Dissidents really K.G.8., says defector

Press, 13 February 1986, Page 11

Dissidents really K.G.8., says defector

NZPA-Reuter Washington

A defector from the Soviet K.G.B. Intelligence service said yesterday that two out of every five Soviet dissidents were K.G.B. spies. The defector, a former high K.G.B. official, Ilya Dzhirkvelov, also said at a news briefing that Soviet Intelligence had compromised Western journalists — including American, British, and French correspondents — who had agreed to write false

or misleading articles in exchange for money. Mr Dzhirkvelov, who defected in 1980, declined to name any journalist who had been bribed. He said a more common K.G.B. method was to offer exclusive information to a correspondent and later collect “payment” in the form ol articles that spread “disinformation” (deliberately false or misleading information) to advance Soviet interests. Mr Dzhirkvelov said he

joined Soviet intelligence during World War 11. He later sought to recruit Western diplomats and journalists as Kremlin agents.

He said the K.G.B. could arrest all Soviet dissident human rights activists within two hours. Instead, it had opted to infiltrate dissident groups in order to learn the identities of new activist recruits.

“Among five, maybe two are K.G.B. agents,” he said of the dissidents. He

said he knew of at least one supposed former dissident, in “exile” in the West for some time, who had been a Kremlin spy. He refused to name the person. Mr Dzhirkvelov said the dissident had left himself vulnerable by “talking too much” — referring to the location of Soviet military facilities in talks with Westerners, which in the Soviet Union technically amounted to espionage. The defector said he had participated in a

“disinformation” campaign to discredit the conservative West German politician, Franz Josef Strauss, in 1960, helping to plant articles in Swiss, French, and West German publications that falsely said Mr Strauss was a C.I.A. Intelligence agent. Mr Strauss, a staunch anti-Communist, was regarded then as a strong candidate to become Chancellor of West Germany. Mr Dzhirkvelov said Moscow believed that the bogus articles had

prevented his ascension. Mr Strauss is MinisterPresident of Bavaria. Mr Dzhirkvelov spoke at a luncheon organised by American scholars who publish “Disinformation,” a monthly magazine that attempts to predict Soviet propaganda efforts. The magazine’s editor, Professor Roy Godson, said a recent example of Soviet disinformation had been an article in an Indian newspaper that said A.I.D.S. had been caused by a C.I.A. medi-

. cal experiment that mis- - fired. The K.G.B. had » “planted” the article. i r—