Peter Pomerantsev

The power of disinformation is that it’s so readily believed

Thomas Rid explains why spreading conspiracy theories has become one of the most effective weapons of political warfare

[Getty Images]

On 27 November 1960 African and Indian diplomats visiting the UN in New York opened their mail to find a leaflet from the Ku Klux Clan:

A foul stench spreads out from the East River and hangs over New York like a pall — the greasy sweat of the Black Races and the Yellow Races of Asia which have invaded the United Nations. It is enough to make every White Protestant American vomit.

It ended with a threat: the delegates better stay close to the UN buildings and the ‘brothels of Harlem, and not defile the hotels and restaurants of the White City’.

FBI officers investigating the correspondence noted a couple of oddities. First, some of the language was off: it called for delegates to be ‘tanned and feathered’ rather than ‘tarred and feathered’. Then there was the timing: the letters arrived a day before the General Assembly was set to debate colonialism, in response to the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev’s demand that all colonial people be given independence.

In Active Measures, a mind-bending history of disinformation campaigns, Thomas Rid, a professor at Johns Hopkins, reveals that the KKK leaflet was one of thousands of forgeries created by the Soviet Union and its allies in the Cold War in order to exacerbate ‘even the smallest rift between enemies’. At the same time, Soviet secret services were also playing the other side of racial tensions. A front organisation called the African Friends Association cast doubt on US claims to help African countries:

We, Negroes living in the United States of America, are going to reveal the truth to you about the way Americans really treat people with dark skin.

Already a subscriber? Log in

Keep reading with a free trial

Subscribe and get your first month of online and app access for free. After that it’s just £1 a week.

There’s no commitment, you can cancel any time.

Or

Unlock more articles

REGISTER

Comments

Don't miss out

Join the conversation with other Spectator readers. Subscribe to leave a comment.

Already a subscriber? Log in