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In February, a Ukrainian paper claimed that the Japanese were panicking over the spread of AIDS by US servicemen in Japan and that restaurants, barber shops, and other businesses near US bases had barred Americans from entering.

We suspect the Soviets were responsible for a forged press release surfaced in May in West Berlin in which a city health official purportedly announced that the US Army hospital there was overflowing with AIDS victims.

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Moscow has also surfaced allegations that some existing US military facilities will be used in the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) program and that the United States is attempting to acquire new bases in order to destabilize particular regions :

In March the Indian press ran an article on Soviet. charges--attempting to play upon regional sensitivity about military use of Diego Garcia--that the United States produced SDI components there.

Soviet radio charged in April that joint US -Zaire military maneuvers reflected a US interest in using the Kamina air force base(b)(3) southern Zaire to destabilize the region.

In our view, several trends charcterize recent Soviet disinformation activity.

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The Soviets are persistent. In pushing a given theme, Soviet disinformation specialists apparently believe that repetition of even the most unbelievable stories pays off in the long run. Indeed, Soviet charges that AIDS was developed at Fort De trick have been replayed in the press of over 60 countries. In April these allegations appeared in the official Indian armed forces journal "Sainik Samachar."

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Within three

The Soviets seize on opportunities quickly. days after the coup in Fiji, for example, Radio Moscow, Izvestia, and TASS all carried stories implying US involvement.

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Moscow targets much of its disinformation toward Third World audiences. During the past year, we have seen a concerted Soviet effort--in part through forgeries and disinformation--to intensify anti-US sentiment within the Nona ligned Movement, whose criticism of the United States and backing of many Soviet positions Moscow believes is a major political asset. There is also evidence that the Soviets are working hard to exploit growing political and

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Approved for Release: 2017/09/13 C05798947