Infectious Propaganda

A bizarre theory about the origins of AIDS has been getting play in the Soviet press lately: that the illness is the result of U.S. germ-warfare experiments gone wild. AIDS experts scoff at the farfetched notion, and Washington has accused the Soviets of waging a "disinformation campaign." U.S. Ambassador to Moscow Arthur Hartman publicly protested a Pravda cartoon depicting a U.S. scientist and an officer exchanging a vial of AIDS viruses.

In September the Soviet weekly New Times reported that Jacob Segal, a retired East Berlin biologist who is unknown to Western AIDS experts, claimed that the virus originated in biological-warfare experiments at Fort Detrick, Md. Segal's allegation resurfaced in Zambia, then in London's Sunday Express, which cited support for the charge from Robert B. Strecker, an internist in Glendale, Calif., and John R. Seale, a British expert in venereal diseases. Strecker, who has written that the AIDS virus could have originated in either a natural or an artificial combination of viruses, dismisses the biological- warfare angle as "just speculation." Seale believes the deadly virus was man-made, but at different times has blamed both the Soviets and Americans.

The Soviet claim that Americans are somehow spreading the aids virus got a boost last week when the Philippine government asked the U.S. to station only "AIDS-free" personnel at American military bases there. Reason: some 20 bar girls have been infected by the AIDS virus, presumably after sexual contact with U.S. servicemen. TASS quickly -- and gleefully -- reported the item.