The CIA project AERODYNAMIC (1949-1970), later QRPLUMB (1971-1991), supported the Ukrainian émigré organization Foreign Representation of the Ukrainian Supreme Liberation Council (ZP/UHVR), with a New York publishing arm established in 1953 called Prolog Research and Publishing Association Inc. (CIA-Cryptonyms: QRTENURE, AETENURE). In 1968 Prolog was restructured under the name Prolog Research Corporation.
Prolog, through an affiliate in Munich, the so-called Ukrainian Society for Foreign Studies (QRTERRACE, AETERRACE), published periodicals and selected books and pamphlets which sought to exploit and increase nationalist and other dissident tendencies in the Soviet Ukraine.
Several thousand files regarding AERODYNAMIC have been declassified so far, amongst them AERODYNAMIC Development and Plans (Vol. 1-8), Operations (Vol. 9-41), and Contact Reports (Vol. 42-47). Yaroslav Fedyk, Ivan Hrinioch, Mykola Lebed, Yury Lopatinsky, Lyubomir Ortinskiy were associated with the Project. Roman Tymewycz was a clerical employee in a Branch Office of Project AERODYNAMIC.
New York office
The address of the New York City office was as of 1967 in 875 West End Avenue.1
Munich Office
"As for the Munich office of Prolog, the CIA document states that funding for it comes from an account separate from that of Prolog in New York from a cooperating bank, which also remains classified. In 1967, the CIA merged the activities of Prolog Munich and the Munich office of the Ukrainian exiled nationalist «Suchasnist» journal. The Munich office also supported the «Ukrainische Gesellschaft fur Auslandstudien".2
The Prolog Research and Publishing Association Inc. and was restructured in 1968 under the name Prolog Research Corporation.
"In accordance with instructions to discontinue publishing activities in the United States in the wake of MHDOWEL, the Prolog Research and Publishing Association, Inc., the organization the ZP/UHVR used to conduct its publishing and contact activities was dissolved on 5 June 1968. The mechanism was reconstituted as the Prolog Research Corporation, a profit- making, commercial enterprise, ostensibly servicing contracts for unspecified users such as private individuals and institutions. All of the project's publications now originate abroad, via the Munich office, the Ukrainische Gesellschaft fur Auslandsstudien E.V., except the Ukrainian-language Information Bulletin, which is directed exclusively to Soviet Ukrainians and mailed to them from various countries in the West. There has been no change in the personnel or the physical location of the property. The name "Prolog" was retained because of the good will it had established and because the name had become a Western sounding board for Soviet Ukrainian dissidents."3
Quotes from declassified documents
The publishing and research arm of ZP/UHVR is Prolog Corporation of New York, N.Y. All publications, however, originate in Munich, Germany, under the auspices of an affiliate, Ukrainian Society for Studies Abroad. [...] The New York office does the bulk of the production and editing of this material, under the direction of Vice President Dr. Myroslav Prokop. Anatol Kaminsky is Vice President in charge of operation), and personally contacts his sources in Western Europe three or four times annually. These sources in turn travel into the Soviet Union or meet with persons who make such trips. They acquire information and underground "self-published" manuscripts, called "samvydav" in Ukrainian, or "samizdat" in Russian.
The President of Prolog is Mykola Lebed, who also holds the position of Secretary General of the ZP/UHVR. Lebed, an old revolutionary and a leader of the insurrection in the Ukraine after World War II, is as widely known and respected among Ukrainian dissidents as he is despised by the KGB.
He provides a symbol for those intellectual dissidents who know that ZP/UHVR and its affiliates have the interest and welfare of the dissidents in mind, and not that of some emigre political party. Operational guidance is provided by the Headquarters-based case officer, who visits the principals periodically in New York. The interim management of routine, less sensitive details is handled by frequent telephone and secure mail contact.4
CIA terminated QRPLUMB after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1991 and provided funds to enable Prolog to transition to a privately-funded company. In 1992, Prolog's monthly Ukrainian journal Suchasnist (Contemporary Times) was successfully transitioned to a publishing company in Kiev, Ukraine and thereafter was published as a collaborative effort between Prolog and a Ukrainian group in Kiev.5
All issues of the Suchasnist magazine from 1961 until 1991 are available at the online archive "Diasporiana".6
Bibliography
- Madsen, Wayne. "CIA: Undermining and Nazifying Ukraine Since 1953." Strategic Culture Foundation, May 14, 2016. https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2016/01/08/cia-undermining-and-nazifying-ukraine-since-1953.html.
- National Archives and Records Administration. "Research Aid: Cryptonyms and Terms in Declassified CIA Files Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Disclosure Acts." June, 2007. https://www.archives.gov/files/iwg/declassified-records/rg-263-cia-records/second-release-lexicon.pdf.
- 1Central Intelligence Agency, " AERODYNAMIC VOL. 5 (DEVELOPMENT AND PLANS) 0004," February 15, 1967. https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/AERODYNAMIC%20%20%20VOL.%205%20%20(DEVELOPMENT%20AND%20PLANS)_0004.pdf.
- 2Wayne Madsen, "CIA: Undermining and Nazifying Ukraine Since 1953," Strategic Culture Foundation, May 14, 2016. https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2016/01/08/cia-undermining-and-nazifying-ukraine-since-1953.html.
- 3Declassified CIA file concerning project AERODYNAMIC, May 15, 1969, p. 31. https://cryptome.org/2016/01/cia-ua-aerodynamic.pdf.
- 4Declassified CIA file regarding QRDYNAMIC, April 13, 1972. https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/QRPLUMB%20%20%20VOL.%202%20%20(DEVELOPMENT%20AND%20PLANS,%201970-78)_0017.pdf.
- 5National Archives and Records Administration, "Research Aid: Cryptonyms and Terms in Declassified CIA Files Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Disclosure Acts." http://www.archives.gov/iwg/declassified-records/rg-263-cia-records/second-release-lexicon.pdf.
- 6Suchasnist (Сучасність) magazine. http://diasporiana.org.ua/?s=%D0%A1%D1%83%D1%87%D0%B0%D1%81%D0%BD%D1%96%D1%81%D1%82%D1%8C
