It was written by former general in the Securitate, the secret police of Socialist Republic of Romania, Ion Mihai Pacepa, and law professor Ronald J. Rychlak.

Pacepa and Rychlak document how the Russian word dezinformatsiya was coined by Joseph Stalin, who chose a French-sounding title to make others believe it had originated in the Western world.

Pacepa recounts reading Soviet intelligence training manuals describing the inspiration of such deception rooted in the history of Potemkin villages.

Pacepa writes that Stalin gave the tactic a French-sounding title, dezinformatsiya in Russian, in order to put forth the ruse that it was actually a technique used by the Western world.

Pacepa recalls that the Soviet manuals said origins of disinformation stemmed from phony towns constructed by Grigory Potyomkin in Crimea to impress Catherine the Great during her 1783 journey to the region—subsequently referred to as Potemkin villages.

[14][1] Pacepa and Rychlak place burgeoning support for Marxism within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization countries and the United States as related to disinformation campaigns.

[13][8] Pacepa and Rychlak write that Soviet Union intelligence services used 4,000 espionage specialists within the Muslim world in order to stoke political unease towards Israel and the United States.

They recount how disinformation campaigns came to play a role in the John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories regarding beliefs of involvement by American officials.

[28][29][30] Subsequently, he served as a law clerk on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit for Senior Judge Harry W.

"[1] Former Director of Central Intelligence R. James Woolsey wrote: "Gen. Pacepa writes that there were more in the Soviet bloc working on dezinformatsiya than in the armed forces and defense industry!

[5] Writing for The Counter Terrorist, magazine editor and former anti-terrorism unit commander Chris Graham wrote that Pacepa's description of deceptive intelligence operations conducted by Vladimir Putin reflected the breadth of disinformation campaigns required to hold onto authoritarian rule in Russia.

"[7] Scott Albright reviewed the book for the journal Distracted Masses and wrote: "What's so shocking about what Pacepa writes is the incredible lengths to which the Russians would go to cover up their own operations and discredit their enemies in the Vatican and the U.S.

[9] Movieguide gave the companion film to the book a positive review, writing: "Disinformation is a brilliant expose of the mendacious communist strategy to destroy the West, from a top insider in the Soviet Union's Eastern European security forces in Romania who defected.