Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that I’m currently working on yet another sequel to The Manchurian Candidate and I’ve come up with this crazy notion that, seven years after 9/11, the American people elected a man they had not even heard of a few years before, a man whose campaign was handled by a red-diaper baby, a man who was part Arab-African, the son of a Muslim, the circumstances of whose nativity are still unclear, whose college applications and transcripts have never been seen, who appears to have no friends from his days at Punahou, Occidental, Columbia, and Harvard. Heck, Hussein even went to Georgetown and made them cover up Jesus. And yet the enchanted Washington press corps finds Michelle’s bare arms and the Obamas’ new puppy — oddly enough, named BO — of far more journalistic interest. Talk about the dogs that don’t bark in the nighttime, the daytime, or any time!Grab your shotgun and get with the program!
Or, to put it another way, if BHO II actually were the nutbag Right’s worst nightmare, a crypto-Muslim Marxist bent on the destruction of the Principal Enemy, as our friends the Soviets used to call us, how would he act any different?
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
David Kahane
If you're not reading David Kahane, how can you call yourself a paranoid, right-wing anti-communist lunatic?
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Review: Abel
Abel is a perfect example of how terrible some books about the Cold War can be. This account, written by Louise Bernikow, covers a relatively narrow subject in the intelligence battle between the Soviet Union and the United States, yet it widely misses the mark.
In the book's epilogue, the author and her main source, Rudolph Abel's "friend" Burt Silverman, go to Moscow in an attempt to meet Abel. This is ten years after the trial, and Abel has since been exchanged for an American pilot. They never get to meet him, but Silverman writes a letter to Abel:
Bernikow, Silverman, and their ilk think that they have a sophisticated and nuanced view of the world, not like those reflexive "McCarthyist" anti-communists who are somehow the villains of this story. Yet their idiocy-- their useful idiocy-- is manifest. Here is a book in which a Soviet illegal's legend-- a man who never really existed-- is held up as a charming and beautiful human being, worthy of adoration and respect. Even after he was revealed to be a spy for the KGB! Instead of facing reality, the author and her accomplice Silverman chose to believe that it was the legend, Emil Goldfus, who was real, and the spy Rudolph Abel who was the legend. One could excuse them for thinking this way, but to write a book with this as the premise is just incredible.
The story is a good one, to be sure. The man known to Burt Silverman and his group of New York intellectual, liberal, Jewish artists as "Emil Goldfus," to his fellow KGB illegal and incompetent subordinate Reino Hayhanen as "Mark," to those who inspected his travel documents for his journey to the US as "Yurgesovich Kayotis," to different people in New York as "Martin Collins," and to those who investigated him for espionage as "Colonel Rudolph Abel, KGB," was in fact none of these; he was Vilyam Genrikhovich Fisher, born in England but raised in the Soviet Union.
The name Fisher never appears in Abel, as it was unknown to the author and pretty much everyone else. Nevertheless, Bernikow knew the extent to which Abel's life was a deception and yet chose to believe that Emil Goldfus, painter and musician, friend of liberal intellectuals, was the real man. Why? Because it is more convenient and comfortable to believe it, despite all the evidence. Because to admit otherwise would be to challenge a catalog of presumptions that Bernikow would prefer unchallenged.
Still, it's interesting why Fisher maintained such a legend. In The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB, Christopher Andrew writes, "The Centre [KGB] instructed Fisher not to seek employment for fear that his employer would make inquiries which would blow his cover. Instead, he was told to open an artist's studio and claim to be self-employed."
Bernikow would argue that, despite the determination of the outward appearance of Fisher's life by the KGB, in his inward life Abel really was a thoughtful and sensitive artist and intellectual. The alternative, that liberal intellectual types are easily deceived and naturally sympathetic with political systems that are the antithesis of our own, is apparently too much for the author.
Bernikow spends most of the time with the trial arguing that the case being made in the press, that Abel was a 'master spy' and connected to all sorts of illegal KGB activity in the country, is ludicrous. In her understanding, Abel was a professional who did what he was asked but didn't do very much, while his subordinate Hayhanen (who testified against Abel), was an incompetent, drunken philistine.
Thus, there is not much about this book that is "truthful and honest" as Silverman claims. The reader does not learn practically anything about Fisher/Abel/Goldfus's actual activity in the United States. For example, from Sword and the Shield:
Nevertheless, it is true that the American media made the spy out to be much more than he actually was. (Later, the KGB did the same thing.) Andrew writes:
Here's an example of how terribly wrong Bernikow's book is:
Perhaps the media reports didn't include parenthetical remarks about how, of course, we operated this way too because they were reflexively pro-American. That is the way Bernikow repeatedly presents it. But perhaps they didn't include such remarks because the CIA did not and does not operate in the same way as the KGB. We certainly never had illegal residencies in the Soviet Union; they have had many in the US.
It is Bernikow who is ignorant and blinded by prejudice, yet she and her kind will assume to the end that it is those patriotic, God-fearing Americans who are ignorant and prejudiced. She takes it on faith that of course we do this stuff too, and a lot worse! (as the applause line goes at the leftist universities).
In reality, the KGB and CIA were and remain incommensurable. The KGB is many, many times the size, has far, far more responsibilities and infinite resources to perform them-- it was in fact the most important organization in the Soviet Union, along with perhaps the Party and the Army. And it remains very important in Russia today. The CIA, on the other hand, is quite small in comparison and marked by repeated failure. And at the time of Abel's trial, it was barely a decade old. And in a liberal democracy it is by necessity scarred by constant exposure of its methods and practices, it cannot keep its files secret for long, and it is prevented by law from defending itself in the press against media and public abuse.
And most importantly (in my opinion), the KGB has always made disinformation and propaganda a top priority, and the CIA is a preferred target of those attacks. The CIA's efforts at disinformation and propaganda on the other hand, have been stilted and comical. Yet-- and this is the remarkable thing-- in common perception KGB propaganda and disinformation are regarded as comical and ineffective, while the CIA is seen as devious and conspiratorial. What has caused this but the continued effort from one side and non-effort from the other, to influence public opinion?
Thus for all the tough work and thinking that must have informed the writing of Abel, it might as well have been written by KGB disinformation specialists for the terribly skewed picture it paints of the intelligence world. A definite pass.
In the book's epilogue, the author and her main source, Rudolph Abel's "friend" Burt Silverman, go to Moscow in an attempt to meet Abel. This is ten years after the trial, and Abel has since been exchanged for an American pilot. They never get to meet him, but Silverman writes a letter to Abel:
The book about you will, I think, be a truthful and honest one. It will try to explain why you are remembered so [d]early by many of the people you met. Certainly all my friends have that memory and think of you affectionately.He is, of course, talking about a man who lived in the United States under false pretenses and spied on it for a hostile foreign power. Yet, he is thought of "affectionately."
Bernikow, Silverman, and their ilk think that they have a sophisticated and nuanced view of the world, not like those reflexive "McCarthyist" anti-communists who are somehow the villains of this story. Yet their idiocy-- their useful idiocy-- is manifest. Here is a book in which a Soviet illegal's legend-- a man who never really existed-- is held up as a charming and beautiful human being, worthy of adoration and respect. Even after he was revealed to be a spy for the KGB! Instead of facing reality, the author and her accomplice Silverman chose to believe that it was the legend, Emil Goldfus, who was real, and the spy Rudolph Abel who was the legend. One could excuse them for thinking this way, but to write a book with this as the premise is just incredible.
The story is a good one, to be sure. The man known to Burt Silverman and his group of New York intellectual, liberal, Jewish artists as "Emil Goldfus," to his fellow KGB illegal and incompetent subordinate Reino Hayhanen as "Mark," to those who inspected his travel documents for his journey to the US as "Yurgesovich Kayotis," to different people in New York as "Martin Collins," and to those who investigated him for espionage as "Colonel Rudolph Abel, KGB," was in fact none of these; he was Vilyam Genrikhovich Fisher, born in England but raised in the Soviet Union.
The name Fisher never appears in Abel, as it was unknown to the author and pretty much everyone else. Nevertheless, Bernikow knew the extent to which Abel's life was a deception and yet chose to believe that Emil Goldfus, painter and musician, friend of liberal intellectuals, was the real man. Why? Because it is more convenient and comfortable to believe it, despite all the evidence. Because to admit otherwise would be to challenge a catalog of presumptions that Bernikow would prefer unchallenged.
Still, it's interesting why Fisher maintained such a legend. In The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB, Christopher Andrew writes, "The Centre [KGB] instructed Fisher not to seek employment for fear that his employer would make inquiries which would blow his cover. Instead, he was told to open an artist's studio and claim to be self-employed."
Bernikow would argue that, despite the determination of the outward appearance of Fisher's life by the KGB, in his inward life Abel really was a thoughtful and sensitive artist and intellectual. The alternative, that liberal intellectual types are easily deceived and naturally sympathetic with political systems that are the antithesis of our own, is apparently too much for the author.
Bernikow spends most of the time with the trial arguing that the case being made in the press, that Abel was a 'master spy' and connected to all sorts of illegal KGB activity in the country, is ludicrous. In her understanding, Abel was a professional who did what he was asked but didn't do very much, while his subordinate Hayhanen (who testified against Abel), was an incompetent, drunken philistine.
Thus, there is not much about this book that is "truthful and honest" as Silverman claims. The reader does not learn practically anything about Fisher/Abel/Goldfus's actual activity in the United States. For example, from Sword and the Shield:
In 1949, as the basis of his illegal residency, Fisher was given control of a group of agents headed by Morris Cohen (codenamed LUIS and VOLUNTEER), which included his wife Lona (LESLE). Following Elizabeth Bentley's defection, the Centre had temporarily broken contact with the Cohens early in 1946, but renewed contact with them in Paris a year later and reactivated them in the United States in 1948. The most important agent in the VOLUNTEER network was the physicist Ted Hall (MLAD), for whom Lona Cohen had acted as courier in 1945 when he was passing atomic intelligence from Los Alamos.Andrew writes later that "in recognition of the VOLUNTEER group's success, Fisher was awarded the Order of the Red Banner in August 1949." Yet Bernikow in Abel makes it sound like any connection between Abel and Cohen is highly spurious.
Nevertheless, it is true that the American media made the spy out to be much more than he actually was. (Later, the KGB did the same thing.) Andrew writes:
In reality, Fisher never came close to rivaling the achievements of his wartime predecessor, Iskhak Akhmerov. During eight years as illegal resident, he appears never to have identified, let alone recruited, a single promising potential agent to replace the VOLUNTEER network. Unlike Akhmerov, however, he did not have the active and enthusiastic assistance of a well-organized American Communist Party (CPUSA) to act as talent-spotters and assistants. Part of the reason for Fisher's lack of success was the post-war decline and persecution of the CPUSA.So perhaps there is something to Berniknow's account. Did Abel fall in love with his life as a layabout New York artist and intellectual? Despite his professionalism, was his heart just not in recruiting agents in his adopted country? We can't really know, but Bernikow's highly impressionistic and naive book doesn't help us, either.
Here's an example of how terribly wrong Bernikow's book is:
What you learned about the craft of intelligence was elaborate, but wrong. You learned that it was the "Enemy's" craft. The New York Times printed stories of other spy rings that had been "exposed" and a historical rundown of the KGB. It was, of course, terrible one-sided. Although reporters knew enough to liken the KGB to the CIA, they went no further. There was no indication at all that we operated the same way or that we, too, had intelligence networks set up around the world. It was the pre-U2 era and no one spoke of the American craft of intelligence; comparing KGB with CIA only made it more mysterious.This is the kind of snide assumption that irks me and anyone else who knows anything about the history of the intelligence war between the Soviet Union and the United States. Because the KGB should not be likened to the CIA. It's comparing apples and orchards.
Perhaps the media reports didn't include parenthetical remarks about how, of course, we operated this way too because they were reflexively pro-American. That is the way Bernikow repeatedly presents it. But perhaps they didn't include such remarks because the CIA did not and does not operate in the same way as the KGB. We certainly never had illegal residencies in the Soviet Union; they have had many in the US.
It is Bernikow who is ignorant and blinded by prejudice, yet she and her kind will assume to the end that it is those patriotic, God-fearing Americans who are ignorant and prejudiced. She takes it on faith that of course we do this stuff too, and a lot worse! (as the applause line goes at the leftist universities).
In reality, the KGB and CIA were and remain incommensurable. The KGB is many, many times the size, has far, far more responsibilities and infinite resources to perform them-- it was in fact the most important organization in the Soviet Union, along with perhaps the Party and the Army. And it remains very important in Russia today. The CIA, on the other hand, is quite small in comparison and marked by repeated failure. And at the time of Abel's trial, it was barely a decade old. And in a liberal democracy it is by necessity scarred by constant exposure of its methods and practices, it cannot keep its files secret for long, and it is prevented by law from defending itself in the press against media and public abuse.
And most importantly (in my opinion), the KGB has always made disinformation and propaganda a top priority, and the CIA is a preferred target of those attacks. The CIA's efforts at disinformation and propaganda on the other hand, have been stilted and comical. Yet-- and this is the remarkable thing-- in common perception KGB propaganda and disinformation are regarded as comical and ineffective, while the CIA is seen as devious and conspiratorial. What has caused this but the continued effort from one side and non-effort from the other, to influence public opinion?
Thus for all the tough work and thinking that must have informed the writing of Abel, it might as well have been written by KGB disinformation specialists for the terribly skewed picture it paints of the intelligence world. A definite pass.
Friday, May 1, 2009
Black is Beautiful: Part Four
Continued from Part One, Part Two, and Part Three.
Let me describe briefly exactly how the KGB manipulates your media, apart from these pictures; why they do it, and what to do about it. Some of what I say is described in the book, KGB Today, written by John Barron. Of course, I cannot put all the information that I have in my poor head, which was pumped into me by the KGB during six years of training in Moscow. It took the American CIA six months to debrief me. I am unable to put all of that into one lecture. I have two publications which I published myself in Los Angeles. Love Letter to America: this is the way I feel. And this is the way millions of people feel in my country; we are not your enemies. We are your friends. The Junta in the Kremlin are the enemies of the ‘United States and the enemies of my people. It is not conflicts between nations; peoples do not start wars. Governments do. Your Ronald Reagan was absolutely correct when he said this.
I described it in this little booklet, which I peddle for $5 (I know-- it’s highway robbery). Consider it support of a needy family: mine. I must compete with Jane Fonda. I describe the process in which I took part, the process of ideological subversion, which has nothing to do with espionage. It has something to do with your perception of reality. Why does the KGB want to mess up your minds? Very simple. Soviet international communists realize perfectly well they cannot defeat [the] United States economically or militarily. They cannot force your government to do what they want it to do because your government is being changed every four years. You mess up Jimmy Carter; then along comes Ronald Reagan. It’s impossible. But it is possible to confuse the minds of millions of Americans so that YOU will force your government to do what the communists want you to do.
It is a longer-term process, but believe me, it is easier, and it is bloodless. If war comes, it only comes as a last stage of the process which I describe in this book. The principle of subversion has not been invented by the Soviets, or the communists or Russians. We are too dumb to invent such principles; we drink too much vodka. The principle of subversion is as old as mankind itself. If you don’t believe me, open your Bibles. Read chapters like Judges, Chronicles or Kings. You will find at least 12 examples of “subversion,” when the mightiest rulers were cheating and lying to their own people. Why? Simple. To achieve something they want. Earthly interests, above all: power, money, gold, camels, beautiful women, or whatever. When it doesn’t work, then they go to war.
The principle of subversion was formulated by a Chinese philosopher 2,500 years ago. Sun Tzu said, “All warfare is based primarily on deception of your enemy. To fight on the battlefield to achieve your goals is the most primitive and barbaric [way] to achieve your goals. The highest art of war is not to fight at all, but to subvert anything of value in your enemy’s country.” Which includes religion, moral principles, traditions, and natural[ly] established relationships between people, families, groups, classes, races. Turn the blacks against the whites; turn the teachers against students; turn Ralph Nader against the government; labor unions against business; homosexuals against heterosexuals; and keep on fighting, my dear friends, until you demoralize and destabilize yourself, and then you flop like a rotten apple and the enemy will take you over. You will invite the enemy.
This is the essence of subversion, and it is not new. In this little booklet I explain to you what exactly is the objective of the KGB. It is not destruction of the United States; please don’t believe your peaceniks and freezeniks. Yes, nuclear warheads have their dangers, but the objective is not to destroy [the] United States. Please use your heads. If they destroy [the] United States’ productive capability, where will they get their grain, credits, technology, computers, blue jeans. Where will they get the Cadillacs? From Zimbabwe?
The main objective of [the] KGB is to turn you from an open society, as I described in this diagram, to a closed one, which is carbon copy of the Soviet communist, or socialist, or fascist society. Why? Why would they bother? Very simple. To merge into one global system. They make no secrets about it. You cannot merge our systems today. They are incompatible. If we merge the U. S. free market capitalism with the state monopoly of the Soviet economy, it will be a great mess. Russians may enjoy it; they will disappear in your liquor stores and K-Marts. But you may not when you wake up tomorrow morning and see a tank in your back yard. I’ll bet you’ll become emotional. Merging, convergence, or interdependent economy, like some of your beautiful Brzezinskis are professing, is IMPOSSIBLE. But it is possible to slowly, in the long stretch of time, turn your country into a carbon copy of my society.
How? By infiltrating ideas into your minds. Not agents into your offices. No, KGB cannot infiltrate all the newspapers, all the public schools. Why? Because they will need an army of agents, thousands of them, and if they come to United States, you know what would happen to these agents? They will defect, because even the dumbest communist realizes that your system is the best. It may not be perfect; by no definition is it a perfect society. But it simply is the best. And they will defect. But it is possible, instead of infiltrating bodies into your system, to infiltrate ideas into your minds, and this is how it is being done.
I describe only one idea on this diagram. Not because it is the most dangerous, but because it is the most popular and evident in your ideology today. The idea is called egalitarianism, and it is not new. It goes all the way back to the time of French Revolution. It is simply equality. What’s wrong with equality, you may ask. Everything. Look at yourself. Are you equal in any imaginable way: spiritually, physically, socially, economically, racially, whatever? There is no such thing as equality. There never was.
All through the history of mankind, some people were tall, curly and dumb. Others are short, bald and smart. There are no two individuals which are identical. Every one is unique if we are talking about people. Fish may be equal. Insects, ball bearings, but not people. If we presume that we are created by God, I would think it would be no great deal for Him to make us all equal. No? We are unequal.
And that’s where I come into conflict with your beautiful intellectuals. They say, “Mr. Schuman, you don’t know our Constitution, especially our Declaration of Independence. It says, ‘We, the people, take it as self-evident truth that all men are created equal.’” See how ignorant I am? I don’t know your Constitution. Believe me, I know. I read it at the age of 15, and I was amazed how simple and how beautiful it is. It is the best constitution in the world. First of all, there is no period, there is a comma. Your liberals quote only one line: “We, the people, take it as self-evident truth that all men are created equal.”
Equal only in one respect. It has nothing to do with legislative, social, economic or any other type of equality. It has something to do with equal opportunities for unequal people to come to this land, or are brought here by force sometimes, to enjoy roughly equal opportunities. And above all, you the people are equal in one important respect-- in respect of the undetachable right to stay alive, be free and pursue happiness. And these basic rights are given to you people, the way I understand it, by God.
“So what?” they say. Very much so. Because you cannot reelect God. You cannot take Him down to face cameras and to lie to you about the quality of the distribution of wealth, social programming, social welfare, [and] all these beautiful concepts. Why did leaders throughout the history of mankind [want] people to believe that they are equal? We know we are not. We know we don’t have to be. Why then? Simple (and communists take advantage of this misconception): because it is impossible to control and exploit people as long as they stay unequal.
Then why have poor people always wanted to be equal? Simple. You name me one American who wanted to be equal with someone who has one popsicle less. I think you want always to be equal with someone who has one car more, one bedroom more, 20 cents an hour more. And if you don’t get this 20 cents an hour more, you become very unhappy.
What is the motivation of equality in the minds of poor people then? Greed. This is what happens. And this is the core of ideological manipulation of the masses. The concept of equality, forcefully introducing such ideology creates false expectations which clash with reality and produce unhappiness, frustration.
Discontented people produce less. Lower productivity creates economic instability and social unrest. This leads to radicalism because people become impatient. That leads to power struggles. Power struggles lead to replacement of social, political structure. That replacement is the fastest way to internal upheaval, civil war, or invasion. The result for the last observable 35 years is always the same: closed society. Just the opposite of what we started with. Everything is nationalized, from banks to washrooms. Human beings belong to the state. My right to live and pursue happiness in the USSR is not given by God because God is removed from the school, right? My right to live in Russia is given by the state. The State giveth, and the State taketh away.
Sixty-six million of my people lost the right to live. In your country, even the worst criminal who raped five neighbors and killed his babushka [is] still taken to court, and he is politely called a suspect. You see the difference? This is the core of ideological subversion. You go all the way from open to closed society, and later on to a merging. Four stages of subversion-- Demoralization: 20 years, destabilization: 5 years, crisis: one year, “normalization”: forever. On the stage of demoralization, the media plays the most important role. Why? Because it conveys ideas into your mind. If your media presents the picture of socialism this way, this image of your country, which you see every day on television-- crime, child abuse, police brutality, racial discrimination, acid rain, explosion-- this image is not to the advantage of the United States. A child can grow up in America believing that he lives in the worst possible country on earth, whereby the reality is just the opposite: you live in the best possible country.
If you think that I am crazy, please ask Mexicans. Have you ever heard of any smart Mexican sneaking across the border into Cuba, Nicaragua, or the USSR? Boat people never swim to Red China for equality and justice. Black African brothers are not running from South Africa. They run from Zimbabwe, Angola and Mozambique TO South Africa. If you don’t believe me, go there and stay for one hour at the border check.
Your media lies to you. Why? Media is a part of the process of demoralization. They are monopolized today. They are controlled by the same group of people, unelected, super-rich and super-powerful people who trade with murders of my nation in the Kremlin. Interesting isn’t it? With one hand these people send your boys to Vietnam for 12 years. [Who? The media?] With the other hand they send billions of dollars of credit to the Soviet government to build weapons to kill your boys in Vietnam. Imagine, when people make a mistake once and repeat this mistake-- repeats the same mistake three times-- we call him a dangerous idiot. What would you call people in your establishment who repeat the same mistake, aiding your enemy and the enemy of my people in the Kremlin, over and over again for 68 years? Traitors. And they control your media. [Who? Our Congress?] I described it here in this booklet World Thought Police, exactly what your media did for us, for the KGB. One service after another, how to recognize it in your media, and what to do about it.
And this is the last thing I want to mention before you fall asleep. What to do about it. I don’t want you to go home depressed. I want you to go home happy. You deserve to be happy. You look like normal people. The process of demoralization, which takes 20 years, has taken place only in part. Andropov, a year ago when he was still half alive, talking to the Kremlin assembly, said, “We (meaning communists) are entering the final stage of the battle for minds and hearts of the people.” He was not talking about invasion of El Salvador. No, he was talking about this process I just described. You have five more years, according to Andropov. Presuming that you are demoralized, which I don’t believe because you are still alive, and Andropov is dead. So is Chernenko.
What to do about this crazy situation. Believe me, the solution is ridiculously simple. You do not need any more MX-- you may have them, just in case, but you may not need them if you take my solution. If you prefer Dr. Kissinger’s solution, go ahead. Suit yourself. You’ve been following the advice of people like Kissinger, Schlesinger, Brzezinski, Trilateral Commission, Council on Foreign Relations, for the last observable history. Look where you are now. You lost all your friends in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and you are on your way to losing El Salvador, South Africa, Philippines, Mexico, Canada, and on and on.
Just for the sake of experiment, listen to Schuman. It costs you nothing. My solution is simple. You don’t want to be demoralized. Stay moral. See how simple? Stay moral. What does this imply? Exactly what CAUSA is telling you. Exactly what many millions of sensible Americans who belong to a multiplicity of conservative and religious groups are telling you on TV and radio. These stations grow like mushrooms. Stay moral. Bring prayer back to school. No matter what prayer, as long as your children will remember that their grand-grand-grandparents were not monkeys.
And so that they will grow up realizing that their right to live, to be free and pursue happiness, is not given by the state or federal government. It is given by God. You have to implant in the minds of your children, before it is too late, that yours is the best system. No, it is not perfect. No, it is not smooth. It is rough and there are pains and ups and downs, but believe me, your problems are nothing compared to the problems of Zimbabwe, and Angola, or people living now in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. That’s all you have to do.
Suppose you believe Andropov and are demoralized. Suppose we are really entering the final stage of your life, destabilization, five more years. Even then there is a solution. And again, this solution has nothing to do with more nuclear warheads. This solution is so primitive and so simple that nobody wants to listen to me, in the establishment. It is very simple, peaceful, nonviolent and very beneficial: stop aiding your enemy.
Right now, as your Congress is thinking how to cut the budget, how to reduce the deficit, they are thinking that your Pentagon doesn’t deserve $500 toilet seats. That Salvadorans do not deserve $30 million to protect it against communism. At the very same time, your Congress votes for billions of dollars of credits to the enemy of my people in the Kremlin. These billions of dollars are not reaching poor people in my country or Asia or Africa or Latin America. All of them are directed to the Soviet military-industrial complex, to world terrorist networks, to [the] destabilization process in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Stop this before it is too late.
Force your Congress to stop aiding my enemy and your enemy and there will be no nuclear war. You will not need more MX missiles. That’s all. You will not need more boys to be killed in Lebanon, Vietnam, or in Central America. Why? Because my people don’t want to fight war. There will be no international terrorist network, because all of them are on the Soviet payroll. If you think I am crazy, give me one example when terrorists are blowing up Soviet embassies, hijacking Soviet airplanes, abducting a Soviet diplomat. All you have to do is to stop aiding your enemy. You will immediately save yourself billions of dollars. The Soviet system already owes you $100 billion. Half of your deficit. Could you imagine? And they are thinking in Congress how to cut social welfare, or a $200 hammer for [the] Pentagon. Stop aiding your enemy! That’s all.
And if we are talking specifically about media like that, already I gave you the solution. Start your own media. If you read such monsters as The New York Times, or The Washington Post, or The Los Angeles Times, if you watch the garbage coming through the three major TV networks, just for curiosity’s sake, please subscribe to conservative literature. If you watch The Phil Donahue Show, just for curiosity watch Pat Robertson or Jimmy Swaggart, or Jerry Falwell; there are many others.
If you read The Los Angeles Times, read The Washington Times for a change. You will see the difference. That’s all I have to say to you. Please do it fast. Because if you pooh-pooh your system, you will follow the destiny of the Vietnamese, Cambodians, Nicaraguans, Zimbabweans and Ethiopians. And yours will be the last country.
Why am I shouting? Why am I so emotional? I am sick and tired of defecting! And believe me, if you destroy your system, you will have no place to defect to. Because your country is the last hope for mankind’s survival, freedom and justice.
MY PUBLICATIONS
5. “THE BEST OF SCHUMAN” on videotape. Two hours of continuous battle of ideas, recorded during my TV appearances—from “700 Club” to “Round Table With the Marxists.” Also included: my slide show, biographical story and examples of Western media being manipulated by the KGB. This tape is not only an “eye opener,” it is pure fun, I like it! So did some 60,000,000 Americans who saw me on TV and send me their letters of love and appreciation. Quality may not be as good as CBS, but what you expect for $39.60?
Mail your checks made to N.A.T.A., [omitted].
ISBN 0-935090-18-5
Copyright by Tomas Schuman [Thanks again.]
TOMAS SCHUMAN has been personally involved with the worldwide propaganda efforts of the Soviet regime. Like a true-life Winston Smith, from George Orwell’s “1984”, Tomas Schuman worked for the communist equivalent of Orwell’s Ministry of Truth: The Novosti Press Agency. Novosti, which means “News” in Russian, exists to produce slanted and false stories to plant in the foreign media. The term for this K.G.B. effort is “disinformation.”
Mr. Schuman was born under the name of Yuri Bezmenov in Moscow in 1939, the son of a senior officer in the Red Army. Consequently, he went to good schools. At the age of 17 he entered the Institute of Oriental Languages of Moscow State University.
After graduating, he worked for Novosti, then spent two years in India as an interpreter and public relations officer with Soviet Refineries Constructions. He returned to Moscow in 1965 to work for Novosti, serving as Economic Editor for the Hindi, Urdu and English Editions of Sovietland Magazine. In 1969 he went back to India and continued propaganda efforts for Novosti in New Delhi, working out of the Soviet Embassy in a department called Research and Counter-Propaganda. Due to his growing disgust, he began to plan defection.
In February of 1970 he disguised himself as a hippie complete with beads and [a] wig and joined a tour group to escape to Athens. He contacted the United States Embassy and, after a long debriefing by U.S. Intelligence, was granted asylum and went to Canada.
In Canada, he studied political science at the University of Toronto for two years, taught Russian language and literature and in 1972 was hired by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s International Service as a Producer/Announcer, broadcasting to the Soviet Union. The K.G.B. forced him out of the job in 1976, so he began freelance journalism and worked on a variety of projects.
Today he is a political analyst for PANORAMA weekly in Los Angeles. He is married, and has two children. He is the author of two yet unpublished books.
You can order this book by mailing your check made to N.A.T.A.. (New American Talent Association)-$5.00 plus 60 cents for postage- to: Almanac, [omitted]. Tape-cassettes with Schuman’s talk on KGB’s Active Measures are available for $5 a piece plus postage.
ALMANAC
Los Angeles, 1985
Let me describe briefly exactly how the KGB manipulates your media, apart from these pictures; why they do it, and what to do about it. Some of what I say is described in the book, KGB Today, written by John Barron. Of course, I cannot put all the information that I have in my poor head, which was pumped into me by the KGB during six years of training in Moscow. It took the American CIA six months to debrief me. I am unable to put all of that into one lecture. I have two publications which I published myself in Los Angeles. Love Letter to America: this is the way I feel. And this is the way millions of people feel in my country; we are not your enemies. We are your friends. The Junta in the Kremlin are the enemies of the ‘United States and the enemies of my people. It is not conflicts between nations; peoples do not start wars. Governments do. Your Ronald Reagan was absolutely correct when he said this.
I described it in this little booklet, which I peddle for $5 (I know-- it’s highway robbery). Consider it support of a needy family: mine. I must compete with Jane Fonda. I describe the process in which I took part, the process of ideological subversion, which has nothing to do with espionage. It has something to do with your perception of reality. Why does the KGB want to mess up your minds? Very simple. Soviet international communists realize perfectly well they cannot defeat [the] United States economically or militarily. They cannot force your government to do what they want it to do because your government is being changed every four years. You mess up Jimmy Carter; then along comes Ronald Reagan. It’s impossible. But it is possible to confuse the minds of millions of Americans so that YOU will force your government to do what the communists want you to do.
It is a longer-term process, but believe me, it is easier, and it is bloodless. If war comes, it only comes as a last stage of the process which I describe in this book. The principle of subversion has not been invented by the Soviets, or the communists or Russians. We are too dumb to invent such principles; we drink too much vodka. The principle of subversion is as old as mankind itself. If you don’t believe me, open your Bibles. Read chapters like Judges, Chronicles or Kings. You will find at least 12 examples of “subversion,” when the mightiest rulers were cheating and lying to their own people. Why? Simple. To achieve something they want. Earthly interests, above all: power, money, gold, camels, beautiful women, or whatever. When it doesn’t work, then they go to war.
The principle of subversion was formulated by a Chinese philosopher 2,500 years ago. Sun Tzu said, “All warfare is based primarily on deception of your enemy. To fight on the battlefield to achieve your goals is the most primitive and barbaric [way] to achieve your goals. The highest art of war is not to fight at all, but to subvert anything of value in your enemy’s country.” Which includes religion, moral principles, traditions, and natural[ly] established relationships between people, families, groups, classes, races. Turn the blacks against the whites; turn the teachers against students; turn Ralph Nader against the government; labor unions against business; homosexuals against heterosexuals; and keep on fighting, my dear friends, until you demoralize and destabilize yourself, and then you flop like a rotten apple and the enemy will take you over. You will invite the enemy.
This is the essence of subversion, and it is not new. In this little booklet I explain to you what exactly is the objective of the KGB. It is not destruction of the United States; please don’t believe your peaceniks and freezeniks. Yes, nuclear warheads have their dangers, but the objective is not to destroy [the] United States. Please use your heads. If they destroy [the] United States’ productive capability, where will they get their grain, credits, technology, computers, blue jeans. Where will they get the Cadillacs? From Zimbabwe?
The main objective of [the] KGB is to turn you from an open society, as I described in this diagram, to a closed one, which is carbon copy of the Soviet communist, or socialist, or fascist society. Why? Why would they bother? Very simple. To merge into one global system. They make no secrets about it. You cannot merge our systems today. They are incompatible. If we merge the U. S. free market capitalism with the state monopoly of the Soviet economy, it will be a great mess. Russians may enjoy it; they will disappear in your liquor stores and K-Marts. But you may not when you wake up tomorrow morning and see a tank in your back yard. I’ll bet you’ll become emotional. Merging, convergence, or interdependent economy, like some of your beautiful Brzezinskis are professing, is IMPOSSIBLE. But it is possible to slowly, in the long stretch of time, turn your country into a carbon copy of my society.How? By infiltrating ideas into your minds. Not agents into your offices. No, KGB cannot infiltrate all the newspapers, all the public schools. Why? Because they will need an army of agents, thousands of them, and if they come to United States, you know what would happen to these agents? They will defect, because even the dumbest communist realizes that your system is the best. It may not be perfect; by no definition is it a perfect society. But it simply is the best. And they will defect. But it is possible, instead of infiltrating bodies into your system, to infiltrate ideas into your minds, and this is how it is being done.
I describe only one idea on this diagram. Not because it is the most dangerous, but because it is the most popular and evident in your ideology today. The idea is called egalitarianism, and it is not new. It goes all the way back to the time of French Revolution. It is simply equality. What’s wrong with equality, you may ask. Everything. Look at yourself. Are you equal in any imaginable way: spiritually, physically, socially, economically, racially, whatever? There is no such thing as equality. There never was.
All through the history of mankind, some people were tall, curly and dumb. Others are short, bald and smart. There are no two individuals which are identical. Every one is unique if we are talking about people. Fish may be equal. Insects, ball bearings, but not people. If we presume that we are created by God, I would think it would be no great deal for Him to make us all equal. No? We are unequal.
And that’s where I come into conflict with your beautiful intellectuals. They say, “Mr. Schuman, you don’t know our Constitution, especially our Declaration of Independence. It says, ‘We, the people, take it as self-evident truth that all men are created equal.’” See how ignorant I am? I don’t know your Constitution. Believe me, I know. I read it at the age of 15, and I was amazed how simple and how beautiful it is. It is the best constitution in the world. First of all, there is no period, there is a comma. Your liberals quote only one line: “We, the people, take it as self-evident truth that all men are created equal.”
Equal only in one respect. It has nothing to do with legislative, social, economic or any other type of equality. It has something to do with equal opportunities for unequal people to come to this land, or are brought here by force sometimes, to enjoy roughly equal opportunities. And above all, you the people are equal in one important respect-- in respect of the undetachable right to stay alive, be free and pursue happiness. And these basic rights are given to you people, the way I understand it, by God.
“So what?” they say. Very much so. Because you cannot reelect God. You cannot take Him down to face cameras and to lie to you about the quality of the distribution of wealth, social programming, social welfare, [and] all these beautiful concepts. Why did leaders throughout the history of mankind [want] people to believe that they are equal? We know we are not. We know we don’t have to be. Why then? Simple (and communists take advantage of this misconception): because it is impossible to control and exploit people as long as they stay unequal.
Then why have poor people always wanted to be equal? Simple. You name me one American who wanted to be equal with someone who has one popsicle less. I think you want always to be equal with someone who has one car more, one bedroom more, 20 cents an hour more. And if you don’t get this 20 cents an hour more, you become very unhappy.
What is the motivation of equality in the minds of poor people then? Greed. This is what happens. And this is the core of ideological manipulation of the masses. The concept of equality, forcefully introducing such ideology creates false expectations which clash with reality and produce unhappiness, frustration.
Discontented people produce less. Lower productivity creates economic instability and social unrest. This leads to radicalism because people become impatient. That leads to power struggles. Power struggles lead to replacement of social, political structure. That replacement is the fastest way to internal upheaval, civil war, or invasion. The result for the last observable 35 years is always the same: closed society. Just the opposite of what we started with. Everything is nationalized, from banks to washrooms. Human beings belong to the state. My right to live and pursue happiness in the USSR is not given by God because God is removed from the school, right? My right to live in Russia is given by the state. The State giveth, and the State taketh away.
Sixty-six million of my people lost the right to live. In your country, even the worst criminal who raped five neighbors and killed his babushka [is] still taken to court, and he is politely called a suspect. You see the difference? This is the core of ideological subversion. You go all the way from open to closed society, and later on to a merging. Four stages of subversion-- Demoralization: 20 years, destabilization: 5 years, crisis: one year, “normalization”: forever. On the stage of demoralization, the media plays the most important role. Why? Because it conveys ideas into your mind. If your media presents the picture of socialism this way, this image of your country, which you see every day on television-- crime, child abuse, police brutality, racial discrimination, acid rain, explosion-- this image is not to the advantage of the United States. A child can grow up in America believing that he lives in the worst possible country on earth, whereby the reality is just the opposite: you live in the best possible country.If you think that I am crazy, please ask Mexicans. Have you ever heard of any smart Mexican sneaking across the border into Cuba, Nicaragua, or the USSR? Boat people never swim to Red China for equality and justice. Black African brothers are not running from South Africa. They run from Zimbabwe, Angola and Mozambique TO South Africa. If you don’t believe me, go there and stay for one hour at the border check.
Your media lies to you. Why? Media is a part of the process of demoralization. They are monopolized today. They are controlled by the same group of people, unelected, super-rich and super-powerful people who trade with murders of my nation in the Kremlin. Interesting isn’t it? With one hand these people send your boys to Vietnam for 12 years. [Who? The media?] With the other hand they send billions of dollars of credit to the Soviet government to build weapons to kill your boys in Vietnam. Imagine, when people make a mistake once and repeat this mistake-- repeats the same mistake three times-- we call him a dangerous idiot. What would you call people in your establishment who repeat the same mistake, aiding your enemy and the enemy of my people in the Kremlin, over and over again for 68 years? Traitors. And they control your media. [Who? Our Congress?] I described it here in this booklet World Thought Police, exactly what your media did for us, for the KGB. One service after another, how to recognize it in your media, and what to do about it.
And this is the last thing I want to mention before you fall asleep. What to do about it. I don’t want you to go home depressed. I want you to go home happy. You deserve to be happy. You look like normal people. The process of demoralization, which takes 20 years, has taken place only in part. Andropov, a year ago when he was still half alive, talking to the Kremlin assembly, said, “We (meaning communists) are entering the final stage of the battle for minds and hearts of the people.” He was not talking about invasion of El Salvador. No, he was talking about this process I just described. You have five more years, according to Andropov. Presuming that you are demoralized, which I don’t believe because you are still alive, and Andropov is dead. So is Chernenko.What to do about this crazy situation. Believe me, the solution is ridiculously simple. You do not need any more MX-- you may have them, just in case, but you may not need them if you take my solution. If you prefer Dr. Kissinger’s solution, go ahead. Suit yourself. You’ve been following the advice of people like Kissinger, Schlesinger, Brzezinski, Trilateral Commission, Council on Foreign Relations, for the last observable history. Look where you are now. You lost all your friends in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and you are on your way to losing El Salvador, South Africa, Philippines, Mexico, Canada, and on and on.
Just for the sake of experiment, listen to Schuman. It costs you nothing. My solution is simple. You don’t want to be demoralized. Stay moral. See how simple? Stay moral. What does this imply? Exactly what CAUSA is telling you. Exactly what many millions of sensible Americans who belong to a multiplicity of conservative and religious groups are telling you on TV and radio. These stations grow like mushrooms. Stay moral. Bring prayer back to school. No matter what prayer, as long as your children will remember that their grand-grand-grandparents were not monkeys.
And so that they will grow up realizing that their right to live, to be free and pursue happiness, is not given by the state or federal government. It is given by God. You have to implant in the minds of your children, before it is too late, that yours is the best system. No, it is not perfect. No, it is not smooth. It is rough and there are pains and ups and downs, but believe me, your problems are nothing compared to the problems of Zimbabwe, and Angola, or people living now in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. That’s all you have to do.
Suppose you believe Andropov and are demoralized. Suppose we are really entering the final stage of your life, destabilization, five more years. Even then there is a solution. And again, this solution has nothing to do with more nuclear warheads. This solution is so primitive and so simple that nobody wants to listen to me, in the establishment. It is very simple, peaceful, nonviolent and very beneficial: stop aiding your enemy.Right now, as your Congress is thinking how to cut the budget, how to reduce the deficit, they are thinking that your Pentagon doesn’t deserve $500 toilet seats. That Salvadorans do not deserve $30 million to protect it against communism. At the very same time, your Congress votes for billions of dollars of credits to the enemy of my people in the Kremlin. These billions of dollars are not reaching poor people in my country or Asia or Africa or Latin America. All of them are directed to the Soviet military-industrial complex, to world terrorist networks, to [the] destabilization process in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Stop this before it is too late.
Force your Congress to stop aiding my enemy and your enemy and there will be no nuclear war. You will not need more MX missiles. That’s all. You will not need more boys to be killed in Lebanon, Vietnam, or in Central America. Why? Because my people don’t want to fight war. There will be no international terrorist network, because all of them are on the Soviet payroll. If you think I am crazy, give me one example when terrorists are blowing up Soviet embassies, hijacking Soviet airplanes, abducting a Soviet diplomat. All you have to do is to stop aiding your enemy. You will immediately save yourself billions of dollars. The Soviet system already owes you $100 billion. Half of your deficit. Could you imagine? And they are thinking in Congress how to cut social welfare, or a $200 hammer for [the] Pentagon. Stop aiding your enemy! That’s all.
And if we are talking specifically about media like that, already I gave you the solution. Start your own media. If you read such monsters as The New York Times, or The Washington Post, or The Los Angeles Times, if you watch the garbage coming through the three major TV networks, just for curiosity’s sake, please subscribe to conservative literature. If you watch The Phil Donahue Show, just for curiosity watch Pat Robertson or Jimmy Swaggart, or Jerry Falwell; there are many others.
If you read The Los Angeles Times, read The Washington Times for a change. You will see the difference. That’s all I have to say to you. Please do it fast. Because if you pooh-pooh your system, you will follow the destiny of the Vietnamese, Cambodians, Nicaraguans, Zimbabweans and Ethiopians. And yours will be the last country.
Why am I shouting? Why am I so emotional? I am sick and tired of defecting! And believe me, if you destroy your system, you will have no place to defect to. Because your country is the last hope for mankind’s survival, freedom and justice.
MY PUBLICATIONS
5. “THE BEST OF SCHUMAN” on videotape. Two hours of continuous battle of ideas, recorded during my TV appearances—from “700 Club” to “Round Table With the Marxists.” Also included: my slide show, biographical story and examples of Western media being manipulated by the KGB. This tape is not only an “eye opener,” it is pure fun, I like it! So did some 60,000,000 Americans who saw me on TV and send me their letters of love and appreciation. Quality may not be as good as CBS, but what you expect for $39.60?Mail your checks made to N.A.T.A., [omitted].
ISBN 0-935090-18-5
Copyright by Tomas Schuman [Thanks again.]
TOMAS SCHUMAN has been personally involved with the worldwide propaganda efforts of the Soviet regime. Like a true-life Winston Smith, from George Orwell’s “1984”, Tomas Schuman worked for the communist equivalent of Orwell’s Ministry of Truth: The Novosti Press Agency. Novosti, which means “News” in Russian, exists to produce slanted and false stories to plant in the foreign media. The term for this K.G.B. effort is “disinformation.”Mr. Schuman was born under the name of Yuri Bezmenov in Moscow in 1939, the son of a senior officer in the Red Army. Consequently, he went to good schools. At the age of 17 he entered the Institute of Oriental Languages of Moscow State University.
After graduating, he worked for Novosti, then spent two years in India as an interpreter and public relations officer with Soviet Refineries Constructions. He returned to Moscow in 1965 to work for Novosti, serving as Economic Editor for the Hindi, Urdu and English Editions of Sovietland Magazine. In 1969 he went back to India and continued propaganda efforts for Novosti in New Delhi, working out of the Soviet Embassy in a department called Research and Counter-Propaganda. Due to his growing disgust, he began to plan defection.
In February of 1970 he disguised himself as a hippie complete with beads and [a] wig and joined a tour group to escape to Athens. He contacted the United States Embassy and, after a long debriefing by U.S. Intelligence, was granted asylum and went to Canada.
In Canada, he studied political science at the University of Toronto for two years, taught Russian language and literature and in 1972 was hired by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s International Service as a Producer/Announcer, broadcasting to the Soviet Union. The K.G.B. forced him out of the job in 1976, so he began freelance journalism and worked on a variety of projects.
Today he is a political analyst for PANORAMA weekly in Los Angeles. He is married, and has two children. He is the author of two yet unpublished books.
You can order this book by mailing your check made to N.A.T.A.. (New American Talent Association)-$5.00 plus 60 cents for postage- to: Almanac, [omitted]. Tape-cassettes with Schuman’s talk on KGB’s Active Measures are available for $5 a piece plus postage.
ALMANAC
Los Angeles, 1985