International Organization of Journalists

International Organization of Journalists (French: Organisation internationale des journalistes) was a Soviet bloc front organization.

It was initially portrayed as a place where Western and Eastern Bloc journalists can meet.[1] It was controlled in Prague by the Central Committee of the Czechoslovak Communist Party and with many KGB agents on board was a "long hand" of Moscow.[2]

It was one of dozen large front organizations launched by the Soviet Union in the late 1940s and early 1950s.[3][4] Other fronts launched during these years included World Peace Council, World Federation of Trade Unions, Women's International Democratic Federation, International Association of Democratic Lawyers, Christian Peace Conference, International Federation of Resistance Fighters, World Federation of Scientific Workers, World Federation of Democratic Youth, World Congress of Doctors, and International Radio and TV Organization.[5][6]

Ilya Dzhirkvelov, a high-ranking KGB defector, described in his book "Secret servant: my life with the KGB and the Soviet élite" how the KGB attached great importance to the organization.[7]

In 1970 it declared that it had 150,000 members.[8]

Affiliated people

References

  1. ^ American students organize: founding the National Student Association after. Eugene G. Schwartz
  2. ^ Political posters in Central and Eastern Europe, 1945-95: signs of the times. James Aulich, Marta Sylvestrová. p. 66
  3. ^ Jeffrey T. Richelson (1997). A century of spies: intelligence in the twentieth century. p. 252. 
  4. ^ Ralph And Brown Fred R. Sanders (2008). National Security Management: Global Psychological Conflict. p. 31. 
  5. ^ Jeffrey T. Richelson (1997). A century of spies: intelligence in the twentieth century. p. 252. 
  6. ^ Ralph And Brown Fred R. Sanders (2008). National Security Management: Global Psychological Conflict. p. 31. 
  7. ^ Secret servant: my life with the KGB and the Soviet élite (1987). Ilya Dzhirkvelov
  8. ^ Soviet propaganda: a case study of the Middle East conflict.

See also