Talk:Operation Denver

Implications of Picture
The picture of Yevgeni Primakov at the head of the article implies that he is responsible for Operation Infektion, when his publication of the scandal actually helped clear the air of disinformation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.91.86.224 (talk) 01:38, 2 February 2014 (UTC)


 * @108.91.86.224 maybe give the picture a good caption then? Irtapil (talk) 04:36, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Assessment
This a "b class" article of "mid" importance to the history of the Soviet Union? Huh? The article is junk (e.g. cia.gov and america.gov citations, confusing descriptions of how blacks have or did give credibility to these various silly rumors, etc.) and ought instead have the usual tags impugning its credibility and quality applied. Is there a shortage of articles about the fine humanitarians of the former USSR and their great accomplishments? This is more befitting an article on some piece of military equipment, not nonsense about nonsense. I am fixing this assessment. Some kind of skewed valuation was at play here. Obotlig (talk) 04:55, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

other diseases
Didn't the Soviets try to weaponize smallpox, as well? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.209.144.90 (talk) 19:40, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Any reference for that? It doesn't seem particularly material to the article anyway. Obotlig ☣  interrogate 04:31, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Genesis
Hi. The article says the subject was set up by the KGB in 1962, and then skips to a letter was sent to the editor in July 1983. I added a dubious tag because the source for 1962 covers Soviet activities two decades later. Maybe a link exists so we could all read the source. -SusanLesch (talk) 16:01, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
 * I don't think this makes it dubious. The newspaper was set up by the KGB in 1962 to publish a pro-Soviet narrative in India. The Soviets did things like this all the time. It was still being published in 1983, at the height of the Cold War, when it was used for the letter. —Мандичка YO 😜 20:12, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

Third-party tag
This article relies too heavily on US government sources. These sources should be avoided where possible as the US government was an involved party and had a political interest in the subject. Plenty of independent, fact-checked sources (such as news articles and published books) have covered Operation Infektion. They should be used where possible. To be clear, I'm not suggesting the removal of any content, just improvement of the sourcing. R2 (bleep) 16:50, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I've replaced the first source (which was pretty easy as it's only used for one fact) with one written by a senior lecturer in International Relations at the University of Oxford and published by Yale University Press. I may or may not return to see what I can do with the others, so I hope someone else will help out. Phil Bridger (talk) 17:38, 4 February 2019 (UTC)


 * The introduction still only relies on US government sources, which reduces the credibility of the article. Can and should the article provide Soviet or Russian views? Tomastvivlaren (talk) 06:34, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes, but only if those views can be reliably sourced. But that misses the point. The article should rely more on reliable private-sector sources such as news reports, scholarly articles, and books. R2 (bleep) 16:03, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
 * I agree. The way to provide proper balance in an article is to base it on independent sources, rather to try and balance one set of non-independent sources with others providing the opposite point of view. Phil Bridger (talk) 17:01, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
 * (Has the third person in that conversation been banned?) There are a few things in Russian on line e.g. this info page for a Russian AIDS charity, but they might be recycled back from Western sources, possibly even this Wikipedia article. My ability to read Russian only goes as far the Cyrillic alphabet and pressing "translate".Irtapil (talk) 09:14, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

there has been more recent academic work on this by Douglas Selvage. He is from the USA originally, but not the USA government, he is a senior research fellow at the Institute for History at Humboldt University in Berlin. I have learned about his work mainly from interviews he has done, the paper has been languishing on my "to read later" list. According to Selvage little or nothing survives from Russian archives. I've included a few papers and interviews below. Irtapil (talk) 11:04, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

Douglas Selvage articles and interviews academic work by other authors I'm not sure if many other people have worked on this, i might wait for some input from other editors before i get too carried away. Irtapil (talk) 11:04, 25 October 2023 (UTC)
 * academic article in the Journal of Cold War Studies I'm not sure why that reference is a bit weird, here's an alternative link.
 * article in The MIT Press Reader
 * the Wilson Center
 * Interview on a Texas University podcast
 * interview on Historical Blindness podcast
 * openDemocracy
 * There's also an article he wrote in German mentioned in the above interview but I'm not sure which it refers to, there's several relevant works in English and German on his professional webpage here.
 * 2019 paper

suggested references

Move Page - Operation "Denver" ?
I think the page should be moved to - Operation "Denver" - with quotes around Denver, but I'll leave it here for feedback for a while first. The name "operation infektion" seems to be a misunderstanding, it appeared in a popular media article from the New York Times (or was it the New Yorker?) but according to Douglas Selvage - the historian I mentioned above - that name was never used until recent media. I've tagged people from the page history who seemed to make substantial contributions or minor contributors who had some ongoing interest in related topics on their profiles. Irtapil (talk) 11:31, 25 October 2023 (UTC)
 * This is hard to say. "Infektion" is not a mistake since it appears in articles by NYT, Guardian and NPR. I see a lot of info here, but that is a blog post. "Denver" also seems common. Apparently, KGB used "Infektion" (in Russian) but Stasi used "Denver". I have no strong opinion either way. My very best wishes (talk) 14:09, 25 October 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm fine with it being moved to Operation Denver, as this appears to be the official KGB name, with a note in the intro that it's aka Operation Infektion. —МандичкаYO 😜 01:40, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
 * @My very best wishes "Infektion" is German, not Russian? Irtapil (talk) 04:35, 15 December 2023 (UTC)
 * This is a transliteration from Russian. My very best wishes (talk) 16:29, 15 December 2023 (UTC)
 * @My very best wishes but the box says the Russian is Операция «Инфекция» and the Romanization is Operatsiya "Infektsiya", and that Romanization matches. I think the operation was actually bad in East Germany.
 * But last time i looked, that Russian name seemed very likely to be circular referencing that might source back here to wikipedia.
 * Irtapil (talk) 09:12, 30 March 2024 (UTC)
 * The scholar Douglas Selvage was saying that "Infektion" was a separate operation happening at the same time, aimed at one of the USA's cold war era propaganda outlets, but I only vaguely remember. Irtapil (talk) 14:57, 21 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Support. Move to Operation Denver (quotes around Denver are redundant, according to WP:MILMOS).--Russian Rocky (talk) 04:26, 30 October 2023 (UTC)
 * what do you mean by "redundant"? Irtapil (talk) 14:53, 21 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Attempted the move, since there seemed to be some support and no strong objections, but it claims Operation Denver already exists.
 * Irtapil (talk) 15:50, 21 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Operation_Denver_redirect.png Sorry its taken so long to do this, I kept getting stuck because there was a page already called Operation Denver … probably a redirect … yes.
 * @My very best wishes but no talk page?
 * Page history
 * curprev 04:24, 8 May 2020‎ EmausBot  talk contribs‎ m  33 bytes 0‎  Bot: Fixing double redirect to Operation INFEKTION undothank Tag: Redirect target changed
 * curprev 00:32, 3 May 2020‎ My very best wishes  talk contribs‎  33 bytes +33‎  ←Redirected page to Operation Infektion thank Tag: New redirect
 * I'm just going to make that a redirect from Russian for the sake of getting this done. Irtapil (talk) 09:05, 30 March 2024 (UTC)


 * Either name is fine. "Operation Denver" was an official code name by Stasi, while "Operation INFEKTION" appears in a number of sources, apparently as a most common journalistic name. My very best wishes (talk) 19:35, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
 * @My very best wishes yeah there was a New York Times story that used it and a lot copied, I'm going with recent academic / official name. Sorry it's taken so long to do the move i should have just listed it as a "technical move" request. I'll gybe it one more try. Irtapil (talk) 10:11, 4 April 2024 (UTC)
 * It was a bit unclear what the operation was called when the NYT was talking about it. It seems they king of fixed and guessed wrong. Their story was very widely read so it got copied a lot. Douglas Selvage (mentioned above) dug into some old archives that the NYT didn't have access to and found what the Stasi and Russians were calling it. It seems they used "Detrick" a bit interchangeably but Denver was the real name. "Infection" was a different program, and it's not Russian, Инфекция says "Infektziya". Irtapil (talk) 19:28, 4 April 2024 (UTC)
 * @My very best wishes There was a New York Times story that used the name "Operation Infektion" and a lot of other media copied the name i think? Irtapil (talk) 09:43, 6 April 2024 (UTC)


 * @Russian Rocky @Kaliforniyka @Wikimandia
 * I've changed in to Denver now, since that seems to be the official name based on new research by the academic Douglas Selvage (see above).
 * "Operation Infektion" is still a redirect and mentioned in the lead (I'll double check that).
 * Sorry it took so long to do the move, I should have just listed it as a "technical move" request to begin with.
 * Irtapil (talk) 09:49, 6 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Irtapil (talk) 09:49, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

Where did "Операция «Инфекция»" come from?
What is the source for the name "Операция «Инфекция»" in Russian? I added the reference that is currently there but I just found that from googling what was there already, they could have even got it from here. Where is it from originally? This needs someone who knows Russian better than I do. Irtapil (talk) 11:52, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

a few references
Some of these are repeats from above…


 * https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/operation-denver-kgb-aids-disinformation-campaign/
 * https://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-abstract/21/4/71/13815/Operation-Denver-The-East-German-Ministry-of-State
 * https://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-abstract/21/4/71/13815/Operation-Denver-The-East-German-Ministry-of-State?redirectedFrom=fulltext

Irtapil (talk) 21:20, 6 April 2024 (UTC)
 * https://www.jstor.org/stable/26677588 "Were our critics right about the Stasi?"
 * https://www.slavxradio.com/guests/selvage
 * https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/operation-denver-kgb-and-stasi-disinformation-regarding-aids
 * https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/memetic-engineering-conspiracies-viruses-and-historical-agency/
 * https://www.historicalblindness.com/blogandpodcast//af0cekn4di4bqqz3x8b7qx5cqnkaak
 * The reference to e Russian name that i think may have got the name from Wikipedia? https://spid.center/ru/articles/2938