Operation Toucan (KGB)
Operation TOUCAN was a KGB/DGI public relations and disinformation campaign directed at the military government of Chile led by Augusto Pinochet, particularly the Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional (DINA). The plot's twofold task was to organize sympathetic human rights activists to pressure the United Nations and generate negative press for the Pinochet regime. According to former KGB officer Vasili Mitrokhin, the plot was originally conceived by Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov. It was approved on August 10, 1976.[1]
| Operation Toucan | |
| Russian | Операция «Тукан» |
|---|---|
| Romanization | Operation Toucan |
| IPA | |
Activities
As part of operation TOUCAN, the KGB forged a letter tying the CIA to an assassination campaign by Chile's DINA and many journalists, including columnist Jack Anderson of the New York Times, used this information in their news stories as evidence of the CIA's involvement in the more nefarious parts of Operation Condor.
The KGB forged letters from Manuel Contreras, DINA's director, to Pinochet, which were accepted as genuine by the newspaper and other major news outlets in the West.[1] One of these included a letter "sent" by Contreras to Pinochet detailing a plan to neutralize the opposition figures living in Mexico, Argentina, Costa Rica, France, Italy, and the United States.[3]
When the operation ended, it was marked "particularly successful in publicizing and exaggerating DINA's foreign operations against left wing Chilean exiles."[1]
References
- Horne, Alistair (2009). Kissinger: 1973, the Crucial Year. New York: Simon and Schuster. pp. 221. ISBN 9780743272834.
- Andrew, Christopher; Mitrokhin, Vasili. The World Was Going Our Way: The KGB and the Battle for the Third World. Basic Books (2005)
- West, Nigel (2017). Encyclopedia of Political Assassinations. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. p. 46. ISBN 9781538102381.
Further reading
- Horne, Alistair.Small Earthquake in Chile: A Visit to Allende's South America. Papermac (1990)