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http://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2017/01/10/vladimir-putin-donald-trump-mark-kramer
King came under attack from the KGB, in part because he declined to embrace a Communist agenda for the civil rights movement, and in part because his hard-won achievements threatened one of Service A’s main selling points. The entrenchment of racial segregation and racial discrimination in the United States had been a severe burden on U.S. foreign policy, belying the government’s claims to be promoting democracy. Many State Department officials came to support the civil rights movement for this reason, sensing that an end to segregation would improve America’s image abroad.

For the KGB, however, the calculus was the opposite. Soviet propaganda had long highlighted the iniquities of racial discrimination in the United States, and Soviet officials were well aware of the potency of this issue in tarnishing U.S. leadership in the world. Congressional passage of civil rights legislation, the KGB feared, would eliminate one of the Soviet Union’s major lines of attack. As Soviet officials became increasingly worried about the success of the civil rights movement, Service A used forgeries to try to discredit King and other civil rights activists, depicting them as “Uncle Toms” who were secretly colluding with the government. The unit also fabricated documents and spread disinformation that President Johnson had taken secret steps with King’s implicit approval to ensure the continued subordination of blacks.

In later years, the KGB tried to stir up racial tensions in New York City by sending inflammatory forged publications to black activist groups and by setting off a bomb in a “Negro section of New York” and blaming it on the militant Jewish Defense League. Service A resorted to similar provocations throughout the 1970s and well into the 1980s, viewing race relations as the issue most likely to destabilize the U.S. political system.