland’s Solidarity movement.79 He also launched Project Truth, a controversial effort to counter anti-American propaganda using a variety of methods, including “Soviet Propaganda Alert,” a monthly analysis of 

Soviet propaganda and misinformation themes and targets.80

Wick could rely on backing from the President, who made it clear that he considered 

USIA’s public diplomacy a favored foreign policy tool. Among other things, President Reagan 

directed government agencies to cooperate with Wick on Project Truth, specifically by declassifying material so that it could be used in the Soviet propaganda alerts.81 Secure in his relationship with the President, Wick was a demanding task master at USIA. A senior Foreign Service 

Officer remembered, “Wick slammed into the USIA with a body punch. You did what he said 

immediately and picked up the pieces later on. He was demanding things at the time that no 

one was prepared to deliver. He scared the hell out of people. We hadn’t seen another director 

like this, ever.”82
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Wick’s agenda immediately brought him into conflict with Voice of America (VOA), the organization that broadcast radio programs to the Soviet bloc. Wick wanted to use VOA broadcasts 

more aggressively to confront the Soviet Union ideologically. VOA “journalists” strongly resisted 

the new policy direction, asserting that objectivity was VOA’s strength and key to its influence.83

By May, VOA was circulating an internal newsletter that recorded the increasing number of complaints made by the Department of State, U.S. Embassies, and NSC about VOA news items and 

reports. The newsletter documented that the Department of State and overseas Embassies were 

upset that VOA broadcasts were now rocking bilateral relations with the Soviet Union and its satellites, and that Reagan NSC members were unhappy that the broadcasts were not sufficiently aggressive. By November, Wick decided the solution was to purge VOA’s top career civil servants and 

replace them with Wick’s confidants. Over the course of the following year, Wick would demand 

the removal of VOA’s Soviet division chief, Barbara Allen, a career Foreign Service Officer, secure 

a National Security Decision Directive that ordered the VOA to incorporate “vigorous advocacy 

of current policy positions of the US government,” and push a $1.3 billion program to rebuild and 

modernize VOA programming and technical capabilities.84 In the face of Wick’s activism, and 

support from the President, the differences between the Department of State’s culture of private 

diplomacy and USIA’s culture of public diplomacy began to subside.85

With senior administration officials advertising the new political mindset on U.S.-Soviet 

relations, subordinate Reagan administration officials went to work on moving the bureaucracy 

further in their direction. When President Reagan was shot just 69 days after taking office, many 

projects were put on hold, but not rebuilding intelligence and defense; everyone knew those priorities were inviolate.86 Thus, the national security team kept pushing their agenda throughout 

the first year of Reagan’s tenure. One important objective was getting the bureaucracy to confront the impact of Soviet deception. Doing so would prove a titanic battle. Political appointees 

at the NSC and in the Pentagon began by pushing for a new National Intelligence Estimate on 

Soviet active measures. Unable to secure the estimate, they settled for the lesser version, an 

“interagency intelligence memorandum” on the topic. Even getting this product was incredibly 

difficult. DIA had to produce intelligence on Soviet active measures to force the CIA to give up 

what they knew on the subject.87

Bureaucratic warfare really began in earnest in the fall of 1981 when Kenneth deGraffenreid, the senior director of NSC Intelligence Program, began pushing for a reorganization of 

counterintelligence and intelligence capabilities. One quick result was Executive Order 12333 

which, among other things, specifically called on the CIA and FBI to coordinate counterintelligence activities within and outside the United States.88 Most of the other initiatives stalled in 
29

Deception, Disinformation, and Strategic Communications

interagency forums.89 To pave the way for larger reform, deGraffenreid believed that the Intelligence Community needed a damage assessment study on Soviet deception, and he succeeded 

in getting President Reagan to authorize such a study in January of 1982. Getting the effort off 

the ground required, among other things, having the President override CIA Deputy Director 

Admiral Bobby Ray Inman, who insisted deception was not an important issue.

Making substantive progress on the study was even more difficult. As one participant noted, the interagency task force formed to do the highly classified study consisted of “parties with 

vested interests who could hardly be expected to offer up their empires to radical reform.”90 No 

consensus emerged from the effort even on relatively minor issues such as interagency background investigations and security clearances. Organizations purposefully set classification levels too high in order to complicate the task force’s work, the FBI often refused to attend, and 

occasionally participating organizations simply withheld key information.91 With high-level 

support, the group was able to make some progress, but every case was “like a root canal.” 92

With the damage assessment effort bogged down, deGraffenreid pushed for modest counterintelligence improvements. Along with David Major, his deputy and the first FBI employee 

ever assigned to the NSC, deGraffenreid resurrected and tried to implement 400 counterintelligence recommendations dating from the waning days of the Carter administration.93 Over a 

period of 4 years, the 400 recommendations were whittled down to those 12, and even these 

met stiff resistance from the intelligence bureaucracy. Bureaucratic resistance was weakened, 

however, by events that suggested the United States was more vulnerable than many believed. 

For example, Major was part of a team of FBI security experts asked by the State Department to 

determine if the Soviets had bugged communications at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. The FBI 

found the Embassy honeycombed with electronic surveillance devices, including the CIA’s secure floors. The CIA, National Security Agency (NSA), and State Department all stated that the 

FBI team was following faulty methodology, but the findings nonetheless made an impression 

when Major presented them to Reagan in late 1983.94

In 1984, the office that Casey created to look at transnational issues managed a classified 

conclave to discuss strategic deception. The intent was to break the bureaucratic logjam on the 

issue and find some common ground between those who believed deception was important 

and those who did not think the Soviet Union was trying to deceive the United States, much 

less doing so successfully.95 The group, sequestered at a remote location in Northern Virginia 

(the historic Airlie House near Warrenton), included senior leaders from the executive and 

legislative branches. Casey, Senator Malcolm Wallop (R–WY), who was chairman of the Senate 

Select Committee on Intelligence, members of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory 
30 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 11

Board, and relevant NSC staff attended. Reagan appointees wanted the bureaucracy to admit 

that Soviet deception was a real problem.96 In this regard, they were disappointed. One “owner” 

of a major intelligence discipline after another presented their damage assessment only to conclude that they were invulnerable to deception (even if other disciplines were not). One speaker 

noted, for example, how Soviet dummy submarines made of rubber to fool satellite surveillance 

bent in high winds, exposing them as fakes. The CIA’s director of operations offered other evidence of Soviet deception, but reached the same conclusion: it was impossible for the Soviets to 

deceive us.97

In the year following the Airlie House retreat, new revelations shook the confidence of the 

Intelligence Community and made intelligence reforms easier for the Reagan administration. 

A series of Americans in trusted intelligence positions were arrested for spying. So many traitors were caught in 1985 that it was referred to in the media as “the year of the spy.” Perhaps the 

most shocking case was the FBI’s arrest of John Walker, a Navy chief warrant officer. The Walker 

spy ring was run by a low-ranking Sailor, operated undetected for 18 years, and gave away an 

astounding array of secrets that did incalculable damage to U.S. interests. The case highlighted 

how damaging spies could be and also how poor U.S. counterintelligence was at catching them, 

but news inside the U.S. clandestine services was even worse. “In 1985 and 1986,” it was revealed, 

“the United States lost every covert intelligence source it had on Soviet territory.”98 Soviet moles 

in the U.S. intelligence services seemed the most likely explanation for this unprecedented intelligence disaster. Following these developments, President Reagan mandated the implementation of the 12 counterintelligence recommendations that deGraffenreid had been pushing over 

the protests of the bureaucracy—the Department of State, in particular.99

This brief overview of the Reagan administration’s numerous intelligence initiatives illustrates how difficult it was for the administration to implement its agenda over bureaucratic 

resistance. The Intelligence Community did not readily accept the Reagan team’s assessment 

on Soviet deception, active measures, and penetration. It would take time to soften up the bureaucracy. Some who participated in the meetings at Airlie House believe that the event was a 

milestone paving the way for more attention to Soviet deception,100 while others saw it as part 

of a longer, ongoing process to educate the bureaucracy.101 Whether because of the conference 

and its written report, or due to a combination of forces, reforms were made. The CIA training curriculum was changed to include deception and a dedicated office in CIA for analysis of 

deception followed. Similar development previously had occurred at DIA, and now they took 

place elsewhere in the Intelligence Community with courses and offices devoted to deception 

popping up at NSA and elsewhere.102 Even the long-running damage assessment exercise even-
31

Deception, Disinformation, and Strategic Communications

tually was institutionalized as part of the National Intelligence Council in the form of a Foreign 

Denial and Deception Committee.103

Yet the Airlie House retreat also illustrates the strength of the resistance among career 

intelligence officials to Reagan’s intelligence agenda. Three year’s into the President’s first term, 

Congressmen, academics, and journalists were conducting a more vibrant debate on the subject of deception than the Intelligence Community. For example, public concerns about Soviet 

cheating on arms control agreements and the fear that the Soviets had gained a significant strategic advantage as a result had reached the point where many believed the future for any kind 

of arms limitation agreement was at stake.104 In contrast, the vast majority of senior career intelligence experts were not concerned, and many deeply resented what they considered attempts 

to impose an alternative view.105 The bureaucracy also strongly resisted the Reagan administration’s agenda on counterintelligence, where many initiatives stalled in small interagency groups. 

President Reagan only forced through modest counterintelligence reforms by fiat after revelations of major penetrations of the Intelligence Community became public.

A similar shift in policy perspective and attendant bureaucratic struggle was evident in 

public diplomacy. When political appointees tried to implement a more aggressive public diplomacy effort, they encountered resistance from career officials and small interagency groups.106

For example, the Pentagon’s new publication on Soviet Military Power—a glossy overview of 

growing Soviet military power and strategy that began in October 1981—was produced and 

disseminated over the adamant objections of CIA career officials who thought the publication 

trespassed on the CIA’s mandate to assess foreign military capabilities.107 Other Reagan administration public diplomacy efforts such as modernization of VOA and Radio Free Europe/Radio 

Liberty also were controversial and resisted by career officials.

The Reagan administration’s slow but determined progress on intelligence and public diplomacy reform is relevant to the Active Measures Working Group for several reasons. First, 

Reagan’s fundamental “reset” in U.S.-Soviet relations, resolutely pursued by top intelligence 

and public diplomacy officials, was the precondition for the creation of the Active Measures 

Working Group. The administration had put the bureaucracy on notice that the underlying 

assumption of détente—that the Soviet Union was too powerful and permanent to confront—

was dead. Confronting the Soviet Union was very much in vogue, and the Active Measures 

Working Group was one of many initiatives reflecting this shift in policy. The Reagan administration intelligence and public diplomacy initiatives also were noteworthy for this research 

because they helped prepare the bureaucracy for the substance of the Active Measures Working Group’s activities. Getting the CIA to report on Soviet active measures and USIA to take 
32 

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Soviet disinformation seriously meant there would be reporting and analysis available to the 

working group. Finally, the Active Measures Working Group is a particularly interesting topic 

for research precisely because its experience is so different from most Reagan intelligence and 

public diplomacy initiatives. Even though active measures were as controversial as deception 

and counterintelligence and were linked to those issues, the Reagan administration was able 

to get the group set up and operating effectively in short order. The forces that allowed this 

initiative to take off quickly whereas so many others floundered merit investigation.108

The Founding of the Group: 1981–1984

The Active Measures Working Group was formed early in the Reagan administration.109

The entire set of factors leading to the group’s creation remains somewhat obscure. There is 

strong evidence that senior political appointees and active measures experts in the CIA wanted 

the Department of State to create the group because its products would be more credible than 

those of the Agency.110 Whether and how the CIA approached State on this issue is unclear. 

What is well known, however, are the proximate cause and sequence of events leading to the 

group’s creation.

Early in the Reagan administration, some mid-level officials in the Department of State took 

the initiative to mount a more robust effort to counter aggressive Soviet propaganda. In particular, Deputy Assistant Secretary Mark Palmer, who was working European affairs under Assistant 

Secretary Lawrence Eagleburger, took an interest in the topic. Palmer was a maverick who was 

unafraid to take bureaucratic risks, particularly in the area of public diplomacy.111 He had a longstanding interest in supporting democratization within the Soviet Union, for which public diplomacy was a favored tool. He also was directly responsible for dealing with the Soviet campaign 

to stop the deployment of Pershing II and ground-launched cruise missiles, the culminating step 

in implementing NATO’s 1979 decision to modernize its Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) in 

Europe.112 He had already established an interagency working group called Shaping European 

Attitudes113 to find ways to build political support for INF deployment with public diplomacy. 

Another State official concerned about Soviet disinformation was Robert Peck, deputy assistant 

secretary for South Asian affairs. Peck had previously been a personal victim of Soviet disinformation in Turkey, and his current area of responsibility included India, where increasingly aggressive 

Soviet disinformation was taking a toll on U.S. interests (see textbox 4).114

Both Palmer and Peck could see how Soviet active measures threatened American diplomatic priorities. Together they had little difficulty convincing Secretary of State Alexander Haig 

that State should take the lead for an interagency effort to counter Soviet disinformation.115 
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Deception, Disinformation, and Strategic Communications

Textbox 4. When Active Measures and Disinformation Turn Deadly

The Soviets and their Warsaw Pact allies often targeted individual Americans who 

were effectively limiting Soviet ability to achieve some objective. In 1980, the same proSoviet Indian paper that later helped the KGB spread disinformation about the origins of 

the AIDS epidemic successfully blocked the appointment of a career Department of State 

official, George Griffin, to the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi. The paper wrongly accused him 

of being a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer and spreading falsehoods about the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan when he was stationed in Kabul as deputy chief of mission.1

One expert notes that East Germany’s intelligence service was uncommonly successful in 

compromising U.S. personnel.2

 If they “determined that a CIA officer was good at his work 

and might be recruiting genuine agents [they] had the option of interrupting or derailing 

his career either by surreptitiously exposing him with a story planted in the foreign media 

or by tipping off an allied or friendly intelligence service to his identity.”3

On occasion, Soviet disinformation was integrated with other active measures, including assassination and other so-called wet operations. In such circumstances, Soviet 

disinformation could prove indirectly lethal. For example, the East German and Czech intelligence services collaborated to publish a book in 1968 entitled Who’s Who in the CIA 

that led to the deaths of at least two Americans and caused untold amounts of trouble for 

others. Daniel Mitrione, a U.S. Agency for International Development officer, was executed 

by Tupamaro terrorists in 1970 who justified the killing by citing Who’s Who in the CIA. 

Mitrione’s name was listed in the book despite the fact he was never a CIA officer. According to Ladislav Bittman, who claimed to have helped write the book, about half the names 

in it were actual CIA officers while the rest were various U.S. officials serving abroad. Five 

years later, in 1975, Richard Welch, another American listed in the book (who actually was 

the CIA station chief in Athens,) was shot and killed by Greek terrorists. His name and address had been published in Greek and American publications, but it was later established 

that the terrorists had been watching him since the summer of 1975 because his name was 

in Who’s Who in the CIA.

Active measures also could lead to spectacular attacks on American interests by 

third parties. In November of 1979, a Muslim messianic cult attacked Mecca, the holiest place in Islam. Hundreds were killed in the ensuing siege. Sensing an opportunity to 

weaken the American position in the Middle East, Soviet diplomats spread the rumor that 
34 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 11

America and Israel were behind the attack on Mecca. The rumor sparked an attack by the 

student union of the Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami in Pakistan. The students had been 

planning to emulate Iranian-style protests against the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad when, 

on November 21, an announcer commented on the Soviet rumor during his broadcast of 

a cricket match between India and Pakistan.4

 In the ensuing riot, the U.S. Embassy was 

attacked, one American was kidnapped, two Pakistani employees died, a Marine guard 

was shot and killed, and an American contractor was beaten and left to burn to death in 

his ransacked apartment.5

1 Bernard Gwertzman, “India Bars Senior U.S. Diplomat, Stirring a Dispute,” The New York 

Times, September 2, 1981, A10.

2 John Marks, “The Spymaster Unmasked,” U.S. News and World Report, April 4, 1993, 

available at <www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/930412/archive_014952.htm>.

3 Benjamin B. Fischer, “Deaf, dumb and blind: The CIA and East Germany,” East German 

Foreign Intelligence: Myth, Reality and Controversy, ed. Macrakis Kristie, Thomas W. Friis, and 

Helmut Müller-Enbergs (London: Routledge, 2010).

4 Steve Coll, Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from 

the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 (New York: Penguin Press, 2004), 36ff.

5 For fuller historical accounts of Soviet active measures, and, in addition to the government 

reports cited elsewhere in this document, see Richard H. Shultz and Roy Godson, Dezinformatsia: 

Active Measures in Soviet Strategy (Washington DC: Pergamon-Brassey’s, 1984). This is the most 

academic and broad-gauge of the books and covers how active measures fit into Soviet strategy. For 

detailed narrative of Soviet active measures, see Herbert Romerstein and Stanislav Levchenko, The 

KGB Against the “Main Enemy”: How the Soviet Intelligence Service Operates Against the United States 

(Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 1989). It includes many fascinating examples and explanations of 

Soviet active measures. See also Ladislav Bittman, The Deception Game: Czechoslovak Intelligence 

in Soviet Political Warfare (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Research Corp., 1972); and Stanislav 

Levchenko, On the Wrong Side: My Life in the KGB (Washington, DC: Pergamon-Brassey’s, 1988). 

Bittman’s book is an insider’s tell-all coupled with insightful analysis and conceptual explanations of 

influence activities. Levchenko’s book is partly biographical digressions and partly an explanation of 

KGB active measures in Japan and the wider world. It is also valuable for insights into what life was 

like for KGB defectors after they turned against their country.

Textbox 4. When Active Measures and Disinformation Turn Deadly (cont.)
35

Deception, Disinformation, and Strategic Communications

Haig clearly thought the topic important since he had already requested a Top Secret/Codeword 

study on Soviet active measures from the CIA. With Haig’s concurrence, Palmer and Peck went 

to see Dennis Kux to ask him to take up the initiative. As Kux recalls: “They came to me because, 

they said: ‘We can’t do this unless we have really good information. Your office is the closest 

place in State to CIA. Can you come up with something on this? Can you work with us on this?’ 

So I said that we would try. Gradually, we worked out an interagency system.”116

The two men mentioned to Kux that they came to him because he had access to the CIA, 

which was often unwilling to share information with State.117 In that regard, Kux was the 

natural choice to lead the effort because he was the deputy assistant secretary for coordination at the Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), which was in charge of State’s liaisons 

with the Intelligence Community.118

Kux, a career Foreign Service Officer, initially had reservations. He knew Soviet active 

measures were a problem, but he also knew the top echelons of the Department of State were 

neutral if not ambivalent on the topic.119 He also had been exposed to some of the Reagan 

administration’s more ideological political appointees, who were inclined to confuse standard 

Soviet propaganda and even foreign policy positions with disinformation intended to mislead 

people.120 Kux was sure that any effort to counter Soviet disinformation should be done in a 

nonpolemical style and based on solid information. Palmer and Peck agreed, and Kux said 

he would try to do it. He investigated the issue for a while with his INR staff and reached two 

conclusions, both of which ran counter to State predilections. First, instead of shrinking back, 

the United States needed to publicize Soviet misdeeds. Second, it should be the Department 

of State that led the effort for the sake of credibility and to ensure the effort was managed with 

political sensitivity.

Kux believed the group would need to concentrate on disinformation, exposing base falsehoods that no reasonable person would countenance as acceptable diplomatic discourse (that is, 

not mere propaganda). Kux turned to the CIA, Foreign Service Posts, and USIA offices, asking 

them to gather the information needed for a realistic assessment of Soviet disinformation. Once 

he had a general idea of what the Soviets were up to, Kux formed an interagency group (sometime around the summer of 1981) to process the new information that INR was collecting. 

When the group began, it was chaired by State and included representatives from elsewhere in 

State, as well as the CIA, FBI, DOD, and USIA.121 Soon it also included members from the DIA, 

Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, and NSC staff. Attendance varied week to week and 

membership evolved over time. The group met weekly to analyze field reports, and over time 

participants began to see patterns and tactics in the information they had compiled. Armed 
36 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 11

with an increasingly better understanding of Soviet disinformation tactics and methods, the 

group decided to publicize regularly what it uncovered.

The working group received additional impetus from the arrival of John Lenczowski, a 

Reagan political appointee in State’s Bureau of European Affairs.122 Lenczowski arrived at State 

in May 1981 determined to invigorate American public diplomacy. His highest priority was 

strengthening Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, so they could overcome Soviet jamming and 

rapidly disseminate news of resistance to Soviet authority. This agenda was markedly assisted 

by KGB defector Stanislav Levchenko. In the summer of 1981, the CIA was making Levchenko 

available to State and other officials in order to educate them about Soviet goals and active 

measures techniques (see textbox 5).123 About the same time, a less classified version (Secret as 

opposed to Top Secret/Codeword) of the CIA’s study on Soviet active measures began circulating. The Secret version of the study had a press run of 3,000 copies—“perhaps the largest distribution of any CIA report” up to that point.124 Both Levchenko and the CIA study were useful 

tools for calling attention to the Soviet propaganda, diplomatic, and active measures campaigns.

Lenczowski found a ready ally for his agenda in Mark Palmer, who “took to public diplomacy 

like a fish to water.” Lenczowski reinforced Palmer’s appreciation for public diplomacy by getting 

him involved in the Levchenko meetings where he heard first-hand accounts of Soviet political 

warfare techniques, including the Soviet campaign to stop INF modernization. Palmer in turn 

joined Lenczowski in championing greater use of public broadcasting in Europe, including a substantially increased public diplomacy budget proposal that was almost universally condemned in 

State. With Palmer’s help, Lenczowksi succeeded in getting $2.5 billion to modernize VOA and 

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.125 The initiative went forward despite opposition from lower 

ranking officials, eventually making its way forward to President Reagan, who approved it.126 In 

turn, Palmer sent Lenczowski to the newly formed Active Measures Working Group, where he 

met Kux and encouraged the group to take a more proactive role in countering disinformation.127

Kux and Lenczowski agree that in 1981, career personnel at the State Department were 

not disposed to challenge Soviet disinformation and had to be encouraged. According to 

Kux, “the normal attitude in the Department of State was, ‘We don’t want to dignify that 

kind of stuff with a comment.’”128 Similarly, Lenczowski recalls, “not challenging the Soviets on [active measures] was sort of a cultural impulse that had developed to the point of 

etiquette. You just couldn’t talk about disinformation.”129 Most people in State believed that 

even blatant disinformation, including forgeries, was better left ignored.130 Within this environment, Levchenko became a key and credible resource for convincing otherwise skeptical 

State personnel that Soviet disinformation was not just a marginal concern and that it needed 
37

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Textbox 5. Soviet Defectors and Disinformation

Eastern bloc and Soviet defectors provided the U.S. Government with insights into 

Soviet active measures strategy, organization, and methods, and indirectly played a role in 

the creation of the Active Measures Working Group.

Laszlo Szabo defected in 1965 from the Hungarian Embassy in London. Szabo was an 

active measures expert whose task had been generating friction between the United States 

and United Kingdom. He testified to the U.S. Senate in 1966 that the Hungarian intelligence 

service worked closely with the KGB, that Soviet “advisors” had access to everything, and 

that Hungarian disinformation activities were controlled by the Soviets.1

Ladislav Bittman was a Czech intelligence officer with information on Soviet active 

measures.2

 He defected to the United States in 1968 after the Soviets crushed popular protests during “the Czech Spring.” He testified under an assumed name in 1971 telling the 

Senate, among other things, about Czech assistance to the KGB to smear Barry Goldwater 

(election manipulation the Soviets would repeat in later years).3

 The clumsy effort portrayed Goldwater as a racist conspiring with the John Birch Society to conduct a coup d’etat.

These two defectors were instrumental in revealing the extent to which the Soviet 

Union integrated and controlled the Warsaw Pact countries’ intelligence services. They also 

provided details on the goals and tactics of Soviet disinformation campaigns. Not a great 

deal was done with this information during the intelligence reform debates of the 1970s, but 

over a decade later, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) received another insider view of 

Soviet disinformation.

In October 1979, Stanislav Levchenko, a KGB officer in charge of the active measures division of the Tokyo KGB residence, contacted Americans and asked for asylum.4

By this time, the KGB had greatly expanded and upgraded its active measures capabilities, 

and Levchenko was able to tell the CIA exactly how the expanded organization operated. 

Levchenko became a major figure in the development of measures to combat Soviet active 

measures. He was brought in to brief government officials on the details of contemporary 

Soviet active measures, even while his debriefing process was ongoing and his presence in 

the United States was still sensitive.5

At the same time, Bittman, now using his real name, became more active in commentary on Soviet active measures. In 1980, he delivered a public statement on Soviet disinformation strategy and tactics. In the statement, he apologized for being one of the coauthors 
38 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 11

of Who’s Who in the CIA that led to the assassination of an American whom the book 

wrongly identified as a CIA agent. By 1982, the Agency believed that it was safe enough to 

have Levchenko testify publicly, and he provided a penetrating look inside the Soviet active 

measures bureaucracy.6

 All these defectors, but particularly Levchenko—because he was a 

Soviet and a more recent defector—helped the Reagan administration raise awareness in 

and outside government on Soviet active measures.7

1 Herbert Romerstein and Stanislav Levchenko, The KGB Against the “Main Enemy”: How 

the Soviet Intelligence Service Operates Against the United States (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 

1989), 271.

2 Ladislav Bittman, The KGB and Soviet Disinformation: An Insider’s View (Washington, 

DC: Pergamon-Brassey’s, 1985), ix.

3 The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) would go public to denounce a 1984 Soviet 

forgery designed to discredit President Ronald Reagan as a participant in “McCarthyism” during an 

election year. The forgery alleged that Reagan was working in collusion with the FBI and the House 

Committee on Un-American Activities to expose communist influence in Hollywood. See FBI, 

“Soviet Active Measures in the United States 1986–1987,” unpublished report, June 1987, 70.

4 Richard H. Shultz and Roy Godson, Dezinformatsia: Active Measures in Soviet Strategy

(Washington, DC: Pergamon-Brassey’s, 1984), 165.

5 Levchenko was a “Public Law 110 Personage,” allowing the Central Intelligence Agency 

(CIA) to give him cover and economic support outside of normal immigration channels. The law 

allows the director of Central Intelligence, with concurrence from the attorney general, to admit up 

to 100 immigrants and their families to the United States each year to help protect national security. Typically, these are foreign defectors who have cooperated with the CIA. Stanislav Levchenko, 

On the Wrong Side: My Life in the KGB (Washington, DC: Pergamon-Brassey’s, 1988), 181.

6 House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Soviet Active Measures, 97th Cong., 

2nd sess., 1982, 138.

7 John Lenczowski, interview by authors, March 11, 2011.

to be countered. His insights helped Lenczowski and Palmer sell their program for public 

diplomacy modernization, and also helped the Active Measures Working Group understand 

how Soviet disinformation campaigns worked.131

With insights from defectors such as Levchenko, and by trial and error, the Active 

Measures Working Group developed an approach that expanded the U.S. Government’s 

monitoring of Soviet disinformation from a CIA-only activity into a full-blown interagency 

Textbox 5. Soviet Defectors and Disinformation (cont.)
39

Deception, Disinformation, and Strategic Communications

counter-disinformation effort. Initially, most Soviet forgeries came to the group from the 

CIA, but soon the group developed its own Report-Analyze-Publicize (or RAP) methodology.132 The group instructed USIA overseas offices specifically to report all disinformation 

media stories and forgeries that they came across. When this information arrived at INR, 

in-house analysts as well as the CIA disinformation experts analyzed it. Initially, the CIA 

was instrumental in the analysis. The Agency was maintaining a computerized database 

of forgeries, had unfettered access to KGB defectors involved in active measures, and had 

at least five active measures and front group experts in its Directorate of Operations and 

Directorate of Intelligence.133

On October 9, 1981, the group fired its first salvo against Soviet disinformation: State Department Special Report 88, Soviet Active Measures: Forgery, Disinformation, Political Operations.134 It was just a four-page overview of Soviet active measures techniques illustrated with 

examples of Soviet disinformation campaigns, but State distributed 14,000 copies of the report 

to news organizations and other interested parties worldwide.135 Both the New York Times and 

Washington Post covered the release of the report. Two months later on December 8, the State 

Department held another press conference to expose Soviet forgeries. They distributed copies 

of the fake documents to attending journalists and identified an activist who had contributed to 

the disinformation campaigns in Norway. This event received less press interest. The New York 

Times simply remarked that the event was consistent with the new administration’s penchant for 

criticizing Soviet clandestine operations.136

In less than a year, Kux and his interagency group had built a picture of ongoing Soviet 

disinformation and come up with a strategy for collecting, analyzing, and confronting it with 

fact-based research and publicity. The existence of the group and its work gave experts within 

bureaucracy an outlet for their knowledge. As if to illustrate this point, the group’s next report 

was the initiative of a young INR analyst named David Hertzberg.137 Over the fall and winter 

of 1981, Hertzberg noticed a stream of reporting on Soviet officials being expelled from countries, and took it upon himself to document and analyze the trend.138 At the time, the Soviets 

were expanding their espionage activities, especially attempts to steal military technology and 

defense industry proprietary information. The increased activity was matched by an increase in 

the number of Soviet agents discovered and removed from countries for espionage. Hertzberg 

realized that if this data were compiled, it would reveal a trend of rising illegal activity entirely at 

odds with the benevolent image the Soviets were trying to project. Peter Knecht, a Public Affairs 

officer at State, called Hertzberg to see if the report could be declassified and published. The CIA 

balked at the exposure.
40 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 11

Publicity worried some officials in the CIA who feared that regular divulgence of intelligence 

on active measures could jeopardize the CIA’s collection methods or even provoke retaliation 

against intelligence assets.139 The FBI, which by the fall of 1981 also was sending participants to 

the group, shared this concern. Knecht therefore helped Hertzberg find open source information 

that could be used in lieu of CIA reporting. The results were published in February 1982 as an 

“informal research study for background information.” INR decided to call the product a Foreign 

Affairs Note and entitled it Expulsion of Soviet Representatives from Foreign Countries, 1970-81.

140

The document generated news coverage and commentary on the expansion of Soviet spying and 

was directly cited by at least two major publications.141 Soviet media ignored the report, apparently 

hoping that it would soon be forgotten. Two months later, in April, Hertzberg gave the group more 

ammunition. Working closely with Wallace Spaulding, the CIA’s foremost expert on Soviet front 

groups, Hertzberg produced a piece on the World Peace Council as a Soviet front organization, 

which the group reviewed and published as its second Foreign Affairs Note.142

Congress noticed the group’s activities, particularly at the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence where Romerstein kept a close eye on anything involving Soviet active 

measures. Romerstein had given briefings to the group’s members as they got up to speed on 

Soviet disinformation, and he attended some working group meetings where he was welcomed 

as an expert.143 Romerstein may have prompted Representative Young on the House Permanent 

Select Committee on Intelligence to request hearings on Soviet active measures in July of 1982 

(in effect updating the CIA testimony from 1980). In any case, he took responsibility for preparing the report on the hearings,144 which included testimony from John McMahon, deputy director of the CIA, Edward J. O’Malley, assistant director for intelligence at the FBI, and Stanislav 

Levchenko, the KGB defector. The testimony covered the process and content of Soviet active 

measures as well as U.S. efforts to confront them. McMahon mentioned the CIA’s efforts as well 

as the Active Measures Working Group and its Foreign Affairs Notes.

Just a few months after the group was mentioned in the Intelligence Committee hearings, 

it was thrust into the midst of a major policy issue. Earlier in the summer, almost a million 

people had gathered in New York’s Central Park to protest the nuclear arms race. In August, the 

House of Representatives barely voted down a call for an immediate freeze on U.S. and Soviet 

nuclear weapons by two votes.145 The World Peace Council, Communist Party USA, and other 

Soviet front groups had a role in the freeze movement’s leadership and planning. Reagan told 

veterans’ groups that the National Movement for a Freeze on Nuclear Weapons was a group of 

“honest and sincere people” who were being manipulated by those “who want the weakening of 

America.”146 The nuclear freeze movement’s leadership denied the claim and called the accusa-
41

Deception, Disinformation, and Strategic Communications

tions of Soviet manipulation a “red herring” that distracted people from the real issues involved 

in the debate. When the media pressed the White House for evidence of foreign manipulation, 

it pointed to the working group’s special report on active measures and its Foreign Affairs Note 

on the World Peace Council.147

The controversy over Soviet influence in the freeze movement prompted the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence to release an unclassified version of its July report on 

the Soviet active measures hearings. Congressman Edward Boland (D–MA) released the report 

stating that it ‘‘demonstrates what we have known for a long time—that the Soviet Union utilizes 

considerable amounts of time, money and manpower attempting, both covertly and overtly, to 

influence individuals, organizations and events in the United States and around the world.” But, 

he added, “Soviet agents have had no significant influence on the nuclear freeze movement.’’148

When the press asked Representative Young to comment on the lack of Soviet involvement despite the administration’s statements to the contrary, he just said it was not surprising that the 

report drew no conclusions about the freeze movement since it did not focus on that subject.149

From the working group’s point of view, the important thing was that Soviet active measures 

had come to the forefront of national debate.

Going into its second year, the Active Measures Working Group had momentum. It was 

reviewing Soviet disinformation regularly collected by State, USIA, and CIA, and was an active 

participant in the fight to counter Soviet disinformation.150 The group was growing more comfortable with an activist posture. While State’s regional offices and Public Affairs bureau sent 

representatives to make sure that the group’s activities were not too provocative, other departments such as USIA and Defense could be relied upon to lean forward. Reagan appointees in 

DOD and some career officers and DIA analysts had embraced Wick’s more aggressive public 

diplomacy, often in contrast to State ambivalence or disapproval. General Richard Stilwell (a retired Army four-star) was promoting strategic psychological operations and eventually created 

an office for this purpose.151 He had the support of his immediate superior, Under Secretary of 

Defense for Policy Fred Ikle.152 USIA and DOD sent multiple representatives to the group,153 and 

they helped balance the CIA, FBI, and State representatives who tended to be more cautious. 

The FBI in particular was generally silent in meetings, at least initially. They had the technical 

competence to be quite helpful, but were reluctant to weigh in for fear of getting ahead of policy 

(especially after COINTELPRO).154

With the group picking up steam and enjoying a growing record of success, Kux began looking for ways to make the group’s activities more effective. The group met once a week at most, and 

did not occupy all of Kux’s time or duties (or any member’s for that matter). There was room for 
42 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 11

expanding the group’s workload. Kux came up with the idea of exposing Soviet disinformation 

directly to audiences around the world. The group developed “a road show” that it could take to 

foreign governments and journalists. Several members of the Active Measures Working Group, 

including Kux, would give presentations describing Soviet disinformation activities and point out 

the falsehoods or tell-tale signs of forgery in each case.156 One participant called these trips “truth 

squads.”157 The first, led by Kux in spring 1983, included stops in Morocco, Italy, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Kenya. Another two went to Latin America and South Asia.158 Visiting six countries in 

8 days, the exhausted group learned that it would have to pace itself. In the future, they averaged 

about two countries a week.159 The group would travel on the weekend and then spend Monday 

being briefed at the U.S. Embassy. On Tuesday, they would brief the host country’s intelligence 

services on active measures in the morning, and then conclude the day by making presentations to 

journalists and doing local press interviews.160 They would travel to the next country on Wednesday and repeated the process on Thursday and Friday, traveling again on the weekend. Over the 

course of five or six such trips, the working group managed to get to Europe, the Middle East, and 

Africa (Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, and Kenya) and Asia (New Zealand, Australia, 

Malaysia, the Philippines, Japan, and South Korea).161

Generally, these visits were well received, but some posts were leery, expecting a “red under 

every bed” spin. Kux was aware of these sentiments and was effective in disarming such skepticism 

for two reasons. First, as he later stated, “the fact that we made a credible presentation—not an 

ideological show—lent a certain amount of professionalism to the whole effort.”162 Second, as Kux 

also noted, people “don’t like to be duped. Not only were we telling them they were being duped 

but we told them how.”163 It was easy for the Soviets to disseminate disinformation in the developing world because the populace was inclined to believe conspiracy theories and journalists were 

easily bought. However, Europe was susceptible as well (particularly Italy for some reason) and 

the team went to NATO headquarters for an annual meeting on active measures.164 The working 

group’s traveling road show served a prophylactic purpose, sensitizing foreign intelligence services 

and journalists to be on the lookout for disinformation and thus increasing the cost of doing business for Soviet disinformation specialists. It also increased awareness among U.S. officials overseas 

and led to more reporting on disinformation from the CIA, USIA, and State.

The group’s next Foreign Affairs Note on Soviet expulsions published in January of 1983 

made an even bigger splash in the media than the first and also drew comments from the Soviet 

media. Material used in Foreign Affairs Notes was taken from unclassified sources, which made 

coordination easier. These products also used direct quotations from Soviet sources, which some 

surmise the Soviets found particularly galling.165 After the Economist, Washington Times, and 
43

Deception, Disinformation, and Strategic Communications

Christian Science Monitor ran stories on the topic, the Soviets reacted.166 TASS and Pravda called 

the reporting “Spy-mania” and a “U.S.-orchestrated course of confrontation.”167 The Soviets tried 

to discredit the working group and the motives behind the reports rather than directly refute the 

evidence. After a few press conferences pursuing this tack unsuccessfully, the Soviets fell silent.

Kux and the group realized early on that the key to exposing Soviet disinformation and 

forgeries was preserving the group’s unimpeachable record of accuracy and trustworthiness. 

This was driven home by an incident at one of the group’s early press conferences. According to 

Kux, a well-informed and well-placed TASS official gave their analysis a “factual shellacking.” It 

was, he stated, his “bleakest day in the Foreign Service.”168 Chastened but not discouraged, Kux 

realized that maintaining high standards was as important as enthusiasm for tackling disinformation. From then on the working group made a point of making sure all its public denouncements of Soviet disinformation were solid enough to “get a grand jury indictment” (that is, to 

demonstrate there was probable cause to believe something was actually “disinformation,” and 

that the Soviets were behind it).169

It became standard practice for every forgery case to be examined with clinical detachment and thoroughness. The team looked first at the quality of the document, realizing that the 

Soviets were quite professional whereas others such as the Libyans or mere cranks were not. 

If the document was up to Soviet standards, they would look for tell-tale errors. Despite the 

general professionalism of Soviet forgers, it was not easy for them to get every detail precisely 

right. For example, the forger might be working from older documents that did not reveal the 

most current Department of State cable numbering system or classification acronyms (“tags” in 

State lingo). Also, the Soviets sometimes “slipped up when transliterating place names, using a 

non U.S. spelling.” Finally, the team “considered the message and who the target was. With the 

Soviets, this was usually fairly obvious, fitting in with their current propaganda campaigns.”170

If after a thorough review of all the details, the working group thought it could make its case to 

an impartial panel of judges, it would expose the forgery.

Some of the disinformation cases that the working group investigated were easy, and 

others were complex and politically sensitive. An example of the latter was the use of Soviet 

forgeries to attribute blame to the United States for the attempted assassination of Pope John 

Paul II by Mehmet Ali Ağca on May 13, 1981. The Soviet forgeries of cables from the U.S. 

Embassy in Rome, which emerged in July 1983, were excellent. Kux noted in retrospect that 

identifying their origin as Soviet was quite difficult.171 The group “had to take the fake telegram apart by pointing out the technical mistakes.” One indicator was the transliteration of 

the word “Brasilia,” which was done in a way that suggested that it had been translated from 
44 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 11

Russian. The Embassy in Rome moved immediately to counter the damage from this case 

of Soviet disinformation, and the working group followed up by exposing the forgeries in a 

special report in September 1983.172

The need for caution and high standards also was evident from a mid-1983 attempt by Soviet sympathizers to discredit the working group, which by this point was beginning to achieve 

some notoriety. In July, the group discovered a report of a bogus conversation between Reagan 

and Margaret Thatcher that made the British prime minister look bad. The group noted the 

taped conversation was a fake in a press conference in late July and mentioned it again in a report in September. They were on the verge of going to Marvin Kalb of CBS and linking the story 

to Soviet disinformation but held back because they were not confident it was Soviet disinformation since the target was Thatcher rather than Reagan.173 They were glad they did when, on 

January 25, 1984, the Washington Post reported a confession from the British rock band Crass, 

who admitted they had made the tape in their recording studio.174 The musicians claimed it was 

a hoax to discredit Thatcher and the Active Measures Working Group. It is not clear that the 

Soviets were involved in the hoax, but the incident at least suggested how much the disinformation fight had penetrated the public consciousness and served as yet another reminder to the 

working group on the dangers of speculation beyond what might be reasonably extrapolated 

from available evidence. Even so, the working group soon found itself embroiled in an even 

more serious disinformation controversy.

The problem began when the Israelis forged a transcript of a meeting purportedly between 

Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger and the Saudi government concerning the sales of 

M-1 Abrams tanks. The forgery was “very, very well done.”175 The Israelis gave the transcript 

to Mayor Ed Koch of New York City, a nationally known supporter of Israel, who wrote to 

Weinberger demanding an explanation for some of the promises made in the forgery. DOD had 

no idea what to do with Koch’s letter and turned to the Active Measure Working Group. Kux 

called a Koch aide whom he happened to know and learned that the Israeli Consul General had 

given the forgery to Koch.176 The FBI field office in New York, on its own volition, paid a visit 

to Koch seeking further information about how he received the fabricated transcript. Incensed, 

Koch began corresponding with the director of the FBI, claiming Secretary Weinberger was 

attempting to deny him his constitutional right to comment upon matters of national policy.177

The New York Times ran a story on its front page about the contretemps.178 The attention the 

story generated and the political sensitivity of Israeli disinformation made the case radioactive. 

When the working group prepared draft press guidance for the State Department spokesman, 

Kux recalled, “We were basically told to ‘go away and shut up.’”179
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Deception, Disinformation, and Strategic Communications

The case taught the working group that high evidentiary standards of proof only provided 

so much protection; some cases were politically explosive irrespective. Kux’s attitude was that 

all forgeries targeting the United States should be exposed, but politics sometimes dictated otherwise. The case was not unique; reportedly, other allies also were guilty of forgeries affecting 

U.S. interests that went unchallenged.180 The case was also a sober reminder that agencies (in 

this case the FBI) could act independently on information from the group rather than working 

out a course of action within the group.

The limits of high evidentiary standards were also apparent in the working group’s relations with other offices in State and CIA. The group received support from leaders in some 

geographic offices, such as Palmer and Peck, but other regional specialists worried that exposing disinformation would upset bilateral relations.181 In their view, the value of countering the 

disinformation required a political assessment of likely effects, so they kept close tabs on the 

group. Soviet specialists in particular were skeptical about the group’s work. They generally considered the working group a sop to political appointees and a real distraction that siphoned off 

resources better used for “serious work.”182 Such skepticism and bureaucratic resistance could 

easily have stymied the group’s work, but it was able to avoid this fate for several reasons.

The first reason the group did not succumb to bureaucratic blockage was Kux’s leadership. 

He worked to accommodate specific concerns expressed by other offices and to ensure at least 

passive support from senior officials in State. The second factor was the presence and direct support of influential Reagan administration officials who took a personal interest in the group’s efforts. Lenczowski, for example, who became a personal advisor to Eagleburger when he moved 

up from assistant to under secretary of State, went to working group meetings, and his presence 

and encouragement pushed the group to be more active.183 He notes that “Since I didn’t owe my 

allegiance to the Department [of State], because I was a political appointee, I was able to stretch 

the boundaries of what was acceptable politics.”184 Other group members agreed, noting they 

followed Lenczowski’s lead because he could speak with authority for the new administration.185

Senior political appointees like Lenczowski effectively communicated the proactive and confrontational attitude of the Reagan administration, so group members knew there was political 

pressure to overcome routine coordination challenges among their respective organizations, 

and also political cover for the group’s work.

The third factor was the dedication of the working-level participants in the group and the fact 

that they represented so many departments and agencies. The expertise in the working group grew 

over time. As member expertise increased, so did commitment to the group’s work. The fact that the 

group represented many national security organizations ultimately inclined it to be more activist. 
46 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 11

Once the group decided on the most appropriate response to any particular case of disinformation 

and worked through any classification issues, it could act with the assurance that comes from a broad 

consensus. In addition, the organizational diversity helped ensure that no one member could be 

dismissed as a zealot. Several group members believe DOD participation was particularly helpful in 

this regard. Defense representatives with a background in psychological operations were naturally 

inclined to think “influence” operations were important. They were also career military officers and 

civil servants, so their support could not be dismissed as “right wing political extremism.”186

Yet another factor inclining the group toward an activist posture was positive feedback. 

Friendly foreign government sources were applauding the group’s work, which inclined Hertzberg’s office director and veteran Soviet watcher Robert Baraz to begin calling the praise from 

U.S. Embassies for the Foreign Affairs Notes “FAN-mail.”187 Soviet irritation was taken as another sign of success. Toward the end of Kux’s tenure, the Soviet media paid homage to the group’s 

work by specifically denouncing it for the first time. The World Peace Council, long recognized 

as a Soviet front group, was orchestrating a “Peace Assembly” in Prague to say “no to nuclear 

weapons in Europe.”188 Hertzberg and Wallace Spaulding wrote a Foreign Affairs Note about the 

assembly and what could be expected from it given Soviet control of the sponsoring organization.189 The Soviets made a point of ridiculing the report during Moscow Domestic Television’s 

coverage of the event:

Chronic liars from the State Department apparatus distributed this pamphlet of 

lies on the eve of the assembly. It has its origins in the State Department’s bureau 

of Public Affairs. The pamphlet says that this assembly represents a gathering 

of communists but only communists who, they say, got together here in order 

to support Soviet foreign policy versus U.S. foreign policy. It says here that this 

assembly was allegedly set up by the World Peace Council and the Czechoslovak 

Communist Party which are controlled by and from Moscow.190

The report from the “chronic liars” was accurate, so the Soviets could only emphasize the large 

and diverse attendance at the assembly (1,843 national organizations from 132 countries were 

represented) and defend their political front group by trying to discredit those who exposed it. 

The working group interpreted the unprecedented Soviet response as evidence that its products 

were having an effect.191

Despite such circumstantial evidence of the group’s impact, Kux believed that the entire 

effort was best understood in the context of a long-term contest. In a televised interview for a 
47

Deception, Disinformation, and Strategic Communications

documentary on Soviet active measures, he argued the problem was cumulative and enduring: 

“One way to look at these active measures, which have gone on for many, many years, since the 

1950s . . . is to think of drops of water falling on a stone. Over five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen 

minutes, one hour, one day nothing happens, but five years, ten years, fifteen years, goes by and 

you’ve got a hole in the stone.”192

Kux’s long-term view of the significance of active measures acknowledged that there were 

seldom “knock-out” blows in the information-disinformation contest with the Soviet Union. 

This line of reasoning emphasized the need to mount a sustained effort to ward off the cumulative effects of Soviet disinformation, but at the same time avoided making too much of it, which 

State liked. Kux also ensured that the group remained focused on disinformation (outright lies) 

rather than propaganda (persuasion) and that it exposed Soviet lies not in an “ideological” but 

in a “professional” fashion.193

Collectively, this approach to countering Soviet disinformation made the working 

group more tolerable to State. Even after Kux’s departure, his successors would evaluate 

Soviet disinformation as a long-term, marginal problem194 best countered with a “nonpolemical” style.195 This approach persisted in part because Kux helped institutionalize it. 

In a major coup, Kux managed to get Lawrence Eagleburger, the under secretary of State for 

political affairs, to put his name on an article explaining the need to counter Soviet active 

measures and the right approach for doing so.

Published in both NATO Review and the Department of State Bulletin,

196 the article rejected 

a “ho-hum,” “everyone does it” approach to Soviet active measures and explained the U.S. Government view that it was important for free societies to confront and expose Soviet disinformation. Eagleburger stated that “it is as unwise to ignore the threat as it is to become obsessed with 

the myth of a super Soviet Conspiracy manipulating our essential political processes,” but also 

insisted that Soviet use of active measures was a regular instrument of Soviet foreign policy and 

“an indicator of underlying hostility.” As such, “active measures should remain a cause of concern to the alliance,” and “conversely, the cessation of these activities would remove a significant 

obstacle to improved relations.” The article codified State’s approach to countering active measures, which included “effective counterintelligence,” “persistent and continuing” exposure, and 

“the highest standards of accuracy.” Eagleburger’s public support softened institutional resistance in State to countering disinformation, and made it U.S. policy that improved U.S.-Soviet 

relations required Soviet restraint on active measures.197

In summary, the short-term net effect of the group’s substantive work might have been 

uncertain, but its bureaucratic achievement was much more evident. By the end of 1983, 
48 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 11

the Active Measures Working Group was firmly established as an action-oriented group 

committed to its mission and able to overcome bureaucratic resistance. The working group 

attracted experts who felt their work could make an impact in the escalating information 

war with the Soviet Union, which complemented and overlapped with other Reagan administration efforts to pressure the Soviet Union (see textbox 6). For these analysts, used to 

producing internal reports that never garnered public attention, the group’s work and the 

attention it received were invigorating. They and other working group members had built 

up competence in the basic functions of the group. They had developed professional standards, an operational rhythm for truth trips, and a number of responsive and well-received 

reports. These bureaucratic and substantive achievements were unusual for an interagency 

working group, and other organizations took note of the group’s success. There was even 

some speculation that CIA and USIA wanted to take charge of the working group.198 However, Kux had it firmly rooted in the Department of State, and its foundation would prove 

strong enough to carry the group and its activities forward through the period of uncertain 

leadership following his departure.

Momentum Carries the Working Group: 1984–1985

In January 1984, Dennis Kux left INR and the Active Measures Working Group. After 3 

years, the State Department moved him to another assignment as part of its normal rotational 

cycle.199 His absence was immediately felt. The group “was a little rudderless” without him,200

and its productivity decreased (see figure 1). Lenczowski, who was well respected by the group, 

provided a sense of continuity and dynamism after Kux left, but he could not devote a large 

portion of his energies to the effort.201 In INR, there was some indecision about which of the 

deputy assistant secretaries should oversee the working group. William Knepper, an INR deputy 

assistant secretary, ran it for a couple of months, but he was a Latin America and economic 

expert and happy to hand it off.202 Tom Thorne eventually replaced Kux as deputy assistant 

secretary for coordination, but he was not much interested in active measures or interagency 

coordination. By the summer of 1984, he had delegated responsibility for chairing most of INR’s 

working-level interagency committees—including active measures—to Lucian Heichler, the director of the Office of Coordination. Heichler was a senior Foreign Service Officer (an FSO-1, 

or the highest rank just below Career Minister and Career Ambassador), who was intelligent, 

collegial, and respected by the group. He had been a member briefly under Kux’s leadership but 

otherwise came to the effort without the benefit of active measures expertise.203 He also had less 

clout than Kux, being an office director rather than a deputy assistant secretary.
49

Deception, Disinformation, and Strategic Communications

Textbox 6. Able Archer 83: Strategic Miscommunication?

Cold War historians believe that the United States and Soviet Union came to the brink 

of nuclear war during a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) military exercise in the 

fall of 1983.1

 In retrospect, the incident seems to have been a case of strategic miscommunication. President Ronald Reagan’s strategy for U.S.-Soviet relations was codified in National 

Security Decision Directive 75,2

 summarized simply by one knowledgeable participant as 

“Win the Cold War!”3

 The strategy directive required stronger U.S. military and intelligence 

capabilities, confrontation with the Soviet Union in the “war of ideas,” and other steps to 

pressure the Soviet Union to make changes to its internal political system. For example, 

to retard an already handicapped Soviet economic system, the Reagan administration fed 

flawed products to Soviet agents stealing Western technology so that “contrived computer 

chips found their way into Soviet military equipment, flawed turbines were installed on 

a gas pipeline, and defective plans disrupted the output of chemical plants and a tractor 

factory.”4

 The Reagan strategy also required adroit strategic communications to convince 

Moscow “that unacceptable behavior will incur costs that would outweigh any gains” and 

that restraint “might bring important benefits for the Soviet Union.”5

From the beginning, however, strategic communications were complicated by misperceptions on both sides. In the months following Reagan’s inauguration, his administration 

launched covert operations and “strategic psychological operations”6

 to demonstrate U.S. 

resolve and capabilities. The operations were a series of naval and air probes near Soviet 

borders that were so sensitive “nothing was written down about it, so there would be no 

paper trail.”7

 Every few weeks, the United States sent bombers over the North Pole to probe 

Soviet airspace and test radar defenses, and in September 1981, an 83-ship battle group 

of U.S., British, Canadian, and Norwegian ships managed to traverse the Greenland–Iceland–United Kingdom gap undetected using advanced deception techniques. Planes from 

the group ran combat air patrols and launched simulated attacks on Soviet reconnaissance 

planes attempting to locate the U.S. carrier heading the battlegroup.

The United States assumed that the Soviets understood that these exercises were demonstrations of what the Nation could do, not necessarily what it would do—after all, the 

Soviets conducted similar military maneuvers. However, these edgy operations drove home 

the point that Soviet technical means for detecting a first strike were significantly inferior 

to those of the United States and reinforced Soviet concerns that an increasingly capable 
50 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 11

America could win a preemptive war. After a few months of such activity, Soviet leaders 

such as General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev and KGB head Yuri Andropov apparently believed Reagan’s “anti-Soviet” campaign rhetoric was not just hyperbole but rather a reflection of a real desire to build and execute a nuclear first-strike capability.8

 They ordered 

a massive intelligence effort that had Soviet agents scouring the world for early warning 

of U.S. intentions and capabilities for a nuclear first strike. Code-named Operation Ryan 

(Ryan being the Russian acronym for “nuclear missile attack”), the Soviet collection effort 

relied in part on the openness of Western society to help the KGB track the locations of senior Western leaders as an indication of whether they were situated to conduct nuclear war.

After a couple of years of give and take in these matters, a series of developments escalated tensions. In March 1983, President Reagan announced the Strategic Defense Initiative to protect the United States from Soviet missiles, which raised Soviet concerns that the 

United States was interested in capabilities that would allow it to strike first with impunity. 

Then in September 1983, the Soviet Union blundered and shot down Korean Air Lines 

Flight 007 when it approached Soviet airspace, driving up animosity and belligerent rhetoric between the two superpowers. Shortly after the Korean Air Lines tragedy, NATO’s training exercise, Able Archer 83, took place. During the exercise, NATO high-level military and 

civilian leaders went to secure locations. Even the U.S. President and Vice President made 

cameo appearances in the simulation. Communication volume increased with new codes in 

use, and several installations dropped into radio silence. As the exercise continued, NATO 

forces went to DEFCON 1 (the highest defense readiness alert posture, generally indicating nuclear war is imminent), and then the exercise concluded with a simulated release of 

nuclear weapons.

Similar exercises had been conducted before, but given the unusually tense atmosphere, the Soviets reacted as if they believed the exercise might be a prelude to a nuclear 

first strike. They armed their bombers and took other steps to improve nuclear readiness 

such as putting their missiles and air assets in East Germany and Poland on alert. The crisis 

passed with Western observers oblivious to Soviet reactions. Later, however, a British agent 

inside the KGB (Oleg Gordievsky) warned the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) that the Soviets genuinely thought the United States was preparing for preemptive war, and the British 

passed this intelligence on to counterparts in the United States.9

Textbox 6. Able Archer 83: Strategic Miscommunication? (cont.)
51

Deception, Disinformation, and Strategic Communications

To this day, opinions differ as to how seriously the Soviets took the threat of a U.S. first 

strike. Some simply assert that “the United States does not do Pearl Harbors,” which should 

be self-evident. Others think that Soviet leaders genuinely believed the United States was interested in a first strike; if so, perhaps they were victims of their own propaganda since the 

KGB forged multiple documents with the theme that U.S. leaders such as Secretary of State 

Alexander Haig and Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger wanted a first strike against the 

Soviet Union. Others, who defined Soviet strategic deception largely as an attempt to “get their 

lies on the President’s desk,” were skeptical. Perhaps Soviet leaders were just exaggerating the 

extent to which Able Archer brought both sides to the brink of nuclear confrontation. At the 

time, they were doing everything possible to use fear of nuclear war to derail the impending 

deployment of new U.S. intermediate-range theater nuclear forces in Europe that could hit 

Soviet targets in under 6 minutes. A U.S. National Intelligence Estimate at the time concluded 

that Soviet posturing during the incident was “more propaganda than threat perception,”10 but 

since then, some well-informed observers have concluded otherwise.

In any case, the apparent Soviet reaction “scared the hell out of Reagan”11 when he 

learned about it and “convinced him that he had pushed the Russians far enough.”12 To the 

consternation of some of his advisors, the President adopted a more conciliatory tone in his 

next speech. He also pursued arms control negotiations in his second term more assiduously 

when Mikhail Gorbachev, intent on political reform, emerged as the supreme Soviet leader. 

They exchanged strategic communications on a personal level based on the perception that 

each was “a man you could do business with.”13 Thus, the balance between Cold War cooperation and confrontation in Reagan’s strategy for U.S.-Soviet relations shifted in his second term.

1 John Lewis Gaddis, The Cold War: A New History (New York: Penguin, 2005), 227–228.

2 National Security Decision Directive (NSDD) 75, January 17, 1983, available at <www.

fas.org/irp/offdocs/nsdd/23-1958t.gif>. The directive was actually implemented from the advent of 

the administration.

3 David Major, interview with authors, May 5, 2011.

4 Guss W. Weiss, “Duping the Soviets: The Farewell Dossier,” Central Intelligence Agency 

(CIA) Studies in Intelligence, available at <https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-ofintelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/index.html>. One knowledgeable source indicates these 

efforts resulted in a massive explosion of the Trans-Siberian pipeline. See Thomas C. Reed, At the

Abyss: An Insider’s History of the Cold War (New York: Presidio Press Book, 2004), 268ff.

Textbox 6. Able Archer 83: Strategic Miscommunication? (cont.)
52 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 11

5 NSDD 75.

6 Melvin A. Goodman, Failure of Intelligence: The Decline and Fall of the CIA (Lanham, 

MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008), 151–152. Goodman does not specify the covert operations, but 

notes that those in Eastern Europe particularly concerned Moscow.

7 Peter Schweizer, Victory: The Reagan Administration’s Secret Strategy That Hastened the 

Collapse of the Soviet Union (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1994), 8.

8 Benjamin B. Fischer, “A Cold War Conundrum: The 1983 Soviet War Scare,” CIA Studies 

in Intelligence, available at <https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csipublications/books-and-monographs/a-cold-war-conundrum/source.htm>. The account here is 

largely taken from Fischer’s excellent analysis.

9 Goodman, 151.

10 Fischer. Another senior Reagan official has noted that even as late as 1985, Gorbachev 

“was still being advised that any real agreement with Reagan would be impossible and that the only 

prudent course for the Soviet Union was to continue its confrontational policies until U.S. allies 

woke up to the dangers and pressed Reagan or his successor to act more rationally.” See Jack F. Matlock, Reagan and Gorbachev: How the Cold War Ended (New York: Random House, 2004), 154.

11 John Lenczowski, interview with authors, March 11, 2011.

12 Gaddis, 228.

13 Mikhail Gorbachev, Memoirs (New York: Doubleday, 1995), 405.

Textbox 6. Able Archer 83: Strategic Miscommunication? (cont.)

In the little under 2 years that Heichler led the group (January 1984 to the fall of 1985), he 

played an effective managerial role and used the substantive abilities of the other members of 

the group to good effect.204 In this regard, Herb Romerstein, who moved from his congressional 

staff position to USIA in 1983 to head that organization’s new Office to Counter Soviet Disinformation, was instrumental. Romerstein constantly took new members under his wing, tutoring 

them on the fine points of Soviet active measures. His network across the U.S. Government was 

unparalleled and extended overseas as well, allowing him to help Heichler continue the truthsquad presentations. With collegial leadership, a firm foundation of activities and methods in 

place, and knowledgeable and committed individual members, the group was able to carry on 

and even rack up additional noteworthy successes.

For example, the group scored a major victory against the KGB only a few months after 

Heichler took over. The Soviets wanted revenge for Carter’s boycott of the Moscow Summer 

Olympics in 1980. Since the United States had not invaded any countries in the runup to the 

1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, the KGB manufactured a public relations crisis. In July, 
53

Deception, Disinformation, and Strategic Communications

KGB officers forged letters from the Ku Klux Klan that threatened athletes from African countries and mailed them from Washington, DC, to these countries’ Olympic committees. The 

forgeries caused an immediate stir, and the working group was under pressure to expose them. 

Grammatical errors pointed to a Russian language origin, but the working group could not say 

with certainty that the letters were Soviet forgeries. Then the group received an intelligence 

coup. One of the FBI’s sources in the KGB had participated in the production of the letters 

and confirmed their origin.205 The working group had its smoking gun but could not use it as 

evidence for fear that it would compromise the KGB source and lead to his death.206 The group 

came up with ways to protect the source, and the FBI eventually approved the release of some 

of their source’s sensitive information. The Active Measures Working Group was then able to 

report conclusively that the letters were Soviet forgeries, which allowed USIA and State to reassure the targeted African countries. No African country withdrew their athletes from the Los 

Angeles games.

The group also continued to produce Foreign Affairs Notes, thanks to David Hertzberg, 

who wrote almost all of them. The State Department published the year-end Foreign Affairs 

Note on the expulsion of Soviet officials on time, and translated it into Spanish, French, and 

Arabic. The working group followed up with a message to all overseas posts advertising the 

document and noted that the “interagency Working Group on Active Measures” would appreciate “suggestions on how the FAN Series can be made more effective, including suggested 

topics.”207 Over the next 6 months, the group published three more Foreign Affairs Notes on 

Figure 1. 

1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990

Year Year

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Foreign Aairs 

Notes

Special Reports

Policy Products

Major Reports

Number of Reports

Number of Reports (1 major = 10 others)

Working Group Public

Product Frequency

Working Group Public

Product Frequency (Weighted)
54 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 11

front group gatherings. United States Information Service Germany distributed 13,577 copies of one of these publications in both German and English to German youth organizations, 

union officials, state governments, the media, and academic institutions during the runup to 

the Soviet-sponsored 12th Youth Festival in Moscow that summer. The report received positive 

reviews from all over Germany. One official in a youth organization wrote:

This report greatly expanded my knowledge about the work of the Soviet Union’s 

front organizations and offered me an effective tool for my political work in the 

Jung Union of Germany. I can only characterize as especially positive the efforts 

the United States is taking to counteract Soviet Propaganda. Your efforts against 

the artificially exaggerated “anti-Americanism” cannot be emphasized enough.208

Such positive feedback encouraged the group and also helped insulate it and the Department 

of State more generally from criticism that publicizing Soviet disinformation was a distraction 

from more important issues.209

In the fall of 1985, members of the working group testified in hearings before the Senate 

Subcommittee on European Affairs. The active measures briefing team consisted of Heichler, 

Romerstein, and two other USIA officials: Pete Copp, policy officer on Soviet Disinformation, 

and Stanton Burnett, the highest ranking career civil servant in USIA. The group gave the Senate the truth-squad presentation for the first time on American soil. Their presentation capped 

2 days of hearings where the CIA and FBI reported on their efforts and Thomas Thorne (the 

working group’s erstwhile supervising deputy assistant secretary in INR) summed up the Active 

Measures Working Group’s record. In 4 years, the group had produced 20 unclassified documents (mainly Special Reports and Foreign Affairs Notes),210 coordinated a number of sessions 

with interested journalists, visited over 20 foreign countries to sensitize embassies and foreign 

countries to active measures, and ensured that overseas posts were kept informed of active measures and had priority assignments to report possible forgeries that occurred.211

In short, the group was still producing reports and conducting truth-squad trips under 

Heichler as it had under Kux. Even so, the energy and political support for the group began to 

wane. For one thing, competing activities took the spotlight off of the group. In part because of 

the challenge the Soviets mounted to NATO’s theater nuclear force modernization, the Reagan 

administration decided that public diplomacy efforts needed to be more tightly integrated by 

the White House. The process began more than a year before Kux left, but its effects on the 

group’s activity were not really felt until after his departure.
55

Deception, Disinformation, and Strategic Communications

CIA Director Casey transferred Walter Raymond, a CIA public diplomacy and active measures expert, to the NSC in 1982. Raymond was tasked with building up the executive branch’s 

ability to coordinate public diplomacy. He worked on drafting National Security Decision Directive 77 (NSDD 77), which was issued by the President in January 1983. NSDD 77 set up a senior 

planning group, chaired by Raymond, and four interagency subgroups that would coordinate different aspects of public diplomacy.212 On December 15, 1983, as part of his wider public diplomacy 

effort, Raymond started another interagency group called the Soviet Political Action Working 

Group. Raymond’s group had a broader purpose than the Active Measures Working Group. Its 

objectives were twofold: “to contain and counter Soviet political initiatives around the world” 

and “to promote the process of change within the Soviet Union.”213 This first objective overlapped 

with that of the Active Measures Working Group. However, the second objective gave the group 

an activity set that veered away from simply countering active measures into actually implementing active measures against the Soviet Union—something the Active Measures Working Group 

assiduously avoided. According to some with first-hand knowledge, the classified working group’s 

activities could be highly effective—”stunning programs” that “boggled the mind.”214

This classified NSC working group became a major outlet for the more aggressively actionoriented members of the working group at State. Lenczowski, who had recently moved to the NSC 

as director of European and Soviet Affairs, Steve Mann of the State Department’s Soviet Bureau 

(also assigned by INR’s Soviet office to keep an eye on Kux’s working group), and Romerstein were 

in attendance at the NSC group’s first meeting.215 Romerstein quickly took advantage of the more 

permissive operating environment. He was tasked with producing an action paper with Levchenko that would “take the offensive and make [the Soviets] pay the price for these initiatives.”216 The 

group would revisit the Romerstein and Levchenko work at their next month’s meeting.217

People who attended both the classified NSC and unclassified State working groups on 

Soviet active measures helped ensure that there were no conflicts between their respective activities.218 Sometimes the NSC group would give filtered material to the unclassified group to 

handle, but it also countered Soviet active measures directly or would find a foreign intelligence 

organization to manage the issue in question.219 Initially, some of the NSC group’s members occasionally came to meetings of the unclassified group to provide encouragement, but by 1985 

their attention was elsewhere.220 With the INF deployment successfully resolved in Europe, the 

classified active measures working group at the NSC was turning its attention to Latin America. 

Reagan’s reelection seemed to give them more latitude to address left-wing advances in Central 

America, and these highly classified activities became the main show for many of the Reagan 

political appointees who previously had supported State’s group.
56 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 11

Another disadvantage for the Active Measures Working Group after Kux’s departure was the 

leadership transition at State. During Reagan’s second term, Secretary of State George Shultz began 

a changing of the guard at the assistant secretary level. One of the assistant secretaries slated to leave 

was Hugh Montgomery, a former CIA official and assistant secretary in charge of INR. Montgomery 

reportedly had been favorably inclined toward the working group. Shultz named Morton Abramowitz, a career State Department official, to replace him. This raised fears among conservatives that 

Shultz was preparing a purge of some of the more committed Reagan political appointees and that 

once State was firmly under Shultz’s control, it would act as a moderating force and curtail DOD and 

CIA influence over foreign policy.221 For their part, many career officials at State viewed Abramowitz’s confirmation as a test of whether he was willing and able to use his clout to protect career officers 

from political recriminations. Abramowitz’s first nomination as Ambassador to Indonesia had been 

derailed by opposition from DOD, CIA, and congressional conservatives. Career Foreign Service 

Officers considered this political revenge for implementing Carter’s policies.222 Abramowitz’s confirmation was held up until the end of 1985 by Republican Senator Jesse Helms (R–NC).

Meanwhile, Heichler decided to retire from the Foreign Service in the fall of 1985. Other 

than the Active Measures Working Group, he was not finding his work in INR challenging, and 

he decided to take advantage of a new State Department retirement program.223 About the same 

time, Deputy Assistant Secretary Thorne left for another opportunity (though he would later 

return to INR). With Montgomery, Thorne, and Heichler gone, and Abramowitz’s confirmation 

still on hold, the group did not have a chairman, deputy assistant secretary, or assistant secretary 

interested in it or looking out for it. During this period, the group was headed by a series of 

Foreign Service Officers who assumed the title of acting office director while the INR leadership 

situation was sorted out.224 Reagan appointees wanted the working group to continue its work, 

but in the meantime, they could counter Soviet disinformation via the classified working group 

at the NSC.

From the Department of State’s point of view, the Active Measures Working Group was too well 

established and successful to mess with but too dangerous to leave unsupervised. Heichler’s departure left State with little moderating control over more conservative influences such as Romerstein 

and Lawrence Sulc. Sulc was a former CIA Clandestine Service official who was interested in leading the group after being appointed as a deputy assistant secretary in INR.225 Romerstein, Sulc, and 

others were eager to bring up topics such as Soviet sponsorship of terrorism and Soviet deception 

on nuclear arms control. State, some CIA officials, and the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, 

which now had a member on the group, feared that without some sort of check on the group, it 

would veer off in directions that could damage private diplomacy, intelligence collection, and arms 
57

Deception, Disinformation, and Strategic Communications

control negotiations.226 To prevent that, State was happy to let the group languish in leadership limbo 

until the chain of command issues at INR were resolved.

Sulc got his appointment as a deputy assistant secretary of State for INR in 1985. However, he was not given Kux’s old position as deputy assistant secretary for coordination. Instead, 

he was made deputy assistant secretary for interdepartmental affairs in the INR—apparently a 

position with few formal responsibilities.227 Sulc never got to run the Active Measures Working Group, but he collaborated with others to elevate the profile of the group’s activities and 

ensure that they were sustained. Congressman Newt Gingrich (R–GA) is a case in point.228

Gingrich shared Sulc’s belief that countering Soviet influence and active measures was a vital 

part of confronting Soviet power. He argued that the Soviet Union “has a very large and elaborate network for disinformation and the Soviets spend a lot of time trying to think through 

how can we deal with manipulating the American press.”229 He also believed the documents 

captured by American forces in Grenada revealed the true face of communism and lamented 

the fact that the American press and academia had not paid more attention to them.230 To help 

correct the situation, in 1985 he sponsored an amendment promoting a permanent office in 

the Department of State on “Soviet and communist disinformation and press manipulation” 

to better inform the American public on these issues.231 With Sulc’s encouragement, he also 

added an amendment to unrelated legislation stipulating that State must produce a public 

report on Soviet active measures.232

Having sponsored the requirement for a public report on Soviet active measures, Gingrich 

took a personal interest in the working group’s efforts. Stanton Burnett, the second highest official 

in the USIA and a participant in some of the working group’s meetings, remembers running into 

Gingrich by accident while waiting for a flight at National Airport. He was surprised that Gingrich 

remembered him from some previous meeting, and even more surprised when the Congressman 

grilled him on the political views of the group. Gingrich left Stanton with the impression that he did 

not trust career civil servants but that he personally was interested in the working group’s success.233

In the winter of 1985–1986, the Department of State broke free the Abramowitz appointment as assistant secretary for INR in part by agreeing to take another Reagan political appointee aboard in INR to run the Active Measures Working Group. State assuaged the concerns of 

the congressional conservatives and Reagan officials by accepting Kathleen Bailey as a deputy 

assistant secretary in INR. In accepting the moderate Bailey as a Reagan administration political appointee, State blocked the hardliner Sulc from running the working group and moving it 

in unhealthy directions.234 With INR’s three deputy assistant secretary positions already filled, 

State allocated an additional position for her, but it was worth the effort.
58 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 11

Thus, political maneuvering delayed the working group’s leadership transition for months and 

also earned it a congressional mandate to provide a public report that would be a major preoccupation of Bailey’s after she arrived in INR to assume duties. Since the working group had been leaderless for so long, Bailey took over under the impression that she was essentially starting the counterdisinformation effort from scratch. She was aware that there were experts on Soviet active measures 

but thought they represented an informal association rather than a functioning working group.235

The Apogee of the Active Measures Working Group: 1986–1987

When Kathleen Bailey took the helm of the working group, she had both a major advantage and disadvantage. The disadvantage was the lack of respect she received from many of the 

working group members.236 She did not have the type of expertise they prized, came from a 

different background, and was a woman in a position of authority.237 However, over time, she 

won the confidence of virtually all the group members. The advantage she enjoyed was that the 

importance of Soviet active measures was reaching its apex in several respects. First, far from 

being deterred by the new U.S. resolve to expose their depredations, the Soviets increased their 

use of forgeries and launched some major new disinformation campaigns, such as attributing 

the origin of the AIDS virus to Pentagon germ warfare programs.

Bailey’s arrival also coincided with the decision by some of the activists most interested 

in countering Soviet active measures to give the subject greater public exposure. In addition to 

the legislative requirement to produce a public report on Soviet active measures, members of 

the working group got involved in a major conference set up by Raymond’s NSC working group 

and designed it to stimulate academic interest in Soviet active measures.238 The conference 

took place just before Bailey took over leadership of the group in July. Romerstein, Malzahn, 

and Copp participated in the Department of State–CIA sponsored conference at Airlie House 

along with big names from academia and notable Soviet defectors such as Ladislav Bittman 

and Levchenko. There were no high-ranking government officials there to kick off the event 

with a “your work is important” welcoming speech. The purpose was to advertise Soviet active 

measures to the public. The working group distributed copies of the conference report overseas 

through USIA posts to promote understanding of Soviet disinformation (see figure 2).239

Thus, Bailey took control of the group when increasing public awareness of Soviet active 

measures was a major objective for many—particularly meeting the requirement for a congressional report. When Bailey first entered the office of her new boss, Morton Abramowitz, 

he implicitly noted the political dimension of the counteractive measures agenda. Looking 

up from reading her resume, he commented that he was glad the White House had sent him 
59

Deception, Disinformation, and Strategic Communications

someone with substance rather than a partisan politico. Bailey had a doctorate in political science,240 extensive contacts in the Intelligence Community,241 and, most importantly, had just 

spent 2 years at the USIA as deputy director and then acting director of the Office of Research, 

which was responsible for gauging foreign public opinion on U.S. policies and tracking Soviet propaganda. While at USIA, she had developed an appreciation for the role of public 

diplomacy as well as a wide array of contacts that would help her lead the Active Measures 

Working Group.

Abramowitz gave Bailey four responsibilities, the last of which involved responding to what 

would soon be referred to as the “Gingrich report.”242 He handed Bailey the legislative language 

requiring a report from State on Soviet active measures and asked her to coordinate and prepare 

the report. Bailey was familiar with active measures, particularly disinformation, from her 2-year 

stint at USIA, but set out to learn more. She used her Intelligence Community contacts to obtain 

briefings and materials on Soviet active measures. She also accepted recommendations that she 

Figure 2. 

Conference on

Intelligence,

Deception,

and Surprise Consortium for

the study of 

intelligence

founded

Intelligence

Requirements

for the 1980’s

published

State Department 

and CIA conference on 

Soviet Active Measures

Deinformation: Active 

Measures in Soviet 

Strategy published Hoover

Institution

Conference

on Public 

Diplomacy

State

Conference on 

Disinformation,

the Media, 

and

 Foreign

 Policy

The KGB and Misinformation published

1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988

Levchenko

defects

The Forgery

Oensive

hearings

First State

Report on

Active 

Measures

Levchenko

testies

Soviet

Active

Measures

hearings

First

report

mandated

by Congress

Second

report

mandated

by Congress

Public awareness of Soviet active measures grew over time. Revelations from Soviet bloc defectors, 

renewed academic interest, and committed Congressmen, congressional sta, and executive branch 

personnel, many of whom were members of the Active Measures Working Group, all played a role. 

They sponsored inuential books, hearings and testimony, conerences, and teaching symposia. 

The burgeoning eld was stimulated in part by the exodus of knowledgeable professionals from the 

CIA in the aftermath of the intelligence reforms of the mid-1970s.
60 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 11

interview Levchenko and other experts on Soviet active measures, including Romerstein. Romerstein agreed to serve on her working group and help with the Gingrich report, and he suggested 

others she should recruit. Over the next few weeks, Bailey put together a list of the people and 

agencies that would be most useful in preparing the report, relying extensively on David Hertzberg for advice and Sheldon Rapoport for assistance in reaching out to the others.

Putting the report together was difficult. Bailey had to lead the working group through 

innumerable debates over what material was most important, what could be declassified, and 

how best to present it. As the group’s activities expanded and became more public, declassification of material became more important, and Bailey fought hard to get the best material included in the report.243 INR strictly abided by declassification procedures, so nothing 

was used publicly unless the group agreed to declassify the material. Even so, CIA and FBI 

participants cleared in advance any information they gave the group, typically at the assistant 

director–level in their offices. Bailey and the group labored for almost a full year and successfully delivered the report on time using a small budget drawn from different INR accounts. In 

August of 1986, she printed out A Report on the Substance and Process of the anti-US Disinformation and Propaganda Campaigns,

244 put it in a binder, and hand-delivered it to Congressman Gingrich in his office, where photos of the two were taken.245 The report was made public 

in early October, close to President Reagan’s summit with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev 

in Reykjavik, Iceland. Some Department of State officials objected to its release during the 

runup to Reykjavik,246 but their concerns were overcome.247

To the working group’s surprise, its first public report proved to be a media sensation. The 

report generated hundreds of requests from the public and media for copies. When its success 

was evident, State came up with more money for a reprint with better graphics and production 

value. Congressmen complimented the report and made it clear that they wanted more of the 

same. They asked whether it would be necessary to pass legislation to assure a followup report 

in 1987.248 Meanwhile, President Reagan used the publicity the report generated as an opportunity to order the State Department to institutionalize its counteractive measures capability.249

CIA Director Casey and Kenneth deGraffenreid at the NSC actively supported the idea.250 Gingrich was also pleased, noting in October 1986 that “the most significant aspect of the [1986] 

report is that we now have set up an office to monitor disinformation and active measures and 

it begins to establish the principle that we’re going to be aware that some of the reports that the 

media receives may be active measures. It gives people a place to go to check things out.”251

Thus, Gingrich’s reporting requirement, the quality of the resultant report, the positive response it generated, and high-level supporters in the administration all combined to ensure that 
61

Deception, Disinformation, and Strategic Communications

counter-disinformation would be institutionalized for a season in State, but the Department was 

not happy about the development. Abramowitz in particular was identified in the press as someone opposed to the new office. However, the President’s intervention left him little choice but to go 

along with the plan.252 The Soviets also were not happy. Almost on cue, they attempted to discredit 

the new office, publishing a story in TASS entitled “USA: Misinformation Bureau Established.” Evidently, the Soviets confused the small new office in State with the working group, noting that the 

new organization’s real activities, which would be to “discredit and besmirch critics of Washington’s policy,” were indicated by its membership: INR, NSC, the Pentagon, CIA, FBI, and USIA.253

Bailey’s organizational span of control had expanded suddenly. She remained chair of the 

Active Measures Working Group, but now was also in charge of the new INR Office of Disinformation, Analysis and Response (with the INR internal designation of AMANR: Active Measures 

Analysis and Response).254 The office consisted of two staffers, including the INR analyst David 

Hertzberg, and a secretary.255 It was headed by Donald Sheehan, a Polish- and Russian-speaking 

career Foreign Service Officer with experience in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Sheehan became available to Bailey on a normal rotation back to Washington, DC.256 Even though 

Abramowitz reportedly was not happy about the office dedicated to countering active measures, 

he had promised Bailey that she would have complete freedom of action in running the group, 

and he kept that promise.257

Besides working on the report to Congress, Bailey took overseas trips to counter Soviet disinformation, which was increasingly affecting perceptions of the United States in Third 

World countries. She led teams to Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia, making a point of 

always taking an interagency delegation. Bailey provided an overview and then turned to other 

team members to make presentations on more specific issues.258 In addition to briefing embassy 

staff on active measures, the teams also engaged in public diplomacy with local media. On these 

trips, she heard that U.S. Embassies needed material to combat local Soviet influence. For example, she was told that the Soviets were generating hostility because their fishing trawler fleets 

were depleting local fish supplies. So the working group did a report on the topic for distribution in West Africa.259

The working group also continued its stream of Foreign Affairs Notes responding to current events that were related to Soviet active measures, including its annual report on the latest expulsions of Soviet officials. As the fishing and expulsion examples illustrate, some of the 

working group’s efforts were not actually countering Soviet disinformation so much as exploiting opportunities to embarrass the Soviet Union or expose its influence operations (just as the 

Soviet Political Action Working Group in the NSC and another at DOD did, only with different 
62 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 11

material and methods260). However, the group also kept up its analysis of front groups in the 

peace movements and recent anti-American forgeries.261 All told, group output was now at an 

all-time high.

Over the next year (1987), the working group continued to operate at a high level of productivity. It continued to publish Foreign Affairs Notes and hold briefing trips, and it followed 

up participation in a successful 1986 conference on public diplomacy sponsored by the Hoover 

Institution by organizing yet another conference, but one specifically designed to educate 

American journalists.262 Previously, group members had taken U.S. media personalities aside 

privately to sensitize them to Soviet active measures. By now, the group and topic carried a high 

enough profile that they could simply invite a wide range of journalists to a conference—and 

they came. However, the subject of Soviet influence on U.S. media was still sensitive enough that 

the journalists’ names were not made public in the subsequent conference report. The conference took place in May 1987 (again at Airlie House) and was titled “Disinformation, the Media, 

and Foreign Policy.”263

There was a great deal to share with journalists. Six years of countering disinformation 

had not yet decreased Soviet willingness to fabricate documents and stories detrimental to U.S. 

interests, including forgeries that targeted senior U.S. officials up to and including the President. President Reagan’s name was used in Soviet forgeries throughout the 1980s, the last one 

appearing in May 1987. This last forgery was supposedly a memorandum from the President to 

the Secretaries of State and Defense and the director of the CIA, that ordered the establishment 

of a U.S. military force called the “Permanent Peace Forces” that would be used to intervene in 

Latin America. This forgery received wide circulation in Latin America and inflamed nationalist and anti-American feelings. United Nations Ambassador Jeanne Kirkpatrick and Secretary 

of State Weinberger were also targeted. A 1982 Soviet forgery purporting to be a transcript of a 

speech made by Kirkpatrick that called for the balkanization of India was planted in the Sovietinfluenced Indian press and kept circulating until 1986. Another Soviet forgery surfaced in the 

summer of 1986 that was supposedly a transcript of a speech given by Secretary Weinberger on 

the Strategic Defense Initiative. No such speech was ever given, but the forged transcript had 

Weinberger stating that the Strategic Defense Initiative would give the United States superiority 

over the Soviet Union and allow it to win a controlled nuclear first strike. It went on to claim that 

the United States would use this power to coerce the Soviet Union and prevent “unfavorable” 

developments in NATO so the United States could continue to control Europe.264

As the working group (and others) stimulated public awareness of Soviet active measures, 

the Soviets had an incentive to keep their hand in such activities better hidden. They did not, 
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however, stop propagating outrageous lies. In January of 1987, they launched a disinformation 

campaign aimed at convincing people that the CIA had perpetrated the November 1978 mass 

suicide at Jonestown, Guyana.265 They also ran false allegations of U.S. development and use of 

biological weapons, and that the United States was importing Latin American children, butchering them, and using their body parts for organ transplants.266 These stories ran repeatedly in 

the Soviet press and were picked up worldwide.

Even though the Soviets showed no signs of reducing their disinformation efforts, the 

working group remained convinced that its efforts were a necessary and helpful response. As 

Todd Leventhal put it: “If they could spread nasty lies about us in the Third World and smile at 

us in front of the camera, and we didn’t call that incongruity into focus, they could have gotten 

away with it. But we didn’t let them get away with it. Our strategy was to let people know the 

nasty things they were still doing. It hurt them in the eyes of the Western media.”267 Thus, as the 

Soviets kept producing forgeries and other forms of disinformation, the Active Measures Working Group kept exposing them.

In August of 1987, the working group published its second annual report on Soviet Influence Activities: A Report on Active Measures and Propaganda, 1986–1987.

268 This report, as well 

as a Foreign Affairs Note published the month before, focused on the Soviet disinformation 

campaign on AIDS. Both came out within a few months of a high-level U.S.-Soviet summit in 

Moscow, which some State officials found less than propitious. Gorbachev felt the same way. 

The working group’s second annual report was the one that Gorbachev complained about to 

Secretary Shultz and that received so much media attention as a result. Since Shultz did not back 

off when confronted, Gorbachev had no reason to believe the United States would desist from 

exposing Soviet disinformation. By implication, the United States would stop exposing Soviet 

lies only if the Soviets would stop telling them. Presumably, Gorbachev and the new generation 

of Soviet leadership forming around him were uncomfortable with the resultant negative public 

relations and diplomatic fallout.269 In November, a month after the summit, Soviet scientists 

disavowed the AIDS campaign in official Soviet media outlets, and soon thereafter, the Soviets 

agreed to cooperative measures to reduce the likelihood of inflammatory and inaccurate public 

media messages detrimental to U.S.-Soviet relations.270

In retrospect, the period of Bailey’s leadership was the high-water mark for the Active 

Measures Working Group both in terms of volume of output and ostensible impact. The group’s 

efforts had captured the attention of the media, Congress, and policymakers and drawn apologies from the Soviet Union. The group was having a disproportionate impact, far exceeding the 

costs of manning the group, producing its reports, and promoting its road shows overseas. The 
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costs of the small interagency working group stood in stark contrast to the gargantuan disinformation effort mounted by the Soviet Union, which involved hundreds if not thousands of 

people.271 Unlike so many other Reagan administration intelligence and public diplomacy initiatives guided by small interagency groups, the Active Measures Working Group worked well 

and quickly. To determine why and assess the extent to which the working group might be a 

model for emulation by other small interagency groups, it is necessary to examine more deeply 

the attributes that typically explain high performing cross-functional, interagency teams.

Analysis of Variables Explaining Performance of Active Measures 

Working Group

We use 10 separate variables drawn from organizational and management literature on 

cross-functional teams to assess the origins of working group’s performance (see table 2).272 The 

variables are distinct enough to merit their own analysis, but they are not mutually exclusive. 

They overlap and interact in ways that we identify. In addition, they can be grouped according 

to the breadth of perspective they represent. Three are organizational-level variables: purpose, 

empowerment, and organizational context; four we consider as team-level variables: structure, 

decisionmaking, culture, and learning; and finally, three variables are individual-/team member–level issues: team composition, rewards, and leadership.

Organizational-level variables describe the context and boundaries of the effort and, in effect, 

its direction. Team-level variables describe how the group operates within that context and how 

it shapes and reacts to its environment. Individual-level variables address the extent to which the 

working group participants and their backgrounds and skills account for team performance. In 

the following sections, we provide a brief explanation of each variable and assess its importance 

in explaining the success of the Active Measures Working Group. We focus on understanding the 

working group’s performance during the period when Bailey chaired it between 1986 and 1988. This 

period provides the richest insights into the group’s performance because it was its most public and 

productive period. In addition, with only one notable exception, all the major members who served 

under Bailey were available for interviews.273 When possible and relevant, we compare and contrast 

the working group’s experience under Bailey and Kux. We also identify variables that changed over 

time when there is sufficient evidence that such changes significantly affected performance.

Organizational-level Variables

Small interagency groups, like cross-functional teams, are partly products of the larger organizations or systems they are drawn from. The group’s organizational milieu can have a major impact 
65

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Table 2.

Level Variables Defined

Organization Purpose the broad, long-term mandate given to the team by its 

management, as well as the alignment of short-term 

objectives with the strategic vision and agreement on 

common approaches

Empowerment access to sufficient high-quality personnel, funds, and 

materials, and an appropriate amount of authority that 

allows for confident, decisive action

Support the set of organizational processes that connect a 

team to other teams at multiple levels within the 

organization, other organizations, and a wide variety 

of resources needed to accomplish the mission

Team Structure the “mechanics” of teams—design, collocation, and 

networks—that affect productivity

Decisionmaking the mechanisms employed to make sense of and 

solve a variety of complex problems faced by a crossfunctional team

Culture the shared values, norms, and beliefs of the team: 

behavioral expectations and level of commitment and 

trust among team members

Learning an ongoing process of reflection and action through 

which teams acquire, share, combine, and apply 

knowledge

Individual Composition what individual members bring to the group in terms 

of skill, ability, and disposition

Rewards material incentives and psychological rewards to 

direct team members toward the accomplishment of 

the mission

Leadership the collection of strategic actions taken to accomplish 

team objectives, ensure a reasonable level of efficiency, 

and avoid team catastrophes

on group effectiveness. For example, when a small interagency (or cross-functional) group is formed, 

some higher authority typically defines the group’s purpose with varying levels of specificity. Often 

at the same time there will be some guidance about whom the group answers to, what authorities 

the group has, and what sort of resources—human, material, and informational—it will command. 

Depending on the broader organization’s approach to teams, there will also be varying levels of support provided for the team. These organizational-level variables—purpose, empowerment, and support—are typically the most basic and earliest determinants of a small group’ performance.
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Purpose. Research on teams often concludes that there is an advantage to allowing teams 

to identify their own specific objectives, but some guidance on what the team is supposed to accomplish is necessary.274 However, the guidance can come from different sources. In the case of 

the Active Measures Working Group, the external guidance that came to Kux was quite broad. 

In essence, he was simply told to look into ways to counter Soviet active measures. Moreover, 

as one member notes, the topic was inherently hard to define and amorphous; it “really ran the 

risk of just becoming a talking forum and eventually dying off.”275 However, after looking into 

the matter and perhaps feeling reinforced by the predilections of his State colleagues, Palmer 

and Peck, Kux determined that the group would counter Soviet disinformation with concrete 

products rather than just policy statements and that those products would avoid any tendency 

to exaggerate the Soviet threat. To create such products the working group would “combine the 

information from USIA posts around the world, CIA reporting, and FBI investigations.”276 Thus, 

the working group and its products would have to be an interagency effort. Kux, the working 

group’s first leader, defined its purpose, but that definition would not go unchallenged over the 

life of the group.

The loose and informal mandate for the formation of the working group left the door open 

for a continuing debate within the group over the scope of its activities. For some, typically 

representatives from State’s regional bureaus, only the most egregious Soviet lies should be exposed, and then only when doing so would not conspicuously embarrass U.S. allies whose citizens might have been duped or used by the Soviets. Others believed the group should be more 

aggressive and move beyond its concentration on exposing forgeries.277 They wanted to expose 

all Soviet disinformation that could be sufficiently documented and also expose Soviet influence operations if that would make them less effective. Finally, Romerstein and others wanted 

unrestricted political warfare, going after the Soviets any way possible so long as U.S. interests 

were served and the truth was communicated. These differences of opinion over the mission 

did not prevent the group from getting out products, but they ensured a continuing debate over 

what the group should be doing.

Disagreement over the group’s purpose, or scope of activities, can be traced back to the 

term active measures itself. It was a politicized and ill-defined term when the group was founded, and the activities covered by active measures were debated, sometimes contentiously. As the 

historical review offered earlier illustrates, State and CIA, for different reasons, wanted the term 

defined more narrowly. For these organizations, countering active measures meant countering 

egregious lies and covert influence operations when the United States could prove and expose 

them without risk to political relationships or intelligence sources and methods. Others de-
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fined active measures much more broadly to include overt propaganda, covert action, strategic 

deception, and other types of political warfare, all of which needed to be countered wherever 

possible and as best would serve U.S. interests. Many who preferred this broader understanding of active measures adhered to the traditionalist view of intelligence and were committed 

anti-communists. Working group members with this broader view included some (but not all) 

Reagan political appointees and USIA officials such as Romerstein and Leventhal.

Since for most of its history the working group was under State’s leadership, the scope of its 

activities remained limited to the narrower view. The group was under pressure from committed 

anti-communists such as congressional staffer Anthony Codevilla to be more aggressive. Codevilla accused the group of being too tame and threatened to have his Congressman write a letter to 

the FBI complaining about the group’s lack of aggressiveness.278 Romerstein “was more realistic” 

about what the group could do, but nonetheless he frequently pushed for more aggressive activities.279 Others in State and elsewhere exerted a countervailing pressure to remain “non-polemical.” 

Under Kux and Bailey, who benefited from deputy assistant secretary status, these differences of 

opinion were muted. Both made it clear that they would limit the activities of the group to the narrower definition of scope and to keeping the group’s products easily defensible.

The group’s direction was not a foregone conclusion. The Iran-Contra investigation would 

later reveal that a similar group created in the Reagan administration went much further afield, 

creating its own forgeries and actively trying to influence U.S. public opinion.280 Political sensitivities also played a large role in defining the scope of the group’s mission and, thus, its purpose. 

Certain topics, such as U.S. journalists being paid, Soviet influence activities in allied countries, 

and allied disinformation against the United States, were deemed too sensitive and too close to 

the U.S. policy process for the group to deal with.

The direction the group took was reinforced over time by its success with its chosen activity set and by the creation of the more classified Soviet Political Action Working Group at the 

NSC. The classified group could take on sensitive activities that the group operating out of State 

could not review, much less manage. As one member who attended both groups noted, the NSC 

group had much more information, some of which was quite sensitive. In reviewing the broader 

picture, it could decide to give material to the State group to use, or it could use the material itself, or it could pass the information to a foreign intelligence agency to use in countering Soviet 

disinformation.281 With the NSC group up and running in 1983, there was less reason to push a 

more aggressive agenda through the Active Measures Working Group.

Different opinions about the strategic scope of the working group’s activities did not prevent the group from building a consensus on a basic set of tactics (as codified by the group’s 
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Report-Analyze-Publicize methodology). Under Kux’s leadership, and with senior leader political support, the group agreed on a basic approach (or a “strategic concept”) for organizing its 

activities that persisted over the course of the group’s history. Conceivably, the group’s strategic 

concept could have changed under Bailey, who initially was not familiar with the group’s earlier 

track record and who had been given a specific task to accomplish by Abramowitz. She noted 

that she “was tasked to help with the 1985 Gingrich Report requirement” and that she “pulled 

together an interagency group to get this done.”282 However, under her leadership, the group’s 

direction and products did not change much.

Given the consistency in the group’s approach, it is not surprising that many members 

said the main purpose of the group was “clear” and that the goal of countering disinformation “made sense.”283 The members had a “common interest” in exposing and fighting active 

measures that “took precedence over protecting rice bowls” (that is, organizational turf).284

Knowing its activities were deemed important by senior members of the U.S. Government all 

the way up to the President reinforced commitment to the group’s purpose. Many career civil 

servants who served on the group noted that the manifestly high-level political support for 

the group’s activities reinforced their belief that their work was important as part of a larger 

effort to reset U.S.-Soviet relations.285 In turn, the belief that the work was vital motivated the 

group to work hard.286

Empowerment (Authority and Resources). It might seem to be a matter of common sense 

to observe that a group requires adequate authority and resources to perform well, but often 

they receive neither—particularly in government where resources for new missions are scarce 

and a new group’s mission can run up against many previously established authorities.287 The 

Active Measures Working Group received no explicit authorization or resources to conduct its 

activities. Bailey’s position as a deputy assistant secretary in State entitled her to respect but gave 

her no special directive authority over any group members other than the one or two members 

of INR who reported directly to her. Bailey recalls that she made it a point to get to know the supervisors of her group members in order to improve the chances that they would be encouraged 

by their agencies to participate in a productive manner: “With the CIA and FBI, in particular, it 

was highly beneficial to convey to them appreciation for their peoples’ input.”288

On the other hand, Bailey (like Kux and Heichler previously) was given a large amount of 

autonomy to find a way forward for the group.289 She recalls, “I was given full free reign by Morton Abramowitz [who] did not micromanage and I had final authority on all input . . . nobody 

of higher rank peered over my shoulder.”290 Under different circumstances, this amount of autonomy could have resulted in isolation and a reduction of informal authority if group members 
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Deception, Disinformation, and Strategic Communications

had decided to ignore her instructions. However, the representatives of the departments and 

agencies sitting around the table realized Bailey represented a Reagan administration priority 

effort. There was a general sense that obstinacy and obstructionism would warrant higher level 

intervention. This recognition helped suppress resistance from group members sent to “monitor” the group’s activities and make sure they did not run counter to the parent organization’s 

equities. They still raised objections, however. Bailey noted that she would receive phone calls 

from officials in other agencies protesting her decisions and requiring compromise.291

Similarly, the working group had no mission-specific resources. The group drew on the 

part-time contributions of existing experts and in-place INR analysts to cover manpower 

costs. The members had no budgets beyond the normal travel and public affairs accounts controlled by their bosses. Bailey had to work with the Department of State’s public affairs bureau 

to glean bits of cash from different budget pots to print the working group’s first report.292 The 

initial product was personally generated by the working group members. The first Foreign 

Affairs Note was circulated in much the same way; David Hertzberg and Peter Knecht handstuffed and mailed envelopes with the report themselves.293 The resource situation quickly 

improved after the first report was so well received. Congressmen, U.S. Embassies, and USIA 

posts sent requests for follow-on briefings, and Bailey was able to ask for and receive more 

travel money to support those efforts. She also had no trouble finding money to reprint the 

first report in grander style or to print the second report, and she was able to secure three 

personnel slots for the new office she created to institutionalize the working group in INR 

(that is, AMANR).294

But material resources played only a peripheral role in the success of the Active Measures Working Group. The crucial resource required by the group’s mission was information. 

Here too the group was constrained. Normal classification requirements were an impediment 

to information-sharing. One USIA employee with a lesser clearance would occasionally have 

to leave the room. But the more difficult issue was getting parent organizations to declassify 

information so that it could be used in working group products, which of course needed to 

be unclassified to serve the group’s purpose. A certain amount of information on Soviet active measures was available from preexisting communication and intelligence channels monitored by State, but as one member noted, “this was before the Internet.” Thus, the collection 

and aggregation of the data about Soviet active measures was a primary activity. In addition, 

the group increased information flow by requesting that overseas posts be on the lookout for 

it. In this regard, the working group helped generate as well as consume information. But a 

great deal of the best information had to be volunteered by members and be declassified by 
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the members through their organizational channels. As a general rule, members vetted with 

their parent organizations what information they would share with the group beforehand, 

and certainly before declassifying such information.295 Here again, however, the widespread 

recognition that the working group’s mission was supported by senior administration officials 

helped, inclining organizations to declassify material whenever possible. For most working 

group members, classification issues really were a matter of protecting sources rather than an 

excuse not to contribute.

As the working group began to build a record of success, that record emboldened the 

group and reinforced the commitment of its members, which is referred to in organizational 

literature as “psychological empowerment.” From the beginning, successfully exposing and defeating instances of Soviet disinformation brought the group closer together, diminished resistance among those inclined to question the group’s purpose, and reinforced the commitment 

of those for whom countering disinformation already “made sense.” Working group members 

almost invariably enjoyed working on the group, calling the experience fun,296 “very satisfying,”297 or, for one, “the best part of my career.”298 Others remember how a notable success would 

always energize the group. Jim Milburn from the FBI recalled, “We really came together on the 

KKK forgeries in May of 1984. The group got a lot of good exposure in national news stories. It 

was one of the few times what I did there was in the news.”299 By the time Bailey was in charge, 

the working group’s activities carried a higher public profile and were more likely to elicit direct 

Soviet responses. When the Soviets groused about the group’s reports, Bailey said it was a topic 

of glee at their meetings. The group thought “We were really making these guys think twice. 

It made us feel effective.”300 And when Gorbachev complained to Secretary Shultz about “our 

report . . . it was very exciting and made you want to do it again.”301

Organizational research concludes that there is a correlation between psychological empowerment and overall team performance, which the Active Measures Working Group experience corroborates.302 The notion that group member commitment increases as their collective 

efforts prove efficacious stands to reason. The converse may be just as true but less evident to 

some observers. Many members of the working group commented on the deadening effect of 

having to work on other interagency groups that bore no fruit. The Active Measures Working 

Group’s efficacy was all the more psychologically empowering because it was unusual. Many of 

the working-level participants recounted that they were drawn to the group by a chance to see 

their work make a definitive and recognized impact on world affairs. This gave the workinglevel participants a stake in the group’s continued existence and the overall group a lot more 

energy and endurance. Having committed members was a boon to Bailey, who could appeal 
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to that sense of commitment when she had no directive authority to command extra effort to 

ensure good group performance.

Organizational Support. The most common recurring causes of team failure are rooted 

in lack of support from the broader organization (or in this case, the national security system). It is difficult for teams to operate successfully in an organizational context that undermines the autonomy of the team process and does not reward experience on the team.303

When teams are formed, they typically are given some sense of their placement within the 

larger organizational apparatus, formal relationships, and informal reporting or coordination requirements. If not, they must soon explore and discover what those relationships are. 

In some large organizations, teams are treated like experiments and largely left alone to see 

if they can fend for themselves. Typically, this is not a recipe for success. In others, they are 

housed in a standing functional bureaucracy that will provide minimum forms of support: 

a place to meet, basic operating funds, some administrative support, and so forth. Yet again, 

some organizations have made a conscious decision to be team-oriented (so-called teambased organizations), and they provide extensive support as a matter of policy and design.304

The Active Measures Working Group was a typical small interagency group in the U.S. 

national security system. It was placed in one of the national security system’s standing elements—the Department of State—where it received a minimal amount of support from that 

organization and was largely left to fend for itself against bureaucratic impediments. It is important to remember that many midlevel managers in State, CIA, and FBI were reluctant to support 

the Reagan-era information warfare efforts. DOD officials found that they had to be meticulous 

when preparing their Soviet Military Power reports because the CIA saw it as an encroachment 

on their mandate to provide unbiased intelligence on Soviet capabilities and would pounce on 

any inaccuracies to discredit the effort.305 The CIA’s directorate of operations would not share 

the information it collected on Soviet active measures with the analytic side of the CIA—even 

though the information was critical for assessing Soviet capabilities and intentions—until the 

Agency was reorganized by the Reagan administration. The FBI was also reluctant to share what 

it knew about Soviet active measures in the United States because it did want to get ahead of 

policy and risk another scandal like COINTELPRO.306

Similarly, in State and USIA, as previously explained, many did not want to dignify Soviet 

disinformation with a response.307 However, it is worthwhile explaining State reticence in greater depth. Foreign Service Officers were aware that the United States conducted its own classified 

political action and information operations, and many thought it would be counterproductive 

to initiate a tit-for-tat exchange with the Soviet Union over whose political influence activities 
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were the most egregious.308 Also, many Foreign Service Officers felt that public diplomacy hindered or even subverted their private diplomatic proceedings.309 In particular, many regional 

offices in State worried that exposing Soviet active measures would embarrass U.S. allies and 

cost the United States political support. Finally, State’s Soviet specialists were not convinced Soviet disinformation had much effect. They believed the working group was forced on State for 

political reasons, and they kept close watch on its activities, considering it a “foreign body” that 

needed to be isolated and controlled if not eliminated.310

For all these reasons, several offices in State sent representatives to the working group 

to keep tabs on its activities over the years,311 including the Soviet and East European office 

in INR.312 Those in State who wanted the working group disbanded were dubbed the “Black 

Knights” by members of the working group,313 and it took sustained vigilance from the group’s 

leaders to ensure they did not have their way. Jim Milburn, an FBI representative to the group, 

admired State leaders who had to swim against the bureaucratic tide: “I really take my hat off to 

the guys at State who had to fight those battles there. . . . Kux, Hertzberg and later Bailey had to 

fight against the idea that we were giving the Soviets too much credit.”314

The wary eye cast toward the group and the minimum in tangible support offered to it 

by the national security bureaucracy were not unusual. What was unusual was the support 

the working group received from many senior leaders in the Reagan administration, a level 

of interest that significantly helped the group overcome bureaucratic resistance to countering 

Soviet disinformation.315 The group had at least passive support from key figures in State during Reagan’s first term. Secretary of State Alexander Haig, Under Secretary for Political Affairs 

Lawrence Eagleburger, and Assistant Secretary for INR Hugh Montgomery all agreed the group 

should be stood up.316 Beyond State, there was even more enthusiastic support for the team. 

USIA Director Charles Wick “loved it.”317 Moreover, he provided practical support through his 

“Z-grams” to USIA posts encouraging them to “pay attention to Soviet anti-American disinformation,” which many were not otherwise inclined to do.318 CIA Director Casey also took a 

personal interest in the group’s activities.319 Kenneth Adelman, the director of the Arms Control 

and Disarmament Agency, sent an official to participate in the group because he was personally 

interested in the topic.320 DOD and DIA, and those in the Office of the Secretary of Defense 

responsible for psychological operations in particular, provided members and contributed enthusiastic support. High-ranking DOD officials such as Fred Ikle, General Stillwell, and Brigadier General Walter Jajko were highly supportive. Other Reagan administration officials such 

as Kenneth deGraffenried, and later David Major and John Lenczowski, brought the NSC’s 

blessing and encouragement.321
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Don Sheehan, who worked for Bailey and then became the chair of the group, remembers that the working group “was a popular organization with the administration,” and “no one 

got into any trouble for doing it [countering active measures] because they read the signs correctly.”322 Sheldon Rapoport, a long-time group member, illustrates the impact of senior leader 

attention when recalling an in-house retreat that the group organized during Heichler’s tenure 

as chairman, a period when the group was without a deputy assistant secretary to lead it. During 

the retreat, Winnie Joshua [DIA, Soviet Division] and John Lenczowski from the NSC showed 

up to participate. The unexpected addition of these senior officials was invigorating: “there was 

a sense of engagement and involvement. There was a sense that we were doing something important.”323 More generally, the group benefited from regular senior-level attention. Another 

attendee, Stanton Burnett, who had numerous small interagency group experiences, notes that 

“When a lot of principals can’t make it the [interagency] group loses a lot of self importance. 

The [Active Measures] working group was never like this. It was empowered and felt like they 

would be heard.”324

All told, the sustained interest and support demonstrated by attendance and representation 

on the working group from senior Reagan administration officials was sufficient to motivate the 

working group members and forestall any overt attempts by other parts of the bureaucracy to 

prevent the group from pursuing its mission. Even during the second Reagan term, after Shultz 

replaced many Reagan appointees, senior State leaders did not interfere with the group; for 

most of them, it was considered a peripheral activity.325 Other leaders more directly aware of the 

group’s activities knew that it had avoided major missteps and enjoyed a good reputation. The 

record of success reinforced support from senior officials already inclined to be supportive, and 

disinclined those who were not from standing in the way of the group’s progress. As one senior 

attendee noted, there was a general sense that those manifestly opposed to the group would 

likely receive “career counseling phone calls.”326 Whether this was true or not, the perception 

that the working group had such support cleared the way for Kux and his team to establish an 

action agenda and, buttressed by the group’s record of success, pursue it for over a decade.

Team-level Variables 

We consider team structure, decisionmaking, culture, and learning to be team-level variables because, unlike organizational-level variables, they are typically the factors most immediately under the control of the team. Team-level variables are shaped by the team and determine 

how it operates. They are often the most salient characteristics to the casual observer because 

they regulate day-to-day operations and performance. Team-level variables are often shaped by 
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organizational-level variables such as team purpose (and individual-level variables as well), but 

these variables represent the leverage points a team can most easily change to improve performance. In the case of the Active Measures Working Group, team-level variables did not prove 

to be as important as they have for other interagency groups we have reviewed.327 In part, this is 

because the group was not structured for maximum performance.

Structure (Location, Size, Tenure, Networking). Team structure refers to the “mechanics” of teams—design, collocation, and networks—that affect productivity. Research shows 

that effective teams are designed to tackle specific tasks, are small (typically fewer than 10 

people and no more than 20), collocated, and have a strong internal and external communications network. The Active Measures Working Group was not collocated and members did not 

serve on it full-time. The group began and was maintained as a standard interagency working 

group, a number of representatives from different organizations sitting around a conference 

table periodically and discussing an agenda put together by the chairperson. During its most 

productive periods, the group met once a week at best, and after meetings, members returned 

to their parent organizations and, in most cases, to other duties besides those occupying the 

working group. This is not to say that during periods of peek productivity the members did 

not work hard. Particularly under Bailey when public reports were expected, the members 

had to especially devote themselves to the working group tasks: “The group was most productive when a task was at hand. They were consumed with the work.”328 But even during these 

periods of intense activity, the group was not working shoulder-to-shoulder, day-in and dayout. Consequently, there was not as much time for the group to develop distinctive decisionmaking, cultural, and learning attributes.

The group compensated for these deficiencies by organizing well for the group task. A 

set of methods and products was established early on, including the RAP method, the “grand 

jury indictment” standard, and activities, including Foreign Affairs Notes and truth-squad trips. 

These activities and methods constituted a “shared mental model” of sorts that was passed along 

over the years because the core membership of the group enjoyed a degree of continuity. The 

turnover of the group’s leader and its executive secretary is illustrative in this respect. Bill Young 

served Kux initially as executive secretary, and when he left, Sheldon Rapoport, his replacement, had the benefit of working under Kux for 6 months. Andrew Sheren, who replaced Rapoport, also had a period of learning before Rapoport left. Other members, such as Romerstein 

and Leventhal, would provide continuity across many years, while others attended the working 

group meetings during their normal office rotation periods of 2 to 3 years. However, there was 

a gap in leadership just prior to Bailey’s arrival that complicated the transfer of institutional 
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knowledge. While Rapoport recalls sharing minutes and products from earlier group meetings 

with Bailey, she was unfamiliar with some of the group’s earlier terminology (such as the RAP 

method and grand jury standard) and experiences.329

Moreover, a clear distinction was made between people who could contribute a lot and 

those who only monitored group activities. Key contributors were respected; others were not. 

From the beginning, Kux tried to attract people to the group who were experts. Initially, the 

group was small and informal and made up mainly of those who could contribute plus a few 

“monitors” from other State organizations. Meetings typically included a maximum of 10 to 15 

people. Over time, the group’s success attracted additional members who were there either to be 

associated with the group’s activities while providing the minimum of substantive contribution 

or to keep an eye on activities. One participant complained that “the bigger it was the less effective it got,”330 and others also viewed the unnecessary members as an impediment to the group’s 

real work.331 By the time Bailey took charge, the group consisted of about 20 people.332 Bailey did 

all she could to ensure that regular attendees were people who could contribute substantively, 

but it was difficult to exclude offices that wanted to participate. She did not object to monitors 

being present because they could sometimes be useful. For example, if she wanted something 

from an agency or bureau, she could remind them that they had a seat at her table as a means 

of cajoling them.333

To her credit, Bailey did not allow the slight growth in membership to affect the group’s 

reporting frequency and quality. She soldiered on with a business-like attitude, directing conversation and discussion to those who could contribute and keeping up the pace of work. 

She kept the group’s pace and productivity up. Under her successors, the group’s meeting 

frequency fell to monthly and sometimes bimonthly with an attendant drop off in report 

productivity.334 Weekly meetings increased the familiarity of the group members and made 

them all more comfortable with the rhythm of the decisionmaking process and its patterns of 

conflict and adjudication.

Another structural strength of the team that compensated for its lack of collocation and 

full-time commitment from members was the network of supporters maintained by the group. 

Some team members were embedded in well-developed and influential networks, and a core 

group of the working group members developed a strong internal network. Networks are the 

patterns of informal connections among individuals that have the potential to facilitate or constrain the flow of resources between and within teams.335 From 1983 on, the most salient network extended outwards from Romerstein, who played the role of an informal leader by virtue 

of his subject matter expertise and connections to other experts outside the group.
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Romerstein’s network was astonishing. It increased his influence and that of the working 

group. He had a knack for reaching out to others interested in Soviet active measures, including 

defectors and academic and former intelligence officials. He was a well-known participant in 

the Consortium for the Study of Intelligence, led by Roy Godson, where he contributed to and 

benefited from discussions with the Nation’s most knowledgeable intelligence practitioners and 

theoreticians.336 Romerstein maintained a regular gathering of such personalities at a Chinese 

restaurant on K Street in Washington, DC. Most of the attendees were partisans of the traditionalist school of intelligence such as John Dziak, Richard Shultz, and Ray Rocca.337 Throughout his 

years on the working group, Romerstein also kept up with his contacts on Capitol Hill and the 

NSC staff. He met regularly, for example, with deGraffenried and Major,338 and he would sometimes invite members of his executive branch network to group meetings.339 Romerstein also 

befriended defectors and often developed close relationships with them. He was a particularly 

good friend to Levchenko, even coauthoring a book with him at the end of the 1980s.340

Working group chairs were aware of Romerstein’s connections but took them in stride for 

good reason. Romerstein did not use his high-level contacts ostentatiously; as one chair noted, 

Figure 3. Key Working Group Members and Tenure

Key Working Group Members and Tenure

John Lenczowski, State Department, then NSC

Jim Milburn, FBI 

81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90

Bill Houghton, FBI ... ? 

Dennis Kux

Chairman

Lucian 

Heichler

Chairman Donald Sheehan, Office Chief, 

then Chair

Chair Other Key Members

Misc.

Kathleen Bailey

Chairwoman

Misc.

Exec Sec

Bill Young, INR Sheldon Rapoport, INR

Andrew Sheren, CIA/INR 

(member, Exec Sec, member)

David Hertzberg, INR Analyst

? Steve Mann, State Department ?

Walter Jajko (subs: Gus Weiss, Ed Aboud, others?

? Winifred Joshua, David Curtin, John Dziak, DIA ?

Mike Schnieder... Pete Copp... Todd Leventhal...all USIA SMEs

Stanton Burnett, USIA, “Regional” rep

? ...Richard Mahlzan, CIA, and Wlallace Spaulding, CIA.... ?

Linnea Poulsen, CIA Linnea Poulsen, CIA/INR (con’t) 

COL. Alfred Paddock, DoD Col. Jake Jacobowitz

Herbert Romerstein, Congressional Staffer, then USIA

?

?
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“no one ever put the muscle on me.”341 Instead, he worked constantly to persuade his colleagues 

of his convictions, in the process building a strong internal network on the team. After meetings, he gathered together the “core members” of the group—those most respected for their 

substantive contributions—from the CIA, USIA, and INR to have lunch at the Tachibana, a 

Japanese restaurant in suburban Virginia. These informal meals allowed the dedicated members 

of the group to continue the discourse on active measures.342 Romerstein did a lot of educating in such informal gatherings. He also used coffee breaks and hallway meetings for the same 

purpose, especially with higher ranking and busier members of the group. Stanton Burnett, who 

as the number two in USIA significantly outranked Romerstein, remembers that he frequently 

“had coffee with Herb” or “met in the corridors” where “the real questions, briefings, and framing of issues” was done by Romerstein.343 Romerstein’s external and internal networks ensured a 

constant flow of current expertise among members, and also allowed him to exert considerable 

influence on the group.

Romerstein, however, was not the only working group member with significant connections. Other members also could call upon networks to gain information and support. Bailey 

came to her leadership post with an extensive contact network in USIA, State, and throughout 

the Intelligence Community. Burnett also enjoyed a wide set of contacts within the Reagan 

administration. He had access to Pat Buchanan (White House director of communications) 

and regularly gave the Secretary of State his 8:45 a.m. briefing since Wick typically had more 

pressing business. Even lower ranking members of the group had impressive networks with 

other subject matter experts. For example, INR analyst Hertzberg enjoyed a good working relationship with Wallace Spaulding (CIA director of operations), who was the Agency’s foremost 

expert on communist front groups and running sources in these front groups.344 Overall, the 

working group enjoyed a high degree of network density and “embeddedness.”

Team Decisionmaking. Decisionmaking processes are employed to make sense of and 

solve a variety of complex problems faced by the team. Experts on team decisionmaking emphasize the importance of diverse viewpoints (that is, heterogeneous worldviews), well-managed team conflict, and improvisational and tenacious decision implementation processes for 

team effectiveness.345 When properly managed, conflict among heterogeneous worldviews can 

produce better and more informed decisionmaking and help to avoid “groupthink.” Eventually, 

conflict must be reduced to ensure effective action is taken. The challenge in team decisionmaking is allowing disagreement to improve decisions, but not so much that the team is unable to 

implement them. In the case of the Active Measures Working Group, the key decisions revolved 

around information: what information was sufficient to pin blame on the Soviets for a particular 
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case of disinformation, what information could be declassified and made public to respond to 

Soviet disinformation, and how the information could be best presented for maximum effect.

Information was so central to the working group that many members responded to queries 

about decisionmaking by stating that the group did not make decisions so much as it shared information.346 One participant stated: “Basically it brought together all the people in government 

who were working the issue for an exchange of ideas. None of these reports could have been 

done by a single agency. Meetings were an excellent process for sharing pertinent information 

across agencies with a variety of representatives who could all benefit from the information.”347

Another member described the group’s purpose as “getting intelligence, sharing info, and 

seeing your colleagues every 2 weeks. It was never boring; it was quality [time and information] 

and something to look forward to. It was a focal point for information sharing.”348 During periods of lower-ranking chairmen and lower productivity, the importance of information-sharing 

was accentuated since there was less wrangling over what to include in a product and how best 

to present it. However, during the periods of highest productivity under Kux and Bailey, there 

were clearly decisions to be made on what, when, and how information would be used to expose 

Soviet disinformation.

In this regard, the major faultline in group viewpoints was the assessment of how dangerous the Soviet Union was and thus how aggressive the group should be in exposing Soviet 

disinformation. Some (especially in State)—such as Hertzberg and his boss, Robert Baraz, the 

director of INR’s office for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe—did not want to exaggerate 

Soviet power. They realized not only that the Soviet Union was a major nuclear power but also 

that it could barely produce effective tractors and sufficient toilet paper. On the other side were 

Romerstein and others, particularly in DOD, who viewed the Soviet Union as a greater threat.349

They focused not on structural deficiencies in the Soviet economy but rather on how effective 

the vast Soviet military and intelligence apparatus could be. Members recall the working group 

was generally harmonious, “but Herb was very passionate about whole thing, a bit contentious 

when he thought [the group was] not doing enough, not taking the threat seriously enough.”350

In the end, these differences were muted by several factors. First, parent organizations controlled the flow of classified information into public reports, so the group had to focus on what 

it could do with the information made available. Second, State’s leaders (career and political) 

kept the group firmly rooted in consensus by avoiding the most controversial topics. Seriously 

controversial issues such as strategic deception and Soviet support for terrorism never made it 

onto the group’s agenda or, if they did, never into its reports. As one member pointed out, State 

regularly noted that it was not the policy of the U.S. Government to undermine the legitimacy 
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of the Soviet Union, so the group stuck to countering Soviet disinformation and exposing Soviet influence efforts when possible.351 Therefore, the issue was not content but classification 

and presentation.352 Romerstein and others might have wanted to take on more controversial 

issues, but it was clear that other members would not support it and that the State chairs could 

not move in that direction. In the end, like most small interagency groups, the Active Measures 

Working Group had to proceed mainly on the basis of consensus.353

Members recall that decisionmaking under Kux was consensus-based. It was not an easy 

task to determine what was and was not a Soviet active measure. The group had to cogitate 

and discuss the issues, and “if someone had an objection you had to deal with it.”354 Bailey also 

noted consensus was preferred, but also recalls that she sometimes had to overrule individuals. Since there were both departmental differences and personal differences of opinion, Bailey 

had to determine which kind of objection she was contending with. Particularly in the case of 

Romerstein, who was the most opinionated member of the group, Bailey had to ask herself if the 

person was representing his department or just his personal views.

Organizational researchers refer to such interpersonal clashes as “emotional conflict.”355

From the beginning, there were issues with Romerstein’s persnickety nature. Kux often had 

to let Romerstein vent and then assure him that the U.S. Government would do all it could.356

Many members believe that Romerstein’s agitation was more pronounced when Bailey chaired 

the group, but he was always a sensitive personality. Even Romerstein’s admirers remember 

he “could be very ideological and . . . wasn’t very balanced in judgment. He was prickly, 

freewheeling, and could go off the reservation, but he was an expert.”357 Another admirer 

notes, “Herb did have a tendency to act like he was on a college faculty instead of working in 

Washington, DC, and didn’t always have perfect judgment as to which details were important. 

Understanding the subject was intrinsically valuable to him.”358 This type of emotional conflict was not so productive for the team, but the value of Romerstein’s substantive knowledge 

made up for the minor disruptions he generated. Everyone was eager to keep him in play and 

supporting the group. Typically, working group chairs treated him with deference, but sometimes Bailey felt that she had to stand up to him when he was being particularly unreasonable. If that led to Romerstein boycotting a meeting, as it did occasionally, someone would be 

dispatched to patch things over. Andrew Sheren often played this role, “meeting with Herb to 

try and bring him back into the fold.”359

Personal views could be overridden—with care—but department and agency views were less 

easily dismissed. Once when she was insufficiently sensitive to a CIA concern, she received a call 

from the CIA working group member’s superior, who essentially said, “you are not listening.” So 
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she had to go over to the Agency, listen to the concerns of higher-ups, and work it out. Rather than 

confront her in the meetings, the member had his superior make the phone call.360 Declassification was a difficult and time-consuming process (for example, at the FBI, information given to the 

group had to be cleared by the assistant director361), but by far the most contentious issue for the 

departments and agencies was the question of how to evaluate the accuracy of one another’s information when it conflicted. People would “get huffy” if the reliability of their input was questioned.

The natural way to resolve the issue of reliability was to consider the source and the method 

of obtaining the information, but of course the FBI and CIA were loath to reveal their sources 

because it could put them in jeopardy. So Bailey would have to ask gently, “could we get more 

detail here?” Sometimes the answer was yes, and the issue could be resolved. In other cases, the 

credibility issue could not be resolved without revealing the source of the information, which 

was an almost insurmountable problem. When such a stalemate occurred, Bailey simply preferred to cut the material. As a general rule, if she was not sure the information was rock solid, 

she edited the material out rather than risk being discredited later. This policy led to lots of deleted material, but fortunately—so to speak—the Soviets provided a lot of good material for the 

group to expose.362 Bailey and the group also had to compromise with the regional and country 

desks at State when they argued that disinformation was not worth exposing at the risk of embarrassing people friendly to the United States.363 Here Bailey would fight harder to overcome 

political objections and get the material included, but concessions still had to be made.364

Over time, Bailey and the rest of the working group became better at managing both emotional and task conflict. Decision implementation was always a strong suit of the group. If declassification issues could be resolved, the group had enough talented writers that products 

could move forward. So although the group struggled for the better part of a year to get out 

its first public report under Bailey, it gained a lot of knowledge on group decisionmaking in 

the process. Within that year, Bailey became comfortable with her position as a political appointee and familiar with all the group members and their idiosyncrasies. She was able to forge 

consensus and had a better feel for when she could disregard objections.365 She improved productivity by collecting individual member contributions on floppy word processing disks and 

then editing and integrating them into a common product that all could review and comment 

upon (thus taking advantage of what at the time was a new technology).366 She stood up to 

Romerstein more frequently and became less sensitive to regional desk concerns compared to 

some of her predecessors.367 As a result, the decision conflicts that the group experienced were 

mostly productive, and when not, they could be limited so as not to interrupt production and 

dissemination of material.
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Team Culture. Organizational culture is typically described as shared values, norms, and 

beliefs. On teams, strong organizational culture typically translates into higher levels of cohesion and trust among team members, which in turn contributes to greater team commitment 

and high team performance.368 One norm shared by Kux and Bailey was the expectation that 

the group would generate actions and products. The action-oriented climate did contribute to 

group cohesion by giving all the core members the sense that they were part of a meaningful 

enterprise. To be productive, the group required knowledge but also writing, presentation, and 

management skills. Competency in any of these areas was therefore valued.

Bailey believes that the group particularly respected members with knowledge.369 Romerstein is the obvious case in point, but other core members also were knowledgeable Soviet experts (on front groups, communist parties, and so forth) who, over time, grew more knowledgeable on Soviet active measures and able to contribute. In this sense, the members all viewed one 

another as colleagues because they had “a common interest in the subject.”370 Some members 

valued this educational dimension of their information-sharing as much, if not more, than their 

productivity: “The value was not in the product but in the sharing of information and ideas; 

none of us was as smart as all of us.”371 Others valued productivity more generally because 

products and activities made the group a success. David Hertzberg, for example, was widely 

acknowledged for his Foreign Affairs Notes even though he was one of the younger, and in 

terms of government service, least experienced group members at the time.372 Similarly, Bailey 

was widely admired for her leadership competence and ability to get things done, as was Kux. 

Without dynamic leadership, the group found it difficult to get products out as frequently. Getting a product out or an activity organized and executed required not only knowledge but other 

skills as well. Conversely, many core members frowned upon those who knew little, could not 

contribute to group products, and only came out of interest or to monitor and report on the 

group’s work.373

As the group developed mutual respect, common expertise, and a record of success, its 

esprit de corps grew stronger.374 Cohesion had its limits, however. First of all, there were at 

least two subgroups, and they experienced different levels of cohesion. Cohesion was much 

stronger among the Tachibana group, so called because they had lunch afterwards at the 

Tachibana restaurant. Romerstein, Leventhal, Sheren, Poulsen, and a few others started the 

lunches before Heichler’s tenure. The lunch group was committed and cohesive, but it was 

also exclusive. It did not include members of the working group that were thought to be 

less knowledgeable or of whom Romerstein disapproved, including Bailey. One member 

who went to the lunches said the purpose was teambuilding, “like Japanese businessmen 
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do.” Members in this Tachibana group spoke of one another as colleagues, regardless of the 

department or agency they represented. From Bailey’s perspective, the Tachibana group occasionally had a negative effect on the working group’s cohesion. Romerstein would sometimes 

cite the subgroup’s conclusions on a topic, which would elicit the response from Bailey that no 

subgroup could commandeer the working group’s decisionmaking process.375 Sheehan, who 

moved into the chair role after Bailey left, thought the restaurant meetings were just a normal 

working relationship.

The monitors who made minimal contributions to group output constituted another 

subgroup, one not appreciated by the more productive group members. Bailey tried to 

make substantive expertise a precondition for membership. She could not reject representatives, but she could request additional representatives “who were more knowledgeable,” 

which she did. She also set the tone of the meetings so they were oriented on substance, and 

this did a lot to diminish the normal bureaucratic give and take. One member with substantial interagency experience notes that in the best (and rarest) interagency groups, members 

forget the agency they are representing. In most interagency meetings he attended, people 

“practically wear badges,” but the Active Measures Working Group was not like that. Bailey 

set a different tone. After the first meeting or so, it did not matter what agency one was 

from; a stranger viewing a meeting would have had difficulty knowing who represented 

what agency.376

Bailey’s point of view, however, was a bit different. She was mindful of the interagency pitfalls she had to navigate. According to Bailey, members were always aware of which agency they 

were representing—“it was a team but a team of agencies.”377 Bailey and other working group 

leaders believed that some members only made contributions to make their home agencies look 

cooperative and that everyone cared if their material got in the reports but not always if any other 

organization’s material was included.378 From a working group leader perspective, group cohesion 

seemed more fragile. To the extent that the group was cohesive, it was a function of loyalty to the 

mission. Bailey notes that out of the eight or so interagency groups she chaired during her government career, the Active Measures Working Group was by far the most dedicated.379 Similarly, another less active member with experience on interagency groups agreed that the Active Measures 

Working Group stood out for its productivity (“the most day-to-day product”).380

The fact that working group members were dedicated to their mission subdued but did 

not eliminate organizational tensions. Several members noted USIA was jealous that State had 

the lead for a group whose activities seemed more aligned with the USIA mandate but tolerated 

the situation because it contributed to getting out product. When State was directed to institu-
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tionalize the working group’s capability in the form of a new INR office, USIA discomfort grew. 

Some USIA representatives such as Romerstein believed the new office was not goal-oriented 

or staffed seriously, and in truth, the new INR office did experience personality conflicts that 

sapped its productivity.381 Romerstein had excellent contacts on the Hill, and given his concerns, he must have been tempted to weigh in with them to transfer responsibility to USIA for 

the next public report on Soviet active measures. In any case, that is what happened.

Team Learning. Team learning is an ongoing process of reflection and action, through which 

teams acquire, share, combine, and apply knowledge.382 When newly acquired knowledge is translated into lessons and practice, it can improve both task performance and the quality of intrateam 

relations. The Active Measures Working Group needed just such a learning process to overcome 

its initial disadvantageous position. It was an ad hoc, first-of-its-kind government effort that was 

going up against Soviet professionals who could draw on a repository of experience dating back 

decades, if not centuries. Although the group made the occasional misstep, it was quick to learn 

from and correct its mistakes. In this regard, the Active Measures Working Group practiced “exploitation learning,” which includes transferring knowledge from outside sources, assessing lessons learned, establishing best practices, and recording knowledge.383

Most evidently, the members of the working group assimilated knowledge about active measures from outside sources. Some members had great contacts in academia and with 

U.S. intelligence professionals who could be used to good advantage. Also, defectors such as 

Levchenko and Bittman briefed and sometimes collaborated with group members. The working group learned through these encounters.384 One analyst described learning about Soviet 

influence activities through the Soviet press. He read Foreign Broadcast Information Service 

translations of Soviet articles that discussed how to manipulate unsuspecting groups such as 

Doctors for Peace.385 Analysts also looked back into history for examples they could emulate. 

Hertzberg’s first Foreign Affairs Note on the expulsion of Soviet officials had precedence in a 

British counterintelligence effort after World War II.386

Under Kux, the group also adopted a lessons learned mentality—not officially, but in 

emulating Kux’s determination to bounce back from mistakes and not repeat them. One 

member recalls that in the group’s first year, it was “flailing a bit,” but “by [1983] it was a 

lot better, although it was still a learning experience.”387 In the beginning, every action the 

group took amounted to plowing new ground, and they had to watch the results and adjust 

as necessary. For example, the first Foreign Affairs Note had to be redone with open source 

reporting after running into classification problems. Similarly, when Kux’s first public tussle 

with a Soviet reporter from TASS turned into a disaster, he reevaluated the group’s approach 
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to preparedness and quality assurance for its initiatives.388 The development of what the group 

called the grand jury standard, truth squads, and RAP methodology also were learning experiences. The working group refined these methods over time until they became enduring 

best practices.

The group also learned what worked well and what did not by encouraging feedback from 

the field, which helped to reduce the learning curve significantly. This practice continued under 

Bailey, who paid particular attention when posts informed the group that it needed regionally 

focused reporting that was more relevant to immediate circumstances, such as a report on illegal Soviet depletion of local fishing grounds.389 The Gingrich amendment stimulated learning 

because it required the group to review its knowledge base self-consciously and report on what 

it had learned over time.390 The group learned a great deal even if it could not all be made public. 

For example, Kux’s executive secretary, Bill Young, became so familiar with the KGB’s primary 

forgers that he could identify their individual handiwork.391 In the end, the group members 

learned so much about Soviet active measures that they were called upon to educate others in 

the U.S. Government.392

Individual-level Variables

Small groups are made up of individual members whose backgrounds, talents, and skills 

can impinge upon or facilitate group performance. Since by definition there are only so many 

exceptional people in any given group, organizations need their teams to perform well irrespective of particular members, and they often recruit, train, and organize personnel with that end 

in mind. Nonetheless, sometimes the nature of the task and other circumstances make small 

groups critically dependent upon member capabilities for high performance. This proved true 

in the case of the Active Measures Working Group. The expertise resident in the core membership was quite unusual for an interagency group, and the stellar leadership provided by the two 

deputy assistant secretaries who led through its periods of highest productivity also stands out 

as a critical source of the group’s high performance. Other than the support offered by senior 

leaders, the competence of the leaders and the extraordinary knowledge base in the membership are the two most salient variables explaining group performance. In the three individual 

team member-level variables considered below—team composition, rewards, and leadership—

we demonstrate why this was so.

Composition. Team composition refers to the characteristics of individuals chosen for the 

team, which can be a function of intentional team design or happenstance. Like many interagency groups, the Active Measures Working Group was a mix of general and functional specialists 
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chosen primarily to represent government organizations that had access to needed information. 

When the group began in 1981, it included representatives from State, CIA, FBI, DOD, and 

USIA.393 Under Bailey’s tenure, it included as many as 20 representatives from these and other 

organizations. Throughout the group’s existence, it was difficult to distinguish between “members” and “attendees.” 394 Some people who attended periodically but hardly regularly were just 

keeping tabs on the group for someone, and others cared deeply about the group’s mission but 

could only stop by as their schedules permitted.395 To the extent the group had to carry so-called 

straphangers (that is, people just along for the ride), its focus and energy was diluted.

For this reason, Bailey made a point of recruiting subject matter experts. When she took 

charge, she asked her executive secretary, Sheldon Rapoport, who his counterparts were in other 

agencies. She had to take whomever other agencies sent, but she quickly let it be known that she 

was looking for people who could contribute. When organizations sent someone who was not 

an expert, Bailey would call and ask them to “supplement” their representation with someone 

more knowledgeable.396 Although many of the core members were Soviet specialists, they also 

provided functional diversity. Public affairs, public diplomacy, and psychological operations, 

which many today consider the three core components of strategic communications, were all 

represented. State Department Public Affairs and USIA representatives were public affairs and 

public diplomacy experts, respectively, and DOD contributed expertise in “strategic psychological operations.” At the time, DOD was also building up some public diplomacy capabilities, 

and many remember that DOD representatives contributed in this regard.397

In terms of intelligence disciplines, group members mostly represented human intelligence 

specialties of one sort or another. INR, USIA, CIA, FBI, and DIA provided field reporting and 

analytic assessments from their respective organizations. INR and USIA also relied heavily on 

open source analysis. Depending on the issue under consideration, a number of other organizations might be called upon to contribute expertise. For example, normally the Arms Control 

and Disarmament Agency was only peripherally interested in the work of the group, but it could 

make a contribution if the working group was examining a Soviet disinformation effort directed 

at arms control or disarmament issues.398 Similarly, State’s regional bureaus could be called upon 

to assess the political impact of Soviet active measures in their respective areas.

Beyond these broad functional specialties, the group could draw upon Soviet expertise. 

DIA’s Soviet specialists such as David Curtin (who worked for Winnifred Joshua) was a great 

resource.399 The CIA also sent Soviet experts Richard Malzahn, Linnea Poulsen, and Wallace 

Spaulding. Spaulding was widely admired for his unparalleled knowledge of the Communist 

Party, and both Hertzberg and Jim Milburn collaborated with and learned from him.400 Milburn 
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was one of the FBI’s foremost experts on the Communist Party USA,401 and another FBI analyst, 

Bill Houghton, was highly regarded for his analytic acumen more generally.402

However, expertise on Soviet active measures per se was actually in short supply initially. 

Many working group members, such as Soviet expert Don Sheehan, had never heard the term 

active measures when they were sent to the working group. Often what they brought to their 

task was Russian language competency and either field or analytic experience in Russia, East 

Europe, or some aspect of U.S.-Soviet relations.403 After spending time on the working group, 

however, many of the most active members became real experts on active measures. For example, when Linnea Poulsen returned to the CIA after working with the group for 6 years, she 

became the editor of a CIA publication called Worldwide Active Measures and Propaganda Alert

that allowed her to draw upon the expertise she had developed with the working group.404

Many of those who developed expertise in Soviet active measures while attending the 

working group meetings note that they learned in part thanks to Romerstein.405 He helped 

build up the group’s expertise by exposing members to these professionals as well as to Soviet 

defectors such as Levchenko. He would mine historical and intelligence archives, digging out 

facts he could use to educate the group,406 and in general readily shared his knowledge on the 

finer points of active measures with other group members.407 Sheren notes that after 2 years on 

the working group, he became a key active measures expert within CIA’s clandestine services 

“largely due to Romerstein,”408 and to this day Bailey credits Romerstein as being her tutor (albeit a somewhat unwilling one).409 Other members also readily acknowledge they were tutored 

by Romerstein (for example, Todd Leventhal, Lucian Heichler, and Stanton Burnet) and, in at 

least one case, were recruited by Romerstein to join the group because of some special expertise 

they had (for example, Milburn). If someone showed an interest, Romerstein would ply them 

with information.410 As a result, Romerstein was widely recognized as “far and away” the most 

knowledgeable group member.411 Other members called him the “heart and soul” of the Active 

Measures Working Group.412 One member concludes, “If there hadn’t been a Romerstein, I don’t 

think there would have been an effective group.”413

As important as Romerstein was, he was not the whole show. Even Romerstein’s most effusive admirers who acknowledged his singular subject matter expertise emphasize that the 

group was dependent upon a wider range of information and expertise than Romerstein alone 

could marshal:

The Active Measures Working group was very successful and highly effective. It 

was smaller and more focused on a single topic [than other interagency groups]. 
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The reports could not have been done by a single agency; well, they could have 

but not well. Its value was in the exchange of ideas and information. . . . None of 

us is as smart as all of us. . . . Ten or fifteen people researching active measures is 

much more effective.414

A harmonious “team personality” is necessary, however, to allow the team to combine diverse talents. Some researchers believe the “big five” team personality characteristics positively related to 

team performance are team conscientiousness, agreeableness, extraversion, emotional stability, and 

openness to experience. Romerstein’s recruitment and tutoring of other team members certainly 

contributed to the working group’s personality and effectiveness with one notable exception: his attitude toward the working group chair, Bailey. The Romerstein-Bailey relationship was contentious 

but ultimately did not prevent the group from being productive, which requires explanation.

All the working group chairs had to be careful with Romerstein, who “did not suffer fools 

gladly,” “didn’t particularly like people who disagreed with him,” “saw things in black and white,” 

and was “not willing to compromise.”415 Yet Romerstein typically did not allow his self-confidence and passion to disrupt good personal relations with other members, all of whom remember him with great appreciation. Even those at opposite ends of the political spectrum go out 

of their way to say how much they enjoyed their tête-à-têtes and political banter with him.416 

“He thought his mission was to educate a liberal, and I thought my mission was to educate a 

conservative,” one member said, but such give and take was not acrimonious. He was an “archconservative with a sense of humor.”417

Common social background helps explain in part the group’s cohesion despite the range 

of political views in its membership. Burnett, Romerstein, and Heichler, all of whom were close, 

came from a New York Jewish intellectual background, and other working group members 

shared similar backgrounds that facilitated group cohesion.418 Although they came from different social circles, they were from the same area and knew some of the same people.419 Several 

members noted that this common background facilitated trust (an observation supported by 

other research).420 For liberals such as Burnett, knowing that Romerstein once was an ardent 

Soviet sympathizer increased one’s confidence because “at least he could understand why that 

political philosophy might be attractive.”421

The exception to all this goodwill was Bailey, who, uncharacteristically, Romerstein would 

“not take under his wing.”422 Given Romerstein’s reputation on the working group and informal 

leadership status, his attitude toward Bailey had a disproportionate impact. When Bailey arrived 

and replaced Heichler, many viewed her as a “novice” and outsider, and even as a “bit abrasive.”423
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Perhaps being a woman—particularly in a position of authority—did not help,424 but the real issue for a group that respected knowledge above all else was her perceived lack of expertise.425 For 

a group that was enjoying an easy camaraderie under Heichler426 and that had solidified around 

Romerstein and their own collective expertise, the sudden appearance of a political appointee427

issuing instructions was jarring. Romerstein was also a political appointee, brought into the administration by Wick, but only at the GS-15 level and to head an office—a level below Bailey’s 

senior executive and deputy secretary status. Perhaps Romerstein was also disappointed that the 

hard-charging Sulc had not won the position instead of Bailey. In any case, a major conflict between the working group’s titular leader and its informal leader could easily have crippled the 

team’s productivity. This did not happen. Instead, under Bailey’s leadership the group enjoyed its 

highest period of productivity, and it is worthwhile reviewing why.

First, Bailey quickly proved her worth to other members of the group, as we detail below. 

She was as “consumed” by the mission as Romerstein was.428 It was therefore hard for Romerstein to stand in the way of group productivity, and he was not inclined to do so anyway. He 

always attached more priority to mission success than to holding a grudge. Moreover, as many 

members recognized, Bailey’s managerial and writing skills perfectly complemented Romerstein’s subject matter expertise. Romerstein had trouble getting out written products.429 He was 

“a warrior” given to political action, not analysis and writing. He did not have a graduate education, and when he published, it was generally in narrative form.430 He would rather cogitate and 

dispute than analyze and synthesize. Bailey, on the other hand, was a trained political scientist, 

managed well, stayed on target, and wrote and edited superbly. Similarly, her subordinate in 

INR, David Hertzberg, produced the Foreign Affairs Notes for the most part, which was a major 

output of the working group.

In addition, and in keeping with her leadership skills, Bailey recognized she was on 

the wrong track and adjusted course. She had to “mend fences with Romerstein” after a bit 

of a rocky start (and periodically) thereafter,431 and she did so gracefully. She recalls that 

“Herb had the most interesting insights and I had to call hourly for his input.” If he would 

not come, she would just interview him and then would write it up to be reviewed by the 

entire team in the draft report.432 The fact that Bailey gave priority to accuracy and adopted 

the more constrained approach of her State predecessors (in contrast to Romerstein’s 

penchant for edgier material) probably was reassuring to the rest of the group as well. 

For all these reasons, the tension between Bailey and Romerstein—which never entirely 

disappeared—complicated Bailey’s management job but did not prevent the team from 

being highly productive.433
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Rewards. Monetary and recognition rewards are often used to attract, motivate, and retain members on teams. However, rewards played little role in attracting people to the Active 

Measures Working Group. Like most interagency groups, members were mostly assigned to the 

group by their superiors. Romerstein did scout out new talent and in at least one case helped get 

FBI expert Jim Milburn on the group. Some working group leaders also made a point of sending praise for good individual performance to parent agencies. Don Sheehan would give people 

public praise,434 and Bailey also gave “atta boys,” wrote letters to members’ bosses to say they had 

done great work that was much appreciated, and celebrated milestone achievements such as the 

publication of their first major report with outings to restaurants.435

For the most part, however, expectations of rewards from group participation were low. 

Attending the working group was considered safe (that is, not career-damaging) but not necessarily helpful for career advancement. Looking back, and despite the group’s great reputation, 

some members believe that it was a hard experience for promotion boards in State and other 

parent organizations to evaluate and thus not a useful activity for career advancement.436 In 

other cases, particularly DIA, the organizational culture (or leadership) of the parent organization seemed to appreciate the working group more. The DIA’s David Curtin is one of the few 

mentioned by our many interviewees whose career seemed to benefit from his experience on 

the working group. Certainly no one in State expected participation to be particularly careerenhancing, which is one reason Kux was admired for taking the task on.437 As it turned out, 

Kux’s efforts were recognized by the Intelligence Community. William Casey awarded Kux the 

National Distinguished Intelligence Award for his leadership in standing up the group.438 State 

gave him another hard (and classified) interagency effort to lead.439

The main incentive for participation in the working group was “job satisfaction,” sometimes referred to in organizational literature as “affective impetuous.” All the members we 

interviewed had a positive experience with the group, and some considered it one of their 

better career experiences. In lauding the group, members invariably mentioned the fact that 

it was actually productive (often in contradistinction to their many other interagency group 

experiences). Parent organizations also supported the working group because it associated 

them with a productive effort.440 Thus, the desire to continue participating was not driven by 

rational economic or career enticements but by positive emotions generated by direct experience with the working group and its successes.

Leadership. Leadership on the Active Measures Working Group was variable, but primarily of two types—traditional and shared441—that were rooted in rank as well as personalities. Both Kux and Bailey reportedly cultivated a collegial atmosphere,442 but there was 
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never any question that they were in charge. In contrast, when Lucian Heichler had the helm, 

he operated more on the basis of consensus—“a more traditional [Foreign Service Officer] 

type”—approaching what some would characterize as a “shared leadership” approach.443 He 

was appreciated for being cordial and competent, but with a lower rank, and at the end of 

his career, he could not exercise as much authority.444 Similarly, the group was more passive under Sheehan when “the experts around the table” who knew more tended to “run the 

show.” Sheehan did not enjoy the deputy assistant secretary status of Kux and Bailey, and 

actually had a substantially lower rank than Heichler.445 Office director–level working group 

chairs such as Sheehan simply did not have the clout to be forcefully directive. In contrast, 

the higher ranking Kux and Bailey exercised leadership in a top-down and directive fashion 

in keeping with what many call “traditional” leadership.446 Kux and Bailey established group 

goals, assessed and directed how the group would overcome impediments to reaching its 

goals, and then implemented solutions.

Some believe that traditional leadership is more appropriate when a new group is first 

stood up because a wide range of fundamental decisions must be made quickly and without the 

benefit of precedents. Over time, as productive culture and decisionmaking norms take root, 

the group can adopt more of a shared leadership model. In this regard, we must recall that when 

Bailey took over she was focused on a new effort directed at responding to the Gingrich amendment requirement for a major public report on active measures. In other words, she thought 

she was starting the effort afresh. Moreover, traditional leadership is the norm in government. 

It was expected and, in the case of Kux and Bailey, it was widely appreciated for several reasons.

Both leaders spent a good deal of their time on the working group’s agenda despite having 

other responsibilities,447 a level of commitment not matched by the other deputy assistant secretaries who briefly chaired the group. Their rank helped them to provide what all agreed was 

the “most dynamic” leadership for the working group, but their personalities also played a role. 

Both involved themselves directly in the work of the group rather than just tasking others, and 

both were described as more forceful than “the traditional [Foreign Service Officer] type.”448 For 

example, Kux was described as “an action guy,” “hand’s on,” “hard working,” a bit demanding 

but a “get the job done kind of guy.”449 Kux ruffled feathers if he had to,450 and his reputation 

for forging ahead and overcoming obstacles gave him a bit of a rogue reputation. His staff had 

a little fun at his expense by posting a Dennis the Menace movie poster outside his office, but 

the action actually contributed to high morale in the group. They knew their work was going to 

produce effects, and that someone was keenly attentive to what the effects would be. Working 

group members appreciated Kux and Bailey because they knew the working group leaders were 
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swimming against the tide at State, particularly Kux who had to chart the initial path for the 

group.451 Both leaders were also described as good listeners452 who were committed to keeping 

the group well informed. Bailey, for example, was described as having a “good knack for openness” which “was very good for the morale of the group.”453

While Kux was admired for being “very effective,” “highly respected,” and “a prime mover,” 

members recall that Bailey got off to a more difficult start.454 Like Kux, she was committed, hardworking, and willing to battle for the group,455 but it took her longer to win the confidence of 

members for several reasons. Following Kux’s departure, State was not able to provide committed deputy assistant secretary leadership, and members were wary of a young female political 

appointee who was not a subject matter expert.456 Bailey had to overcome both the social-demographic and management-analyst divide if she was to gain control. She began by establishing 

order and diving into the work of getting the Gingrich report done. Her management approach 

was described as “strait-laced,” and initially a bit overbearing. She was all business, and there 

was little time for “chitchat” in the meetings.

When Kux began the group, he sat in the middle of the long INR conference table with 

Herb Romerstein at his immediate right hand with the other agency representatives fanning out 

in a circle around the table.457 When Bailey arrived at her first meeting, the setting was different, 

and she recalls that it “foretold of tensions that would be ever-present in the group”:

The trouble began before even a word was spoken. It is often the case that the 

chairman sits at the head of the table, and [I] intended to sit at the head of 

the INR conference room table. When [I] walked into the first meeting, Herb 

Romerstein was already seated at the head of the table and was discussing with 

a few of his colleagues what he thought should be in the report. [I] decided not to 

ask him to move and went to the other end of the table and called the meeting to 

order and began to address the agenda. When the topic of the report was raised, 

Romerstein interjected that “we have already decided.” [I] had to gently tussle 

with him verbally and establish that nothing had been decided by any subgroup 

and that the group would be operating as a whole, and under [my] leadership. 

From that day onward, Romerstein was often more of a divisive force than a 

constructive one, and he continued to sit at one end of the table.458

Bailey had organized her first meeting “following the model of other interagency working 

groups she had served on,” setting out “the objective of the working group—to respond to the 
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Gingrich requirement—and proposing a general outline,” “allocating some housekeeping tasks, 

such as making sure that there would be memoranda written on each meeting, what was discussed, and who was to do what.”459 Some members were put off by this initial meeting, either 

out of loyalty to Romerstein or because they thought their expertise had not been acknowledged or because they genuinely felt Bailey had been too perfunctory. One remembers that Bailey initially “thought she’d just give orders and get things done.”460 From Bailey’s point of view, 

however, the essential problem was that “Romerstein firmly believed that the Gingrich report 

should have been tasked to USIA, with him at the helm of the interagency group” and that “the 

working group should be doing much more than just exposing and describing active measures; 

it should be countering them.”461

The group’s initial reaction to Bailey probably was a combination of factors, including 

Romerstein’s status and predilections and her management style. However, it is important 

to note that soon, after demonstrating she could get things done, her direct approach was 

viewed favorably. She was described as “a very bright person,” “very competent,” “straightforward,” and “someone who wanted to get the facts right.”462 She did have to work to win over 

the group members. In some cases she did that by directly confronting them. Both of her 

executive secretaries recall such an experience. Sheldon Rapoport said that “Bailey gave me 

hell once and deservedly so.” He failed to apprise her of the different viewpoints in play and 

she emphasized that she wanted to be told when there were substantive differences and that 

she might be wrong.463 Similarly, Andrew Sheren was once chastised by Bailey for being too 

negative. He frequently advised her on why some of her initiatives might not be practical but 

failed to offer positive alternatives. He saw her point of view, quickly changed, and improved 

their relationship.464 In other cases, Bailey went out of her way to woo support, for example, 

by being particularly attentive to Romerstein. One member notes that Bailey “understood she 

was on the wrong track and came back from it and did a great job,”465 in part by reaching out 

to Romerstein.

Bailey also had to come to grips with the fact that she was an outsider coming into a somewhat “exclusive club.” For example, when she became the State representative on the classified 

NSC working group, which Romerstein attended as well, much of the substantive discussion 

was delayed until after she departed the formal meetings. She perceptively decided it was better 

not to be associated with the classified activity set in any case.466 She was credited with correctly evaluating and overcoming these circumstances. She stopped worrying about being an 

“insider” and instead focused on managing the group and the Gingrich report, which required 

a massive effort. Before Bailey’s arrival, her executive secretary did not believe the report would 
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get done. The group was meeting periodically, talking and building their expertise, but productivity had fallen off.

Bailey organized a production agenda, pulled ideas together, and got the group to agree 

on what they could put in the report. She delegated responsibility for writing the sections of the 

report but controlled the meetings and editing process. She used the meetings to coordinate the 

work of the group members and to keep them informed. Bailey used a new technology at the 

time—word processors—to control the editing process. She collected floppy discs from each 

contributor and then edited successive drafts on her workstation. She then presented this version to the group for approval. None of the previous reports had been drafted in this manner, 

and the new division of labor reinforced her leadership. Bailey also used this process to corral 

Romerstein’s passion and generate useable product. If he was upset and not attending meetings, Bailey would call him, interview him, and then draft his contribution to the report. She 

recognized that the analysts had the knowledge and were the creative force.467 Her role, she says, 

was to serve as the “orchestra leader” and give her team the freedom to create.468 By the time 

the report was done, Bailey was firmly in charge of the group and widely appreciated for having 

done “a superb job.”469

Atrophy and Decline: 1988–1992

Kathleen Bailey left the group at the end of 1987 after managing the group through its period of greatest productivity. Donald Sheehan, director of the newly formed Office of Disinformation, Analysis, and Response in INR, took over chairmanship of the group. Bailey had hired 

Sheehan because he had near fluency in Russian and substantive knowledge of Soviet tactics. Of 

all the available Foreign Service Officers, he seemed best qualified for the job.470 But once again, 

State was relegating the job of leading the working group—which was full of strong-minded 

and confident individuals—to an office director with substantially less clout than a deputy assistant secretary. Working group productivity soon fell off, but not just because of the leadership 

change.

Sheehan visited the Pentagon to assess DOD support and made trips to overseas posts at 

the beginning of his tour as director.471 He was comfortable with both, being a former Marine 

and Soviet expert with numerous tours. He liked the face-to-face contact with those serving 

on “the front lines.”472 Meanwhile, back in DC, the last Foreign Affairs Note was published in 

January of 1988. Over the spring of 1988, the Office of Disinformation, Analysis, and Response 

began to lose its analytical core when expert staffers such as Hertzberg moved ahead in their careers and on to other postings. These personnel shifts stripped the group of much of its former 
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vitality and cohesion. There was little impetus to fix State’s declining capability, especially given 

the perception that U.S.-Soviet relations were on the mend. Glasnost was in full swing, and the 

Soviet Union had promised that it would cease disinformation operations. Moreover, many of 

the Reagan appointees who supported the working group had left the NSC in the aftermath of 

the Iran-Contra scandal.473 Disinformation was regaining its dirty word status as an inconvenient topic often best ignored.

Bailey, who had moved over to work on arms control in the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, could only watch helplessly as the disinformation office that she set up in INR 

imploded. The center of gravity then shifted to USIA’s Office to Counter Soviet Disinformation. 

Charles Wick, largely unscathed from the Iran-Contra debacle, was still going strong in USIA. 

His Office to Counter Soviet Disinformation was really only two people—Romerstein and Leventhal—but they were among the handful of the most knowledgeable people in the U.S. Government on Soviet active measures.474 Moreover, Wick and Romerstein specifically had always 

been eager to lead the counter–active measures effort. Wick had personally recruited Romerstein in 1983 to come to USIA to work on Soviet disinformation.475 They were “ideologically” 

compatible. Wick was far more permissive of outright information warfare than State and often 

engaged in ideological sparring with his Soviet counterparts in meetings as did Romerstein. 

USIA had been jealous of State’s leadership of the working group,476 and Romerstein considered 

the personnel in the new INR office to be well intentioned but “amateurs.”

Moreover, one well-placed source indicates that after Shultz’s confrontation with Gorbachev over the working group’s report, he returned to State irritated that the report had been 

such a source of friction. He ordered his staff to make sure State did not produce another such 

report.477 Shultz’s public accounts of the meeting, including his memoirs, substantiate this 

account. They treat the report as an irritant, explain Shultz’s motives for his stern response, 

and dismiss the report as a congressional requirement with content “supplied largely by the 

CIA and other intelligence agencies.”478 This account also would readily explain why some 

members of the group felt they had to lobby Congress to reassign responsibility for the report 

to USIA.479 Whether it was because State and INR were once again in disarray on the topic, 

or because Shultz had ordered State to cease and desist from future such reports (or both), in 

the spring of 1988 the House Appropriations Committee directed that USIA prepare a report 

on Soviet active measures in the era of Glasnost. Donald Sheehan, State’s erstwhile leader of 

the working group did not object; his hands were full with intraoffice personnel squabbles 

and Schultz’s reaction.480 A few months later, in June 1988, USIA delivered the report, Soviet 

Active Measures in the Era of Glasnost, to Congress.481 The forward to Wick’s testimony states 
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that Leventhal, the policy officer on Soviet disinformation and active measures since 1987, 

had the major responsibility for compiling the report.482

USIA continued to take the lead on active measures. In September 1988, talks between 

Wick and Valentine Falin, the chief of the Soviet news agency Novosti, resulted in an agreement “to establish better mechanisms for clarifying differences and correcting alleged errors in 

information disseminated by the other side.”483 A system of face-to-face meetings was agreed 

upon as a “disinformation early warning system” of sorts. In November, USIA and the Soviets also created fax-transmission arrangements to speed the process. Soviet leaders wanted to 

keep the disinformation battle out of the media and contained within bilateral talks. The Active 

Measures Working Group reports had taken their toll. USIA internal memos indicate that they 

viewed Soviet pleading to suspend disinformation programs as a clear sign that America’s efforts to raise the cost of Soviet disinformation were working.484

While USIA consolidated its hold on active measures leadership, the quality of the working 

group’s membership declined. Both the CIA’s and FBI’s longest serving group members distanced 

themselves and began sending younger, less experienced participants in their stead. Andrew Sheren, the executive secretary from 1984–1986 on loan from CIA, returned to the Agency as an active 

measures subject matter expert and ultimately assumed responsibility for active measures within 

the clandestine services.485 FBI employees such as Jim Milburn and David Major also moved on to 

different responsibilities that took their attention from the group. More insidiously, Robert Hanssen, who was spying for the Soviets, began to attend the working group meetings as the FBI liaison 

to INR.486 As meetings frequency fell from biweekly to monthly and sometimes bimonthly, the 

lack of effective working group leadership and the declining active measures effort from Moscow 

led to a decline in attendance and interest.487 When the Reagan administration ended in January 

1989, so did much of the political support for the effort.

Romerstein and Leventhal were not fazed by the change of administration and Wick’s 

retirement. As long as there were Soviet active measures, they continued to carry the torch, 

working the subject for USIA full-time. With the working group in decline, it took almost 2 

years for the group to publish again. In September 1989, the last State Department annual 

report on Soviet Influence Activities: A Report on Active Measures and Propaganda, 1987–1988

was published.488 The report was doomed to serve as a mere footnote to history. The Iron 

Curtain began to fall in September 1989, and 2 months later, the Berlin Wall came down. Not 

long thereafter, the Soviet Union dissolved despite last-ditch efforts by hardcore communists 

to save the regime. The raison d’etre of the group disappeared, and along with it bureaucratic 

interest in the topic.489 Even if the working group’s last report had not been subsumed in 
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ongoing historical events, its information was over a year old and overlapped with much of 

USIA’s 1988 report.490

At this point, it was fair to say that the Active Measures Working Group effectively ceased 

to exist. Romerstein retired in 1989. While some of the members continued to meet, one of 

them described the group’s meetings in the 1990s as “an exercise in nostalgia.”491 The group’s 

final report, “Soviet Active measures in the ‘Post-Cold War’ Era 1988–1991,” prepared at the request of the House of Representatives, came out in June 1992.492 Todd Leventhal wrote it under 

the auspices of USIA. By the time of publication, the Soviet Union no longer existed. However, 

it did offer a fascinating window into how the Soviets tried to alarm the West about the impending breakup of the Soviet Union. It captured attempts by the KGB hardliners to forestall regime 

demolition by adopting a disinformation theme to the effect that it was not safe for the United 

States to let the Soviet Union implode. The report also warned that even though the Soviet 

Union had collapsed, active measures were still a threat to U.S. interests because a number of 

anti-American groups and countries were adopting and expanding the use of active measures: 

“As long as states and groups interested in manipulating world opinion, limiting U.S. Government actions, or generating opposition to U.S. policies and interests continue to use these techniques, there will be a need for the United States Information Agency to systematically monitor, 

analyze, and counter them.”493

Leventhal also noted that the small budgetary outlays required to keep two USIA staff 

(Romerstein and Leventhal) working on disinformation were being shifted to other priorities. 

Eliminating the Active Measures Working Group would not produce any significant budgetary 

savings, yet it disappeared anyway. Leaders did not see the need for it in the post–Cold War world.

Romerstein went to Moscow after the fall of the Soviet Union to do research in the 

KGB archives on active measures.494 The U.S. Government was trying to understand the 

KGB’s successor organization at that time, and no one was particularly interested in the 

history of KGB active measures. In succeeding years, Leventhal served as a lonely guardian 

against disinformation and active measures, sounding the alarm on recurring disinformation attacks on the United States over “harvesting baby parts” and the “AIDS ethnic weapon.” In 1996, he too left government. Other former members of the group would carry on 

the fight against enemy active measures in their retirement. Romerstein continued to write 

about and expose historical espionage cases and expound on the dangers of disinformation 

and totalitarianism. Wallace Spaulding still produces a newsletter about communist fronts 

(with emphasis on Latin America).495 He is sure some of his subscribers are his old communist adversaries, and he remains well known to Chinese intelligence. When he visited 
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a few years ago, the Chinese made a point of letting him know that they were aware of his 

presence and his research interests.496 Leventhal returned to government after a few years 

away. He now works in the Department of State where he runs a one-man counter-misinformation operation and leads a contemporary interagency group on the same topic. The 

Soviet Union, Reagan administration, and many of the government’s Soviet experts have 

disappeared, but some core members of the Active Measures Working Group soldier on in 

a fitting coda to a remarkable interagency effort.

Performance Assessment

Having established in detail how the Active Measures Working Group operated at its 

height of productivity, and why it declined and ultimately ceased to exist, we can now assess 

with greater precision its actual level of effectiveness. Using the tripartite standards explained 

at the outset, we can summarize the group’s performance and identify areas where the group 

excelled and where its performance was limited.

The least demanding measure of effectiveness for most interagency groups is whether they 

shared information sufficiently to allow departments and agencies to deconflict their activities. 

Overall, the working group shared information well, including classified information. Expertise 

was openly shared with any members expressing an interest in actually contributing to group 

output. That said, the parent organizations never lost control of their information. They decided 

in advance what their representatives would be willing to give up for use by the group. In addition, at least on one occasion when the FBI confronted Mayor Koch, a member organization 

used group information to act unilaterally before the group could decide on a common course 

of action.

A more demanding standard for assessing group performance is active cooperation. 

While some members believed that the primary purpose of group meetings was informationsharing, many group activities required more active cooperation, especially the road shows 

and public reports. The group also pulled together when confronted with major challenges 

such as the need to respond to the Olympic Games forgeries. During the highest period of 

productivity, cooperative decisionmaking and activities were the norm as Bailey made the 

members feel as if their major public reports were truly a group effort. In addition, Kux’s 

openness to Romerstein despite his status as a congressional staffer adds an unusual if limited 

example of legislative-executive branch cooperation497 to the working group’s record. Even 

so, there were limits to cooperation. The group did not maintain a high steady-state level of 

productivity. The frequency of meetings rose and fell over time, and some products—such as 
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the Foreign Affairs Notes that were mostly produced by David Hertzberg in INR—were the 

result of individual initiative more than group cooperation. In addition, State’s lead was never 

in doubt under Kux and Bailey. Even though these leaders cultivated a collegial atmosphere, 

the fact that State’s viewpoint on the importance and correct response to active measures 

dominated the group was a source of irritation for USIA personnel that on occasion diminished interagency cooperation. It also appears that at the high point of the group’s impact, 

State’s titular leader, Secretary Shultz, unilaterally ordered a cessation in reports, thus obliging 

Congress to intervene to transfer the working group’s lead to USIA to ensure that its products 

would continue.

The highest standard for assessing group performance is actual results. The group deserves 

credit for even being able to make a case for evaluation by this standard. The group was established to counter Soviet active measures, but it could have interpreted this mandate narrowly as 

merely a license for coordinating broad U.S. Government policy positions on the topic. This is 

the course that an interagency group operating at the national level in Washington, DC, typically would have followed, particularly since the national security bureaucracy was strongly 

inclined to ignore rather than confront Soviet disinformation. The Active Measures Working 

Group did establish U.S. policy on responding to Soviet disinformation, but it also immediately—and atypically—launched into active programs to challenge Soviet disinformation directly, 

exposing some Soviet active measures outright and raising the political costs of others.498

The fact that the group actually created output that affected U.S.-Soviet relations is laudable and unusual, but we need to ask how significant the working group’s impact was. At the 

time, many senior officials explained why it was difficult to assess both the impact of Soviet disinformation and the attempts to counter it.499 However, in hindsight, an estimate of the group’s 

significance can be made by assessing the general importance of disinformation in U.S.-Soviet 

relations. We need to ask how important disinformation was in U.S.-Soviet relations, whether 

Soviet disinformation seriously hurt the United States, and, finally, whether the working group’s 

output had much impact on the way either side viewed disinformation during the 1980s.

The answer to the first question is that disinformation was a serious irritant because it 

reduced trust,500 but neither side considered it a central issue in U.S.-Soviet relations. Both sides 

expected hostile rhetoric from the other and neither side linked the elimination or reduction of 

disinformation to progress in strategic arms control negotiations, the centerpiece of U.S.-Soviet 

relations. However, the increasingly aggressive use of blatant lies by the Soviet Union, and particularly those that seriously damaged U.S. interests and cost lives, became a growing concern to 

the United States. Moreover, there were some noteworthy differences in the way that each side 
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understood the importance of disinformation and why it was the Soviet Union that eventually 

agreed to limit its use of disinformation rather than the United States.

In his memoirs, President Reagan never mentions any of the calumnies perpetrated by Soviet 

propaganda organs, and only at one critical point in arms control negotiations does he mention 

information management more generally, noting that he consciously pursued moderation in public 

comments about Gorbachev and that he counted on world opinion to bring the Soviets into line.501

Moreover, as Reagan developed a personal relationship with Gorbachev, the impact of hostile rhetoric from government bureaucracies declined even more and was overshadowed by increasingly important private communications.502 The two incidents that most strained U.S.-Soviet relations during 

the Reagan administration are illustrative (see figure 4). In 1983, Reagan and other U.S. leaders were 

outraged over direct Soviet lies about the shoot down of a Korean airliner in 1983, and they responded with a public diplomacy blitz to excoriate the Soviets.503 The only comparable incident to rile 

U.S.-Soviet relations occurred 3 years later when the KGB detained an innocent American reporter, 

Nicholas Daniloff, as a spy. Although the case attracted much attention from the press, what really 

infuriated Reagan was Gorbachev’s refusal to take his personal word that Daniloff was not a spy.504

Figure 4.

1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988

Leonid Brezhnev

Yuri Andropov

Konstantin Chernenko

Mikhail Gorbachev

Ronald Reagan

Active Measures

Working Group

founded

March 8, 1983:

Ronald Reagan gives

“evil empire” speech

September 1, 1983:

KAL Flight 007

shot down

November 19, 1985:

Reagan and Gorbachev 

meet for rst 

time at Geneva

October 11, 1986: 

Reykjavik Summit;

negotiations break 

down after near success

December 1987:

Gorbachev visits

Washington; INF

Treaty signed

May 1988: Reagan 

visits Moscow

First Summit

Second Summit

Third Summit

Forth Summit

September 22, 1986:

Nicholas Danilo aair;

Reagan outraged at

Soviet response
100 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 11

Gorbachev appears more sensitive than President Reagan to government communications and specifically disinformation in his memoirs. He noted that he “crossed a line” the first 

time he moved beyond officially prepared remarks in a press conference.505 He acknowledged 

Reagan was “under propaganda fire” from the Soviet Union, and he believed that Western 

leaders were prone to see Soviet foreign policy initiatives as “propaganda tricks.” He also believed that there was “a powerful propaganda machine directed against” the Soviet Union and 

that Reagan was capable of “anti-communist hysteria,” as reflected in his “evil empire” charge 

against the Soviet Union. He laments a campaign of “anti-Sovietism” that included “insinuations and insults of all kinds.” Like Reagan, Gorbachev at one point assumed his American 

protagonist could not stall on arms control because of “world opinion.” More telling, however, 

is Gorbachev’s description of the key moment at Reykjavik when he passed up an opportunity 

for “a momentary propaganda advantage” against the United States and instead characterizes 

the negotiations as a positive breakthrough. By doing so, he believed that he paved the way 

for a later agreement and demonstrated that “the new Soviet Union was not into propaganda 

but wanted genuine disarmament.”506

In comparison with Reagan, then, Gorbachev’s memoirs suggest that he was more aware of 

how propaganda could exacerbate tensions. Ultimately, Gorbachev said he intervened to constrain KGB disinformation operations in order to facilitate better U.S.-Soviet relations. He did 

so because Soviet disinformation undermined prospects for arms control507 and fueled “antiSoviet propaganda.”508 It also seems Gorbachev understood that Soviet disinformation more 

generally acted as a drag upon better U.S.-Soviet relations. The U.S. bureaucracy often debated 

whether the Soviets had hardliner and moderate factions, but we know for a fact that the United 

States did and presumably the Soviets knew it as well. For this reason, it can be argued that aggressive KGB disinformation operations were counterproductive insomuch as they hardened 

the attitudes of moderates in the U.S. national security establishment, particularly midlevel officials in the Department of State.

Some State leaders were inclined to assess Soviet disinformation as a reflection of disappointment over souring U.S.-Soviet relations509 and believed that high-level U.S.-Soviet talks 

were a prerequisite for better Soviet behavior rather than the other way around.510 But State 

could not ignore Soviet forgeries that portrayed the most senior U.S. officials as intent on nuclear first strikes, disinformation campaigns that proved capable of preventing the modernization 

of NATO’s theater nuclear deterrent, or disinformation that led to the burning of U.S. Embassies and assassination of Embassy personnel, which is why Eagleburger’s 1983 article identifies 

Soviet active measures as a serious impediment to better relations that must be countered:
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While not an immediate, mortal threat to the West, they are harmful, although 

the precise degree is difficult to determine. Whatever danger active measures pose, 

their continuing use in itself is an obvious obstacle to improved relations with the 

Soviet Union. While recognizing that active measures are but one aspect of our 

complex relationship, common sense requires that we counter these intrusions 

not only through effective counterintelligence but by keeping our citizens as fully 

informed as possible of the deceptive practices to which they are exposed. Much as 

we would like to see active measures eliminated from the conduct of foreign affairs, 

we must realistically accept the implications of these hostile Soviet activities and 

contain them to the best of our ability.511

This point of view explains why State, albeit with reservations, led the Active Measures Working 

Group, and why it also explicitly linked progress on reducing Soviet disinformation to progress 

on some issues of lesser importance to the Soviet Union. For example, the United States would 

not cooperate with medical research on AIDS while the Soviet Union continued to lie about 

a U.S. role in creating the virus.512 There was also a broader linkage between disinformation 

and better U.S.-Soviet relations. In State’s view, countering disinformation was never important 

enough to be linked to progress on nuclear arms control (unlike immigration or Third World 

interventions), but, with encouragement from Reagan appointees, it eventually was seen as a serious impediment to better relations in general. As one key Reagan negotiator who happened to 

be a Foreign Service Officer noted in retrospect, the Reagan administration’s concept of linkage 

was not “a rigid ‘you must do x before we do y’ but a more general attitude that improvement of 

relations in one area could not get far ahead of improvement in others.”513

As for the Soviets, Gorbachev came to believe that Soviet disinformation was an impediment to better U.S.-Soviet relations—quickly but not immediately. The fact that he complained 

to Secretary Shultz about the Active Measures Working Group report exposing Soviet disinformation indicates that he did not initially understand the asymmetries in the U.S. and Soviet 

approaches to information management and political action. Initially, he thought the report 

was crude U.S. propaganda that unnecessarily complicated progress on more important topics. 

However, when rebuffed by Shultz, Gorbachev backed off and had the opportunity to check into 

the contents of the report and its allegations. Perhaps he discovered that, contrary to popular 

belief, it was not true that both parties egregiously practiced the “big lie.”

When it came to disinformation and political action, many believed that “both sides did 

it” and that they were “part of the game.”514 Eagleburger addressed this common objection 
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to responding to Soviet disinformation in his article on Soviet active measures. The logical 

response, he said, was to point out that free societies “cannot effectively compete” in disinformation. Our laws protect views friendly to foreign adversaries while any efforts on our 

part to influence the perceptions of Soviet audiences would fail because of the iron control 

exercised by the Soviet state over all media.515 Similarly, Romerstein addressed the issue in 

one of his many reports on the subject by categorically denying the United States used “political propaganda forgeries” against the Soviet Union.516 He said that during his many years 

of oversight of the CIA as a congressional staffer, he never saw any evidence that the United 

States used this tactic. Put differently, the CIA engaged in “political action,” including efforts 

to influence media overseas, but did not fabricate documents purportedly issued by senior 

Soviet leaders in an attempt to blackguard the Soviet Union. It is important to acknowledge 

this disparity in approaches to disinformation for one simple reason: It meant that if anyone 

was going to moderate use of blatant disinformation, it would have to be the Soviet Union, 

which practiced it.

Apparently, Gorbachev came to this conclusion in part because of the argument with 

Shultz over the working group’s public report. Shultz suspected that former Soviet ambassador 

to the United States Anatoly Dobrynin put Gorbachev up to the confrontation.517 He does not 

say why, but it stands to reason. In 1986, Dobrynin was recalled to Moscow against his will and 

assigned by Gorbachev to lead the Secretariat of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union’s 

International Department, which among other things was responsible for coordinating Soviet 

front groups and foreign communist parties in support of Soviet propaganda campaigns.518 Because of his in-depth knowledge of the U.S. Government and his new responsibilities, Dobrynin 

would have known about the Active Measures Working Group and likely would have explained 

its report to Gorbachev and recommended a response. He also wanted to involve the International Department more directly in managing Soviet foreign affairs and initially succeeded in 

advising Gorbachev directly on U.S.-Soviet relations.519 Dobrynin does not mention the argument over the working group report in his memoirs, but he does make it clear that he thought 

Gorbachev was too weak when negotiating with Shultz.520 Therefore, whether Shultz was guessing or had intelligence suggesting that it was Dobrynin who put Gorbachev up to criticizing the 

report, there is reason to believe he was correct in his supposition.

The mini-verbal offensive by Gorbachev failed to elicit any sympathy from Secretary Shultz, 

however, and may have backfired against Dobrynin if he was the instigator of the incident. 

Shultz, who was determined to give a robust argument in response whenever Gorbachev “went 

on the offensive,” pushed back instead of apologizing.521 In turn, Gorbachev backed off rather 
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than escalated and tried to end the meeting on a positive note.522 He did not want to alienate 

Shultz, who was widely known to be the Soviet’s most sympathetic interlocutor in the Reagan 

administration, and he did not want to derail progress on arms control. Since his anger over the 

report appeared genuine and he even cited details about one particular finding in the report,523

it is possible that he was not fully informed about KGB disinformation activities524 and thus the 

basic accuracy of the report. Perhaps after the meeting, Gorbachev investigated the claims in the 

working group report more closely and determined they were essentially correct. In any case, it 

is clear that he reassessed the value of Soviet disinformation. Just days later, Gorbachev pulled 

Charles Wick aside and said: “No more disinformation; I don’t want politicians and bureaucrats 

creating all these tensions anymore, disinformation and all that. It’s going to be a new day.”525

After this pronouncement by Gorbachev, the Soviet press adopted a different tone in responding to the working group’s public report. Up until that point, the press had lambasted the 

report as a pack of lies.526 Thereafter, it took a softer line, lamenting the fact that some elements 

in the U.S. Government continued to cultivate an “enemy image” of the Soviet Union.527 More 

importantly, the Soviet Union officially recanted a number of its most egregious fabrications, 

including the AIDS disinformation, and engaged USIA to resolve complaints about disinformation in direct meetings and other confidence-building measures.528 This Soviet reversal on 

AIDS,529 which was quickly applauded by the State spokesman,530 did not signal an end to all 

KGB disinformation.531 Still, Gorbachev had promised no more disinformation and had taken 

some corrective action, not only by publically recanting the AIDS story, but also by privately 

diminishing the influence of Dobrynin and his International Department. In the months following the confrontation with Shultz, he distanced himself from Dobrynin and ordered the 

International Department to concentrate on explaining the meaning of his reforms to overseas 

communist audiences.532 Thus, in retrospect, it appears that Gorbachev wanted to remove “the 

big lie” as an impediment to better U.S.-Soviet relations if not forswear its use as a tool of Soviet 

foreign policy more generally.533

To sum up, Soviet disinformation was an important issue in U.S.-Soviet relations, but not 

sufficiently damaging for the United States to link its reduction with strategic arms control, or sufficiently valuable to the Soviet Union for Gorbachev to allow it to stymie progress on improving 

U.S.-Soviet relations. This general strategic assessment left room for disagreement about the actual 

impact of Soviet disinformation on U.S. interests, which was and remains a controversial issue. 

As many commentators pointed out at the time, the Soviets clearly thought their disinformation operations were effective because they invested heavily in them and more so over time until 

Gorbachev ordered restraint. They thought, for example, that the damage wrought by a quality 
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forgery could never be completely expunged by the United States even if it reacted quickly and 

with compelling evidence. As Thomas Thorne noted in testimony to Congress, the Soviets took 

the long view, believing active measures damaged opponents over time and at the margin, possibly 

opening the way for larger gains later, akin to the use of pawns in a chess game.534

Over time, the U.S. national security bureaucracy stopped considering Soviet disinformation inconsequential and adopted the Soviet view of disinformation’s efficacy. Those who did 

not support the creation of the Active Measure Working Group or its activities never believed 

(and still do not today) that Soviet disinformation operations were effective, while working 

group supporters were convinced that they were a critical battlefield in the all-important war of 

ideas.535 The middle ground was occupied by people such as Under Secretary Eagleburger and 

Deputy CIA Director Robert Gates, who argued that Soviet active measures were deleterious 

but generally not decisive, although they could be effective enough to cause major foreign policy reversals in closely contested cases. Gates made this point repeatedly under persistent questioning from a skeptical Senate. While noting that the precise effects of Soviet political influence 

activities are hard to assess because they capitalize on existing sentiments in target countries, 

he nonetheless concluded that “in a close election or legislative battle, they can make the difference.” Asked to offer examples, he cited the Dutch decision on the deployment of intermediaterange nuclear forces and a Spanish referendum on participation in NATO.536 Thus, over time, 

and under pressure from the Reagan administration and some hardline anti-communists in 

Congress, the U.S. national security system adopted an assessment of Soviet measures that was 

similar to the Soviet’s own assessment: they were effective on the margin and occasionally could 

make the difference in who prevailed over a major foreign policy issue. This assessment justified 

an organized and persistent effort to counter Soviet disinformation, and the mechanism for that 

effort was the Active Measures Working Group.537

It also seems clear that the working group made a significant difference in how both sides 

viewed disinformation. Its output directly affected Gorbachev’s awareness that egregious Soviet 

disinformation propaganda against the United States was counterproductive. Gorbachev eventually might have reached the same conclusion even if the working group never existed, but 

clearly its output accelerated his decision to cry “Uncle Sam” on disinformation. In addition, the 

working group’s products and activities gradually made the public, news media, Congress, and 

some U.S. officials more sensitive to the importance of Soviet disinformation.

It is also possible to make the case that the working group made an economic contribution to bringing the Soviet Union to the point where its leaders valued better relations with the 

United States more than unrestrained competition. When the United States decided to organize 
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and invigorate its response to Soviet disinformation, the Soviet bureaucracy initially redoubled 

its efforts to disseminate disinformation and did so with increasing sophistication. For example, 

Soviet forgeries detected by the working group increased each year from 1980 through 1983 

(4 in 1980, 7 in 1981, 9 in 1982, and 12 in 1983).538 Mounting a more vigorous disinformation 

effort was expensive for the Soviet Union, which was estimated to be spending about $3 to 4 billion per year539 in hard currency on its information-centric active measures at the beginning of 

the 1980s. By the end of the decade, some insiders believed that the Soviet Union was spending 

three to five times that much. If so, the working group must receive some credit for quintupling 

the Soviet disinformation budget while reducing the effort’s impact.

Working group expectations for effects were more modest at the time, however. The group 

wanted to reduce the effectiveness of Soviet disinformation operations by gradually building 

awareness of them. In this regard, group members felt they were “extraordinarily productive,”540

exposed a lot of active measures,541 and sensitized many people both in the United States and 

overseas to Soviet active measures.542 They also knew fighting disinformation was an enduring task. Their goal, over time, was to produce more political “freedom of maneuver” for the 

United States and less for the Soviet Union; in other words, to minimize the number of key 

foreign policy issues on the margins that might be decided in the Soviet Union’s favor by resort 

to disinformation. It is easy to appreciate this objective even if it is hard to evaluate the success 

of U.S. efforts. For this reason, most working group members were content to characterize their 

impact using the modest “water on stone” analogy that suggested little to no immediate impact 

but significant results over the long term.

We do not have systematic studies of overseas public opinion before and after working 

group products and briefings, but we do know that the group received positive feedback from 

U.S. Information Service posts and foreign sources. We also have some evidence that the group 

helped raise the awareness of journalists, not only overseas but also in the United States.543

The Washington Post’s response to a series of incidents is perhaps illustrative. When the Carter 

administration first raised the issue of an embarrassing forgery without specifying the Soviet 

Union as the likely source, the Post assumed it might have originated in the Reagan campaign. 

Years later, when the Post reported that the Reagan administration had established the working group “to expose Soviet efforts to mislead world opinion about American foreign policy,” it 

did it in a way that suggested it was much ado about nothing. It noted in its opening sentence 

that the Reagan administration established the working group “amid reports about the administration’s misuse of the press to deceive Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi,”544 clearly implying 

“everyone does it.” However, by the time the Soviets launched a forgery against Romerstein in 
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1986, he was able to show the Post why it was a forgery and turn the Post article into a detailed 

exposé on Soviet forgeries in general.

The same type of result occurred overseas when foreign audiences grew more sensitive 

to Soviet disinformation. When the Neue Zurcher Zeitung, an influential Swiss newspaper, examined the working group’s allegation of a Soviet disinformation campaign, it concluded “the 

American accusation seems more than justified.” Sensitized to the possibility of Soviet disinformation, the foreign press was more inclined to check thoroughly before publishing scandalous allegations, particularly when they received documents anonymously. For example, Lucian 

Heichler recounted in testimony to Congress how an Austrian publication that received a forged 

document decided to check first with the U.S. Embassy in Vienna. As a result, the Austrian press 

ended up reporting the incident as an example of Soviet disinformation.545 While the working 

group could not take exclusive credit for heightened press awareness of Soviet disinformation, 

its public reports, conferences, and informal outreach to journalists made a contribution.546 As 

Kux liked to note, “no one likes to be duped,” perhaps especially honest journalists.

It is also clear that the working group was a good return on investment. As the Department of State made clear in correspondence to a concerned Congressman, “one of the objectives . . . was to maximize current resources without placing additional information-collection requirements on any agency.”547 The group’s public reports cost a few thousand dollars to 

produce and the work of fewer than 20 part-time U.S. Government employees (albeit some 

highly committed ones).548 These costs of exposing Soviet disinformation were insignificant 

compared to the large Soviet bureaucracy that created and distributed the disinformation. 

However much the Soviets spent on creating disinformation, exposing it cost much less. In 

this respect, the small working group had a disproportionate impact, one far exceeding the 

costs of manning the group, producing its reports, and disseminating them overseas in its 

“road shows.”

In short, the working group was productive, effective, and disproportionately efficient. Its 

achievements especially stand out in comparison with those of other small interagency groups. 

Virtually every source interviewed made a point of contrasting the group’s high productivity 

with other interagency groups they led or participated on. The Active Measures Working Group 

was an interagency group that worked, and that alone is considered unusual. Moreover, the 

group endured, showing remarkable resiliency. It persisted through numerous leadership and 

environmental changes, including the departure of many of its most ardent supporters following the Iran-Contra scandal;549 it even managed to keep going through the decline and fall of 

the Soviet Union, although at a much reduced capacity and level of effectiveness. The group was 
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subject-matter centered, and managed to incorporate a wide range of experts from all levels of 

government, which is not at all the bureaucratic norm.

While the Active Measures Working Group was an unusually successful small interagency 

group, it had some notable limitations when compared to the performance associated with high 

performing teams in organizational literature.550 Its leaders and members did not work together 

full-time nor were they collocated. More importantly, members did not support the team’s mission at the expense of their parent organization’s equities when the two could not be reconciled 

(for example, on declassification issues and the value of institutionalizing capacity within INR, 

which alienated USIA). The group did develop a team culture and decisionmaking norms, but 

many members had trouble thinking of the group as a decisionmaking body and instead characterized it as an information-sharing enterprise. Many of its products were drafted primarily 

by INR personnel, with input from others. When State could or would not provide deputy assistant secretary–level leadership, the group’s productivity fell significantly. For these and other 

reasons, the working group would not meet the defining attributes or performance standards 

that organizational experts typically associate with good “teams.”

Observations

Since the Active Measures Working Group’s record of effectiveness contrasts sharply with 

the poor performance so often attributed to small interagency groups, it naturally raises the 

question of why it was able to succeed where so many others failed. Having previously examined the 10 performance variables in detail, we can now compare and assess them for their relative efficacy as explanations for the working group’s productivity.

At the organizational level, it seems clear that senior leader support was a necessary prerequisite for the working group’s existence and thus its performance. Senior leaders did more 

than just initiate the effort; they sustained it. Congressional leaders intervened to levy a requirement for working group products, promoted those products, and lobbied for institutionalized 

capability for the products. Within the executive branch, all the way up to and including the 

President, who was widely known to favor the kind of work the group was doing, the group had 

supporters. Without them, the group would have been greatly handicapped, ignored, or disbanded outright. Other groups in the same time period that did not enjoy senior leader support 

met this fate. For example, in 1981, Mark Palmer created an interagency working group on Soviet nationalities in hopes of promoting democratization. Although ostensibly consistent with 

Reagan administration policy objectives, its output (papers and recommendations) was ignored 

by unsupportive senior officials, and the group met a quiet demise.551 Other interagency groups 
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set up in the Reagan administration met perfunctorily to humor political appointees, but then 

quietly disbanded when those officials departed.552

High-level political support was a prerequisite for the group’s existence, but it far from 

guaranteed success. In fact, it is easy to overstate the importance of senior leader support. The 

working group was just one of many interagency beachheads in Reagan’s war on the bureaucracy, most of which were initiated and supported by senior leaders but nonetheless failed in the 

face of bureaucratic resistance (as indicated in the brief historical overview of diverse Reagan 

administration intelligence and public diplomacy reform efforts). Rarely has a President entered 

office with so much political support and an agenda so much at odds with the predilections of 

the national security establishment. Indeed, it was “almost legendary for its concentrated assaults on the bureaucracy,” in part because of “the significant departure of its policy initiatives 

from the status quo.”553 In such an environment, the working group benefited from senior leader 

support for its activities, but it also had to be particularly careful not to elicit a backlash from 

career officials irritated by the Reagan agenda and unsympathetic with its mission. Political support from on high could be a double-edged sword.554

In the face of such resistance, the administration had to tread carefully. It launched many 

small interagency groups but allowed them to proceed with great autonomy, doing what they 

thought best and finding their own way forward (see textbox 7). The bureaucracy could not 

simply be bludgeoned into submission for several reasons, not least because those holding up 

progress in interagency groups often were either loyal political appointees themselves or reported directly to President Reagan’s most senior political appointees, including Cabinet officials. 

The widely recognized differences of opinion between Weinberger and Shultz, for example, 

were similar to those between Carter senior officials such as National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski and Secretary of State Cyrus Vance. Reagan, like Carter, was reluctant to intervene and settle squabbles; he would not take Cabinet leaders “to the woodshed” for failing to 

collaborate—much to the frustration of NSC staff trying to forge unity on interagency groups.555

In practice, this meant interagency groups typically would not receive an undue portion of 

Presidential support even when the President highly valued their contributions.

In the case of the Active Measures Working Group, this meant that senior leaders demonstrated support by their attendance (periodic or sustained), but they did not define the group’s 

purpose explicitly, delegate special authorities, or provide dedicated resources (the small INR 

office created under pressure from Congress never got off the ground and was not a working 

group asset). In short, the working group had the best wishes of senior leaders, but not a lot of 

overt intervention to smooth the way to success. Therefore, to explain why the group operated 
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Textbox 7. Specialization and Integration in the Reagan Administration

In revamping U.S.-Soviet relations, the Reagan team faced two problems common 

to all incoming administrations: It had to bend strong departments and agencies to its 

will, and it had to integrate diverse efforts in pursuit of larger strategy goals. Like all 

new administrations, Reagan placed political appointees in both standing and ad hoc 

positions of authority in order to establish his policy preferences through a variety of 

special projects, programs, task forces, and working groups—most but not all of them 

with interagency representation. These diverse efforts potentially brought great amounts 

of specialized knowledge to bear on specific problems. However, as the number of such 

initiatives increased, the difficulty of integrating them to good effect in support of larger 

strategy objectives also increased. Reagan struggled with such cross-departmental coordination, as have all modern Presidents,1

 but generally he relied on the collegiality of his 

senior political appointees.

Reagan’s public diplomacy campaign in support of new intermediate-range nuclear 

forces (INF) in Europe is a case in point. In 1979, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization 

(NATO) asked for new American missiles and agreed to deploy them, but popular European political support fell apart as the Soviet Union ran a $100 million (estimated) propaganda campaign against the missiles.2

 The Reagan administration launched a full-court 

press to reverse the situation. Multiple entities were established for this purpose: a special 

Cabinet-level planning and coordinating committee, four separate subordinate committees 

to oversee diverse public diplomacy efforts by the Department of State,3

 United States Information Agency (USIA), U.S. Ambassador to NATO David Abshire,4

 and a separate special 

committee under Peter Dailey, Reagan’s advertising manager in the 1980 election and at 

that time the Ambassador to Ireland.

Ambassador Dailey spent most of his time in Europe where he coordinated directly 

with prime ministers and foreign and defense ministers, or in the White House corridors 

where he enlisted the assistance of Vice President George H.W. Bush and kept National Security Advisor William Clark informed. Among other things, Dailey wanted U.S. officials to 

stop using “zero option” to characterize the administration’s INF position and instead talk 

about “Reagan’s proposal to eliminate an entire class of nuclear weapons from the face of the 

Earth.” He realized that the characterization was awkward but believed it drew the average 

citizen’s attention away from weapons to the desire for peace.5
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What is striking about Dailey’s work in retrospect is how autonomous it was.6 Dailey only reported to Clark. He did not coordinate with USIA Director Charles Wick, even 

though he found USIA supportive of his proposed messages. He ignored the top levels of 

the Department of State and had no idea that Dennis Kux and his Active Measures Working Group existed nearby, even though his bureaucratic home was in State’s basement.7

 His 

effort was so removed from State’s daily activities that no one thought to notify him when 

a blizzard suddenly materialized and shut down most of Washington, DC. A secretary dispatched for coffee discovered that the department was abandoned and snowed in.8

 Ultimately, with Dailey’s help, the administration’s INF campaign was successful, and it serves 

as a benign example of the diverse and often ad hoc specialized interagency structures that 

the Reagan administration created to move its foreign policy agenda forward.

There were many other semiautonomous efforts as well, including the Active Measures Working Group. The administration did not treat these initiatives as “fire and forget” 

missiles, but as the Dailey example illustrates, they did enjoy a degree of autonomy that 

made supervising and integrating them all a major challenge. In the case of Oliver North’s 

Iran-Contra project, it was later determined that oversight was inadequate, to say the least. 

The “initiative ran directly counter to the Administration’s own policies [and was] not adequately vetted below the cabinet level.”9

 Failure to integrate the Iran-Contra project with 

larger administration priorities led to a scandal that severely damaged the administration 

and forced the departure of many National Security Council staff members who were most 

supportive of the Active Measures Working Group.

1 David Mitchell, Making Foreign Policy: Presidential Management of the Decision-Making 

Process (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2005), 18; and John P. Burke, The Institutional Presidency (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), 144ff.

2 For the political impact of public opinion on this issue, see Christopher J. Lamb, “Public 

Opinion and Nuclear Weapons in Europe, NATO Review (December 1981).

3 These efforts included Mark Palmer’s interagency group.

4 Nicholas J. Cull, Public Diplomacy: Lessons from the Past, CPD Perspectives on Public 

Diplomacy (Los Angeles: Figueroa Press, 2009), 32, available at <http://uscpublicdiplomacy.org/

publications/perspectives/CPDPerspectivesLessons.pdf>. Abshire worked closely with Stanton 

Burnett of the United States Information Agency and also brought in Mike Moody to run his public relations campaign in Europe.

Textbox 7. Specialization and Integration in the Reagan Administration (cont.)
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quickly and effectively without bureaucratic blockage, unlike so many other Reagan-era intelligence and public diplomacy initiatives, we must look to other variables.

Group-level variables play a role in explaining working group performance. The group 

early on developed a good structure based on the right kinds of expertise to tackle a limited 

problem (blatant disinformation, particularly forgeries) in an “end-to-end” fashion (the 

RAP method). However, the working group’s performance was heavily influenced by individual-level variables such as composition and leadership. What made the group special 

were exceptional leadership and uniquely knowledgeable individuals such as Romerstein, 

who constituted a national treasure of sorts. Kux and Bailey were especially competent 

leaders; one was a career Foreign Service Officer who was an activist with an unusual penchant for problem-solving, and the other was a political appointee with much practical 

wisdom about working within organizational limits. Romerstein, Spaulding, Milburn, and 

others were among the Nation’s foremost experts in their areas of expertise, or soon became 

so (for example, Hertzberg). Often departments and agencies send busy midlevel managers 

to interagency groups who are inclined to protect organizational equities, but the Active 

Measures Working Group had the benefit of extremely knowledgeable personnel who were 

unusually committed to the mission.

It is not possible to generalize from a single case with confidence, so identifying factors 

that helped the Active Measures Working Group succeed cannot be considered a rigid recipe 

for success. Moreover, the working group’s most conspicuous assets—exceptional leadership 

and unusually dedicated subject matter experts—are, by definition, hard to secure. Other 

Textbox 7. Specialization and Integration in the Reagan Administration (cont.)

5 Peter Dailey, phone interview with authors, April 8, 2011; and George P. Shultz, Turmoil 

and Triumph: My Years as Secretary of State (New York: Scribner’s, 1993).

6 Dailey, phone interview.

7 Ibid.

8 With no cabs running, Dailey’s small group prevailed upon a contact in the mortuary 

business to dispatch a heavy hearse they thought might make it through the snow, but before it 

could arrive they were rescued by less macabre transportation from a limousine service. Dailey, 

phone interview.

9 John G. Tower, Edmund S. Muskie, and Brent Scowcroft, The Tower Commission Report: 

The Full Text of the President’s Special Review Board (New York: Bantam Books, 1987); cited in John 

P. Burke, “The Neutral/Honest Broker Role in Foreign–Policy Decision Making: a Reassessment,” 

Presidential Studies Quarterly 35, no. 2 (2005): 235. 
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factors that helped the group perform at a high level will be difficult to replicate (see textbox 8). 

However, they are worth identifying because they best explain the working group’s success and 

because they are not impossible to follow. Leaders of typical small interagency groups aspiring 

to high performance should at least pay attention to them:

■ Secure senior leader support for the group, particularly from the agency that controls 

the group’s chair—it is a prerequisite for effectiveness.556

■ Conduct business in a way that serves national interests, distinct from the organization’s equities—doing so reduces bureaucratic resistance.

■ Conceptualize the group’s purpose in an end-to-end mission approach that focuses the 

group on outcomes if possible—and it will not always be possible.

■ Do not define the group’s purpose in a way that exceeds available political support, 

which must be attended to on a regular basis.

■ Do not squelch substantive differences of opinion, which are a sign of vitality and potential innovation—manage them productively.

■ Recruit expertise committed to the work of the group, regardless of rank, particularly if 

doing so helps offset resistance to the group’s agenda from other sources.

■ Shoot for small successes and build on them. It is more difficult to restrain or shut down 

a group that has an established record of success.

These dos and don’ts must be applied as circumstances dictate. Given the constraints 

of the current system, it is hard to overstate the importance of interagency group leaders 

who are willing to take prudent bureaucratic risks and find their own way forward depending on circumstances.
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Textbox 8. Succeeding in a “Normal” Interagency Group

The Active Measure Working Group was a normal small interagency group in most 

respects: It had no special authorities or dedicated resources, it only met periodically, its 

representatives were subject to control by their parent organizations, and it made decisions 

by consensus. Yet it produced unusually good results. This anomaly can be explained in part 

by its great leadership and dedicated subject matter experts, but there were other factors 

that helped the group perform at a high level that should be highlighted.

Top Cover in a Hostile Lead Agency. Small interagency groups often are chaired by 

a representative from a “lead agency.” If representatives from other organizations believe 

that the chair is favoring the lead organization’s agenda, they offer resistance that makes it 

difficult for the group to fulfill its purpose.1

 Alternatively, if for any reason the lead agency 

does want the group to succeed, it is a relatively simple matter for the chair to stymie 

the working group until the political requirement for it disappears. The Active Measures 

Working Group was a serendipitous combination of these two unhappy alternatives. The 

Department of State generally was not supportive of the group, but its chairs and several 

influential State leaders were. As long as these State working group chairs could protect 

the group and lead it well, they earned the trust and cooperation of representatives from 

other agencies who, for the most part, believed the chairs were acting in the national 

interest rather than that of State.2

 This unusual condition helped the group coalesce and 

function at a high level.

Modest End-to-end Mission Definition. The definition of Soviet active measures 

is vague. Therefore, it would have been easy to construe the working group’s mission 

so broadly that completing it would have exceeded the group’s political and substantive 

capacity. However, the group’s “report-analyze-publicize” (RAP) methodology in effect 

limited its mission to countering Soviet influence operations that could be exposed in 

a compelling way with unclassified or declassified information. The RAP approach also 

inclined the group to be accountable for output. The approach was a simple “end-to-end” 

mission concept, meaning the group did not just establish “policy” or “coordinate planning.” Instead, it identified problems and courses of action to resolve them, and then 

executed the best option. If the group did a poor job of analyzing a case, it was more 

likely to be discredited when it went public. With the RAP approach, the group held itself 

accountable for actual results and put itself in a position to learn from what did and did 
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not work well. This modest but holistic approach had several advantages. The working 

group could concentrate on cases it considered “clear winners.” It thus insulated itself 

from higher risk activities and stayed within the boundaries of what was tolerable to 

State. The limited mission also had the advantage of requiring few resources. No special 

authorities, finances, or capabilities beyond expert knowledge were needed to expose the 

Soviet lies and subterfuges it targeted. Thus, cooperation from other departments and 

agencies was more likely.

Committed Experts. A typical interagency group cannot control its membership. The 

department and agencies send who they will—typically managers from the relevant subject 

area who are of equal or lesser rank than the group’s chair. However, the Active Measure 

Working Group found ways to attract dedicated experts irrespective of rank. Dennis Kux set 

the tone by researching the topic and demonstrating that he was open to hearing from anyone with expertise, including Soviet defectors and congressional staffers. The group attracted 

the highest officials, such as Stanton Burnett, but also far less experienced personnel such as 

David Hertzberg. They were welcomed because they were able to contribute. Career civil servants dedicated to the group’s purpose and representing important organizations such as the 

Department of Defense and U.S. Information Agency helped offset the reluctance of agencies 

such as State and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to take action. The presence of career 

experts also helped insulate the group from charges of “political extremism.”

These characteristics were important catalysts for success in the case of the Active Measures 

Working Group, but it is not clear that they could be easily emulated by others. Much depends on 

the purpose of the interagency group. For example, before positioning a working group in a hostile agency, one would first have to find or make allies of key officials in that agency that would be 

in a position to offer the group support and protection. The ability to do so would depend greatly 

on what the group was trying to accomplish, and to some extent on external circumstances (recalling that the Soviet Union’s own behavior made a significant impact on “moderates” in State). 

Similarly, some missions are much more difficult than others to conceptualize in an end-to-end 

mission methodology that is practical and results-oriented. Finally, with so many departments 

and agencies currently emphasizing the value of generalists and requiring their personnel to 

move from one subject area to another, deep subject matter expertise is not as readily available as 

it once might have been, although this too depends on the mission in question.

Textbox 8. Succeeding in a “Normal” Interagency Group (cont.)
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Textbox 8. Succeeding in a “Normal” Interagency Group (cont.)

1 In the words of one seasoned National Security Council staffer, “lead agency means sole 

agency” since the other organizations will not follow the lead agency. See Project on National Security Reform (PNSR), Forging a New Shield (Washington, DC: PNSR, 2008), 160.

2 This point was made well in a study of Country Team performance, which cited the 

Overseas Presence Advisory Panel to the effect that “other agencies often view the Ambassador as 

the Department [of State’s] representative, rather than the President’s.” See Robert B. Oakley and 

Michael Casey, The Country Team: Restructuring America’s First Line of Engagement (Washington, 

DC: NDU Press, September 2007).

Conclusion

In responding to disinformation, the United States has the tremendous advantage that the 

truth is inherently more powerful than lies. But if the lies go unchallenged, then they can have a 

damaging effect.557

—Charles Wick, 1988

Although it put out its last report more than two decades ago, the Active Measures Working Group remains a noteworthy case for several reasons. It played an interesting and previously little-known role in the Cold War struggle. Describing its history well makes a contribution 

to Cold War history. The working group’s experience also is useful for generating insights about 

small interagency group performance. Among other things, it demonstrates that it is possible 

for these groups to be effective.

The working group might just have met periodically to call attention to the problem of Soviet 

disinformation or, at best, to establish some weak policy guidelines for responding to it. Instead, 

the group became the recognized center of expertise and guidance on disinformation and a force 

for public awareness of Soviet disinformation and active measures. The group made the Soviet 

Union pay a political price for disinformation that reverberated all the way to the top of the Soviet political apparatus—in part by producing reports that authoritatively exposed covert Soviet 

influence operations against U.S. interests, and in part by sensitizing foreign audiences to how 

often they were being duped. Within the United States, the group was highly regarded for the 

overall number and quality of products it produced—“a shining example of what could be done 

with non-kinetic resistance to the [Soviet Union]”—both in Congress and the executive branch.558

Overseas, the group’s work encouraged allies and frustrated the Soviets. And it did all this at little 

cost to the United States.
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Given the prominent role that small interagency groups play in the national security system, it is important to know how and under what conditions they can be effective. This study 

makes a contribution to understanding small interagency groups in two ways. It identifies the 

factors that best explain the success of the Active Measures Working Group, and it illustrates 

how difficult and unusual it is for small groups to succeed in the current system.

This last point bears emphasis. The current national security system is not conducive to small 

interagency group success. The Active Measures Working Group was an exceptional case, not the 

rule. Even with much senior leader support, it had to proceed cautiously. Its singular moment of 

triumph—when Gorbachev complained about its report—was also a moment of great peril. The 

report irritated Secretary Shultz. He could have taken vigorous action to put pressure on the group’s 

leaders, but instead he just let it be known that he did not want another such report produced.559

Congress then transferred the lead for producing the report to USIA.560 As the 9/11 Commission 

observed, in the current national security system, departments and agencies have more authority 

to block attempts to integrate their activities than others do to overcome their resistance.561 Senior 

leaders can launch interagency groups, but they cannot guarantee their success (unless, presumably, the President gets involved). Instead, they must try to find “policy entrepreneurs” to lead 

them—people capable of taking prudent risks and working around the system to forge whatever 

level of integrated effort is possible. As the generally poor reputation of interagency groups attests, 

such an approach to interagency integration cannot produce consistently good performance.562

This case study illustrates another limitation of the current national security system: it cannot integrate well the diverse interagency efforts that it initiates. In the case of the Active Measures 

Working Group, its impact was magnified by the fact that the Reagan administration was using it 

as just one tool in a larger strategic communications effort, which in turn was part of a larger strategy for putting pressure on the Soviet Union. However, the Reagan administration, like all post–

World War II administrations, had trouble integrating its many national security efforts. Some 

believe the Reagan administration had a more cohesive strategy than most. As the Able Archer 

example indicates, however, integrating disparate efforts across the national security system to 

create desired strategic effects is difficult, and the unintended consequences of failure can be grave.

In this regard, it is sobering that some of America’s most distinguished foreign policy practitioners believe that the United States is actually increasingly less able to generate coherent 

national security and foreign policy because the national security system is not keeping pace 

with an increasingly complex security environment.563 Lawrence Eagleburger, for example, has 

remarked: “Going into the 21st century is going to be very difficult, because we’re not capable of 

managing those complexities with any great skill. In my judgment, even in the 20-some years 
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I was in the State Department, we went downhill in that regard; by the time I retired from the 

Department, we were less capable of coherence than we were when I entered.”564

The working group’s experience also offers several lessons about strategic communications of 

contemporary value. In general, the U.S. Government’s experience with the Active Measures Working Group illustrates the extent to which the importance of strategic communications is a function of 

larger worldviews. Scholars of international relations study the links between capabilities and intentions and how each is communicated to various audiences (that is, respectively, elements of national 

power, grand strategy, and strategic communications565). The events leading up to NATO’s Able Archer exercise and the Soviet reaction to it again admirably illustrate the importance of strategic communications and its interrelationship with capabilities and intentions. How a nation communicates—

or miscommunicates—its strategic capabilities and intentions and how they are perceived can be as 

important as the objective truth.566 As the best source on Able Archer concludes, “even fear based on 

a false threat can create real dangers.”567 Given the uncertainties involved, it is easy to see why leaders 

appreciate intelligence that can offer direct feedback on how their strategic communications are being 

interpreted, including spies inside their adversary’s bureaucracy. Then-CIA Deputy Director Robert 

Gates later observed that “the most terrifying thing about Able Archer is that we may have been at the 

brink of nuclear war and not even known about it.”568 Nations need the best possible feedback on the 

effects of their strategic communications, and preferably from multiple sources. With this thought in 

mind and reacting to American indignation over Soviet electronic bugging of the new U.S. Embassy 

in Moscow, an exasperated Gorbachev justified espionage for its contribution to “stability.”569

Even so, there is a wide range of views on the relative importance of capabilities, intentions, 

and strategic communications in national security. Intelligence traditionalists, for example, tend 

to emphasize the importance of communications for their impact on perceptions. They believe 

that strategic deception (the overtly deceitful side of strategic communication) is critically important, and that every effort must be made to manage our understanding of adversary intentions and 

to communicate our own intentions in a way that builds political support for U.S. interests. They 

are much more likely to conclude, therefore, that dedicated organization, including interagency 

organization, is necessary to defeat an adversary’s deception and disinformation efforts.

Others with a different worldview (and this might be said of those who instituted intelligence reforms in the 1970s) are more concerned about actual capabilities, particularly the need 

to rely upon and safeguard the inherent strength of U.S. institutions. They believe that staying 

true to our own values will send a larger, more reassuring message to the world than public 

diplomacy can. Still others would not choose between strategic capabilities and strategic communications, but would emphasize one more than the other depending upon circumstances.
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In short, the importance of strategic communications in general and the need to counter 

disinformation in particular depend to some extent on one’s assessment of threats and opportunities in the international environment. This was certainly true in the early 1980s when the 

Reagan administration acted upon the growing consensus that the United States needed to do a 

better job of countering Soviet disinformation. The Active Measures Working Group reflected 

that shift in strategic thinking. However, the consensus did not extend to Soviet active measures 

as a whole, which was a point of contention in the group. Moreover, when the consensus on the 

need to meet a heightened threat disappeared, so did support for robust counter-disinformation 

efforts (even though inertia carried the effort forward into the 1990s).

Today, some former members of the working group wonder whether a more robust effort such 

as the one they pioneered in the 1980s could save the United States embarrassment (by avoiding missteps like having the President lend credence to the Niger uranium forgeries in the runup to the Iraq 

war) and better prepare it to defend itself from strategic deceptions practiced by rising regional powers such as China. The Active Measures Working Group experience suggests the President would 

have to make the case to the public on the need for the effort and mobilize his senior leadership for 

the same purpose. Government management of information is a sensitive issue that must be justified 

to the public and to a skeptical news media. The Active Measures Working Group was only possible 

because it was clear that President Reagan supported aggressive and sustained public diplomacy. A 

current effort with similar aspirations would require a similar level of support.

From the authors’ point of view, America’s current circumstances argue for strategic communications supported by special organizations and integrated into a larger strategy for victory. 

However, we acknowledge the value of this proposition is not self-evident. Strategic communications are intrinsically difficult and controversial. Now as then, U.S. leaders debate whether 

defeating a global enemy requires a counter-disinformation effort and a dedicated interagency 

effort to support it. Now, as then, strong voices in American leadership circles doubt the importance of dedicated strategic communications.

For example, an essay by Admiral Mike Mullen, then–Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of 

Staff, makes a powerful argument that America has lost its way on strategic communications. 

Admiral Mullen argues against specialized organizations and in favor of letting America communicate its strategic intent through its actions and normal coordination processes: “By organizing to it—creating whole structures around it—we have allowed strategic communication to 

become a thing instead of a process. . . . It is now sadly a cottage industry.”570 Admiral Mullen 

argues that if we make good policy and ensure our actions are consistent with the policy, we will 

not need a special effort to sell our image aboard: “For all the instant polling, market analysis, 
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and focus groups we employ today, we could learn a lot by looking to our own past.” Citing the 

Great White Fleet, Marshall Plan, and other historical events, Admiral Mullen argues the United States communicated its strategic intent “primarily through the power of our example. . . . We 

didn’t need a public opinion poll. . . . We didn’t need a ‘strat comms’ plan. . . . Americans simply 

showed up and did the right thing, because it was, well, the right thing.” The greatest threat to 

our image, he argues, is when “our words don’t align with our actions.” In this regard, he believes, “most strategic communication problems are not communication problems at all. They 

are policy and execution problems. Each time we fail to live up to our values or don’t follow up 

on a promise, we look more and more like the arrogant Americans the enemy claims we are.”

There is no doubt that actions can speak louder than words. It is also true that, on occasion, 

U.S. behavior transparently communicates a clear intent and does not require and cannot benefit from interpretation—but not often. Frequently, others inadvertently misinterpret or willfully 

misrepresent U.S. behavior and intentions. “The voyage of the Great White Fleet told the world 

the United States was no longer a second-rate nation,” Admiral Mullen writes, but it also was so 

open to misinterpretation that the fleet’s commander observed it might end in “a feast, a frolic 

or a fight.”571 The announcement of the cruise whipped up “a first-class war scare” in Japan and 

the United States that was only defused by careful diplomacy on both sides. The Marshall Plan 

was similarly open to interpretation. Some believe that the Soviets saw it “as a declaration of war 

by the United States for control of Europe” that “precipitated a dramatic shift in Soviet foreign 

policy.”572 However benign our behavior seems to us, it helps to explain it to others. Presuming 

our actions are self-evidently the right thing to do may strike others as more arrogant than the 

reality that our deeds sometimes fail to live up to our ideals.

The Reagan administration understood that its behavior had to be explained to foreign 

audiences. When we lost control of the message, and others defined our intent, as the Soviets 

did with the neutron bomb and initially for INF modernization, it was politically impossible to 

proceed with action that served U.S. and allied interests. Only a sustained, concerted effort to 

communicate American intent and frame the issue correctly reversed the situation and allowed 

the modernization of NATO’s deterrent forces to proceed. The intent behind American deployment of new nuclear weapons in Europe did not speak for itself; it required interpretation.

Today, American enemies still do their best to turn benign actions into sinister plots. In 

Nigeria, rumors circulated that a 2003 polio eradication campaign was really an American plot 

to sterilize Muslims.573 We can scoff at the absurdity of that rumor, but as the Soviets proved, 

the “big lie” can take root, gain amazingly widespread acceptance, and so alter political relationships that it restricts our options for protecting American interests. For example, some experts 
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believe that Iranian communication strategies have dominated the portrayal of U.S. force presence in Iraq. Even though the overwhelming majority of Iraqi political leaders privately believe 

some U.S. forces should stay on to safeguard Iraqi independence, few will dare say so publicly 

because the Iranian regime and its proxies have succeeded in poisoning the well on the issue.

Many Americans share Admiral Mullen’s convictions that actions speak louder than words 

and do not require a strategic communications bureaucracy for their interpretation. To the extent 

this position is based on faith in the inherent strength of American institutions, it is inspiring. To 

the extent it reflects frustration over poorly coordinated and poorly performing organizations 

currently trying to do strategic communications, it is understandable. To the extent it relies on 

“getting back to basics” and “looking to our past,” it is mistaken. American history illustrates the 

importance of all three basic building blocks for national security: strong U.S. capabilities, good 

intentions, and the effective communication of both to diverse audiences. The U.S. experience 

with the Active Measures Working Group supports that conclusion as well as several others:

■ Against a serious threat that can challenge the United States both physically and philosophically, effective strategic communications are critical.

■ It takes deep and diverse expertise from multiple organizations to conduct effective 

strategic communications, so interagency collaboration is a must.

■ It is easy to misstep and fall behind with strategic communications, so managing the 

message well and providing quick responses require full-time, dedicated organizations 

(which the standing bureaucracy abhors).

■ Although strategic communications are costly and challenging, the United States must 

be engaged for the long haul in order to have an impact.

In short, because terrorists are intent on attacking the United States and its allies wherever 

possible and with anything possible, including weapons of mass destruction, and can further their 

agenda in part by offering a hostile narrative about the United States, we need to emphasize strategic communications more rather than less. It is true that the American example is a great one and 

that the world is often indebted to the United States for its expenditures of blood and treasure. But 

it is also true that our actions and intentions, even when strategically and morally sound, will not 

always be easily recognized as such by foreign audiences, which is why the image of a great nation 

needs its custodians, and those custodians need a good organization to support them.
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Appendix: Working Group Products

Note: What follows is a chronological list of public products from the Active Measures 

Working Group. Most Foreign Affairs Notes and Special Reports were 4 to 8 pages with the 

longest 12 pages. Major reports were closer to 100 pages. We include two public products 

in this list for which we cannot determine the exact amount of working group involvement. 

We believe the group drafted Lawrence Eagleburger’s NATO Review article on Soviet active 

measures, and we believe the group or group members likely assisted with William Casey’s 

1985 public address on the topic, which mentions the working group and is disseminated as 

a Department of State Current Policy product. Following Dennis Kux’s departure, there were 

no more special reports. Following David Hertzberg’s departure, there were no more Foreign 

Affairs Notes.

1981

Soviet Active Measures: Forgery, Disinformation, Political Operations. Special Report 88. 

October 1981.

1982

Expulsion of Soviet Representatives from Foreign Countries, 1970–81. Foreign Affairs 

Note. February 1982.

World Peace Council: Instrument of Soviet Foreign Policy. Foreign Affairs Note. April 1982.

Religion in the U.S.S.R.: Laws, Policy, and Propaganda. Foreign Affairs Note. May 1982.

Soviet Active Measures: An Update. Special Report 101. July 1982.

Moscow’s Radio Peace and Progress. Foreign Affairs Note. August 1982.

Communist Clandestine Broadcasting. Foreign Affairs Note. December 1982.

1983

Lawrence Eagleburger. “Unacceptable Intervention: Soviet Active Measures.” NATO Review 31, no. 1 (April 1983), 6–11.

Expulsions of Soviet Officials Worldwide, 1982. Foreign Affairs Note. January 1983.

Soviet Active Measures: Focus on Forgeries. Foreign Affairs Note. April 1983.

The World Peace Council’s “Peace Assemblies.” Foreign Affairs Note. May 1983.

Lawrence Eagleburger. “Unacceptable Intervention: Soviet Active Measures.” Department 

of State Bulletin #2077, August 1983, 45–49. Reprinted from NATO Review 31, no. 1 (1983).

World Federation of Trade Unions: Soviet Foreign Policy Tool. Foreign Affairs Note. 

August 1983.

Soviet Active Measures. Special Report 110. September 1983.
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1984

Expulsions of Soviets Worldwide, 1983. Foreign Affairs Note. January 1984.

“Soviet Active Measures.” An Address by William E. Knepper, Deputy Assistant Secretary, 

Bureau for Intelligence and Research, before the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, Current 

Policy, no. 595 (May 30, 1984).

Soviet Fronts: Women and Youth. Foreign Affairs Note. July 1984.

1985

Expulsions of Soviets Worldwide, 1984. Foreign Affairs Note. January 1985.

Soviet Active Measures: The World Peace Council. Foreign Affairs Note. April 1985.

Soviet Active Measures: Christian Peace Conference. Foreign Affairs Note. May 1985.

Soviet Active Measures: The 12th World Youth Festival in Moscow. Foreign Affairs Note. 

June 1985.

Contemporary Soviet Propaganda and Disinformation: A Conference Report. June 1985. 

(Note: although members of the working group participated in this conference and it was 

dubbed a Department of State–Central Intelligence Agency–sponsored conference, it may have 

been organized for the most part by the classified National Security Council working group on 

active measures.)

“Soviet Use of Active Measures.” An address by William J. Casey, Director of the Central 

Intelligence Agency, to the Dallas Council on World Affairs. Current Policy, no. 761 (September 

18, 1985).

Update: The 12th World Youth Festival in Moscow. Foreign Affairs Note. December 1985. 

(Note: at 12 pages, this is the longest Foreign Affairs Note.)

1986 

Expulsions of Soviets Worldwide, 1985. Foreign Affairs Note. January 1986.

August, 1986. Congressional Report: Active Measures: A Report on the Substance and Process of Anti-U.S. Disinformation and Propaganda Campaigns. Congressional Report. August 

1986. (Note: 83 pages)

Recent Anti-American Forgeries. Foreign Affairs Note. November 1986.

1987

Expulsion of Soviet Officials, 1986. Foreign Affairs Note. January 1987.

Moscow and the Peace Movement: The Soviet Committee for the Defense of Peace. Foreign 

Affairs Note. May 1987.

“Disinformation, The Media, and Foreign Policy.” Conference Report. May 1987.

Recent Anti-American Forgeries: An Update. Foreign Affairs Note. July 1987.
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Deception, Disinformation, and Strategic Communications

The U.S.S.R.’s AIDS Disinformation Campaign. Foreign Affairs Note. July 1987.

August, 1987. Congressional Report: Soviet Influence Activities: A Report on Active Measures and Propaganda, 1986–1987. Congressional Report. August 1987. (Note: 89 pages)

1988

Expulsions of Soviet Officials, 1987. Foreign Affairs Note. January 1988.

Soviet Active Measures in the Era of Glasnost. United States Information Agency Report. 

March 1988.

1989

Soviet Influence Activities: A Report on Active Measures and Propaganda, 1987–1988. Department of State Report. August 1989.

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Notes

1 United States Information Agency (USIA), Soviet Active Measures in the Era of Glasnost, 

report presented to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations, March 8, 1988.

2 George P. Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph: My Years as Secretary of State (New York: Scribner’s, 

1993), 997–998; “Little Report, With the Right Spin, Makes a Big Splash,” The New York Times, November 5, 1987, A32.

3 Shultz, 997–998.

4 George P. Shultz, interview, Meet the Press, October 25, 1987; David K. Shipler, “What Happened in Moscow? Shultz Offers inside Account,” The New York Times, October 25, 1987.

5 “Little Report, With the Right Spin.”

6 Herbert Romerstein, “The Interagency Active Measures Working Group: Successful Template for Strategic Influence,” in Strategic Influence: Public Diplomacy, Counterpropaganda and Political 

Warfare, ed. J.M. Waller, 203 (Washington, DC: Institute of World Politics Press, 2008). Romerstein 

originally published his account of the working group as “Disinformation as a KGB Weapon in the Cold 

War,” The Journal of Intelligence History 1, no 1 (Summer 2001), 54–67. Subsequently, it has been edited 

and republished by the Institute of World Politics.

7 Thomas Boghardt, “Active Measures. The Russian Art of Disinformation,” available at <www.

spymuseum.org/active-measures-russian-art-disinformation>.

8 The enduring nature of Soviet AIDS disinformation is a case in point and well illustrated 

in Thomas Boghardt, “Operation INFEKTION: Soviet Bloc Intelligence and Its AIDS Disinformation 

Campaign,” Studies in Intelligence 53, no. 4 (December 2009).

9 See James Douglas Orton and Christopher J. Lamb, “Interagency National Security Teams: 

Can Social Science Contribute?” PRISM 2, no. 2 (March 2011).

10 Cited in Boghardt, 1. Wagenbreth is giving a lecture to Department X recruits in 1986, as 

recorded in Gunter Bohnsak and Herbert Brehmer, Auftrag. Ireefuhrung: Wie die Stasi Politik im Westen 

machte (Hamburg: Carlsen, 1992), 19.

11 Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Soviet Active Measures in the United States, 1986–1987

(Washington, DC: FBI, June 1987), 1. Some assert that Soviet defector Stanislav Levchenko explained to Americans that the KGB knew the United States was catching on to deception and disinformation, so they changed 

the term to the more generic active measures. Interviewee 18, a senior intelligence official, May 13, 2011.

12 Richard H. Shultz and Roy Godson, Dezinformatsia: Active Measures in Soviet Strategy

(Washington DC: Pergamon-Brassey’s, 1984), 2.

13 Herbert Romerstein, Soviet Active Measures and Propaganda: “New Thinking” & Influence 

Activities in the Gorbachev Era (Toronto: Mackenzie Institute for the Study of Terrorism, Revolution, 

and Propaganda, 1989), 5.

14 Alleged Soviet support for terrorism and assassination have been controversial topics for 

ideological and diplomatic reasons. However, defectors such as Ladislav Bittman have detailed many of 

these Soviet activities in their memoirs and books. See Bittman, The KGB and Soviet Disinformation: An 

Insider’s View (Washington, DC: Pergamon-Brassey’s, 1985).

15 Ibid., 43.
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16 Romerstein, Soviet Active Measures and Propaganda, 28–29. Gorbachev notes in his memoirs, however, that Politburo members did not have the full picture on the KGB and that delving into its 

activities “was entirely off-limits.” See Mikhail Gorbachev, Memoirs (New York: Doubleday, 1995), 204.

17 FBI, Soviet Active Measures, 2.

18 Adda B. Bozemann, Strategic Intelligence and Statecraft (Washington, DC: PergamonBrassey’s, 1991).

19 It was called the Soviet Political Action Working Group.

20 Senate Committee on Government Operations, Subcommittee on National Policy Machinery, Organizing for National Security, 87th Cong., 1st sess., 1961, 16.

21 Ibid., 17.

22 Project on National Security Reform (PNSR), Forging a New Shield (Washington, DC: 

PNSR, 2008).

23 John P. Burke, The Institutional Presidency (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 

1992), 144.

24 Brigadier General Walter Jajko, USAF (Ret.), interview by authors, April 13, 2011.

25 Kathleen Bailey, phone interview by authors, March 3, 2011.

26 Stanton Burnett, phone interview by authors, April 20, 2011.

27 Jajko, interview.

28 Lucas Fischer, email message to authors, August 21, 2011.

29 David Tucker, Skirmishes at the Edge of Empire: The United States and International Terrorism

(Westport, CT: Praeger, 1997), 125. Similarly, interviewee 21, a member of the Active Measures Working Group, 

worked on interagency counternarcotics and overhead imagery groups with members who exhibited high dedication to working toward common goals. Interviewee 21, email message to authors, September 2, 2011.

30 Stansfield Turner, Secrecy and Democracy: The CIA in Transition (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 

1985), 25.

31 Henry A. Kissinger, White House Years (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1979), 133.

32 Ibid., 949.

33 Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones, The CIA and American Democracy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 

1989), 199.

34 Tim Weiner, Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA (New York: Doubleday, 2007), 285–287. 

For an up-to-date account, insider, and sympathetic review of CHAOS, see Frank J. Rafalko, MH/CHAOS: The CIA’s Campaign against the Radical New Left and the Black Panthers (Annapolis, MD: Naval 

Institute Press, 2011).

35 Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence 

Activities, Final report of the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, 94th Cong., 2nd sess., 1976, Supplementary Detailed Staff Reports on Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans, Book III, 699.

36 John T. Elliff, The Reform of FBI Intelligence Operations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 

1979), 40. COINTELPRO was a misnomer. As the Senate later observed, the program’s activities were 

designed to influence political choices and social values and so amounted to covert action rather than 

counterintelligence. Ironically, this is exactly what active measures are. See Senate Select Committee, 4.
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37 The program began in 1956 in part “because of frustration with Supreme Court rulings 

limiting the Government’s power to proceed overtly against dissident groups.” See Senate Select Committee, 3.

38 Ronald Kessler, Inside the CIA: Revealing the Secrets of the World’s Most Powerful Spy Agency

(New York: Pocket Books, 1992), 80.

39 Tim Weiner, Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA (New York: Doubleday, 2007), 338.

40 “A Look Back: The Landmark Schlesinger Report, 1971,” available at <https://www.cia.gov/

news-information/featured-story-archive/2008-featured-story-archive/schlesinger-report.html>. A 

redacted version of the report is available through The George Washington University National Security 

Archives, available at <www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB144/document%204.pdf>.

41 What follows is largely taken from the short, excellent overview of intelligence by Abram N. 

Shulsky and Gary J. Schmitt, Silent Warfare: Understanding the World of Intelligence (Washington, DC: 

Brassey’s, 1991).

42 Covert action, as defined in the National Security Act of 1947, as amended, is “an activity 

or activities of the United States Government to influence political, economic or military conditions 

abroad, where it is intended that the role of the United States Government will not be apparent or 

acknowledged publically.” In this paper, we use a broader and more common understanding of covert 

action as “a middle ground between diplomacy and war that involves the secret manipulation of the 

perceptions of others to induce them to take actions that one sees as in one’s interest.” See Ibid., 97.

43 Harold P. Ford, “William Colby: Retrospect,” available at <https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/97unclass/colby.html>.

44 Colby as quoted in Shulsky and Schmitt, 164.

45 Ibid., 166.

46 For a sympathetic view of the reformers that characterizes the Reagan administration’s intelligence reforms as a politicization of intelligence, see Melvin A. Goodman, Failure of Intelligence: The 

Decline and Fall of the CIA (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008), 17–18, 79, 122, 151, 326. Those 

working inside U.S. intelligence at the time believed that the Reagan administration had mounted a 

“full-out assault” against Soviet analysts and were determined to twist their analysis until it supported 

administration policy. Interviewee 22, interview with authors, October 3, 2011.

47 During Schlesinger’s 6-month tenure in 1973, 500 analysts and 750 clandestine service officers were fired. Later, Stansfield Turner fired another 825 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) employees. 

See “The Nation: Spooked Spooks at the CIA,” Time, November 28, 1977.

48 Edward J. Epstein, Deception: The Invisible War between the KGB and the CIA (New York: 

Simon & Schuster, 1989), 98.

49 Interviewee 18.

50 Epstein, 101.

51 Robert M. Gates, From the Shadows: The Ultimate Insider’s Story of Five Presidents and How 

They Won the Cold War (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996), 202.

52 House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Soviet Active Measures: Hearings, 97th

Cong., 2nd sess., 1982, 8; and Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on European Affairs, Soviet Active Measures, 99th Cong., 1st sess., 1985, 4, 49.
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Strategic Perspectives, No. 11

53 Richard Staar cites Shultz and Godson to the effect that the total Soviet active measures bureaucracy included some 15,000 personnel. See Shultz and Godson, 57, cited in Richard F. Staar, Foreign 

Policies of the Soviet Union (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1991), 132.

54 Soviet Use of Active Measures, an address by William J. Casey, Director of Central Intelligence, 

before the Dallas Council on World Affairs, Dallas Texas, September 18, 1985, Current Policy no. 761 

(Washington DC, Department of State, November 1985), 5.

55 The book’s title was Oswald: Assassin or Fall-Guy? See Christopher M. Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB (New York: 

Basic Books, 1999), 225–226.

56 Perhaps they were not above leaking information to the press. In 1979, Rowland Evans and 

Robert Novak reported on Soviet forgeries based on some classified documents that they reportedly 

were shown, including a report entitled “The Forgery Offensive” and a report published by the Defense 

Intelligence Agency (DIA) that proclaimed “Moscow has continually employed forged documents to 

implement foreign policy.” See Rowland Evans and Robert Novak, “Soviets Intensity Their Forgery 

Games,” The Washington Post, December 5, 1979, A27.

57 The episode is recounted in Romerstein, “The Interagency Active Measures Working Group.”

58 Some of the academics interested in the topic participated in the April 1979 conference 

entitled “Intelligence: Deception and Surprise,” which was hosted by the Fletcher School of Law and 

Diplomacy. The conference focused more on surprise than deception, however, and included scholars 

such as Roberta Wohlstetter, Ithiel de Sola Pool, Richard Pipes, and Richard Betts.

59 Gates, 95.

60 Raymond L. Garthoff, Detente and Confrontation: American-Soviet Relations from Nixon to 

Reagan (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1994), 971.

61 Jajko, interview.

62 “Fake NSC Paper on Africa Is Circulating, Powell Says,” The Washington Post, September 18, 

1980, A2.

63 Romerstein, “Disinformation,” 65.

64 TASS replaying KGB planted stories was standard procedure. They did the same for a KGB 

story about the United States using germ warfare in the Korean War. Dennis Kux, interview by authors, 

March 9, 2011.

65 “Fake NSC Paper on Africa Is Circulating,” A2.

66 John Lewis Gaddis, The Cold War: A New History (New York: Penguin, 2005), 212.

67 John Lenczowski, interview by authors, March 11, 2011.

68 The Republican Party Platform, adopted by the Republican National Convention, July 15, 1980, Detroit, Michigan, available at <www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.

php?pid=25844#axzz1SBtYa4JV>.

69 Sean Wilentz, The Age of Reagan: A History, 1974–2008 (New York: Harper, 2008), 151.

70 Lenczowski, interview.

71 Alexander Haig, for example, signaled a new tone in U.S.-Soviet relations by cutting off longserving Soviet Ambassador Dobrynin’s access to his private elevator in the Department of State building. Dobrynin saw this as a bit of political theater, but the larger message got through loud and clear. 
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Dobrynin notes that Reagan’s first press conference and the Politburo reaction amounted to what was 

an unprecedented catastrophe in personal relations between the two countries at the highest levels. See 

Alexander M. Haig and Clare B. Luce, Caveat: Realism, Reagan, and Foreign Policy (New York: Macmillan, 1984), 101; and Anatoly Dobrynin, In Confidence: Moscow’s Ambassador to America’s Six Cold War 

Presidents (1962–1986) (New York: Times Books, 1995), 486, 607.

72 Duncan L. Clarke, “Arms control and foreign policy under Reagan,” Bulletin of the Atomic 

Scientists, November 1981, 12–19.

73 Gates, 202–208. The request actually came from Ron Spires, who headed the Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) at the time, albeit with Haig’s approval. INR had produced an early 1981 

assessment of Soviet support for terrorism that was widely rejected by senior Reagan administration 

leaders, and Spires thought a community-wide intelligence estimate would defuse the situation. See 

Goodman, 175–176; and interviewee 22, October 3, 2011.

74 Douglas F. Garthoff, “Chapter III: Analyzing Soviet Politics and Foreign Policy,” in Watching 

the Bear: Essays on CIA’s analysis of the Soviet Union, ed. Gerald K. Haines and Robert E. Legget, footnote 42 (Washington, DC: CIA, 2003). Casey’s reorganization also created an Office of Soviet Analysis, 

which lasted until the fall of the Soviet Union, but the Office of Global Issues had a branch that looked 

at Soviet covert action, or “active measures.”

75 Lenczowski, interview. Casey was even more concerned about reforming the CIA’s Directorate of Operations. Gates, 209ff.

76 Ibid., 203–206.

77 Interviewee 18.

78 Bob Woodward, Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA, 1981–1987 (New York: Pocket Books, 1988), 73.

79 “Charles Wick, 90, Information Agency Head, Is Dead,” The New York Times, July 28, 2008, 

available at <www.nytimes.com/2008/07/24/us/24wick.html>.

80 Walter Raymond, Dictionary of Politics: Selected American and Foreign Political and Legal 

Terms (Lawrenceville, VA: Brunswick Publication Company, 1978), 417.

81 “Memo Outlining ‘Project Truth’ Campaign,” The Washington Post, November 10, 1981, A11.

82 Alvin A. Snyder, Warriors of Disinformation: American Propaganda, Soviet Lies, and the Winning of the Cold War: An Insider’s Account (New York: Arcade Publication, 1995), 11.

83 Alan L. Heil, Voice of America: A History (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003), 201.

84 National Security Decision Directive 45, “United States International Broadcasting,” July 15, 

1982, available at <www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/nsdd/nsdd–045.htm>; “Modernizing in the 1980s,” Voice 

of America Official History Web site, available at <www.insidevoa.com/about/history/a-13-34-2007-

modernizing-in-the-1980s-111602659.html>.

85 Member of the Active Measures Working Group, interview by authors, February 8, 2011.

86 Kenneth deGraffenreid, interview by authors, April 20, 2011.

87 Jajko, interview.

88 Executive Order 12333, “United States Intelligence Activities,” December 4, 1981, 6, available 

at <www.archives.gov/federal-register/codification/executive-order/12333.html>.

89 DeGraffenreid, interview. National Security Council (NSC) senior staff had a tough time 

pushing issues through interagency committees. Even if they convinced National Security Advisor 
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Strategic Perspectives, No. 11

Clark to take up the issue with President Reagan, the President would not “discipline” the heads of the 

departments and agencies holding up progress.

90 Mark Riebling, Wedge: The Secret War between the FBI and CIA (New York: Knopf, 1994), 349.

91 Jajko, interview.

92 The effort was also pushed by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, where 

Romerstein was a staff member; interviewee 18.

93 National Security Advisor Clark had to make a request to FBI Director Webster to get Major 

assigned to the NSC. Doing so implied that the FBI was part of the Intelligence Community, which was 

a sensitive issue. DeGraffenreid, interview.

94 Riebling, 351.

95 Jim Bruce, senior political scientist for RAND and former CIA analyst, telephone interview 

by authors, November 1, 2011. Bruce organized the conference and wrote up its results.

96 Interviewee 18.

97 Ibid.

98 Jack F. Matlock, Reagan and Gorbachev: How the Cold War Ended (New York: Random 

House, 2004), 256.

99 David Major, interview by authors, May 5, 2011. State opposed counterintelligence reforms 

that could result in more aggressive action against Soviet agents because of the potential embarrassment 

and disruptions in bilateral relations it could cause. See also Riebling, 364.

100 Lenczowski believes that the event helped sensitize intelligence officials to possible Soviet 

deception, whereas others we interviewed were more impressed by the resolute insistence from such 

professionals that no such deception was possible. Lenczowski, interview.

101 Interviewee 18.

102 DIA had already established an office responsible for denial and deception issues. Interviewee 18; Bruce, interview.

103 For many, the joke was that the name was apt because America was in denial about deception. Interviewee 18.

104 James A. Schear, “Arms Control Treaty Compliance: Buildup to a Breakdown?” International Security 10, no. 2 (1985), 141–182. See also Zell Stanley, An Annotated Bibliography of the Open 

Literature on Deception (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, December 1985), prepared for the Director of Net 

Assessment, Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD).

105 Some observers note that the Intelligence Community is more resistant to political agendas 

for good reason. New Presidential administrations make political appointments throughout the upper 

levels of the government, but historically only a handful of the CIA’s top leaders are political appointees 

because Presidents are anxious to avoid charges of “politicizing” intelligence.

106 “Functioning of Diplomatic Organs,” in Public Diplomacy: USA Versus USSR, ed. Richard F. 

Staar, 132 (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1986).

107 Jajko, interview. The FBI also stoutly refused to participate in the interagency working group 

supporting the Department of Defense (DOD) Soviet Military Power effort.

108 To capture the working group’s entire history and output, we built a detailed chronology of 

the group’s activities, products, and effects based on meeting minutes, personal accounts, and primary 
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and secondary literature. To date, only two sets of minutes for the working group have been declassified 

(and two for the classified NSC working group). The authors requested expedited declassification of all 

the working group’s minutes in March 2011 and are waiting for a final response from State.

109 The group’s first product on Soviet active measures, a special report, was delivered in 

October 1981. Kux notes in an oral history of his diplomatic career that the group “gradually gathered 

information for about a year” before putting it together in an annual report. It must have been less than 

a year, since he acknowledges that the working group “was new and started in the Reagan administration,” but it suggests the group formed in the early to late spring of 1981. Dennis Kux, oral history in 

Frontline Diplomacy: The Foreign Affairs Oral History Collection of the Association for Diplomatic Studies 

and Training, January 13, 1995, available at <http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/diplomacy/>.

110 Senior leaders had already tried to stimulate CIA interest in a report on Soviet active measures 

and run into stiff bureaucratic resistance. Some who participated in that study told the authors that the 

CIA wanted State to lead the effort so that it would be more credible to the public and U.S. allies. CIA classified activities in this area were already receiving some unfavorable attention from Senators, and another 

outlet for countering Soviet active measures was needed. In his oral history, Kux introduces the origins 

of the working group with observations that might be interpreted to support this assertion. He notes that 

“In the past, to the extent that the U.S. countered ‘disinformation,’ it was handled by the CIA and lacked 

‘credibility.’” It also is true that others on the working group suspected that early CIA representatives to 

INR who worked on the group were assigned the task of directing the group’s efforts. Ibid.; interviewee 18; 

interviewee 19; and David Hertzberg, interview by authors, March 2, 2011.

111 In an oral history of his diplomatic career, Palmer notes his background included “iconoclasts,” and that his student activities made it difficult for him to get a security clearance. He also 

relates how he offered his resignation to Secretary of State Haig after a public diplomacy gambit 

backfired. See Palmer’s October 30, 1997, oral history, available at <http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/

collections/diplomacy/>.

112 Alex Alexiev, The Soviet Campaign Against INF: Strategy, Tactics, Means (Santa Monica, CA: 

RAND, 1985), available at <www.rand.org/pubs/notes/N2280>.

113 Peter Dailey, phone interview by authors, April 8, 2011.

114 Peck was identified in the Turkish press as a CIA agent, which “he wasn’t.” He was “a victim of 

pro-Communist disinformation.” The Turkish foreign minister, who at the time was a “left-winger” “in a 

Left wing government” took the allegations of CIA affiliation seriously and asked that Peck be withdrawn. 

The United States refused, but Peck did leave the country early. See Kux, oral history.

115 Kux, interview. In his oral history, Kux notes that he thinks Palmer and Peck persuaded 

Secretary Haig to agree to the creation of the working group.

116 Kux, oral history.

117 Dennis Kux, email message to authors, September 17, 2011.

118 Kux, interview.

119 The authors contacted both Mark Palmer and Morton Abramowitz. Neither Palmer, reputedly inclined favorably toward the working group, nor Abromowitz, reportedly inclined unfavorably 

toward the group, could recall much if anything about the group.

120 Kux, oral history.
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121 Romerstein, “The Interagency Active Measures Working Group.”

122 Lenczowski, interview.

123 Ibid.

124 Woodward, 171.

125 Lenczowski, interview.

126 This sum included the $1.3 billion to modernize Voice of America, but also included, 

among other things, $2 million to cover the damage to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty offices after 

they were bombed by terrorist Carlos the Jackal on February 21, 1981. Lenczowski was able to get Wick, 

Haig, and Frank Shakespeare (the chairman of the Board for International Broadcasting) to sign off on 

the package. Lenczowski, interview; Cissie Dore Hill, “Voices of Hope: The Story of Radio Free Europe 

and Radio Liberty,” Hoover Digest, no. 4 (October 30, 2001), available at <www.hoover.org/publications/

hoover-digest/article/6270>; and Richard H. Cummings, Cold War Radio: The Dangerous History of 

American Broadcasting in Europe, 1950–1989 (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 2009).

127 Lenczowski, interview.

128 Kux, interview; Kux, oral history.

129 Lenczowski, interview.

130 Kux, email message.

131 Kux met with Levchenko, whom he found quite helpful. For example, Soviet defectors helped the 

group understand how a forgery could be identified as Soviet in origin: “When we would say that you can’t 

tell for sure that it was done by the Soviets unless you can get the fellow who prepared it, we would be asked: 

‘Why do you think that it came from the Soviets?’ Then, through a process of analysis we would show how 

we came to this conclusion. We had some help from Soviet defectors who had worked in this area and were 

able to put together a fairly credible picture of what was going on.” Kux, email message; Kux, oral history.

132 Kux, interview; Kux recalls that Bill Young, an INR analyst (and no relation to the Florida 

Congressman who took such an interest in Soviet active measures), was particularly helpful in this regard.

133 These five are known to the authors and some who were interviewed. However, at the time, 

those who publicly testified used code names and some who are alive today are still reluctant to be identified. Sheldon Rapoport, phone interview with authors, March 15, 2011; interviewee 21, email message to 

authors, September 18, 2011. Robert Gates explains that the CIA’s few experts in Soviet active measures 

were in the Directorate of Operations and that the CIA did not analyze Soviet active measures. After Casey 

created the Office of Global Issues in the Directorate of Intelligence, this situation reversed, and by 1985, it 

was John Kringen, chief of the Subversion Analysis Branch, Foreign Subversion and Instability Center, Office of Global Issues, Directorate of Intelligence, who testified to the Senate on active measures. Gates, 202.

134 Soviet Active Measures: Forgery Disinformation, Political Operations, Special Report 88 

(Washington, DC: Department of State, October 1981).

135 Bernard Gwertzman, “U.S. Accuses Soviets of ‘Disinformation,’” The New York Times, October 10, 1981, A3.

136 Charles Mohr, “State Dept. Cites Soviet Forgeries,” The New York Times, December 9, 1981, A11.

137 Hertzberg worked in INR’s Office for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. He wrote almost 

all of the working group’s Foreign Affairs Notes, although sometimes with contributions from other 

group members.
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138 Hertzberg, interview. This was something the CIA was just learning to do. The Directorate of Operations watched for this kind of activity but did not turn it over to CIA analysts because they 

considered it operational intelligence. The situation was not rectified until about the time Hertzberg was 

preparing his reports. See Gates, 200–208.

139 Jajko, interview.

140 Expulsion of Soviet Representatives from Foreign Countries, 1970–81, Foreign Affairs Note 

(Washington, DC: Department of State, February 1982).

141 Gerald Seib, “Caught Red Handed More Soviet Envoys Are Ejected as Spies,” The Wall Street 

Journal, June 14, 1982; “Behind the Latest Surge in Soviet Spying,” U.S. News and World Report, November 11, 1982.

142 Hertzberg, interview; Wallace Spaulding, phone interview with authors, April 20, 2011; 

Lucas Fischer, phone interview with authors, April 19, 2011; Jim Milburn, interview with authors, May 

12, 2011.

143 Kux, email message.

144 Romerstein, “Disinformation,” 67.

145 Judith Miller, “House Supports Reagan on Arms, Adopting His Idea of Atom Freeze,” The 

New York Times, August 6, 1982, A1.

146 “President Says Foes Of U.S. Have Duped Arms Freeze Group,” The New York Times, October 5, 1982, A22.

147 Joanna Omang, “Magazine Articles Cited in KGB-Freeze Link,” The Washington Post, November 13, 1982.

148 Miller.

149 Ibid.

150 Romerstein, “The Interagency Active Measures Working Group: An Eyewitness Account of 

U.S. Counterpropaganda Strategy,” in The Public Diplomacy Reader, ed. J.M. Waller (Washington, DC: 

Institute of World Politics Press, 2007), 351.

151 Jajko, interview. Initially, Jajko and his small “Special Advisory Staff” handled strategic psychological operations, but it quickly outgrew his capacity to manage it full time. In January 1986, they succeeded in getting Colonel Alfred H. Paddock, Jr. (previously of the 4th Psychological Operations Group), 

to manage the topic when General Stilwell created an office for that purpose and had Paddock assigned 

director for psychological operations. Paddock, email message to authors, August 24, 2011. Similarly, 

Jajko’s staff began handling DOD involvement in public diplomacy, but in 1983 created an office run by an 

Air Force colonel and—at its height—six staffers. Later, a CIA clandestine service officer who was retiring 

was brought in to lead the effort, but “he didn’t fit in too well with DoD,” and after the Reagan administration left office, the group disappeared. Interviewee 10, email message to authors, August 8, 2011.

152 Stillwell was principal deputy under secretary of Defense for policy. He also had a good 

personal relationship with Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger. Paddock, email message, August 

24, 2011.

153 DOD sent representatives from OSD as well as from the DIA. From DIA, Dr. Winifred Joshua, who worked Soviet affairs, provided information to the group and sent several of her best people to 

group meetings, including John Dziak and David Curtin. Jajko, interview.
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154 Lenczowski, interview.

155 Kux, interview.

156 Ibid.

157 Lenczowski, interview.

158 One trip attendee had the impression that because the briefing teams were interagency, they 

received more support and attention from Embassy staffs. Interviewee 21, email message, September 2, 2011.

159 Kux, interview.

160 Ibid.

161 Ibid.

162 Peter Almond, “Recent Ejection of Soviet Spies hint Agents strive for ‘big score,’” The Washington Times, May 20, 1983. A1.

163 Kux, interview.

164 Ibid.; Kux oral history.

165 Both Hertzberg and Kux recall that the initial products, and the Foreign Affairs Notes in 

particular, used primarily unclassified sources. Later, when the group was required to produce longer 

public reports under Bailey, adjudicating declassification of sources became more contentious. David 

Hertzberg, email message to the authors, September 29, 2011; Kux, email message.

166 “Russian Spies: How Many More?” The Economist, April 30, 1982; Almond; Daniel Southerland, “Behind Soviet’s Low-key response to Diplomats’ Expulsion,” The Christian Science Monitor, May 

13, 1983.

167 Almond.

168 Kux, interview.

169 Ibid. Perhaps the grand jury standard was a misnomer since it implies only “probable cause 

to believe the crime has been committed” rather than the more conservative “beyond reasonable doubt” 

standard that the group actually followed.

170 All the points and quotations in this paragraph come from an email clarification from Kux.

171 Kux, oral history.

172 Soviet Active Measures, Special Report No. 110 (Washington, DC: Department of State, 

September 1983).

173 The group was “not sufficiently sure of the Soviet hand since the conversation did not really 

make Reagan look bad, only Mrs. Thatcher,” and that seemed inconsistent with Soviet methods. Kux, 

email message; Kux, interview.

174 “Confessions of a Hoax,” The Washington Post, January 25, 1984.

175 Kux, oral history.

176 Ibid.; Kux, email message.

177 Robert D. McFadden, “Koch tells of FBI Visit in Weinberger Case,” The New York Times, 

December 16, 1983, A1.

178 Michael Goodwin, “Mayor Releases Webster letters on F.B.I.’s Visit,” The New York Times, 

December 30, 1983, B3.

179 Kux, interview; Kux, email message; Kux, oral history.

180 Jajko, interview.
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181 Numerous sources made this point. From the beginning, INR’s Soviet desk sent a relatively 

junior Foreign Service Officer to keep tabs on the working group for this reason.

182 Interviewee 22, interview with authors, September 14, 2011. Some on the group were considered Cold War ideologues. Interviewee 22, October 3, 2011.

183 Eagleburger was assistant secretary of State for European and Eurasian affairs from May 14, 1981, 

through January 26, 1982. In February 1982, he was appointed under secretary of State for political affairs.

184 Lenczowski recalls that interagency groups he attended, including the Active Measures 

Working Group, could be influenced to be more activist over time: “Initially, I would say things and the 

people sitting around the table would look down and not debate them or just change the subject.” Over 

time, however, the group would begin to ask the same sort of questions and eventually would follow up 

with action. Lenczowski, interview.

185 Rapoport, phone interview.

186 Lenczowski, interview.

187 Handwritten note in authors’ files courtesy of David Hertzberg; Hertzberg, interview.

188 Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS), “Soviet Delegate Comments on World Peace Assembly,” USSR and International Affairs, World and Regional Issues (Washington, DC: FBIS, June 29, 1983).

189 The World Peace Council’s “Peace Assemblies,” Foreign Affairs Note (Washington, DC: Department of State, May 1983).

190 FBIS.

191 Yuri Zhukov, a senior political commentator for Pravda, commented on the Foreign Affairs 

Note, which at the time was taken as an indication that the group’s work had attracted the attention of 

the Soviet political leadership. David Hertzberg, email message to the authors, October 24, 2011.

192 Soviet Active Measures, 24 min. (Washington, DC: National Archives and Records Administration, 1984), available at <www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8IuVg3N6OA>. The “water on a rock” 

metaphor was used a lot by the group and group members.

193 Kux, oral history.

194 For example, a deputy assistant secretary of INR who succeeded Kux closed his address on 

Soviet active measures to the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations in May 1984 by noting that it was 

important to view active measures as the Soviets do, with “a long-term view. They are not seeking immediate, short-term gains or necessarily a big impact from any one operation. Rather, they regard active 

measures like pawns in a chess game, able to damage the opponent at the margin. . . . [T]he cumulative 

impact makes their considerable investment worthwhile.” Soviet Active Measures May 30, 1984, Current 

Policy no. 595 (Washington, DC: Department of State, 1985).

195 For example, in a November 18, 1985, memorandum to Thomas Thorne, Bob Baraz cites 

Parade Magazine coverage of the Foreign Affairs Note on Soviet expulsions as evidence that “print 

media continue to find our publication a useful reference and value its factual, non-polemical style.” 

Similarly, several years later in a Department of State letter drafted by Kathleen Bailey but released by 

State’s assistant secretary for legislative affairs, the Department defends a working group report to Congressman Lee Hamilton by noting other Congressmen approved of the report’s “non-polemical nature” 

and “the thoroughness of the research.” The letter concluded by arguing that it was “important that Soviet disinformation and active measures be exposed in a truthful, non-polemical fashion. Only by doing 
136 

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so can we expect to motivate the Soviets to discontinue such activities.” Department of State Assistant 

Secretary of Legislative Affairs J. Edward Fox to the Honorable Lee H. Hamilton, chairman, Subcommittee on Europe and the Middle East, House of Representatives. The date is obscured (but sometime in 

the fall 1987 since it references a report from September 1987). In the authors’ files courtesy of Hertzberg; memorandum from the Office of Soviet and East European Analysis, Bureau of Intelligence and 

Research, Robert Baraz to INR Thorne, November 18, 1985, “Subject: More Publicity for our Foreign 

Affairs Notes.” In authors’ files courtesy of Hertzberg.

196 Thus, the article reached both European and U.S. audiences, including State personnel. 

Department of State Bulletin #2077, August 1983, 45–49; Lawrence Eagleburger, “Unacceptable 

Intervention: Soviet Active Measures,” NATO Review 31, no. 1 (April 1983), 6–11. Evan Dawley, Office 

of the Historian, Department of State, email message to the authors, July 28, 2011.

197 Lenczowski, interview; Eagleburger, “Unacceptable Intervention.”

198 One early member believed the CIA sent Andy Sheren to INR specifically to get control of 

the Active Measures Working Group, and USIA would later assume de facto control of the group when 

Congress assigned USIA to do a public report on active measures.

199 He became State’s deputy director of management operations, and worked a classified project with substantial interagency dimensions. Kux, oral history.

200 Interviewee 21, phone interview with authors, September 7, 2011.

201 Rapoport, phone interview.

202 Ibid. Knepper gave an address on active measures to the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations on May 30, 1984. Current Policy No. 595.

203 Lucian Heichler, interview by authors, February 9, 2011; interviewee 13, April 19, 2011. 

Heichler intersected with Kux during their earlier tours at the U.S. Embassy in Turkey.

204 Andrew Sheren, interview with authors, April 19, 2011.

205 David Major, interview with authors, May 5, 2011.

206 Milburn, interview. As it turned out, FBI informant Major Sergei Motorin, who worked in 

the Soviet Embassy in Washington, was betrayed by the Soviets’ mole in the CIA, Aldrich Ames, and 

then executed by the KGB.

207 Rapoport, the group’s executive secretary, drafted the cable and Heichler approved it, but it 

was coordinated with several other offices in INR and the rest of State as well as USIA. Unclassified Department of State outgoing telegram, 091124Z “Feb 84; From SECSTATE WASHDC to All Diplomatic 

and Consular Posts, Subject: Soviet Active Measures: Foreign Affairs Note Series, Expulsions of Soviets 

Worldwide, 1983.”

208 State Department incoming telegram, September 1985.

209 Members of the Nuclear Freeze movement had criticized President Reagan for raising a red 

herring when he claimed that the Soviets were manipulating the freeze movement leaders. But Hertzberg’s boss in INR, Bob Baraz, happily wrote a note on the incoming cable from United States Information Service (USIS) Germany reporting the positive public reactions: “David, Another piece of fan mail 

for you! Sheldon [Rapoport] was kind enough to bring it by, and I took the opportunity to point out 

that when it is done right one does not get questions on why the State Department [is] chasing red herrings. Bob.” Cable provided to authors, courtesy of Hertzberg.
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210 Foreign Affairs Notes were described as “an informal research study for background information.” The special reports carried a higher profile and typically the imprimatur of State’s Bureau of 

Public Affairs. The group would later have at least one or two “Current Policy” statements as well, which 

reprinted testimony from an interim Active Measures Working Group leader and director of the CIA. 

For a complete list of known working group products, see appendix A.

211 Soviet Active Measures, 99th Cong., 1st sess., 1985.

212 The directive was issued in January 1983 but was not revealed until April 18, 1983.

213 Confidential Memorandum for Members Soviet Political Action Working Group, “From: 

Walter Raymond, Jr. Subject: Soviet Political Action Working Group: December 15, 1984 Meeting. 

National Security Council. December 30, 1984.”

214 Peter Dailey, interview with authors, April 8, 2011.

215 After Palmer helped set up the group, Steve Mann from his EUR/SOV office monitored the 

group and even occasionally travelled with it. Kux, email message.

216 Confidential Memorandum for Members Soviet Political Action Working Group, “From: 

Walter Raymond, Jr. Subject: Soviet Political Action Working Group: December 15, 1984 Meeting. 

National Security Council. December 30, 1984.”

217 Confidential Memorandum for Members the Soviet Political Action Working Group, 

“From: Walter Raymond, Jr. Subject: Soviet Political Action Working Group: January 13, 1984 Meeting. 

National Security Council. January 26, 1984.”

218 Jajko, interview. The interviewee recalls that he saw all covert actions from 1980 until 1994, and 

there was never a case where covert actions conflicted with the Active Measures Working Group’s activities.

219 Ibid.

220 Rapoport, phone interview.

221 DeGraffenreid recalls, for example, that while he found Abramowitz “a thoughtful guy and 

friendly,” he had “knock-down, drag-out fights with him” over policy issues. DeGraffenreid, interview; 

John M. Goshko and Lou Cannon, “State Intelligence Chief Replaced,” The Washington Post, December 

20, 1984, A9.

222 John M. Goshko, “Abramowitz Nomination is a Test for Shultz,” The Washington Post, January 14, 1983, A13.

223 Lucian Heichler’s Foreign Affairs Oral History Collection of the Association for Diplomatic 

Studies and Training interview, available at <http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/diplomacy/

about.html>.

224 John Wiant was one such interim leader; interviewee 13.

225 Group members speculate that many in State considered Sulc too confrontational for this 

sensitive role. Indeed, Sulc’s book, Active Measures, Quiet War and Two socialist Revolutions (Boise, ID: 

Nathan Hale Institute for Intelligence and Military Affairs, 1985), begins with a section called “World War 

Three is Now.” Romerstein also addresses subjects in his books that State considered controversial at the 

time, such as Soviet support for international terrorism and wet affairs, the Soviet term for assassination.

226 Bailey, phone interview.

227 Sulc’s biographic information comes from his Law Enforcement Counterintelligence (Kansas City: Varro Press, 1996), 229, available at <www.scribd.com/doc/60320378/Law-Enforcement-
138 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 11

Counterintelligence>; and from the Department of State phonebook for January and October of 

1985. The phonebook shows Sulc as the deputy assistant secretary for inter-departmental affairs. He 

is not listed in available 1986 editions, so evidently his tenure was short. State Office of the Historian, 

email message, August 23, 2011; Rapoport, phone interview. Rapoport spoke with Sulc on occasion 

about the working group and knew he was interested in the topic, but he did not attend meetings.

228 Sulc had a 7-year period on the House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs. In 

1983, he was also the executive director of the House Republican Study Committee, where it seems likely that he would have known an up and coming Republican such as Gingrich (who entered the house in 

1979). This biographic information comes from the introduction to William E. Dannemeyer’s submission of Lawrence Sulc’s article in Defense & Diplomacy entitled “Hugging the Bear” to the Congressional Record on June 22, 1989, available at <www.fas.org/irp/congress/1989_cr/h890622–kgb.htm>. 

229 “The World Really Is Dangerous,” 131st Cong., 2nd sess., Congressional Record 131 (Thursday, 

September 26, 1985), H 7877.

230 “The Lessons of Grenada,” 131st Cong., 2nd sess., Congressional Record 131 (Thursday, September 12, 1985), H 7460. Bailey also recalls that Gingrich was knowledgeable about active measures 

and took a strong interest in politics at State.

231 The amendment would have required the President to establish a commission to determine 

the advisability of establishing a permanent office of “Soviet and communist disinformation and press 

manipulation” in State to provide information to the public on the issue.

232 The language was in (Section 1247) of H.R. 2086—a bill to extend the Internal Revenue 

Code of 1954; Rapoport, phone interview.

233 Burnett, who identifies himself as far more liberal than the Reagan administration, nonetheless notes that he enjoyed working in that administration because, contrary to popular opinion, internally 

it encouraged open debate on all issues. In this regard, he notes that it mattered little that the reporting 

requirement for the working group originated with Gingrich, a conservative Republican. The group would 

have an open debate about appropriate contents for the report in any case. Burnett, phone interview.

234 In contrast, another ostensibly interagency group working public diplomacy under the 

auspices of State (which included some members attending the Active Members Working Group) 

ended up getting its wrist slapped in the aftermath of Iran-Contra investigations. A comptroller general report found that the Office of Public Diplomacy for Latin America and the Caribbean headed 

by Otto Reich engaged in “prohibited, covert propaganda activities” that were “beyond the range of 

acceptable agency public information activities,” and thus “violated a restriction on the use of appropriated funds for publicity or propaganda purposes not authorized by the Congress.” Comptroller 

General of the United States to the Honorable Jack Brooke, chairman, Committee on Government 

Operations, September 10, 1987.

235 Rapoport notes that the group kept functioning throughout his tenure as executive secretary, 

putting out agendas and meeting minutes. Rapoport, phone interview. Bailey recalls that Hertzberg told 

her about the group of experts, and much later, some of what occurred under Kux, but she does not recall 

being briefed about the group and its official activities. Kathleen Bailey, email message, August 21, 2011.

236 An exception was Hertzberg, who from the beginning of her tenure in INR worked directly 

for Bailey in an adjacent office. He found her smart and dynamic and respected her.
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237 Bailey joined the Reagan administration in 1983 as deputy director of the Office of Research 

in USIA. She was not perceived by the group as an active measures expert, but her research was relevant, giving her insights on public diplomacy problems, including Soviet efforts to defame the United 

States. The USIA Office of Research ran “Soviet Propaganda Alerts,” as part of Project Truth, which were 

sent to USIS posts around the world to provide background information on Soviet propaganda, the 

rationale it used, and how it misrepresented the situation. As one interviewee who came from a social 

milieu dominated by New York Jewish intellectuals noted, many (but not all) group members had his 

background, and whether they were conservative or liberal, it contributed to group cohesion. Bailey, 

however, did not fit this mold; Rapoport, phone interview.

238 Both State and CIA later published copies of the conference report; see, for example, Contemporary Soviet Propaganda and Disinformation: A Conference Report, Airlie, VA, 25–27 June, 1985

(Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1987).

239 Romerstein, “The Interagency Active Measures Working Group,” 201–202.

240 Her doctorate came with specialization on Middle East and South Asian affairs.

241 Her knowledge of the Intelligence Community came as a result of her 7 years at Lawrence 

Livermore National Laboratory, where she led an organization conducting intelligence analyses of 

nuclear weapons proliferation.

242 She was assigned oversight of INR’s Office of Long-Assessments, with duties as INR’s liaison 

with the staffs of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and House Permanent Committee on 

Intelligence, and responsibility for assisting Richard Clarke on several tasks, including being backup 

editor of the daily briefing on intelligence to the Secretary. The account of Bailey’s first meeting with 

Abramowitz is from an email from Bailey, August 21, 2011.

243 Kux does not recall declassification being such a contentious issue in the early years 

when the group relied more on unclassified analysis and materials. Kux, email message; Rapoport, 

phone interview.

244 Active Measures: A Report on the Substance and Process of Anti-U.S. Disinformation and 

Propaganda Campaigns (Washington, DC: Department of State August, 1986).

245 Bailey, phone interview.

246 Bill Gertz, “US beings new offensive on Soviet Disinformation,” The Washington Times, 

October 6, 1986.

247 Later, Congressman Lee Hamilton (chairman, House Subcommittee on Europe and the 

Middle East) would also express his concern about the timing and costs of the report to State. A personal note on the department’s reply to Hamilton from Don Sheehan indicates that Romerstein found 

out Hamilton’s inquiry had been stimulated by “a staffer.” Fox-Hamilton letter.

248 Ibid.

249 Gertz.

250 Ibid.

251 Ibid.

252 Ibid.

253 FBIS, “Pomarev Denounces New Misinformation Bureau,” USSR International Affairs, 

United States and Canada (Washington, DC: FBIS, October 1986).
140 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 11

254 “US Counters Soviet Acts of Disinformation,” The Washington Post, October 8, 1986.

255 Bailey, phone interview.

256 Interviewee 3, interview with authors, March 2, 2011.

257 Bailey, phone interview.

258 Interviewee 21, phone interview; interviewee 21, email message, September 2, 2011.

259 Bailey, phone interview.

260 Interviewee 10.

261 For a complete list of the products, see appendix.

262 Staar.

263 “Disinformation, the Media, and Foreign Policy”: Proceedings of the Airlie House Conference, 

May 4, 1987 (Washington, DC: Department of State, October 1987).

264 The forensic analysis of these forgeries can be found in the “Recent Anti-American Forgeries” section of the report Soviet Influence Activities: A Report on Active Measures and Propaganda, 

1986–1987 (Washington, DC: Department of State, August, 1987), 29–32.

265 USIA, Soviet Active Measures in the Era of Glasnost, 24.

266 Ibid., 32.

267 Todd Leventhal as quoted in Snyder, 181.

268 Soviet Influence Activities. Interestingly, the FBI produced an internal domestically focused 

report in June of 1987.

269 See discussion on this incident in “Observations” section of this report.

270 The Soviets later attempted to revive the AIDS rumor despite official disavowals. The Soviet 

paper that ran the revival story ironically stated that it could publish the story because Soviet press had 

the right to “report different views.”

271 Woodward, 172.

272 These variables have been used to good effect in two previous analyses by the Organizational Performance Team at the Institute for National Strategic Studies (one on special operations forces and 

another on Joint Interagency Task Force–South). With one exception, these variables and their performance ranges are explained in Orton and Lamb. The exception is that the range of supporting subvariables for organizational support has been modified so that it begins by considering the working group’s 

relationships with other elements of the bureaucracy in terms of their support or the lack thereof.

273 In 2010, Romerstein suffered a debilitating stroke that sadly impaired his communication 

abilities. He was not available for an interview as a result.

274 John R. Katzenbach and Douglas K. Smith, The Wisdom of Teams (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1993), 49.

275 Milburn, interview.

276 Romerstein, “The Interagency Active Measures Working Group,” 201.

277 Interviewee 21, phone interview.

278 Milburn, interview.

279 Ibid.

280 There is, for example, the Office of Public Diplomacy for Latin America and the Caribbean, 

which ostensibly was run by State but actually reported directly to Oliver North at NSC.
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Deception, Disinformation, and Strategic Communications

281 DeGraffenreid, interview.

282 Bailey, phone interview.

283 Active Measures Working Group member who prefers anonymity, interview with authors, 

February 8, 2011; Don Sheehan, interview with authors, March 1, 2011.

284 Interviewee 21, phone interview; interviewee 21, email message, September 2, 2011.

285 Sheehan, interview; Major, interview; Active Measures Working Group member, interview.

286 Bailey, phone interview.

287 Bradley L. Kirkman and Benson Rosen, “Antecedents and Consequences of Team Empowerment,” The Academy of Management Journal 42, no. 1 (1999), 58–74.

288 Bailey, email message.

289 Heichler recalls INR was happy to give the group complete freedom and he was not required to get higher approval for the group’s products. Heichler, interview.

290 Bailey, phone interview.

291 Ibid.

292 Ibid.

293 Hertzberg, interview.

294 Bailey, phone interview.

295 Milburn, interview. Jajko recalls that “Most representatives in the Group had to get clearance for each action or policy decision, particularly [State], CIA, and FBI. Not so OSD. I had a free rein 

from [the Secretary of Defense] and [Under Secretary of Defense for Policy] without checking so long 

as it comported in my view with US general policy. This made for fast reaction and execution by DoD.” 

Walter Jajko, email message to the authors, August 22, 2011.

296 Kux, interview.

297 Interviewee 21, phone interview.

298 Active Working Group member, interview.

299 Rapoport, phone interview.

300 Bailey, phone interview.

301 Ibid.

302 D.E. Hyatt and T.M. Ruddy, “An Examination of the Relationship between Work Group 

Characteristics and Performance: Once More into the Breech,” Personnel Psychology, no. 50 (1997), 

553–585.

303 “Why Some Teams Succeed (and So Many Don’t),” in Teams That Click, ed. Loren Gary et 

al., 44 (Boston: Harvard Business Press, 2004).

304 Ibid.

305 Jajko, interview.

306 Lenczowski, interview.

307 Many sources besides Kux made this observation. Active Measures Working Group member, interview.

308 Ibid.

309 Snyder, 16–17.

310 Interviewee 22, September 14, 2011, October 3, 2011. The interviewee made the analogy 
142 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 11

between the bureaucracy’s reaction to the working group and the body’s white blood cells rushing to 

protect it from foreign bodies that might cause an infection.

311 Kux, interview.

312 Interviewee 22, September 14, 2011.

313 Major, interview.

314 Milburn, interview.

315 Active Measures Working Group member, interview.

316 Jajko, interview; Kux, email message.

317 Active Measures Working Group member, interview.

318 In relating this point about encouraging USIA posts, Romerstein notes some willingly 

provided helpful evidence of Soviet disinformation but many were not inclined to: “It was clear from 

our experience with the Active Measures Working Group that bureaucrats needed high level encouragement.” See Romerstein, “The Interagency Active Measures Working Group.”

319 Ibid.

320 Fischer, phone interview.

321 Lenczowski, interview.

322 Sheehan, interview. As Sheehan notes, the reverse side of this was that if the group made a 

misstep, important people such as assistant secretaries would notice.

323 Rapoport, phone interview.

324 Burnett, interview.

325 In this regard, one source underscores the point that Shultz had never seen the working 

group’s report until Gorbachev tossed it on the table. Moreover, he notes that the story at the working level was that Shultz actually came back from the meeting irritated that the working group’s 

report had been a source of friction and made clear that he did not want to see this happen again. 

Managers and analysts at the working level interpreted this to mean no more reports. Interviewee 

22, September 14, 2011.

326 Burnett, interview.

327 See Christopher J. Lamb and Evan Munsing, Secret Weapon: High-value Target Teams as 

an Organizational Innovation, INSS Strategic Perspectives No. 4 (Washington, DC: NDU Press, 2011); 

and Evan Munsing and Christopher J. Lamb, Joint Interagency Task Force–South: The Best Known, Least 

Understood Interagency Success, INSS Strategic Perspectives No. 5 (Washington, DC: NDU Press, 2011).

328 Bailey, phone interview.

329 Rapoport, phone interview; Bailey, email message.

330 Hertzberg, interview.

331 Ibid.

332 Fischer, phone interview.

333 Bailey, email message.

334 Rapoport, phone interview.

335 Prasad Balkundi and David A. Harrison, “Ties, Leaders, and Time in Teams: Strong Inference about Network Structure’s Effects on Team Viability and Performance,” Academy of Management 

Journal 49, no. 1 (2006), 49–68.
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336 Interviewee 18. Some of the Consortium’s products were virtual “roadmaps” for senior 

members of the Reagan administration. DeGraffenreid, interview.

337 Richard H. Shultz, phone interview by authors, July 29, 2011.

338 Major, interview.

339 Milburn, interview.

340 Shultz, interview.

341 Sheehan, interview.

342 Bailey, phone interview; interviewee 12, April 19, 2011.

343 Burnett, interview.

344 Hertzberg, interview.

345 R.A. Guzzo et al., Team Effectiveness and Decision Making in Organizations (San Francisco: 

Jossey-Bass, 1995), 204–261.

346 Active Measures Working Group member, interview.

347 Sheren, interview.

348 Active Measures Working Group member, interview; Heichler also makes a point of the 

criticality of information sharing in the group.

349 Burnett, phone interview.

350 Milburn, interview.

351 Jajko, interview. Others in the U.S. Government, however, believed that it was appropriate to 

undermine Soviet legitimacy, noting that, after all, the Bolsheviks and later the Communist Party of the 

Soviet Union never won a single election. Jajko, email message.

352 Active Measures Working Group member, interview; Rapoport agrees that there was mostly 

agreement over what went into the reports, although at the working level questions of emphasis and 

accuracy of sourcing remained. Similarly, Bailey notes that there were few differences over content, although the amount of emphasis material received was sometimes disputed. Rapoport, phone interview; 

Bailey, phone interview.

353 Working group member recall that typically decisions were made on the basis of consensus, 

with a strong working group leader such as Kux or Bailey having the final say in the event that consensus was not possible. Interviewee 21, phone interview.

354 Jajko, interview.

355 L.H. Pelled, K.M. Eisenhardt, and K.R. Xin, “Exploring the Black Box: An Analysis of Work 

Group Diversity, Conflict, and Performance,” Administrative Science Quarterly, no. 44 (1999), 2, 23.

356 Milburn, interview.

357 Rapoport, phone interview.

358 Burnett, phone interview.

359 Bailey, phone interview. Sheren, in addition to playing the role of working group diplomat, 

helped Bailey keep the group well organized. Interviewee 21, phone interview.

360 Bailey, phone interview.

361 Milburn, interview.

362 Bailey, phone interview.

363 Rapoport, phone interview.
144 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 11

364 For example, the group’s first report omitted specifics to placate the concerns of regional 

desks in State. Rapoport, phone interview.

365 Bailey, phone interview.

366 Ibid.

367 Rapoport, phone interview. Bailey also recalls that she spent significant amounts of time 

briefing regional desks and making a case for their supporting the group’s work. Bailey, email message.

368 Glenn M. Parker, Cross-Functional Teams: Working with Allies, Enemies, and Other Strangers 

(San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2003), 10.

369 Bailey, phone interview.

370 Heichler, interview.

371 Interviewee 12.

372 Rapoport, phone interview.

373 The capable members of the group generally ignored those who could not contribute. Interviewee 21, phone interview.

374 Bailey, phone interview.

375 Bailey, email message.

376 Burnett, phone interview.

377 Bailey, phone interview.

378 Ibid.; Sheehan, interview.

379 Bailey, phone interview.

380 Fischer, interview.

381 Bailey, phone interview.

382 L. Argote, D. Gruenfeld, and C. Naquin, “Group learning in organizations,” in Groups at 

work: Advances in theory and research, ed. M.E. Turner (New York: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1999); see also 

Mary Zellmer-Bruhn and Cristina Gibson, “Multinational Organization Context: Implications for Team 

Learning and Performance,” Academy of Management Journal 49, no. 3 (2006), 501–518.

383 Orton and Lamb.

384 Active Measures Working Group member, interview.

385 Hertzberg, interview.

386 Ibid.

387 Rapoport, phone interview. Kux agrees, noting, “at first we were all a little hesitant and groping our way—the bad experience in the first press conference was a case in point, but we learned and 

became more adept.” Kux, email message.

388 Hertzberg, interview.

389 Bailey, phone interview.

390 Rapoport, phone interview.

391 Kux, interview.

392 Rapoport, phone interview.

393 Romerstein, “The Interagency Active Measures Working Group.”

394 Without access to all the meeting minutes, a complete record of attendance is not possible. Our best 

estimate of the key members is included in the chart on Key Active Measures Working Group Membership.
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Deception, Disinformation, and Strategic Communications

395 Lenczowski is a case in point. He was more active in the group before moving to the NSC. 

Once there, he represented the NSC staff on occasion and other times Walt Raymond did. Eventually, 

his attendance fell off. Bailey notes that when Lenczowski stopped coming, she called and asked him 

to come and participate, and he came to one or two meetings, but then quit coming. When she called 

to encourage his continued participation he said he was just stretched too thin. Similarly, sometimes 

Paddock attended meetings as the OSD director for psychological operations and sometimes he sent his 

deputy, Air Force Colonel “Jake” Jacobowitz. Paddock, email message to authors, May 10, 2011; Bailey, 

email message.

396 Bailey, phone interview.

397 Ibid. From January 1986 on, Paddock attended from OSD in his capacity as director for psychological operations where his duties “ranged far beyond just strategic psychological operations.” His 

deputy, Air Force Colonel Jake Jacobowitz, sometimes attended meetings of the working group in his 

stead. He replaced Paddock when he retired in October 1988. Paddock, email message, August 24, 2011.

398 Fischer, phone interview; the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency even got into the 

counter-disinformation effort directly, publishing an exposé of Soviet propaganda against the strategic defense initiative. U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA), The Soviet Propaganda 

Campaign against the U.S. Strategic Defense Initiative (Washington, DC: ACDA Office of Public Affairs, 1986).

399 Jajko, interview.

400 Spaulding, phone interview; Milburn, interview.

401 Milburn, interview.

402 Interviewee 18.

403 Sheehan, interview.

404 Interviewee 21, phone interview; Interviewee 21, email message, September 2, 2011. The 

interviewee recalls that although it was classified, the publication “proved a great vehicle for publicizing 

active measures and analyzing trends. The information could also be shared with most members of the 

working group and ‘sanitized’ articles published at lower classification. The fact that Active Measures 

was the responsibility of the Office of Global Issues (rather than the Soviet) Office of the Intelligence 

Directorate made it easier to get information out.”

405 This includes interviewee 21, who concurred with other group members on “the extreme 

value provided by Herb Romerstein.” The interviewee attended the Tachibana meetings, noting they 

were “a great opportunity to pick Herb’s brain.” Interviewee 21, email message, September 2, 2011.

406 Jajko, interview.

407 Burnett, phone interview; interviewee 21, phone interview.

408 Sheren, interview.

409 Bailey, email message; also interviewee 12.

410 Interviewee 12.

411 Ibid. All other member interviews record Romerstein as the most expert on the topic of 

active measures. However, Bailey recalls his advantage in comparative expertise lessened as the group 

worked together over her tenure. Paddock, email message, August 24, 2011; Bailey, email message.

412 Jajko, interview.
146 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 11

413 Sheren, interview. Although Romerstein was a fount of knowledge, he typically did not 

generate written products for the group, which helps explain the group’s lower productivity when Kux 

and Bailey were not there to lead it. Leventhal produced the USIA submissions to the working group or, 

in some cases, Bailey would interview Romerstein and then write up the results. Bailey, email.

414 Sheren, interview. 

415 These characterizations come from interviewee 12, who had enormous respect for Romerstein, but are completely consistent with other member depictions.

416 Burnett, phone interview; Sheren, interview.

417 Sheren, interview. Kux remembers Romerstein as a “rational hardliner” (unlike other political appointees supporting counter disinformation efforts who were “loose cannons”) and someone a 

person could cooperate with, particularly if they were inclined toward action. Once Romerstein complimented Kux by telling him that “unlike some [Foreign Service Offices],” he “liked to get things done and 

not just talk about them.” Kux, email message.

418 Burnett, phone interview; Heichler, interview; Bailey, email message.

419 Burnett, phone interview.

420 Individuals often group themselves and others into social categories and perceive those 

in their own social category as more trustworthy and capable, and outsiders as less trustworthy and 

capable. See H. Tajfel and J.C. Turner, “Critical Identity Theory of Intergroup Behavior,” in Psychology of 

Intergroup Relations, ed. S. Worchel and W. G. Austin, 7–24 (Chicago: Nelson Hall, 1986).

421 Burnett, phone interview.

422 Interviewee 12.

423 Ibid.

424 Her first executive secretary thought that some team members would have respected her 

more initially if she had “grayer hair” or had “been a man.” On the other hand, Linnea Poulsen and 

Winnie Joshua, both women and experts, were readily accepted by the working group. Rapoport, 

phone interview.

425 As previously noted, Bailey had an extensive resume and was considered a credible authority by Abramowitz.

426 Heichler, for example, recalls there were “no tensions at all” in the group during his tenure 

as chair. Heichler, interview.

427 Bailey was young, perceived as political, and not taken as seriously at first, even though that 

changed over time. Rapoport, phone interview.

428 Bailey, phone interview.

429 Ibid.; Burnett, phone interview.

430 Shultz, phone interview.

431 Sheren, interview.

432 Bailey, phone interview.

433 Another source closely aligned with Romerstein still ranks Bailey’s leadership of the group 

as subpar in contrast with all other sources’ assessment.

434 Sheehan, interview.

435 Bailey, phone interview.
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436 Rapoport, phone interview; Fischer, phone interview; interviewee 22, email message to 

authors, October 18, 2011.

437 One member noted that leading the working group was “not something you’d aspire to do at 

the Department of State, so you could imagine a lack of interest, but Kux never acted that way.” Milburn, interview.

438 The fact that Kux’s immediate superior in INR at the time, Hugh Montgomery, was a CIA 

employee could only have helped with this well-deserved recognition.

439 He succeeded there and went on to become an Ambassador, but was told by his superior he 

would have been fired if he had failed. Kux, oral history

440 Sheehan, interview.

441 See the depiction of team leadership as traditional, coaching, and shared in Orton and Lamb.

442 Sheren, interview.

443 Rapoport, phone interview.

444 Sheren, interview; Rapoport, phone interview.

445 Active Measures Working Group member, interview; Sheehan was an “FSO-3” and Heichler 

was an “FSO-1.” Sheehan, interview.

446 Fischer, phone interview. As an ACDA official, Fischer was used to interagency groups and 

used to seeing NSC figures in the lead, but he notes there was no doubt that Bailey was in charge of the 

working group; S.J. Zaccaro, A.L. Rittman, and M.A. Marks, “Team Leadership,” Leadership Quarterly, 

no. 12 (2001), 454.

447 Rapoport, phone interview. Bailey agrees that she tried to give the working group the majority of her time, but it varied according to her other duties. Bailey, email message. Another indication of 

the time Bailey spent on the working group is provided in State response to an inquiry from Congress 

about the costs of the working group’s public report. State noted the “primary editor of the report” (that 

is, Bailey) “estimates that she spent approximately 200 hours on the project, at a total cost of $4,848.” 

Fox-Hamilton letter.

448 Rapoport, phone interview.

449 Ibid.

450 Ibid.

451 Jajko, interview. Milburn made the same point.

452 Fischer, phone interview; Rapoport, phone interview.

453 Burnett, phone interview.

454 Interviewee 21’s observation is typical; the interviewee noted that Kux was well respected 

but that later when Bailey took over she had to “earn her respect.” Interviewee 21, phone interview.

455 Initially some members wondered whether Bailey would be an effective advocate for the 

group’s products and fight the bureaucracy when necessary, but she won their confidence in this regard. 

Burnett, phone interview.

456 Rapoport, phone interview.

457 Ibid. The group continued meeting in the INR conference room after Kux. Heichler, interview.

458 Bailey, email.

459 Ibid.
148 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 11

460 Sheren, interview. Some members speculated that her management style reflected her 

limited government experience, and even the fact that she was married to a senior DOD official who 

worked in an environment where a “take charge” approach was the norm.

461 Bailey, email message.

462 Fischer, phone interview.

463 Rapoport, phone interview.

464 Sheren, interview.

465 Ibid.

466 Bailey, email.

467 Bailey, phone interview.

468 Ibid.

469 Interview 12, April 19, 2011.

470 Bailey, phone interview.

471 Sheehan, interview.

472 Ibid.

473 Major was one of only a handful of NSC staff that survived the Iran-Contra purge. In his 

view, after the purge, the bureaucracy pushed back and Presidential priorities were more easily stymied. 

Major, interview.

474 Bailey, phone interview.

475 Burnett, phone interview.

476 Bailey, phone interview.

477 Interviewee 22, September 14, 2011. The source, a career intelligence officer working for 

State, wishes to remain anonymous.

478 For example, in an interview with Meet the Press, on October 26, 1987, Shultz explained to 

Chris Wallace that he replied firmly to Gorbachev because “he needs to see that we will stand up for our 

interests, and to speak straight.” Shultz, 998.

479 Interviewee 22, September 14, 2011.

480 Interviewee 3, interview with authors, March 12, 2011. The interviewee noted that he was 

aware and not bothered by how “in touch Romerstein was with the political side of things.” He considered it a fact of life given the working group’s subject matter focus. Interviewee 12.

481 USIA, Soviet Active Measures in the Era Of Glasnost.

482 Ibid.

483 Snyder, 181.

484 Ibid., 182.

485 Sheren, interview.

486 Major sent Hanssen to the working group, and pulled him off of the group in April 1990. 

Hanssen expressed great interest in Soviet active measures. Major, interview. Hanssen was not remembered by working group members favorably. Beyond the fact that he turned out to be a spy, one member 

recalls he was insufferable, “a horse’s ass,” and that his meetings were “absurd.” Interviewee 12.

487 Sheren, interview.

488 Soviet Influence Activities: A Report on Active Measures and Propaganda, 1987–1988.
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489 Interviewee 21 recalls, for example, that her team at CIA working active measures was disbanded sometime in early 1990 after it became clear the dissolution of the Soviet Union was under way. 

She was reassigned to work high technology issues. Interviewee 21, phone interview; and interviewee 

21, email message, September 2, 2011.

490 Soviet Influence Activities.

491 Active Measures Working Group member, interview.

492 USIA, Soviet Active measures in the “Post-Cold War” Era: 1988-1991 (Washington, 

DC: USIA, June 1992), available at <http://intellit.muskingum.edu/russia_folder/pcw_era/index.

htm#Contents>.

493 Ibid.

494 Interviewee 12.

495 The latest edition is Wallace Spaulding, “International Communism and Related Activities: 

2010,” Washington, DC: The Maldon Institute, September 9, 2011; Spaulding, phone interview.

496 Spaulding, phone interview.

497 Kux recalls that he knew Romerstein well but that he was not a regular attendee at his meetings. Kux, email message.

498 For example, see Soviet Active Measures, 99th Cong., 1st sess., 1985, 106–108.

499 See Gates’ and Knepper’s testimony, and Eagleburger’s article, for example.

500 Detailed accounts of U.S.-Soviet relations recount many instances where official lies undermined trust. See Matlock, 67, 70, 258.

501 Ronald Reagan, An American Life (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990), 665, 679 especially, 

but also 619, 645, 662, 665, 669, 715. Instead, Reagan focuses on Soviet behavior, including cheating on 

arms control agreements and Soviet efforts to stir up trouble in less developed countries. One Soviet 

source indicates, however, that Reagan consciously decided to lower the level of rhetorical animosity. 

Anatoly Dobrynin, In Confidence: Moscow’s Ambassador to America’s Six Cold War Presidents (1962–

1986) (New York: Times Books, Random House, 1995), 563.

502 Matlock, 65, 101, 153, 176, 253–254, 259–260, 272–274.

503 Ibid., 67ff.

504 The KGB arrested Nicholas Daniloff in retaliation for the American arrest of a Soviet spy. 

Reagan, 666–669.

505 Gorbachev, 202, 403, 406, 412–415.

506 Ibid., 420.

507 Matlock, 254. It could also be argued that Soviet forgeries that portrayed the most senior 

U.S. officials as intent on nuclear first strikes suggested a lack of seriousness about arms control.

508 Ibid., 253.

509 Knepper, during a brief period of leadership for the working group, linked increased KGB 

forgeries and emphasis on disinformation to Soviet disappointment with détente, noting “the timing of the 

shift in the mid-1970s suggests a connection with Soviet disappointment with the fruits of détente.” Soviet 

Active Measures, May 30, 1984, Current Policy No. 595 (Washington, DC: Department of State, 1985).

510 Matlock.

511 Eagleburger.
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512 Snyder, 181.

513 Matlock, 152.

514 Deputy CIA Director Robert Gates noted in congressional testimony that many West European governments did not respond more aggressively to Soviet active measures in part for this reason. 

Soviet Active Measures, 99th Cong., 1st sess., 1985, 24.

515 Eagleburger.

516 Romerstein, “The Interagency Active Measures Working Group,” 200.

517 Shultz, 998.

518 Dobrynin, 601; Current Policy No. 761; FBI, “Soviet Active Measures in the United States, 

1986–1987,” 2–3.

519 Dobrynin, 619, 628.

520 Ibid., 623–624, 626–627.

521 Although one source indicates Shultz returned to State and ordered an end to such reports.

522 Shultz, 998.

523 Ibid.

524 Gorbachev states in his memoirs that KGB activities were a “closed” area for Politburo 

review. Gorbachev, 204.

525 Wick briefed Reagan on the conversation, observing that “Just as arms negotiations are 

leading to weapon’s elimination perhaps information talks will do away with Soviet disinformation.” 

Snyder, 180.

526 See “Soviet ‘Disinformation’ Claim Noted, Denied,” Moscow TASS in English, September 30, 

1987 (Washington, DC: FBIS, October 1,1987), 19; “Kornilov Cites Disinformation Campaign,” Moscow 

TASS in English, October 5, 1987 (Washington, DC: FBIS, October 6, 1987), 18; “Ozerov Counters ‘Disinformation’ Attacks,” Moscow Sovetskaya Rossiya in Russian, October 30 1987 (Washington, DC: FBIS, 

November 3, 1987), 10.

527 See, for example, the TASS report on the Shultz-Gorbachev meeting: “Discussions with 

Gorbachev,” Moscow TASS in English, October 23, 1987 (Washington, DC: FBIS, October 26,1987), 3; 

“Ivanov Denies VOA Misinformation Claims,” Moscow Izvestiya in Russian, November 17, 1987 (Washington, DC: FBIS, November 19, 1987), 13.

528 Romerstein, “The Interagency Active Measures Working Group,” 203.

529 For example, in early November 1987, Izvestia, an official newspaper of the Soviet government, published an article by two respected Soviet scientists that challenged the previous Soviet line and 

claimed they had protested the appearance of Soviet articles that attributed AIDS to the United States.

530 Don Oberdorfer, “State Department Hails Moscow for ‘Disavowal’ on AIDS,” The Washington Post, November 3, 1987.

531 There were even weak attempts to revive the AIDS rumor after it was officially disavowed. 

The Soviet paper that ran the revival story ironically said it could publish the story because the Soviet 

press had the right to “report different views.” USIA, Soviet Active Measures in the Era of Glasnost, 11.

532 Dobrynin found it hard to explain the changes in Soviet policy under Gorbachev because 

they confused him as well. Dobrynin, 628.

533 Some observers do not believe Gorbachev did much to curb Soviet use of disinformation. 
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Lenczowski, interview; John Lenczowski, “Military Glasnost and Strategic Deception,” International 

Freedom Review (1990).

534 Thomas Thorne made this point in his testimony to Congress. See Soviet Active Measures, 

99th Cong., 1st sess., 1985, 45.

535 Interviewee 22, September 14, 2011. For example, Casey called Soviet active measures a 

critical weapon in “the psychological war waged against the free world by the Soviet Union and its 

allies,” and believed “the most successful Soviet disinformation campaign” in the early 1980s was the 

Soviet effort to block the neutron bomb, which, “if deployed, would have rendered useless the overwhelming Soviet and bloc armored force superiority in any West European theater conflict.” Current 

Policy No. 761, 1, 5.

536 The entire give-and-take between Gates (and John Kringen of CIA) and Senator Biden is 

illustrative of the debate about the impact of Soviet disinformation. Soviet Active Measures, 99th Cong., 

1st sess., 1985, 17–25.

537 The FBI, State, and USIA all trumpet the working group in their testimony to Congress as the 

proper strategic and organizational response to Soviet disinformation, as did the CIA in a public speech by 

Casey. Soviet Active Measures, 99th Cong., 1st sess., 1985, 30, 45, 54, 89; Current Policy No. 761.

538 Current Policy No. 595.

539 Interviewee 12. Deputy CIA Director Gates testified to Congress that the Agency’s best estimate in 1982 was that the total Soviet annual expenditure for active measures was in the range of $3 to 4 

billion. This figure also made it into the press, and is recalled by members of the group we interviewed. 

Soviet Active Measures, 99th Cong., 1st sess., 1985, 4; Gertz.

540 Active Measures Working Group member, intervivew.

541 Heichler, interview.

542 Rapoport, phone interview.

543 The contents of Foreign Affairs Notes were mentioned frequently in the U.S. press and commented upon favorably by INR officials in internal memoranda. Authors’ files, courtesy of Hertzberg.

544 “U.S. Counters Soviet Acts of Disinformation,” The Washington Post, October 8, 1986.

545 Heichler related this example in his testimony to Congress as the chairman of the InterAgency Working Group on Soviet Active Measures. He also provided another example of Soviet 

disinformation that was far more successful, and which he suspects was done by East German intelligence for the Soviets. Heichler was fluent in German and able to assess the forged document for its near 

perfect German “governmentalese.” Soviet Active Measures, 99th Cong., 1st sess., 1985, 95–96, 106–108.

546 For example, Neue Zurcher Zeitung examined the working group’s report and allegation of a Soviet 

disinformation campaign and concluded “the American accusation seems more than justified.” “Soviet Disinformation on the AIDS Example: A US State Department Report,” Neue Zurcher Zeitung, November 6, 1987.

547 Fox-Hamilton letter.

548 Ibid. The 1987 press run of 5,000 copies and mailings cost $12,000.

549 Paddock notes that the loss of important NSC staff in the aftermath of the Iran-Contra affair 

also seriously complicated programs his office was trying to carry out during his tenure as director for 

psychological operations in OSD. Paddock, email message, August 24, 2011.

550 See Orton and Lamb.
152 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 11

551 The group supported public diplomacy initiatives such as increased funding for Radio Free 

Europe/Radio Liberty, and had about 45 representatives. Palmer, oral history.

552 Interviewee 22, October 3, 2011. The interviewee led one such group.

553 Marissa Martino Golden, “Exit, Voice, Loyalty and Neglect: Bureaucratic Responses to 

Presidential Control During the Reagan Administration,” Journal of Public Administration Research and 

Theory 2, no.1 (1992), 30.

554 For example, Bailey’s motives were considered suspect by some career officials in State who 

thought she was intent on using the Active Measure Working Group to further her own political career. 

Accordingly, they did not support her efforts.

555 DeGraffenreid, interview.

556 Lenczowski believed that without Palmer’s support, he would have been isolated and ineffective in State’s bureaucracy. Lenczowski, interview.

557 USIA, Soviet Active Measures in the Era of Glasnost.

558 DeGraffenreid, interview.

559 At a critical juncture in U.S.-Soviet relations, Shultz ordered his Soviet affairs staff to stop 

communicating with Jack Matlock, the special assistant to the President and senior director of European and Soviet affairs, because Matlock’s attempts to forge interagency consensus irritated him. He 

did this despite the fact that Matlock was a Foreign Service Officer; in fact, the first one assigned to the 

Reagan NSC. See Matlock.

560 The group’s productivity declined in the following years 2 years. Admittedly, this happened 

for multiple reasons, including the departure of Bailey, willingness of the Soviet Union to tone down its 

disinformation, and departure of the experienced working group members (for example, Hertzberg) 

and the CIA’s and FBI’s talented group representatives, who were replaced by more junior and less experienced personnel. In addition to these factors, it is possible that other organizations did not trust USIA 

to lead the group. The next public report was produced almost exclusively by the USIA representative.

561 For an extended discussion on this point, see Christopher J. Lamb and Edward Marks, Chief 

of Mission Authority as a Model for National Security Integration, INSS Strategic Perspectives, No. 2 

(Washington, DC: NDU Press, 2010).

562 See PNSR, 234ff.

563 Ibid.

564 See Lawrence Eagleburger, Foreign Affairs Oral History Collection of the Association for 

Diplomatic Studies and Training interview, available at <http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/

diplomacy/about.html>.

565 DOD defines strategic communication as the means used to “engage key audiences to create, 

strengthen, or preserve conditions favorable for the advancement of United States Government interests, policies, and objectives through the use of coordinated programs, plans, themes, messages, and 

products synchronized with the actions of all instruments of national power” Joint Publication 1-02, 

DOD Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms (Washington, DC: The Joint Staff, November 8, 2010, 

as amended through May 15, 2011).

566 Robert Jervis’ classic work on this topic is Perception and Misperception in International 

Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976).
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Deception, Disinformation, and Strategic Communications

567 Benjamin B. Fischer, A Cold War Conundrum: The 1983 Soviet War Scare (Washington, DC: 

CIA, 1997).

568 Cited in Loch K Johnson, The Oxford Handbook of National Security Intelligence (Oxford: 

Oxford University Press, 2010), 151.

569 Matlock, 257.

570 Mike Mullen, “Strategic Communication: Getting Back to Basics,” Joint Force Quarterly 55 

(4th Quarter 2009).

571 Thomas A. Bailey, A Diplomatic History of the American People, 10th ed. (New Delhi: 

Prentice-Hall of India, 1990), 524–525.

572 Daniel Yergin, Shattered Peace: The Origins of the Cold War and the National Security State

(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1977), 324.

573 In 2003, Islamic leaders in northern Nigeria spread rumors that polio vaccines sterilized 

Muslim girls. Leaders halted vaccinations, allowing the virus to spread. The World Health Organization 

stated that the virus eventually infected 20 countries. By the start of last year, Nigeria was home to half 

of the world’s 1,600 polio cases. See “Eradicating Polio,” April 23, 2010, available at <www.economist.

com/blogs/lexington/2010/04/eradicating_polio>.

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Deception, Disinformation, and Strategic Communications

About the Authors

Mr. Fletcher R. Schoen was a research assistant in and later a subject matter expert under 

contract with the Center for Strategic Research, Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), 

at the National Defense University. From 2010 to 2012, Mr. Schoen worked as a valued member 

of the organizational performance team in CSR conducting research on a wide range of projects 

requiring analysis of military and national security organizations. Mr. Schoen is a graduate of 

Colby College. He is currently serving in the U.S. Army.

Dr. Christopher J. Lamb is a Distinguished Research Fellow in the Center for Strategic 

Research, INSS, at the National Defense University. He conducts research on national security 

strategy, policy, and organizational reform, and on defense strategy, requirements, plans, and 

programs. In 2008, Dr. Lamb was assigned to lead the Project for National Security Reform 

study of the national security system, which led to the 2008 report, Forging a New Shield. Prior 

to joining INSS in 2004, Dr. Lamb served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Resources and Plans where he had oversight of war plans, requirements, acquisition, and resource 

allocation matters for the Under Secretary of Defense (Policy). Previously, he served as Deputy 

Director for Military Development on the State Department’s Interagency Task Force for Military Stabilization in the Balkans; Director of Policy Planning in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict; and from 1985 to 1992 

a Foreign Service Officer in Haiti and Ivory Coast. He received his doctorate in International 

Relations from Georgetown University in 1986. Dr. Lamb has received the Chairman of the 

Joint Chiefs of Staff Joint Distinguished Civilian Service Award, the Presidential Rank Award 

for Meritorious Senior Executive Service, the Superior Honor award from the Department of 

State, and Meritorious Civilian Service awards from the Department of Defense.



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