Concerns US-Soviet relations, including involvement in Africa, NATO, China, and SALT.

An analysis of the November 1976 plenary session of the socialist countries' permanent commission of scientific institutions discussion about issues of European security and cooperation.

Mitrokhin states that in 1978 the West attempted to gain influence over Soviet fiscal policy because the U.S.S.R. was in opposition to the Helsinki Accords. Soviet officials ensured the Soviet public that any attempts by the West to change the socialist system in the country would not affect domestic politics in any way. However, it would negatively affect the development of relations between the West and the East and would damage international economic and trade cooperation. According to Mitrokhin, the Soviet administration was especially concerned with Carter’s efforts to end any kind of collaboration with the Soviet Union. Mitrokhin provides a detailed plan prepared by Soviet officials to stop the anti-socialist campaign in the West that was led by the Carter administration.

The Minister of Internal Affairs, Dimitar Stoyanov, reports on the coverage in the Western media of the alleged repressions against six Bulgarian dissidents who sent an open letter to the 1986 CSCE Meeting in Vienna. The letter claimed that Bulgaria does not comply fully with the Helsinki Accords on Human Rights of 1975. The Minister reports that although some measures have been taken to neutralize the activities of this particular dissident group, the official investigation has been suspended as there was a risk of further tarnishing Bulgaria’s image abroad.

The Minister of the Internal Affairs, Dimitar Stoyanov, briefs Todor Zhivkov on the weekly domestic developments. Among the most pressing issues is the ongoing popular discontent in Ruse triggered by the unresolved problems with industrial pollution in the city. Another issue is the opposition of the Turkish minority to the revival process.

In this folder Mitrokhin specifically focuses on Alexander Ginsburg’s anti-Soviet activities in the 1970s. The note recounts that Ginsburg was a repeat offender for promoting opposition to the Soviet regime and the head of the Russian Social Fund and Solzhenitsyn Fund. His position allowed him to receive financial and material aid from different foreign institutions–something that was prohibited by Soviet law. Ginsburg had been supplying these funds to many organizations promoting anti-socialist propaganda (including Ukrainian nationalist clubs, Jewish extremists, and Orthodox activists). According to Mitrokhin, Ginsburg received 270,000 rubles of foreign aid in the 1970s.

Mitrokhin reports that the KGB believed that in 1976 the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) ordered Ginsburg to unite all anti-Soviet adherents to actively and publicly support the Helsinki Accords. He also had been passing on important information about major anti-Soviet activities held in the Soviet Union to American correspondents Thomas Kent, Alfred Short, and others.

As Mitrokhin reports, in 1979 the CIA exchanged Ginsburg for two Soviet spies. After the exchange, Alexander Ginzburg was tried, but was not convicted because all witnesses refused to give evidence.

Outlines the KGB’s response to the USSR’s signing of the Helsinki Accords in 1975. The accords obligated signatories to respect their citizens’ human rights. This gave Soviet dissidents and westerners leverage in demanding that the USSR end persecution on the basis of religious or political beliefs.

Some of the KGB’s active measures included the establishment of a charitable fund dedicated to helping victims of imperialism and capitalism, and the fabrication of a letter from a Ukrainian group to FRG President Walter Scheel describing human rights violations in West Germany. The document also mentions that the Soviet Ministry of Defense obtained an outline of the various European powers’ positions on human rights issues as presented at the March 1977 meeting of the European Economic Community in London from the Italian Foreign Ministry.

The KGB also initiated Operation “Raskol” [“Schism”], which ran between 1977 and 1980. This operation included active measures to discredit Soviet dissidents Andrei Sakharov, Yelena Bonner, and Alexander Solzhenitsyn, measures designed to drive a wedge between the US and its democratic allies, and measures intended to convince the US government that continued support for the dissident movement did nothing to harm the position of the USSR.

Contains information on KGB active measures to undermine the activities and credibility of Radio Liberty, Radio Free Europe, and Voice of America during the mid 1970’s and early 1980’s. In one operation, personally authorized by KGB Chairman Yuri Andropov, the Spanish journal “Arriba” and 42 other Spanish journals published articles stating that Radio Liberty broadcasts into the USSR violated the Helsinki Accords because they impinged upon Soviet sovereignty, and were contrary to Spanish national interests. Following this activity, the Spanish leadership decided not to extend its agreement with the US which allowed Radio Liberty to broadcast from Spain. During a 1976 operation, an East German agent who worked as an international lawyer spread disinformation about Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty’s ‘illegal’ activities in 35 foreign embassies in Vienna. In October 1977, the KGB sent letters to a variety of Western news outlets, including the Washington Post, claiming to be from a group of Radio Free Europe employees. These letters were directed specifically at US Senators Edward Kennedy, Charles Percy, and Frank Church, and Representatives Edward Derwinsky, Clement Zablocky, Herman Badillo, and Berkley Bedell. In 1981, with the help of the journal “Pravda,” the KGB exposed the role of Radio Liberty in the ‘events’ in Poland.

In this folder Mitrokhin reports on some spy techniques used by the KGB in major western European cities (including Helsinki, Geneva, Bucharest) in 1975. According to Mitrokhin, the main tasks for KGB residents trained in the use of operational techniques were to check post offices for foreign correspondence, to secretly receive information about meetings of officials of a certain country, and to videotape any acts of anti-socialist movements. This note provides detailed statistics on the photographs taken of foreign mail, telephone recordings, and radio-intercepts. Mitrokhin specifically focuses on operations which took place in Vienna. As his note states, KGB agents photographed thousands of pages of secret materials using the “Zagadka,” a mini-camera built into a regular pen. The KGB residency had their own “TS” correspondence service with 98 N-line—undercover agents operated by legal residents—around Europe. Residents used microdot script and steganography —the art of writing hidden messages—for agents of N-line. As Mitrokhin states, X-line—residency subunit of scientific-technical investigation—agents’ tasks were to provide materials for secret operations. They built in a recording device in an ashtray, used the inside of an automobile seats to keep secret materials, and batteries for cameras. Mitrokhin also provides the exact number and names of all KGB residency agencies in Vienna in 1975, and describes security techniques used for their technology and agents.