Operation Neptune's objectives were to discredit Western politicians by revealing the names of former Nazi informants whom they were still using as spies in Eastern Europe and to place pressure on West Germany to extend the statute of limitations on the prosecution of war criminals, including extending the statute of limitations.[1][2][3]
The four chests containing the papers were supposedly discovered during the making of a documentary in the presence of members of the Western press. In fact, State Security itself had placed them there in collaboration with the KGB.[4][3]
The apparent discovery was a disinformation operation, the largest conducted by the State Security. The fake papers were found in sunken chests, which had been carefully doctored to appear as if they had been submerged since World War II. The chests had been brought from the Soviet Union. The agent who led the divers to make the discovery and who had originally placed them in the lake, Ladislav Bittman, later known as Lawrence Martin-Bittman, defected to the West in 1968 and published a book on the plot.[3][5][6][1][7]
One scholar argues that the papers were possibly genuine although the former Czechoslovak spy Josef Frolík described them in his 1975 memoirs as forgeries.[8][9]
Result
The operation also succeeded in worsening relations between Germany and Italy, as the names published included people who had lived in Germany and worked against Italy during the war. The operation had some temporary success.[10][3][6]
Later history
The Czech civilian intelligence agency posted the files on Operation Neptune on its website.[3]
^Michael F. Scholz, "Active measures and disinformation as part of East Germany's propaganda war, 1953–1972", in: Kristie Macrakis, Thomas Wegener Friis and Helmut Müller-Enbergs, ed., East German Foreign Intelligence: Myth, Reality and Controversy, Studies in intelligence series, London/New York: Routledge, 2010, ISBN9780415484428, pp. 113–, p. 116.
^The International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence 1 (1986) 114.
Ladislav Bittmann. The Deception Game: Czechoslovak Intelligence in Soviet Political Warfare. Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Research Corporation, 1972. ISBN9780815680789.
United States. Congress. House. Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Subcommittee on Oversight. Soviet Covert Action (the Forgery Offensive): Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Oversight of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, House of Representatives, Ninety-sixth Congress, Second Session, February 6, 19, 1980. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1980. OCLC7281428.
