The AIDS Conspiracy: KGB and Stasi Disinformation
In the second half of the 1980s, the KGB conducted an international disinformation campaign accusing the U.S. of having artificially constructed the virus that causes AIDS at the Pentagon’s laboratory for biological warfare in Fort Detrick, Maryland. On the basis of his research with scholar Christopher Nehring in the archives of the former communist secret police in Bulgaria, Germany, and the Czech Republic, Douglas Selvage will present new details about the disinformation campaign and the key supporting role played by the KGB’s “fraternal organ,” the East German Ministry of State Security or Stasi.
Overview
The Woodrow Wilson Center’s History and Public Policy Program, in cooperation with the Office of the Federal Commissioner for the Stasi Records, presents
The AIDS Conspiracy: KGB and Stasi Disinformation
Tuesday, 28 October, 2014, 3:00pm-5:00pm
Woodrow Wilson Center, 5th Floor Conference Room
Event description: In the second half of the 1980s, the KGB conducted an international disinformation campaign accusing the US of having artificially constructed the virus that causes AIDS at the Pentagon’s laboratory for biological warfare in Fort Detrick, Maryland. On the basis of his research with scholar Christopher Nehring in the archives of the former communist secret police in Bulgaria, Germany, and the Czech Republic, Douglas Selvage will present new details about the disinformation campaign and the key supporting role played by the KGB’s “fraternal organ,” the East German Ministry of State Security, or Stasi. Among the findings: The free media in West Germany played a central, if unwitting role, as multipliers of the KGB’s disinformation thesis; a cycle of misinformation and disinformation arose between conspiracy theorists in the US and the Soviet bloc’s secret police; and the Fort Detrick-thesis continues to circulate around the globe yet today with dire political and medical consequences.
Speakers
Christian F. Ostermann
Woodrow Wilson Center
Douglas Selvage
Todd Leventhal
Thomas Boghardt
Hosted By
History and Public Policy Program
The History and Public Policy Program makes public the primary source record of 20th and 21st century international history from repositories around the world, facilitates scholarship based on those records, and uses these materials to provide context for classroom, public, and policy debates on global affairs. Read more
Cold War International History Project
The Cold War International History Project supports the full and prompt release of historical materials by governments on all sides of the Cold War. Through an award winning Digital Archive, the Project allows scholars, journalists, students, and the interested public to reassess the Cold War and its many contemporary legacies. It is part of the Wilson Center's History and Public Policy Program. Read more
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