U.S. Army Field Manual 30-31B

U.S. Army Field Manual 30-31B was a Cold War-era forgery by Soviet intelligence services.

It is an alleged classified appendix to a U.S. Army Field Manual that describes top secret counter insurgency tactics. In particular, it identifies a "strategy of tension" involving violent attacks which are then blamed on radical left-wing groups in order to convince allied governments of the need for counter-action. It has been called the Westmoreland Field Manual because it is signed with the alleged signature of General William Westmoreland. It was labelled as supplement B (hence "30-31B"), although the publicly released version of FM30-31 only has one appendix, Supplement A.

U.S. government and academic sources describe the document as a forgery. The document first appeared in Turkey in the 1970s, before being circulated to other countries. It was also used at the end of the 1970s to implicate the Central Intelligence Agency in the Red Brigades' kidnapping and assassination of former Italian prime minister Aldo Moro.

The alleged appendix B to FM30-31 was first mentioned in the Turkish newspaper Barış (sometimes anglicized to Barish), in 1975.

A facsimile copy of FM30-31B then appeared a year later in Bangkok, Thailand, and in various capitals of north African states. In 1978, it appeared in various European magazines, including the Spanish Triunfo and El Pais. The Italian press picked up the Triunfo publication, and a copy was published in the October 1978 issue of L'Europeo.

A wide range of field manuals, including 30-31, can be accessed through websites that catalog U.S. field manuals. However, 30-31B is not among the field manuals published by the military.

The "Westmoreland Field Manual" was mentioned in at least two parliamentary commissions reports of European countries, one about the Italian Propaganda Due masonic lodge, and one about the Belgian stay-behind network. The latter says that "the commission has not any certainty about the authenticity of the document".

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Wikipedia