@article{Harrison:271190,
      recid = {271190},
      author = {Harrison, Mark},
      title = {Counter-Terrorism in a Police State : The KGB and Codename  Blaster, 1977},
      address = {2009},
      number = {2068-2018-2506},
      series = {WERP 918},
      pages = {14},
      year = {2009},
      abstract = {The paper provides a rare case study of terrorism and  counter-terrorism within a closed society, carried out  under a blanket of official secrecy. This case is  unexpectedly revealing in what it tells us about terrorism,  counterterrorism, and the relative strengths of open and  closed societies. Documents from the archive of the  Lithuania KGB show how the Soviet authorities managed the  hunt for the perpetrators of bombing attacks carried out in  Moscow in January 1977. Lithuania, a sensitive border  region with a troubled history, was far distant from the  epicenter of the conspiracy in Soviet Armenia, but the  authorities did not know this beforehand, and made  considerable efforts to establish or rule out a Lithuanian  connection. It was a problem that the KGB, like other  Soviet organizations, was vulnerable to boxchecking and  other kinds of perfunctory working to the plan. The career  concerns of regional KGB leaders appear to have countered  this tendency. The paper evaluates the strengths and  weaknesses of a counter-terrorist operation carried out  under conditions of the intense secrecy that was normal in  the Soviet police state.},
      url = {http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/271190},
      doi = {https://doi.org/10.22004/ag.econ.271190},
}