Soviet Disinformation

Ronald J. Rychlak,  is the Butler, Snow, O’Mara, Stevens and Cannada Lecturer and Professor of Law at the University of Mississippi School of Law.  His talk is titled "Soviet Disinformation" and is based on his recent book written with Lt. General Ion Mihai Pacepa, formerly the active chief of communist Romania's espionage service and top adviser to President Nicolae Ceausescu before defecting and being granted asylum by the United States in 1978. 

Professor Rychlak is an advisor to the Holy See’s delegation to the United Nations and a member of the Mississippi Advisory Committee to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission. He serves as a delegate at meetings of the Assembly of States Parties to the International Criminal Court. He is on advisory boards for the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, Ave Maria School of Law, and the International Solidarity and Human Rights Institute. In 2003 he served as an academic fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. In 2004 the State Department sent him to Paris to address a meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe on the issue of free speech on the Internet. In 2006 the Society of Catholic Social Scientists awarded him the Blessed Frederic Ozanam Award for Social Action. He is a signatory to the Nashville Declaration on the Church and the Holocaust and was honored by the U.S. Holocaust Museum in 2007. In 2008 the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Zagreb presented him with a Blessed Cardinal Stepinac medal for his historical work. He is the author or co-author of eight books, including Disinformation, the subject of his talk. He is a graduate of Wabash College (BA, cum laude) and Vanderbilt University (JD, Order of the Coif). Prior to joining Ole Miss, Professor Rychlak practiced law with Jenner & Block in Chicago and served as a clerk to Hon. Harry W. Wellford of the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.