| ID | 188277 |
| Title Proper | Secrecy and the Disinformation Campaign Surrounding Chernobyl |
| Language | ENG |
| Author | Bertelsen, Olga |
| Summary / Abstract (Note) | This archival study focuses on secrecy, Soviet disinformation campaigns, and active measures designed to divert the attention of the international community from the 1986 Chernobyl accident, and to conceal state mismanagement, violence, and inefficiencies of the Soviet Union nuclear industry. More specifically, it illuminates the implications of the Soviet cover-up operation and its ultimate failure, particularly due to the efforts of the American intelligence community, including the CIA. American technological progress and intelligence were instrumental to the CIA’s understandings of the damage caused by Chernobyl, the dynamics of decontamination and its ethnic discriminatory practices, as well as the extent of the Soviet disinformation campaign. Importantly, Soviet active measures designed to obscure the scale and the consequences of the disaster had the opposite effect from what was expected, helping the American intelligence community accurately predict the potential political crisis in the USSR exacerbated by the Soviet cover-up operations and state violence. American analysts argued that popular concerns about the violent nature of the Soviet regime and discriminatory draft and decontamination policies would persist, amplifying ethnic tensions in Soviet republics. In hindsight, their analysis had profound predictive value. |
| `In' analytical Note | International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence Vol. 35, No.2; Summer 2022: p.292-317 |
| Journal Source | International Journal of Intelligence and Counter Intelligence Vol: 35 No 2 |
| Key Words | CIA |