“Disinformation has caused worldwide damage to the reputation of the United States, and now it’s putting down roots in this country itself.” – Disinformation
The Pope, a Soviet President, and a 3-star communist general walk into a bar. The bartender looks up and says, "Is this some kind of joke?" No joke.
In Ion Mihai Pacepa and Ronald Rychlak’s 2013 book, “Disinformation”, Pacepa gives an eye-witness account of the Soviet Communist disinformation machine that worked to revise history to their own advantage. It is a real-life account of what went on behind the curtain during the battles of WWII and the struggle to control the Vatican and its supporters. Pacepa defected to America after he was ordered to organize the assassination of a Romanian journalist. He would receive 2 death sentences from Romanian President Ceausescu, including a $2 million bounty for his demise. Both Yasser Arafat and Muammar al-Gaddafi would toss in $1 million apiece to sweeten the assassination pot.
When the highest-ranking defector from the former Eastern Bloc arrives in the United States, a free man, and kisses a rock from the ground at Andrews Airforce Base, it’s a textbook start to a fictional spy novel, except this story is REAL. Former spy chief, Ion Mihai Pacepa, a 3-star general of the Communist Romanian secret police did just that in the summer of 1978, in America, the land his father loved and taught him to love when he was a child.
The Pope in this tale is Pope Pius XII, viewed by the Soviets as a mortal threat to their communist ideology. In his writings, Pius XII made numerous pronouncements regarding his disdain for communism and its teachings. Hence, the Soviets unleashed a disinformation campaign by slandering the Pope as pro-Nazi and attempting to convince the public that he was secretly Hitler’s Pope. Pope Pius XII was installed in the Vatican in 1939, as World War II was just beginning. The communists hated religion, in general, and the Catholics, in particular. And so, a war within a war was also being waged between communism and the Catholic church.
Soviet Presidents making an appearance in this historical account are Joseph Stalin, who coined the phrase “disinformation” that was used during WWII and the Cold War to rewrite history by manipulating documents and altering records; and Nikita Khrushchev, who replaced Stalin and hoped to go down in history as the Soviet leader who brought communism to America.
But first on the Soviet list was Latin America, whose countries were largely poor and religious and ripe for Soviet picking. Liberation theology became the vehicle, a plant by the KGB, to turn Latin America against God, against the church, and mostly, against the Vatican. By appealing to the underprivileged sense of injustice, atheist communist liberation theology morphed into the more palpable Christianized Marxism. One of the goals of liberation theology was to infiltrate the church from the inside. And they may have finally achieved their aim, Argentinian-born Pope Francis, anyone?
The unlikely protagonist of this story is Pacepa, himself, who was the chief advisor of Nicolae Ceausescu, the Communist leader of Romania. Attempting to normalize Communist Romania by using terms like Democratic Communism or Democratic Socialism, Ceausescu was sold to the West as a kinder, gentler communist to alleviate any fears of the more rabid variety, leaving US President Jimmy Carter completely snookered. Pacepa and his gang spent their time stealing technological data from the West and changing history. It was during this time that Pacepa discovered the secret of the Soviet’s attempt to discredit Pope Pius XII and the Catholic Church. Ceausescu and his wife, Elena, wouldn’t make it to the end of the story, however, as they met their demise by firing squad in 1989.
Even the President of the United States, John F. Kennedy, makes a cameo in the book as one of a dozen world leaders killed or attempted to be killed by the Soviets during the twentieth century. Lee Harvey Oswald, Kennedy’s assassinator, was believed to be a Soviet recruit groomed to kill the president in 1963. Khrushchev purportedly ordered the assassination, before instructing Jack Ruby to silence Oswald a few days later.
Communism took the lives of 100 million people in the 20th century, millions more than those lost in both World Wars. Soviet-style communism ruled by controlling information, and during the Cold War, more people worked on the disinformation campaign than in defense and the army together. Misinformation is the known lies the government tells the people, disinformation is done in secret, although there is always some element of truth to make a story appear believable. And as we are now seeing in the United States, biased media is now helping to disseminate disinformation to the American public.
Despite a concerted effort to smear Pope Pius XII, the communists ultimately failed. And while the Soviets were the first major power to make deception a major national policy, they are not alone today. The disinformation campaign continues, here and abroad. There is enormous power in changing history and making lies appear as truth. After reading this book, you’ll wish it was all fiction.
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