Cartoon in Pravda Charges Pentagon Lab Created AIDS

MOSCOW — A cartoon published today in the Communist Party daily Pravda revived Kremlin allegations that AIDS viruses were created in Pentagon laboratories. U.S. Ambassador Arthur A. Hartman said the cartoon was dreadful and dismissed the claim as nonsense.

The cartoon, printed on Page 5, showed a scientist giving a giant test tube marked “AIDS virus” to a military figure who is paying for it with dollars.

Bare feet surrounding the two men suggest that corpses lie either side of them, and Nazi swastikas are drawn inside the test tube.

Above the caption, Pravda printed what it said was a quote from unidentified newspapers: “The virus of AIDS, a serious disease for which no cure has yet been found, was created in the laboratories of the Pentagon, according to some Western scientists.”