"[Russia] is conducting an intensive propaganda campaign directed primarily against the US and is employing coordinated psychological, political and economic measures . . . The ultimate object of this campaign is not merely to undermine the prestige of the US and the effectiveness of its national policy but to weaken and divide world opinion to a point where effective opposition to [Russian] designs is no longer attainable by political, economic or military means."

With that justification, the Truman administration secretly authorized the start of covert operations by the CIA against America's wartime ally, the USSR, in December 1947. It was one of the seminal decisions that launched the Cold War.