News In Brief

US says Olympic hate mail smacks of 'disinformation'

The State Department said Wednesday that hate leaflets mailed to Olympic committees in several Asian and African nations ''bear all the hallmarks of a disinformation campaign'' and dovetail with the Soviet Union's justification for withdrawing its athletes from the 1984 summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

The department did not directly accuse the Soviet government of responsibility.

In Peking, a Chinese Olympic Committee official said Wednesday that China had received a letter containing death threats against their athletes at the Los Angeles Olympic games. He declined to give details of the letter, which purported to have been written by the Ku Klux Klan in the United States, but said it contained ''very base language.''