Warriors of Disinformation: How Charles Wick, the Usia, and Videotape Won the Cold War

by Alvin A. Snyder

An expose+a7 of the United States Information Agency by the former director of its Worldnet Television department charges that the Agency spread propaganda and "disinformation" during the eighties in an effort to beat the Soviets at their own game.

Genres: History, Politics, Espionage

320 pages, Hardcover

First published November 15, 1995

Reviews

[Marius Aguinaldo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Alvin A.Snyder was an insider during these crucial years. He was a former executive with CBS and NBC. He did a lot to win hearts and minds. Probably the main character because of the fact that he was able to run the satellite TV service + being on the front lines of some of the agency’s pitched battles.They don’t feel real to me because I haven’t heard of a person like this one before who was handling multiple hard stuff at once pretty good. It is hard to guess how he started doing these hard jobs, like he has probably learned, studied and even practiced a lot of them until after he graduates, he is finally able to do what he wants. My favorite part of the book is when I saw that Snow White and The three Stooges combined into 1 film as a collaboration. Wick is named co-chairman of the $8,000,000 presidential inaugural balls and had to handle the arrival of Reagan supporters in Washington after Reagan’s victory.
Something I dislike about this book is that I constantly see some of the same 3 capitalized letters throughout the whole chapter. Maybe after a few chapters, but only once because I want to read a book that would explain every bit of detail throughout the entire story. This theme explained throughout the whole book is unlike anything I’ve read before so I’ll have to learn more about it. I think that anything here is possible to achieve, like taking over for as long as they believe that they can.

[Vlad · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are some interesting snippets of information on how the USA used propaganda to fight the USSR. There are some examples of foul play by the US agencies, but mostly both sides were using similar methods, and the USA started winning when the USSR economy was unable to catch up. I think it could've been 30% shorter without losing a lot, still an interesting and rare insight into the inner workings of the USA propaganda during the Cold War.