If there was one disease the United States had suffered from most severely after World War II, it was allergies. They were allergic to many things, but the worst of all was KGB allergy.
As once the world's most powerful intelligence agency, the KGB had achieved dazzling victories—victories so dazzling that both the United States and Europe still turned pale at the mention of the Soviet Union even now.
For example, back then, if you wanted to attack a political opponent and fabricate charges against him, your best choice was to report tax problems, because if you investigated those, you would always find something.
But if you truly wanted to kill him—not only biologically, but socially as well—you had to say he was KGB.
After Schiller had Loki hold up the hammer Thor gave him and chase Madame Hydra around the world, only for her to finally fall into the KGB's hands, the situation became interesting.
If there was anyone in the world most delighted to shout America's stupidity to the whole world, it was undoubtedly the KGB. And if there was anyone capable of shouting America's stupidity to the whole world, it was still undoubtedly the KGB.
Some might think the stupidity in question was America allowing Hydra to grow unchecked for so many years. But in truth, the stupidity was that Hydra had infiltrated America, and the KGB had infiltrated Hydra.
The stupidest part was not that America had failed to discover the KGB's infiltration of Hydra. It was that Hydra members, being Americans themselves, had helped a KGB agent comb through America's entire financial system.
Hydra committing crimes in the United States, carrying out infiltrations, building all kinds of secret bases, and conducting illegal experiments—none of that mattered. What mattered was that they had helped the KGB.