FOIAWEAR — SUPER MOSQUITO / Under the Guise of Combating Malaria Tee

FOIAWEAR / ARCHIVE SERIES 047 — SUPER MOSQUITO

In February 1982 a weekly published by the Soviet writers' union reported that the Central Intelligence Agency was breeding mosquitoes — not ordinary ones, but particularly poisonous ones, at a medical research centre in Pakistan, under the guise of fighting malaria.

The claim, as carried in the American press files that February:

“A leading Soviet magazine yesterday accused the United States of breeding killer mosquitoes at a medical research center in Pakistan.” — and from the same day's wire copy: “A Soviet literary newspaper said yesterday that the CIA is using radiation and genetic science to breed ‘super mosquitoes’ for spreading disease in Afghanistan.”

The Literary Gazette identified the laboratory as the Pakistani Medical Studies Center in Lahore, which it said was “affiliated with the University of Maryland and funded and directed by the Central Intelligence Agency.” The charge itself was specific:

“CIA-recruited American biologists at the laboratories, under the guise of combating malaria, are breeding particularly poisonous mosquitoes which infect their victims with deadly viruses.”

The alleged aim was to infect Afghan nomads crossing the border into Pakistan and, through them, to “unleash an epidemic of encephalitis in Afghanistan itself.” The articles ran over several pages and were intended, the reporting noted, to underline Soviet charges that Washington was involved in “large-scale production and testing of biological weapons” — with Soviet forces then in their third year in Afghanistan, and an estimated 85,000 still there to fight.

The replies are in the same files. A CIA spokeswoman, Kathy Pherson, called the report “ridiculous Soviet propaganda.” A spokeswoman for the University of Maryland, Roz Hiebert, put it more plainly: “I've never heard of such a thing in all the research at the University of Maryland.” And Pakistan's Minister Qutubuddin Aziz, at the embassy in London, said the story was a “complete fabrication” and “utterly untrue”, adding: “There are no such laboratories in Pakistan.”

The mosquito allegation is not a 1982 invention. The same released collection holds a 1964 press file whose headline is “MOSQUITO-BITE RAIDS VS. CASTRO” — a Herald Tribune column from Miami, dated 7 June 1964, filed in the middle of the exile war against Cuba.

The artwork is a mid-century entomological chart: the mosquito drawn in careful side view with its banded abdomen, venation wings and feathered antennae; a magnified circular inset showing one wing and a cluster of eggs; laboratory glassware with a radiation trefoil; and a dotted flight trail running across a landmass outline.

Offered in eleven garment colours, printed as two different plates rather than one image re-toned. On the dark garments (Black, Espresso, Graphite, Navy) the chart prints as pale linework with its cream, teal and ochre fills. On the light garments (White, Ivory, Butter, Chalky Mint, Light Green, Blossom, Chambray) it is drawn again as a three-ink screen plate for pale cloth — heavy black line work with halftone shading, a deep teal landmass, and the trefoil in red.

The QR code on the front opens the released document itself — the press file “Soviets Buzz Over 'Killer Mosquitoes'”, 4 February 1982: https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp90-00806r000201140093-1

Note: quotations above are taken verbatim from the released documents, with redactions and OCR damage not reproduced; where a passage is damaged it is paraphrased rather than quoted. The accusations quoted here are accusations: the published denials are quoted alongside them, and nothing in this listing asserts that the claims were true. This is not an official publication and is not affiliated with any government or agency.

Garment: Comfort Colors 1717 garment-dyed t-shirt. Heavyweight 6.1 oz/yd² (206.8 g/m²), 100% ring-spun US cotton, pre-shrunk, relaxed fit, double-needle stitched with no side seams and a sewn-in label. Sizes S–4XL. Printed on the front at 300 DPI; plain back. The main artwork prints at 10 × 10 in and the QR at 1.8 × 1.8 in.

Care: machine wash cold, inside out, with like colours. Tumble dry low. Do not iron directly on the printed area.

FOIAWEAR is an independent brand and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to the Central Intelligence Agency, the United States government, or any other government or agency.