Keep truth alive.
Character, Kennedy, you found out all you needed to know about that on July 18, 1969.
Ted Kennedy and the KGB
FP: Tell us about this document.
Kengor: It was a May 14, 1983 letter from the head of the KGB, Viktor Chebrikov, to the head of the USSR, the odious Yuri Andropov, with the highest level of classification. Chebrikov relayed to Andropov an offer from Senator Ted Kennedy, presented by Kennedy’s old friend and law-school buddy, John Tunney, a former Democratic senator from California, to reach out to the Soviet leadership at the height of a very hot time in the Cold War. According to Chebrikov, Kennedy was deeply troubled by the deteriorating relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union, which he believed was bringing us perilously close to nuclear confrontation. Kennedy, according to Chebrikov, blamed this situation not on the Soviet leadership but on the American president-—Ronald Reagan. Not only was the USSR not to blame, but, said Chebrikov, Kennedy was, quite the contrary, “very impressed” with Andropov.
The thrust of the letter is that Reagan had to be stopped, meaning his alleged aggressive defense policies, which then ranged from the Pershing IIs to the MX to SDI, and even his re-election bid, needed to be stopped. It was Ronald Reagan who was the hindrance to peace. That view of Reagan is consistent with things that Kennedy said and wrote at the time, including articles in sources like Rolling Stone (March 1984) and in a speeches like his March 24, 1983 remarks on the Senate floor the day after Reagan’s SDI speech, which he lambasted as “misleading Red-Scare tactics and reckless Star Wars schemes.”
Even more interesting than Kennedy’s diagnosis was the prescription: According to Chebrikov, Kennedy suggested a number of PR moves to help the Soviets in terms of their public image with the American public. He reportedly believed that the Soviet problem was a communication problem, resulting from an inability to counter Reagan’s (not the USSR’s) “propaganda.” If only Americans could get through Reagan’s smokescreen and hear the Soviets’ peaceful intentions.
So, there was a plan, or at least a suggested plan, to hook up Andropov and other senior apparatchiks with the American media, where they could better present their message and make their case. Specifically, the names of Walter Cronkite and Barbara Walters are mentioned in the document. Also, Kennedy himself would travel to Moscow to meet with the dictator.
Time was of the essence, since Reagan, as the document privately acknowledged, was flying high en route to easy re-election in 1984.
FP: Did you have the document vetted?
Kengor: Of course. It comes from the Central Committee archives of the former USSR. Once Boris Yeltsin took over Russia in 1991, he immediately began opening the Soviet archives, which led to a rush on the archives by Western researchers. One of them, Tim Sebastian of the London Times and BBC, found the Kennedy document and reported it in the February 2, 1992 edition of the Times, in an article titled, “Teddy, the KGB and the top secret file.”
But this electrifying revelation stopped there; it went no further. Never made it across the Atlantic. Not a single American news organization, from what I can tell, picked up the story. Apparently, it just wasn’t interesting enough, nor newsworthy.
Western scholars, however, had more integrity, and responded: they went to the archives to procure their own copy. So, several copies have circulated for a decade and a half.
I got my copy when a reader of Frontpage Magazine, named Marko Suprun, whose father survived Stalin’s 1930s genocide in the Ukraine, alerted me to the document. He apparently had spent years trying to get the American media to take a look at the document, but, again, our journalists simply weren’t intrigued. He knew I was researching Reagan and the Cold War. He sent me a copy. I first authenticated it through Herb Romerstein, the Venona researcher and widely respected expert who knows more about the Communist Party and archival research beyond the former Iron Curtain than anyone. I also had a number of scholars read the original and the translation, including Harvard’s Richard Pipes.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=30980
I was going to be more PC, but now I have to say Ted’s might be in a hotter than expected place for his after life retirement.
Ted Kennedy: Liberal Lion of the Senate...and traitor. Reminds me of Scar from the Lion King story.
Results 1 - 10 of about 392,000,000 for ted kennedy worked for kgb to undermine reagan
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=ted+kennedy+worked++for+kgb+to+undermine+reagan&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&oq=&aqi=
One of the 392,000,000 Google link results from the first page:
Edward (”Ted”) Moore Kennedy
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=804
bttt
That will only make the Left love him more.
It's going to be tough few days watching the TV networks give Teddy Kennedy the Michael Jackson treatment. By the weekend, he'll be judged (by the leftmedia) as equal to and more important than any president that ever lived, including JFK, because Ted lived much longer and accomplished more. Yeah, right.
Didn’t Obama do something like that to undermine Bush and the Iraq war?
Just following in Daddy’s footsteps. Old Joe was a huge admirer of Hitler.
The commies picked a loser for their side. Lucky us. We dodged one Marxist bullet in Reagan and I hope we can dodge the latest bullet, too.
McCarthy, Nixon (Rep.at that time) were claiming in the 50's the Communist infiltration of our govt.--which of course was vehemently denied by the left. When the Russian Venona vaults were open, Whitaker Chambers (his book Witness is very good), McCarthy, Nixon & others were vindicated ; Alger Hiss was proven to be the Communist he was convicted for; the Rosenbergs were both shown to be spies. To this day, many leftists decry McCarthy, Nixon and Chamberlain and refute Hiss was Communist.
Not surprised about Kennedy. Of course his family mourns him. Even Mafia godfathers usually want good things for their families. He ws not good for this country.
vaudine
Thanks and bookmark
ping