| | After the Nazi-Soviet pact, Hoover began investigating US Communists. The Soviet Union responded by having the KGB's Section A for Disinformation and Active Measures fabricate disinformation smearing Hoover's character. Service A produced clumsily forged letters linking Hoover to the John Birch Society, and accusing him of pressuring a State Department employee to turn over information on suspected leftists. | | After the Nazi-Soviet pact, Hoover began investigating US Communists. The Soviet Union responded by having the KGB's Section A for Disinformation and Active Measures fabricate disinformation smearing Hoover's character. Service A produced clumsily forged letters linking Hoover to the John Birch Society, and accusing him of pressuring a State Department employee to turn over information on suspected leftists. |
| − | The KGB leaked forged letters to left-wing gossip columnist Drew Pearson, two of whose legmen, Andrew Older and David Karr, were Soviet assets, and planted a disinformation story that Hoover was a homosexual.<ref>Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=9TWUAQ7Xof8C The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB]'' (Basic Books, 2000) ISBN 0465003125, pp. 234-236</ref> | + | The KGB leaked forged letters to left-wing gossip columnist Drew Pearson, two of whose legmen, Andrew Older and [[David Karr]], were Soviet assets, and planted a disinformation story that Hoover was a homosexual.<ref>Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=9TWUAQ7Xof8C The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB]'' (Basic Books, 2000) ISBN 0465003125, pp. 234-236</ref> |