1978 KGB Classified Document Pushes Bizarre Warnings Ahead of 1980 Moscow Olympic Games

We’ve all seen our share of crazy-pants conspiracy theories over the past decade, but they all pale in comparison to the dossier compiled by Yuriy Andropov’s KGB in 1978 during the run-up to the Moscow-held 1980 Olympics. The Top Secret report, “Concerning plans of Western intelligence services and foreign anti-Soviet organizations in connection with the 1980 Olympics,” submitted to the Central Committee of the CPSU on 16 June 1978, is clearly a nice set-up for the KGB to look back on two years later, proudly boasting that only through their efforts, none of the predicted events came to be. One can imagine their shared sigh of relief when the US (and dozens of other countries) boycotted the games because of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Read the translation below and judge for yourself.

16 June 1978

Top Secret

Special Folder

Concerning plans of Western intelligence services and foreign anti-Soviet organizations in connection with the 1980 Olympics

               The KGB under the Council of Ministers of the USSR has information that the special services of capitalist states and foreign nationalist, Zionist, clerical, and other anti-Soviet organizations supported by them are hatching hostile plans in connection with the XXII Summer Olympic Games of 1980 in Moscow.

               According to reliable information, Western intelligence services are seeking opportunities to include in the national Olympic delegations individuals associated with the NTS [National Alliance of Russian Solidarists] and other formations conducting subversive work against the Soviet Union. The issue of selecting and introducing NTS members into the Olympic teams of some countries as translators, repairmen, grooms, doctors, etc. was discussed in particular at a meeting of the NTS council in November 1977.

               There is intelligence information that the émigré organization “Committee for the Return of Exiled Crimean Tatars to Their Homeland” has already begun training a group of athletes with the aim of including them in a number of national teams to participate in the Olympics. According to the plan of the leaders of the said “Committee,” at the opening of the Olympics these athletes should make public appearances at the stadium in “defense of the Crimean Tatars” by unfolding slogan banners, shouting with calls of an inflammatory nature. It is taken into account that the opening ceremony of the Olympics will be broadcast on television to many countries of the world.

               Information has been received that the US Olympic delegation will include, as a core group, a basketball team supported by the Baptist organization “University Crusade for Christ.”

               At the same time, it has been established that Western intelligence services, foreign anti-Soviet organizations, and subversive ideological centers attach great importance to the use of the international tourism channel for inspiring hostile acts on Soviet territory while preparing for and during the Olympic Games. The enemy plans to use this channel to send to our country terrorists, emissaries, and agents of hostile organizations, as well as former Soviet citizens who were expelled or who had previously left the Soviet Union. It is assumed that they will be used to carry out terrorist acts, mass distribution of anti-Soviet and slanderous literature, and propaganda of anti-socialist and anti-communist ideas, persuading some Soviet citizens to leave for capitalist countries, provoking antisocial and hostile manifestations, and collecting materials on “violations of human rights,” as well as on some negative events.

               The following information serves to confirm this:

               – one of our sources has received information that in West Germany and a number of other capitalist countries, terrorists are allegedly being trained to be sent to the USSR during the Olympics as tourists to commit terrorist acts;

               – the émigré organisation “Estonian National Council” (ENC), which in 1977 developed new guidelines for carrying out anti-Soviet activities, recommends that Estonian émigrés visiting their homeland create small conspiratorial “action groups” in the Estonian SSR that would carry out hostile actions during international events held in the republic, including Olympic competitions;

               – at a meeting of the leaders of the international organization of young Christians (YMCA), held in the spring of 1977 in Kassel (West Germany), a decision was made to hold a traditional international conference in Moscow during the Olympics in 1980 with the agenda “Faithful Youth and Sports.” There are plans to invite representatives from 83 national YMCA organizations to the meeting, who are being recommended to come to Moscow as tourists;

               – an active participant in the Zionist movement in England, D. GOULD, owner of a travel agency in Liverpool, expressed his intention to hold negotiations with the relevant Soviet organizations regarding the participation of his company in tourism brokerage operations. GOULD’s tourist groups are to include a significant number of people of Jewish nationality, in particular those who emigrated from the USSR. According to GOULD’s plan, the main task of such tourists will be to conduct “propaganda work aimed at promoting the emigration of Jews from the USSR,” as well as distributing hostile literature, carrying out uncontrolled contacts, and illegally obtaining and exporting biased materials from the USSR;

               – in the US, Israel, and West Berlin, work is underway to flood tourist groups with persons of Jewish nationality who left or were expelled from the USSR and who wish to visit the Soviet Union in connection with the Olympic Games;

               – in 1977, a special mission was created by Estonian émigrés from among believers (a significant part of whom are Pentecostals) living in Australia, planning to use the preparation and holding of the 1980 Olympics to step up religious efforts in Estonia. The “Olympic program” of the mission includes the delivery and distribution of religious literature and the equipment to reproduce it in the USSR;

               – the Swedish-based émigré organization “Latvian National Foundation” is preparing to publish a brochure (in English) “about athletes who were repressed and disappeared in the USSR.” The brochure is to be distributed before the Olympic Games.

               Various reports are being disseminated through the media of capitalist countries about the possible commission of terrorist or other extremist acts during the Olympic Games in Moscow.

               The KGB is taking the aforementioned information into account when developing measures aimed at ensuring security during the preparation for and performance of the XXII Olympic Games of 1980. These measures will be reported to the Central Committee of the CPSU.

CHAIRMAN OF THE COMMITTEE FOR STATE SECURITY //signed// ANDROPOV

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