Anatoliy Golitsyn's Memorandum to the CIA: FEBRUARY 1993 - THE IMPORTANCE OF THE STRATEGIC FACTOR IN ASSESSING DEVELOPMENTS IN RUSSIA AND CHINA

From Anatoliy Golitsyn's The Perestroika Deception: [link to www.usa-anti-communist.net]

IMHO, this memorandum represents one of Golitsyn's last desperate appeals to the CIA to wake up and smell the coffee, but his efforts proved to be of no avail. America and the West simply could not resist the tempting offer of "false peace" from the "Old Enemy". Now the catastrophic consequences of this stupendous historical error are about to play out.

Memorandum to the CIA: FEBRUARY 1993

For the attention of: Mr James Woolsey, Director of Central Intelligence

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE STRATEGIC FACTOR IN ASSESSING DEVELOPMENTS IN RUSSIA AND COMMUNIST CHINA

I am a KGB defector who came to the United States in 1961 in order to convey to the
US Government a warning about the Soviet long-range political strategy for the defeat
of the United States. In October 1964, I gave Mr McCone, then Director of Central
Intelligence, an account of the report delivered by Shelepin, former Chairman of the
KGB, to a KGB conference in 1959. The report included a call for the creation of KGB-
controlled 'opposition' in the Soviet Union as an essential part of the strategy leading to
a future liberalisation of the regime.

From 1963 onwards I argued that the well advertised Sino-Soviet differences
were intended to conceal a common Sino-Soviet strategy, in other words that the 'split'
was a joint strategic disinformation operation intended to deceive the West. Between
1963 and 1969 my view of the 'splif was debated within the CIA. I have good reason
to believe that information on the existence of this internal debate in the CIA was
leaked to the KGB and through them to the Soviet leadership who took drastic steps to
settle the argument within the CIA in their favour.

In 1969, in collaboration with their Chinese allies, the Soviet leadership staged a
show of military hostilities on their Far Eastern border modelled on the genuine
hostilities between the Soviets and the Japanese in that area in 1938. On the evidence
from US reconnaissance satellites, the CIA experts accepted the hostilities as genuine
and thus as conclusive proof that the Sino-Soviet split was also genuine.

I continued to argue that satellite information alone could not throw light on
the strategic intentions and considerations behind an apparent military conflict on the
ground. Secret intelligence from reliable human sources was also required. At that
time, through KGB penetration, the CIA had lost its reliable human sources and was
unable to replace them: it was therefore blind. US policymakers also accepted the
'split' as genuine and believed that the United States and the USSR now had a
common interest in confronting the growing peril from a nuclear-armed, hardline
Communist regime in China. It was against this background that the US Government
entered into SALT talks with the USSR in 1969 and then embarked upon detente with
the Chinese Communist leaders in 1971.

The apparent conflict on the Sino-Soviet border and the attempt at liberalisation
in Czechoslovakia in 1968 together delayed completion of my book 'New Lies for Old'
which was submitted to the CIA for clearance in 1980 and was published in 1984.
The delay did not alter my thesis that the attempt at liberalisation in Czechoslovakia was
a rehearsal for a forthcoming political and economic liberalisation of the system in the
USSR and the Communist Bloc as a whole. In 'New Lies for Old', I predicted that this
liberalisation in the USSR would be accompanied by the introduction
of KGB-controlled political 'opposition', the dismantling of the Berlin Wall and the
reunification of Germany. I also said it was more than likely that the West would
accept these developments at their face value. My predictions were correct. More
important, however, is the fact that they were correct because they were based on my
knowledge of Soviet political strategy.

For many years until recently, I have presented Memoranda to successive
Directors of Central Intelligence in which I have sought to follow and explain this
strategy, the true meaning of political and economic reform of the Soviet system and
the KGB's role in the creation of controlled political opposition within the system. I
have also tried to explain the part played by disinformation in this strategy. In my
Memoranda I have argued that an abundance of information does not automatically
confer understanding. From the late 1950s onwards, Western intelligence lost its
comprehension of Communist, and especially Soviet, developments because it was
ignorant of their adoption of a long-range political strategy backed by strategic
disinformation. At the time, the CIA was uninformed because it had lost its genuine
high level agent in Soviet military intelligence [GRU], Lieutenant-Colonel Popov,
who had been replaced by the KGB provocateur, Penkovskiy57.

In the 1960s and 1970s the Western failure to understand Soviet political strategy
was masked by the fact that the United States matched the Soviet military buildup and
maintained a strong military deterrent. But the failure of understanding became
apparent when the 'perestroika' reforms, which were the product of over twenty-five
years of preparation, took the West by surprise and were blindly accepted by the West as
the advent of genuine Western-style democracy and a genuine market system in Russia
deserving of Western political support and economic aid. Two approaches to the study
of developments in the former Soviet Union and Communist China are possible. One
is that of the man-in-the-street who uncritically absorbs what he sees on television and
in the press, in official Russian statements and in symbolic displays like the removal
of selected statues of Lenin and Dzerzhinskiy, and photographs of empty shelves in
stores. On this unsound basis, he draws far-reaching conclusions that the Russians are
starving, that Communism has collapsed, that the USSR has disintegrated, that the
Communist Party has been banned, that 'the Cold War is over' and that civil war is
around the corner. He interprets the reforms in Russia which he reads about in the
newspapers and sees on TV 'news analyses' as the spontaneous outcome of genuine
political pressures and therefore develops over-optimistic hopes for the future of
democracy in Russia.

[57 Editor's Note: A standard Western perception, perpetuated by many analysts and lay writers, is that Oleg
Penkovskiy was an Anglo-American spy within the GRU whose invaluable assistance to the West during the
Cuban missile crisis enabled President Kennedy to 'face down' Nikita Khrushchev, and that Penkovskiy was
brutally tortured, sentenced to death in a show trial in May 1963, and shot for his pains. But Golitsyn makes it
plain that Penkovskiy was a provocateur sent to reveal crucial military intelligence to the West, providing a
pretext for Khrushchev to 'react' to the United States' acquired knowledge in a manner calculated to avoid a
nuclear showdown while enabling the Soviet leadership to extract the quid pro quo they really sought -
abandonment of the Monroe Doctrine in the form of a US pledge never to intervene in Cuba and thus to
tolerate Moscow's controi of the island in general, and installation by the Soviets of permanent
sophisticated electronic eavesdropping and other aggressive facilities there in particular. Penkovskiy
'replaced' Lieutenant-Colonel Popov, a genuine agent, in such a way as to convince the West that his intelligence
'product' was as reliable as that of Popov - which, up to a point, it was. But it was provocatively incomplete
because it omitted revelation of the long-range deception strategy.]


Unfortunately, it is this man-in-the-street approach which dominates the
minds of Western policymakers. The old generation of sceptical Kremlinologists has
faded away. Their successors, lacking insight of their own, parrot ideas and disinfor-
mation derived from the maelstrom of television interviews, staged tele-spectacles
and press clippings. The result is euphoria, unrealistic expectations and unsound
responses such as those demonstrated conspicuously by former President Nixon in
his call for massive economic aid to Russia.

The alternative approach is to study the long-range Communist strategy
adopted in 1958-60 and to explore the full meaning of the transition from the 'dictatorship
of the proletariat' to the 'state of the whole people' which the Russian 'developed
socialist society' has accomplished.

Against this documented background, political and economic reform and
'democratisation' in Russia can be seen to be the planned product of over twenty-five
years of preparation and rehearsal in the USSR and Eastern Europe. The 'ex'-Com-
munists' 'reforms' and their style of 'democracy' are peculiar to themselves. The
'state of the whole people' is in fact an adaptation of Lenin's idea of the withering
away of the state (which also looks ahead to the time when there is to be a Commu-
nist World Government), and its replacement by mass social organisation.

'Glasnost' and 'democratisation' are neither of them genuine. Americans only
display their naivete by expecting a genuine answer from the Russians, for example, to
the question whether Alger Hiss was a Soviet agent. Preoccupation with the issue of
MIA [US military personnel 'Missing in Action'] in Russia is of burning interest to the
American families involved. Investigations into the whereabouts of the missing
servicemen are fully justified; but they are not enough.

Before plunging into deeper political and military partnership with Russia
and loosening its purse strings further, Congress should demand from the Russian
leaders a full and frank official acknowledgement and public explanation of the fact
that their predecessors slaughtered 20 million Russians, Ukrainians, Belorussians,
Moldavians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Estonians, Jews and others. Congress should
also demand to know how many secret agents there are among the so-called 'democ-
rats' in Russia and Eastern Europe.

The lack of frankness and public debate in Russia on these and other fundamental
issues makes it clear that 'glasnost', 'democratisation', the removal of statues and the
alleged abolition of the Communist Party are nothing more than cosmetic changes.
Without free and open debates, genuine opposition cannot emerge and supplant the
present pseudo-opposition. Unexposed as the true heirs of Communism which they
are, the Soviet strategists remain at the helm and continue to mesmerise the West into
supporting them. In fact no long-term good can realistically be expected from the
present system. When its economic situation has improved, Russia can be expected
to revert to hostility towards the West: Western belief in the collapse of Communism
will be shown to be an illusion.

The Soviet strategists have reformed their system, introduced their own type
of pseudo-democracy and made changes in their economy. They have replaced the
outdated and discredited domination of the Communist Party with a new, con-
trolled mass political structure. In so doing they have retained the same political elite,
the same army with its political commissars, basically the same intelligence and
security services and other elements of the former Soviet system such as Arbatov's
Institute for the Study of the USA and Canada and the other key institutes such as the
Institute of Europe, working under the supervision of the Academy of Sciences.

The political elite still consists of the 25 million 'former' Communists and 50
million young Communists who are the most active political element in Russia and the
'independenf states and who retain real power. This elite initiates, permeates and directs
the new parties and opposition groups, even the anti-Semitic ones, in accordance with the
demands of the strategy. The elite receives guidance through various government and
semi-official channels. The 'reformed' KGB and its agents remain active, especially in
sensitive areas like anti-Semitic operations where they use the secret police expertise
inherited from the Tsarist and Stalinist periods. The political elite do not regard
Communism as defeated. On the contrary, they see reforms and 'democratisation' as
the means of carrying forward their longstanding strategy of 'convergence' with and
victory over the West.

US intelligence seems to underestimate the morale of the Russian Army and
its generals. My observation of their performance suggests that their morale is high.
They have not been defeated militarily or politically. On the contrary, they are win-
ning the strategic battle with the United States and Western Europe by political
means with the help of a financial boost from Western sources. This makes the task of
their political commissars easy. They will obviously retain more than sufficient
nuclear weapons to ensure that the CIS/Russia qualifies for superpower status.

The United States does not understand developments in Russia, but Arbatov
and his team at his Institute have a good understanding of developments in the
United States. That is why they have survived the so-called collapse of Communism.
Arbatov is one of the chief strategic advisers to the Russian leadership. His self-
declared aim is to erase the image of Russia as a power hostile to the United States.
The recent handover by the Russians to the US ambassador in Moscow of micro-
phones taken from the US embassy building was inspired by the same motive.

Yet there is no genuine, broadly based, organised political opposition in Russia
and no foundation on which one could be built. The purported opposition exists to
deceive and manipulate the perceptions and reactions of genuine democrats in the
West. The West fails to comprehend the mentality of the Russian leaders and overesti-
mates their willingness to reform themselves. They have the same mentality as their
predecessors who adopted the still current long-range strategy. It was these people who
not only executed the CIA agent Popov but made a movie of him being burned alive to
show to young officers to deter them from following Popov's example.

Behind the mask of diplomatic and political cooperation and partnership
with the United States and Europe, the current Russian leaders are following the
strategy of their predecessors and working towards a 'New World Order'.

When the right moment comes the mask will be dropped and the Russians with
Chinese help will seek to impose their system on the West on their own terms as the
culmination of a 'Second October Socialist Revolution'.

In this light it is easy to understand why the Russians have not thrown away
either their military power or their political commissars, why Russian troops still
remain in East Germany, Poland and the Baltic States, why the Russians have been in
no hurry to reach meaningful military agreements with the United States, why the
'reformed' security and intelligence services continue their activities, why the reins of
power are still in the hands of 'ex'-Communists, why leading Soviet strategists like
Arbatov and Yakovlev retain their influence and why the so-called 'democratic'
Russian leaders have close ties with the Communist Chinese.

In the past, when the USSR was perceived to be a monolith and Soviet parlia-
mentary institutions could be seen to be mere rubber-stamps, Soviet negotiating tactics
vis-a-vis the Western countries were more or less understood. Now they are not. The
introduction of a controlled political opposition and the new structure of the CIS with
its so-called 'independent' states like Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus, provide many
new openings for bolstering Russian negotiating positions through disinformation.
Russian negotiators have the edge over their American counterparts because their
moves are planned on the basis of a political strategy and deceptive negotiating
techniques which the Americans do not understand.

The Bush Administration, with its eye on history, rushed the final stages of
the negotiations for the recent nuclear missile treaty which had been deliberately
dragged out by the Russians until near the end of the Administration's life. Ignorant of
long-term Russian intentions, the Administration put its trust in Yeltsin and,
according to 'senior Administration officials', made significant concessions. These
concessions were made 'to help Yeltsin defend the treaty against criticism' in the mis-
taken belief that he was under pressure from 'conservatives', as a Western politician
might have been. In fact, since the 'conservative opposition' is coordinated through the
political elite with Yeltsin and his strategists, its activities can be stepped up or down
to suit the needs of the Russian negotiators. Similarly, alleged difficulties in the
Ukrainian or other parliaments can be used to accelerate or delay ratification and
wring further concessions out of the Americans. By signing the treaty with the outgoing
US Administration, the Russians established a basis for pressing the new Admin-
istration to carry the process further and faster.

The United States does not understand the real nature of relations between
the Russian and Communist Chinese leaders. Washington believes that a genuine
improvement took place in relations in the 1980s between the Chinese and Gor-
bachev and Yeltsin. I see these contacts as evidence that 'perestroika' in Russia did not
take the Chinese by surprise, that they have a complete understanding of the realities
behind it and that their strategic cooperation with the Russians continues as it has
done since the late 1950s though now with open acknowledgement of their good
relations. The United States views the Russian sale of complete factories and new
weapons systems to the Chinese as dictated by Russian desire to ease their current
economic difficulties. To my way of thinking it amounts to the deliberate transfer of
advanced technology to an old and trusted ally.

US officials count missile numbers, but there is no comprehension of continuing
Sino-Russian strategic cooperation. Insufficient attention has been paid to the fact that
Yeltsin signalled his assent to the recent missile reduction treaty from Peking. His visit
there, like earlier visits by Shevardnadze and Gorbachev, pointed to the continuity of this
cooperation. No doubt Yeltsin discussed the new treaty with the Chinese and
reached an understanding with them about it. It would be no surprise if some of the
Soviet missiles ended up in China. Deception would be used to cover up their trans-
fer. The Russian capacity for deception could well outweigh the American capacity
to verify the disposal of all missiles.

My assessment is that, when the long-range strategy was worked out and
adopted in the period 1958-60, the Soviets and Chinese agreed to plan and prepare
for the eventual reform and liberalisation of their regimes while, in the meantime,
following different paths. Liberalisation formed part of the strategic design of
procuring the disarmament of the West and the convergence of the Communist and
Eastern systems on Communist terms.

The present Russian and Chinese leaders face three centres of nuclear mili-
tary power with which they have to deal: the United States, Western Europe and
Israel. They calculate that they will be able to neutralise American military power
through the combination of their new 'democratic' image, their 'partnership' with
the United States and nuclear disarmament negotiations and agreements. Western
Europe will be neutralised through the concept of common European security and
the membership of the East European 'independent' states in West European institu-
tions. Israel's nuclear capability, which will not be reduced on account of changes in
the former USSR, will be a matter of continuing concern to the Russians and Chinese.
The appointment of Primakov, a Middle East expert, to take charge of the Russian
Foreign Intelligence Service indicates the importance attached to this theatre by the
leadership. It cannot be ruled out that, behind the screen of cooperation with the
West in preventing the spread of nuclear knowhow, the Russians, through their
intelligence assets in the area, will prepare a covert operation to sabotage Israeli
nuclear installations. The operation might ostensibly be conducted by Arab or Iranian
Muslim fundamentalists or perhaps by a renegade Soviet scientist or general in the
service of some other terrorist group.

It is true that my assessment of developments in Russia and China in terms of
their joint strategy is in sharp conflict with the views of Western governments and
their intelligence services. However it is also true that I predicted liberalisation in the
USSR long before 'perestroika' was ever heard of. At that time I was in a minority of
one. But my predictions were proved correct and a conservative expert on
Communism, Brian Crozier, drew attention to the fact. The Central Intelligence
Agency has recently been criticised for its failure to predict 'liberalisation'. Had it
taken greater account of my views it might have escaped this criticism.

I remain convinced that the current view taken by Western politicians and the
media of developments in Russia is erroneous and over-optimistic. History has
shown the capacity of Communism to deceive its own subjects and its opponents.
The October Revolution which promised the Russians bread, peace and freedom,
ended up by killing 20 million of them. Wartime Soviet 'partnership' with the Eastern
allies against the Nazis, instead of leading to peacetime cooperation, was used to
facilitate the Soviet Army's takeover of Eastern Europe. Another wave of slaughter
and repression followed. The same thing accompanied the Communist takeover in
China. In each case Western hopes and expectations were dashed. The ferocity of
Communism came as a most unpleasant surprise.

Because of the failure of Western policymakers to understand Sino-Russian
strategy particularly since the launching of 'perestroika', I fear that there is a real
chance of the Russian and Chinese leaders succeeding in carrying through their strat-
egy of convergence with the West in the next ten years or so.

Experiments with false democracy by so-called former Communists present a
critical test for Western intelligence services. If they fail to assess them and their possible
consequences correctly, their mistakes may well result in bloodshed in the United
States and Western Europe.

Western intelligence should not be intimidated either by political pressure or
by the weight of conventional wisdom. It should not rely exclusively on technical
and overt sources of information. The need for reliable secret intelligence on the
strategic intentions of the Russian and Chinese leadership is as acute as ever, as is the
need for willingness to think the apparently unthinkable.

Now that you are assuming the responsibility of leading the CIA and adapting
it to the so-called 'post-Cold War' situation, I am sending you a collection of
Memoranda that I have addressed to your predecessors in which I have tried to follow
and explain the Russians' reforms in terms of their long-range strategy. My purpose in
sending the Memoranda to you is to try to counter the prevailing inadequate and
misleading man-in-the-street perception of events in Russia and China.

I know that you will have a vast amount to read in taking over your new
appointment. But I urge you to read my Memoranda because they are unique in taking
account of Sino-Russian strategy and disinformation and, I believe, provide some
insight into the strategic thinking that underlies the activities of Yeltsin, Gorbachev,
Primakov and their corps of aides and advisers. The Memoranda also provide a cor-
rective to current euphoria and a warning of the challenge which, despite appear-
ances, still faces Western democracy.

In the mid-1960s, when Mr McCone was Director of Central Intelligence [DCI]
and Mr Angleton was head of counter-intelligence, the information I provided on the
new strategy as evidenced by the Shelepin report of 1959 was taken seriously. In later
years the CIA, to an ever increasing extent, ignored the warnings I had given. My hope is
that, bearing in mind the correctness of my predictions of 'perestroika', the new
leadership of the CIA will not reject out of hand the new warnings I have given of the
specious nature of the present system and its anti-Western designs. If once more I am
right and the conventional wisdom wrong, the consequences will be serious indeed.
After more than thirty years of association with the Central Intelligence Agency, my
political testament to the agency is:

'Ignore Russian and Chinese strategic designs against the United States at your peril'.

Respectfully,

ANATOLIY GOLITSYN



Last Edited by The Spirit Of Truth on 01/15/2011 05:12 PM