Information kit ‘anti-Soviet’

Press, 8 December 1987, Page 10

Information kit ‘anti-Soviet’

NZPA-Reuter Moscow Soviet commentators have attacked a United States Government information kit distributed on the eve of the superpower summit as a “malevolent anti-Soviet mishmash” full of distortions. “It seems that not a

single important moment in the Soviet Union’s past or present was left undistorted in the materials of the kit,” a Tass news agency commentary said. Tass said the kit, produced by the United States Information Agency (U.5.1.A.), was being distributed to journalists covering the summit.

Mr Gorbachev arrives in Washington today for the meeting. A Russian television commentator, Valentin Zorin, said the information kit was a “malevolent anti-Soviet mishmash” and described the (U.5.1.A.) as “the American ministry of propaganda”.

Zorin’s commentary, monitored by the British Broadcasting Corporation, added that while the American public was awaiting the summit with impatience and hope “certain influential circles are now trying in every way to poison the atmosphere”. The Tass commentary,

by a special correspondent in Washington, said the information kit repeated “worn-out fabrications about the infringement of democracy and human rights and ‘violations’ in the Soviet Union of agreements on disarmament, exchange of people, ideas and information”.