The Secret Offensive - Hardcover

Pincher, Chapman

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312708653 ISBN 13: 9780312708658

Publisher: St Martins Pr, 1986

Synopsis

By investigating political events of international importance and examining the media's coverage of them, the author reveals the shockingly pervasive Soviet manipulation of the media and the ways in which disinformation influences public opinion and political policy

About this title

From Publishers Weekly:

This alarming book argues that institutions and individuals at all levels in the West have been seduced into serving Soviet interests through a propaganda and disinformation offensive the Kremlin calls "active measures." According to Pincher the exploitation of "the willies"dupes, in intelligence parlanceis more widespread and menacing than is generally known. He chronicles episodes of what he claims are Moscow's successes in the manipulation of Western media, peace movements, education and the church. He devotes considerable space to a Der Spiegel controversy, maintaining that active measures eliminated the staunchly anti-Communist Franz Josef Strauss from the West German political scene. Another major section describes active measures influence on the British Labor Party, which, "whatever its motives, is committed to doing exactly what the Politburo wants in the field of defense." Pincher, a British journalist who wrote Too Secret, Too Late, praises American vigilance against the Soviet active measures campaign. Illustrations.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal:

Pincher, author of Too Secret, Too Long ( LJ 1/85), draws a distressing por trait of carefully camouflaged Soviet ef forts to weaken the West by means of "active measures." Examples offered include the Kremlin's use of disinfor mation to manipulate the news, at tempts at character assassination, and murder. Though less ponderous than Richard Shultz and Roy Godson's De zinformatsia ( LJ 9/1/84), Pincher's work, previously published in England, suffers from its focus on British exam ples and from digressions to complaints about the general state of society. For mer Czech active measures agent La dislav Bittman's The KGB and Soviet Disinformation (Pergamon, 1985) is a more readable, more evenly balanced, better choice for most libraries. James R. Kuhlman, Univ. of Georgia Lib., Athens
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: St Martins Pr
• Publication date: 1986
• ISBN 10: 0312708653
• ISBN 13: 9780312708658
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 314