Natalie Wraga, 101; U.S. Expert on Soviet Disinformation

Natalie Grant Wraga, 101, a native of czarist Russia who became an expert in unmasking Soviet deception methods for the U.S. State Department, died Tuesday at her home near Washington, D.C.

Born in Tallinn, the daughter of a judge, she fled with her family to escape the Soviet revolution of 1917. After dropping out of college, she worked with U.S. diplomats in Latvia from 1928 to 1939 and in Switzerland during World War II. Later, she moved to the U.S. and worked as a Sovietologist at the State Department in the 1950s and with the Hoover Institution at Stanford University in the 1960s.

Widowed in 1968, Wraga settled in the Washington area and wrote “Window on Russia,” a book about the formation of U.S. foreign policy toward Russia in the 1920s and 1930s. She remained a consultant to the State Department and spoke widely on Soviet disinformation.