Operation Denver
Operation Denver[3][4][5] (sometimes referred to as "Operation INFEKTION") was an active measure disinformation campaign run by the KGB in the 1980s to plant the idea that the United States had invented HIV/AIDS[6][7] as part of a biological weapons research project at Fort Detrick, Maryland. Historian Thomas Boghardt popularized the codename "INFEKTION" based on the claims of former East German Ministry for State Security (Stasi) officer Günter Bohnsack, who claimed that the Stasi codename for the campaign was either "INFEKTION" or perhaps also "VORWÄRTS II" ("FORWARD II").[6] However, historians Christopher Nehring and Douglas Selvage found in the former Stasi and Bulgarian State Security archives materials that prove the actual Stasi codename for the AIDS disinformation campaign was Operation Denver.[8][9] The operation involved "an extraordinary amount of effort — funding radio programs, courting journalists, distributing would-be scientific studies", according to journalist Joshua Yaffa, and even became the subject of a report by Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News.[10]
See also: AIDS conspiracy theoriesThe Soviet Union used the campaign to undermine the United States' credibility, foster anti-Americanism, isolate America abroad, and create tensions between host countries and the U.S. over the presence of American military bases (which were often portrayed as the cause of AIDS outbreaks in local populations).[11] Another reason the Soviet Union "promoted the AIDS disinformation may have been its attempt to distract international attention away from its own offensive biological warfare program, which [was monitored] for decades".[6]
Aftermath[edit]
In 1992, 15% of Americans considered it definitely or probably true that "the AIDS virus was created deliberately in a government laboratory".[6] In 2005, a study by the RAND Corporation and Oregon State University revealed that nearly 50% of African Americans thought AIDS was man-made, over 25% believed AIDS was a product of a government laboratory, 12% believed it was created and spread by the CIA, and 15% believed that AIDS was a form of genocide against black people.[6] Other AIDS conspiracy theories have abounded, and have been discredited by the mainstream scientific community.
In popular culture, the Kanye West song "Heard 'Em Say" tells listeners, "I know that the government administer AIDS". In South Africa, the former president, Thabo Mbeki cited the operation's theory of Fort Detrick in denying the science of HIV.[10][7]
In 1992, Director of Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) Yevgeny Primakov admitted that the KGB was behind the newspaper articles claiming that AIDS was created by the U.S. government.[2] Segal's role was exposed by KGB defector Vasili Mitrokhin in the Mitrokhin Archive. Jack Koehler's 1999 book, Stasi: The Untold Story of the East German Secret Police, describes how the Stasi cooperated with the KGB to spread the story.[29]
Insofar as the distrust in medical authorities created by the operation led to a distrust in the treatment for AIDS recommended by medical science (journalist Joshua Yaffa notes that "numerous studies ... have shown that those who disbelieve the science on the origins of H.I.V. are less likely to engage in safe sex or to regularly take recommended medication if infected"),[10] the operation may have cost many lives. Yaffa argues that the delay in "widespread implementation of antiretroviral therapies in South Africa" may have cost "as many" as 330,000 lives.[10][7]
Media related to Operation INFEKTION at Wikimedia Commons