Posted on 08/17/2006 6:07:20 PM PDT by brain bleeds red
Even if one rejects Golitsyn's overall thesis -- viz., that Gorbachev's changes comprised a long-term strategic deception -- one must still acknowledge that Golitsyn was the only analyst whose crystal ball was functioning during the key period of the late 20th century.
When the Soviet Empire collapsed in 1989, the CIA was chastised for failing to foresee the change. "For a generation, the Central Intelligence Agency told successive presidents everything they needed to know about the Soviet Union," said Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, "except that it was about to fall apart."
Sovietologists both inside and outside CIA were indeed baffled, for their traditional method of analysis had yielded virtually no clues as to what Gorbachev would do. When Mikhail Gorbachev took power in February 1985, after the death of Konstantin Chernenko, analysts like Roy Medvedev preoccupied themselves with trivial details in the Soviet press, and gained no larger view. "The black mourning frame printed around the second page where the deceased leader's picture was run] looked rather narrow," Medvedev observed. "It was still, however, a millimeter broader than the frames used for the second-page announcements of the death of senior Politburo members like Marshal Ustinov, who had died a few months previously." There was nothing in the measurement of picture frames to suggest liberalization in the USSR; therefore, no one suggested it.
CIA's leadership acknowledged that fell short in predicting Gorbachev's reforms, but could provide no real excuse. "Who would have thought that just five years ago we would stand where we are today?" Acting Director Robert Gates told Congress in late 1991. "Talk about humbling experiences." Gates could have said: Our reporting was poor because our Moscow network was rolled up, coincidentally or not, precisely as Gorbachev was coming into power. Gates did not say this, however. Instead, he suggested that "We're here to help you think through the problem rather than give you some kind of crystal ball prediction." This anti-prediction line was echoed by the Agency's deputy director, Robert Kerr, who told Congress: "Our business is to provide enough understanding of the issue ... to say here are some possible outcomes.... And I think that's the role of intelligence, not to predict outcomes in clear, neat ways. Because that's not doable."
Yet someone had predicted glasnost and perestroika, in detail, even before Gorbachev came to power. This person's analysis of events in the communist world had even been provided to the Agency on a regular basis.
In 1982, KGB defector Anatoliy Golitsyn had submitted a top-secret manuscript to CIA. In it, he foresaw that leadership of the USSR would by 1986 "or earlier" fall to "a younger man with a more liberal image," who would initiate "changes that would have been beyond the imagination of Marx or the practical reach of Lenin and unthinkable to Stalin."
The coming liberalization, Golitsyn said, "would be spectacular and impressive. Formal pronouncements might be made about a reduction in the Communist Party's role; its monopoly would be apparently curtailed.... The KGB would be reformed. Dissidents at home would be amnestied; those in exile abroad would be allowed to take up positions in the government; Sakharov might be included in some capacity in the government. Political dubs would be opened to nonmembers of the Communist Party. Leading dissidents might form one or more alternative political Censorship would be relaxed; controversial plays, films, and art would be published, performed, and exhibited."
Golitsyn provided an entire chapter of such predictions, containing 194 distinct auguries. Of these, 46 were not soon falsifiable (it was too early to tell, e.g., whether Russian economic ministries would be dissolved); another 9 predictions (e.g., of a prominent Yugoslavian role in East-Bloc liberalization) seemed clearly wrong. Yet of Golitsyn's falsifiable predictions, 139 out of 148 were fulfilled by the end of 1993 -- an accuracy rate of nearly 94 percent. Among events correctly foreseen: "the return to power of Dubcek and his associates" in Czechoslovakia; the reemergence of Solidarity" and the formation of a "coalition government" in Poland; a newly "independent" regime in Romania; "economic reforms" in the USSR; and a Soviet repudiation of the Afghanistan invasion. -Golitsyn even envisioned that, with the "easing of immigration controls" by East Germany, "pressure could well grow for the solution of the German problem [by] some form of confederation between East and West," with the result that "demolition of the Berlin Wall might even be contemplated."
Golitsyn received CIA's permission to publish his manuscript in book form, and did so in 1984. But at time his predictions were made, Sovietologists had little use for Golitsyn or his "new methodology for the study of the communist world." John C. Campbell, reviewing Golitsyn's book in Foreign Affairs, politely recommended that it "be taken with several grains of salt." Other critics complained that Golitsyn's analysis "strained credulity" and was "totally inaccurate," or became so exercised as to accuse him of being the "demented" proponent of "cosmic theories." The University of North Carolina's James R. Kuhlman declared that Golitsyn's new methodology would "not withstand rigorous examination. Oxford historian R.W. Johnson dismissed Golitsyn's views as "nonsense." British journalist Tom Mangold even went so far as to say, in 1990 -- well after Golitsyn's prescience had become clear -- that "As a crystal-ball gazer, Golitsyn has been unimpressive." Mangold reached this conclusion by listing six of Golitsyn's apparently incorrect predictions and ignoring the 139 correct ones.
Golitsyn's analysis was as little appreciated within CIA as it was in the outside world. "Unfortunate is the only term for this book," an Agency reader noted in an official 1985 review. A CIA analyst took Golitsyn to task for making "unsupported allegations without sufficient (or sometimes any) evidence," and for this reason would be "embarrassed to recommend the whole." Golitsyn's case, other words, was deductive: He had no "hard evidence," no transcript of a secret meeting in which Gorbachev said the would do all these things. Perhaps most fundamentally, as the philosopher William James once noted, "we tend to disbelieve all facts and theories for which we have no use." Who had any use, in the end, for Golitsyn's belief that the coming glasnost and perestroika would merely constitute the "final phase" of a long-term KGB strategy to "dominate the world"?
I am an accomplished world traveller and an international businessman. I was an "early adopter" of the POV that saw the world in what can now be described as an exceedingly overly optmistic light. I was right in there with G.H.W.Bush when he made some of his rather premature pronouncements about the post Cold War world. During the 90s, while doing personal on-the-ground work in the PRC, I also managed operations in Russia and a number of other "former" East Bloc countries remotely, eventually getting around to visiting a number of them, including, as of December of last year, Russia. I plan to return, the Lord willing. Oh and one more thing - I believe you Anatoliy! Check out my FReeper home page for more details regarding my world view.
Agree completely.
Neither the Russians or the Chinese are 'out of it' by any stretch.
The Russians have an 'enemy of my enemy' sort of relationship with the US right now, but if they did succeed in taking us out, war between the two would be at hand soon after, most probably.
Hmmm, no response yet from the troll, Romanov ... figures.
"It says that the "Russians realized they couldn't defeat us militarily and so decided to defeat us by trickery and deceit."
"Sorry but this is a complete pantload. The Russian people are not in the business of conquering the leading world power. They are busy trying to make money and most of them under 25 do not give a damn about world politics.
A few items that might have appeared if they were in the conquering business
Transport? Where's the huge amount of military transport ships for troops, tanks, beans and bullets?
Navy? The Russian Navy is a shadow of itself.
Army? The russian army is much smaller than it used to be during the Soviet era. They are NOT going to occupy a country with 70 million snipers
Even accounting for the possibility that the Chinese might load up THEIR army on supertankers, car carriers and other assorted nonsense. Even accounting for a decapitating strike on the USA. The US Navy would shred anything hostile in the waters that headed towards our shores.
If they think they can land in Mexico and move north. No one does mobile desert warfare better than the US.'
Perhaps this is a snippet of an article I posted but this was not my comment. I totally agree, the Russians could not invade and conquer. I'll tell you this though: Russia and our enemies do not have to invade. What scares me is they have energy, we do not. If all hell breaks loose they only need to interrupt our supply of oil. You need jet fuel for jet fighters and tactical bombers. It is more then theoretically possible they could rule us from the air, at least temporarily.
Anatoliy Golitsyn was a conman.
End of Story...Put a conman in front of a delusional paranoid and he'll leave with the bank accounts and the wife's honor.
Angleton took Anatoliy Golitsyn seriously and wrecked the CIA for nearly 20 years.
Bravo...
Anatoliy Golitsyn is the great sage of the terminally paranoid. In their mind they got double, triples, quadruple agents and ...What comes after quadruples?
Oh....I see ...The Soviets didn't REALLY collapse they just morphed into cryptocapitalist oligarchs while all the while theuy sing the " International" in secret clubs through out Russia. The Sino-Soviet Split never happened and the Chinese are actually secret Maoists intent in just drawing out the hidden capitalists in their midst. Then, they will spring the trap...launch a complete reversion to Stalinist principles and join hands conguer the world...
Hmmm...
Angleton took Anatoliy Golitsyn seriously and wrecked the CIA for nearly 20 years.
Golitsyn was way off. Russia is a solid ally and her hardline tactics are but a distant memory.
But but....you see...They have all that stuff hidden. Then like a bolt of lightning they will strike while we are all sitting on the toilet doing our business...Just like them commie bastards to wait till we are on the crapper with our pants around out ankles....
I love this story....Brings out the Great And Mighty Loon Contingent in all their finery. Tin Foil Helmets, Super Heterodyne Double Decoder Rings, and The Special Knowledge Theorists.
Uhm ... Canadian Oil shale? ANWR, North Slope, Offshore oil wells in the Gulf?
IF it ever came down to global war we have plenty of energy.
You need jet fuel for jet fighters and tactical bombers. It is more then theoretically possible they could rule us from the air, at least temporarily
Please reference "Strategic Oil Reserve". At 500 million barrels Russia or China could NEVER own the skies over the USA.
Oh Lordy...You're even stranger than Angleton and Golitsyn.
So, how does Russia get back Ukraine, East Germany, Poland, and the other countries in its ‘grand plan’?
An informative post, but that web address appears to be “www.thefinalphase.com”.
“www.thefinalphase.com”
bump for later
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