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Posted on 09/29/2004 11:03:04 PM PDT by SAMWolf
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 are acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated.
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REAGAN  The position that Ronald Reagan took was that in order to defeat communism the United States had to be strong militarily-wise. It was necessary to defend ourselves and to show the rest of the world that we could stand up to the Soviet Union. You remember that it was Joe Stalin, I believe, who said when referring to the Catholic Church and the Pope, "Where are his divisions?" Well, the communists had that attitude. If you weren't strong and if you couldn't stand up to them militarily, all the threats were to no avail. So Reagan was determined that the United States would have to have the forces to back up the rhetoric that he was using in trying to show the rest of the world that there was a way out of the dilemma of how to overcome this mighty Soviet Union.  At his first press conference as president, Ronald Reagan rendered a tough verdict on the policy of détente, calling it "a one-way street the Soviet Union has used to pursue its own aims." Reagan's message was unmistakable: The only way to deal with the Kremlin was from a position of strength. Immediately, he began a new phase of rearmament. He increased the defense budget by $32.6 billion. He approved production of the costly B-1 bomber, a project President Carter had scrapped. He expanded the size of the Navy. And new defense guidelines called for preparations to wage a nuclear war "over a protracted period."  The renewed arms race and Reagan's anti-Soviet rhetoric revived the anti-nuclear movement in Western Europe. Reagan was portrayed by a vocal minority of Americans and many Europeans as a warmonger. Yet, in truth, Reagan shared their antipathy for nuclear brinksmanship -- the policy known as "mutual assured destruction." HUMAN RIGHTS In the era of détente, the issue of human rights gained attention on both sides of the Iron Curtain. In 1975 in Helsinki, 35 nations -- including the United States and U.S.S.R. -- signed a declaration on human rights. Meanwhile, Czech dissidents secretly drew up Charter 77, a human rights document that was smuggled to the West. Activists in the communist bloc set up Helsinki Watch Committees to monitor and publicize abuses. But the Soviets did not feel bound by the Helsinki Accords and persecuted the dissidents, many of whom ended up in KGB prisons -- or in mental hospitals, where mind-control drugs were used to make them recant.  Anatoly (Natan) and Avital Scharansky phoning President Reagan from Ben-Gurion Airport to thank him for his part in Anatoly's release Jews were a distinctive group among the dissidents -- claiming the right to leave the Soviet Union. Many were refused exit visas and became known as refuseniks. Those who campaigned for their rights were often sent to forced labor camps for years. In 1979, the prominent refusenik Anatoly Sharansky was sentenced to 13 years for espionage and treason. Outside the court, supporters defiantly publicized his case to the Western media -- triggering forceful protests in the West. The evidence of human rights abuse inflamed anti-Soviet feeling in America. SALT II As Moscow and Washington clashed over human rights, they also stepped up negotiations for a new arms limitation treaty -- SALT II. One issue not on the SALT II agenda was the Soviets' decision to deploy the SS-20, a new medium-range nuclear missile that targeted Western Europe. West Germany and other NATO allies were alarmed. Instead of making the SS-20s an issue during the SALT II negotiations, the United States pursued a twin-track policy: America would develop its new generation of missiles and allow Moscow three years to negotiate limits on medium-range missiles. If no deal was reached, America would station its cruise and Pershing nuclear missiles in Europe -- and target Soviet cities. Fear of missiles in their backyard created a new mood of resistance among Western Europeans.  Between 1977 and 1987, the Soviet Union deployed 654 SS-20 missiles and 509 launchers in 48 Strategic Rocket Forces regiments By June 1979, the superpowers had agreed to new limits on strategic arms -- completing the SALT II treaty. Carter and Brezhnev met for the first time when they came to Vienna to sign the agreement. Soviets viewed the treaty as a way to limit arms production -- and improve their civilian economy. But in America, the pact was condemned by the political right for not imposing limits on the development of new weapons systems. Ultimately, SALT II would fail to gain congressional approval. TENSION In Moscow, Andropov responded defiantly to Reagan's "Star Wars" plan. "All attempts at achieving military superiority over the U.S.S.R. are futile," he said. Privately, however, Andropov was frightened by SDI and Reagan's anti-Soviet speeches. Convinced that the West was planning for war, Andropov ordered a worldwide alert. The KGB monitored every aspect of life in the West. The Americans stepped up spy flights in sensitive areas along the Soviet Union's long borders. Aircraft packed with electronic surveillance gear and disguised as civilian airliners often flew close to passenger routes.  On August 31, 1983, a South Korean airliner left Anchorage for Seoul. For reasons still unexplained, KAL Flight 007, with 269 people on board, ended up in Soviet air space, more than 300 miles from its normal route. After firing several warning tracer shots across the plane's bow, a Soviet fighter pilot downed the carrier, killing everyone on board. Reagan called the incident "an act of barbarism." GORBACHEV A mood of crisis now gripped both East and West. Arms control talks were broken off. The Soviet leadership even believed a nuclear attack by the West was imminent. Reagan was surprised when told the Kremlin seriously feared an American first-strike offensive. It was time, he told aides, for a face-to-face meeting with Soviet leaders.  Mikhail Gorbachev But to whom in the Kremlin could Reagan talk peace? In February 1984, Yuri Andropov died. His successor, Konstantin Chernenko, was too frail to start a dialogue and died a year later -- the third aged Soviet leader to die in three years. Party leaders knew the country needed new blood. They turned to 54-year-old reformer Mikhail Gorbachev -- who in a speech the year before had introduced the concepts of "perestroika" (restructuring) and "glasnost" (openness) to the Communist Party lexicon. At a party plenum to ratify his election by the Politburo, Gorbachev pledged to make the Soviet Union more democratic -- and announced his intention to stop the arms race. RAPPORT In November 1985, Gorbachev traveled to Geneva to meet with Reagan for the first superpower summit in six years.  At their first face-to-face meeting, the two leaders outlined their positions in adversarial terms -- arguing about regional conflicts and accusing each other of trying to divide the world. Gorbachev later told aides Reagan was not just a conservative, but "a political dinosaur." Later that day, the tenor of the dialogue changed. Though the two leaders remained divided by Reagan's "Star Wars" initiative, the atmosphere grew warmer -- they established a rapport. Gorbachev left Geneva without agreement on his main objective -- curbing the arms race -- but the United States and the Soviet Union were talking again. One year into the Gorbachev era the Cold War continued. The Geneva call for a second summit was repeatedly postponed. Fears of nuclear war remained. In April 1986, an explosion ripped apart a reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine north of Kiev. The disaster highlighted the incompetence of the Soviet system. REYKJAVIK Six months after the Chernobyl disaster, Reagan and Gorbachev went to Reykjavik, Iceland, for their second summit. No one expected much of substance to emerge.  But over the next few days, the two leaders took a series of bold and unexpected steps aimed at reducing the threat of nuclear war. Gorbachev seized the initiative, winning Reagan's backing for a comprehensive set of reductions of strategic arms, intermediate-range missile and space weapons. Next, the two leaders agreed on the complete withdrawal of intermediate-range missiles in Europe and a 50 percent reduction in ballistic missiles over a five-year period. As the talks continued, Reagan and Gorbachev each raised the ante in their quest for arms reductions. Finally, Reagan stunned Gorbachev and his own advisers by offering to eliminate all nuclear weapons in 10 years, effectively abolishing the nuclear deterrent. But Gorbachev continued to press Reagan on "Star Wars." "Our meeting cannot produce one winner. We both either win or lose," he said. Reagan would not budge.  The summit ended without an agreement -- but each delegation realized the discussions had crossed a historic line. Gorbachev immediately went on the offense in saying that Reagan had broken up the meeting insisting upon SDI, giving his spin, as it were, to the outcome. And [Secretary of State George] Shultz talked for us and unfortunately the press didn't believe his story ... and it came across that we had been defeated. When in point of fact we had won, because we now know that Gorbachev went home and although he was saying one thing, his mind was telling him: It's all over for the Soviet Union.  In 1987, Reagan and Gorbachev met in Washington to sign the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty -- eliminating an entire class of U.S. and Soviet nuclear arms for Eastern and Western Europe. Reagan's defense of "Star Wars" prevented further progress in arms talks for the remainder of his presidency. Nevertheless, two leaders a generation apart had brought their two countries closer then they had been in 40 years.
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Hi miss Feather.
Doesn't it! ;-)
I've been looking for a nice big image like that for some time.
Howdy ma'am. Thanks
Howdy, how's Middle Earth these days?
Nice buffalo shot. :-)
Hey Samwise!. :-)
Ready for the debate?
I just figure there's no thing as "Ex" KGB. ;-)
Hey Feather! About to leave for a class this evening. :-( Have to tape and watch the deabte when we get back.
Okay Sam, see you later!!
Good Luck, save a couple of copies for Snippy and I. :-)
Will do!!!!!
Great pictures!
West European press was shocked - the working class and Christ - beyond comprehension!
I envy Poland it's outward show of Christianity, sadly, in America public displays of Christianity have been under assault as "intolerant" for years. As long as the Liberals control the Courts, we'll lose more and more of our ability to practicew our Religions publicly. :-(
Yeah sometimes it does seem like a dream. So much has changed, not all for the good.
:-)
Natan (Anatoly) Sharansky
Natan (Anatoly) Sharansky was born in the Ukraine, and graduated with a degree in mathematics from the Physical Technical Institute in Moscow. His early association with the human rights movement was an English interpreter for Andrei Sakharov, before emerging in his own right as a foremost dissident and spokesman for the Soviet Jewry movement.
In 1973, Sharansky applied for an exit visa to Israel, but was refused on “security” grounds. He remained prominently involved in Jewish refusenik activities until his arrest in 1977. Convicted in 1978 of treason and spying on behalf of the United States, Sharansky was sentenced to thirteen years imprisonment. He spent 16 months in Moscow's Lefortovo prison, frequently in solitary confinement and in a special “torture cell,” before being transferred to a notorious prison camp in the Siberian gulag.
Years later, following his release, Sharansky stressed his need throughout his imprisonment to remain emotionally independent. He attributed his survival of the lengthy incarceration and the brutal conditions to his resistance to any sort of emotional surrender. Hence Sharansky's expression of the paradox that while an ordinary Russian, he was in fact a slave to the system; but that once he discovered his Jewish roots and was restricted for his allegiance to them, he was in reality a free man. Sharansky's memoirs of his years as a prisoner of Zion are described in his book Fear No Evil.
During the years of his imprisonment, Sharansky became a symbol for human rights in general and Soviet Jewry in particular. A campaign for his release was waged tirelessly by his wife, Avital, who emigrated to Israel immediately following their wedding with the hope that her husband would follow shortly. Intense diplomatic efforts and public outcries for his release were unsuccessful until 1986, when Sharansky was released as part of an East-West prisoner exchange. Freed on the border of a still-divided Germany, he was met by the Israeli ambassador who presented him immediately with his new Israeli passport under the Hebrew name of Natan Sharansky. He arrived in Israel on February 11, 1986, and was greeted by leading government officials, including then Prime Minister Shimon Peres, and was given a hero's welcome.
Once freed, Sharansky labored on behalf of other dissidents and then turned his attention to issues confronting Soviet immigrants. He became head of the Zionist Forum, an organization dedicated to lobbying on behalf of Soviet immigrants. Increasingly disappointed with Israel's absorption of the large influx of Soviet Jews, he wrote frequently on the subject, and in 1995 created a new political party, Yisrael b'Aliyah, dedicated to helping immigrants' professional, economic and social acculturation. In the elections the following year, the party won seven Knesset seats, and Sharansky was named Minister of Industry and Trade.
Sharansky served as Minister of Industry and Trade from June 1996-1999.
He served as Minister of the Interior from July 1999 until his resignation in July 2000.
In March 2001, Natan Sharansky was appointed Minister of Housing and Construction and Deputy Prime Minister.
He is married, and the father of two daughters.
Natan Sharansky: Only the free can act for humanity
Natan Sharansky, founder of the Israel for Immigration Party, spent nine years in a Soviet prison prior to emigrating in 1986. He is now the Minister of Jerusalem and Diaspora Affairs.
"Only a person who is connected to his past, to his people, and to his roots can be free, and only a free person has the strength to act for the benefit of the rest of humanity."
There were more than a few Jews among the leaders of the Bolshevik Revolution, just as there have been more than a few Jews among the leaders of many other movements that have sought to save mankind. They believed with all their souls that the way to redeem humanity and create a better world was to achieve absolute equality. All human beings are equal, and equality means no differences. All human beings should therefore be identical. Ethnicity, class, religion, and national characteristics belonged to an old and decaying world. The time for such distinctions had passed. The Jewish revolutionaries wanted to release the iron reins that held each person to his tribe, that tied each Jewish man and woman to a unique heritage and culture, and to create a new man—Homo sovieticus.
While these were assimilated Jews, a very Jewish aspiration was the basis for their actions. They wanted to be a light to the gentiles. To have influence, to lead, to mend the world. The way to do that, as they understood it, was to leave their villages, the shtetls, to erase their particularist Jewish identity, to meld utterly into their surroundings in order to create the new man who would live in the better world they so longed for.
I was one of the millions of new human beings in the Bolshevik experiment, which was successful far beyond its makers' expectations. Section five in my identity papers informed me that I was a Jew, but I hadn't a clue as to what that meant. I knew nothing of Jewish history, language, or customs, nor had I even heard of their existence. My father, who loved to tell stories, would sometimes tell us tales from the Bible. We heard about Joseph and his brothers, about Samson and Delilah, but they were stories just like all his other stories. No one told us that these were the history of our nation, no one thought to mention that these stories were connected to us in any way. Like all Soviet Jews of my generation, I grew up rootless, unconnected, without identity.
With our Jewish identity lacking positive content, only anti-Semitism gave it any meaning at all. To be a Jew was to be hated and discriminated against, to have fewer options. To be a Jew was to have a perpetual problem. We were weak, and we sought ways to escape our fate. Excelling at science, art, or chess were all ways to run away from that mysterious, inexplicable Jewishness. It not only failed to give us strength, identity, and meaning, but was actually a burden and interfered with our lives.
The strength arrived, unexpectedly, from a far-off land and war. The stellar Israeli victory in the Six Day War enabled us to stand tall. People suddenly treated Jews differently. Even the anti-Semitic jokes changed. They were no longer about the cowardly, mendacious Jew. They were about the upstart, brave, and victorious Jew.
It was through the war that I became aware of the Jewish state, and of the language and culture it embodied. I was suddenly exposed to the existence of the Jewish people, to the existence of tradition and culture. I was no longer a disconnected individual in an alienating and hostile world. I was a person with an identity and roots. I felt that I had a history, a nation, and a country behind me. That I had, at the end of the earth, a homeland. That I belonged. That feeling was my companion through years of struggle for human rights, in the framework of the Zionist movement, and through long years in prison. Even in solitary confinement I believed that the Jewish people and the State of Israel would fight for me. I was not alone. I was arrested a few months after the Entebbe operation. The operation signified that Israel was prepared to go any distance to save its citizens, and it made a huge impression on me. During my years in prison, every aircraft in Siberia's skies sounded to me like the rescue force coming to liberate me. True, I was not rescued by an airplane or a bold military mission, but I was certainly released from my prison by the Jewish people and the State of Israel. I truly was not alone.
Continued
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1095220328797&p=1008596975996
Just got home. What color is his skin tonight?
The Victories of the CIA
New York Times ^ | February 2, 2004 | William Safire
Posted on 02/04/2004 11:41:54 PM CST by Zack Nguyen
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1071814/posts
Intelligence shortcomings, as we see, have a thousand fathers; secret intelligence triumphs are orphans. Here is the unremarked story of "the Farewell dossier": how a C.I.A. campaign of computer sabotage resulting in a huge explosion in Siberia — all engineered by a mild-mannered economist named Gus Weiss — helped us win the cold war.
Weiss worked down the hall from me in the Nixon administration. In early 1974, he wrote a report on Soviet advances in technology through purchasing and copying that led the beleaguered president — détente notwithstanding — to place restrictions on the export of computers and software to the U.S.S.R.
Seven years later, we learned how the K.G.B. responded. I was writing a series of hard-line columns denouncing the financial backing being given Moscow by Germany and Britain for a major natural gas pipeline from Siberia to Europe. That project would give control of European energy supplies to the Communists, as well as generate $8 billion a year to support Soviet computer and satellite research.
President François Mitterrand of France also opposed the gas pipeline. He took President Reagan aside at a conference in Ottawa on July 19, 1981, to reveal that France had recruited a key K.G.B. officer in Moscow Center.
Col. Vladimir Vetrov provided what French intelligence called the Farewell dossier. It contained documents from the K.G.B. Technology Directorate showing how the Soviets were systematically stealing — or secretly buying through third parties — the radar, machine tools and semiconductors to keep the Russians nearly competitive with U.S. military-industrial strength through the 70's. In effect, the U.S. was in an arms race with itself.
Reagan passed this on to William J. Casey, his director of central intelligence, now remembered only for the Iran-contra fiasco. Casey called in Weiss, then working with Thomas C. Reed on the staff of the National Security Council. After studying the list of hundreds of Soviet agents and purchasers (including one cosmonaut) assigned to this penetration in the U.S. and Japan, Weiss counseled against deportation.
Instead, according to Reed — a former Air Force secretary whose fascinating cold war book, "At the Abyss," will be published by Random House next month — Weiss said: "Why not help the Soviets with their shopping? Now that we know what they want, we can help them get it." The catch: computer chips would be designed to pass Soviet quality tests and then to fail in operation.
In our complex disinformation scheme, deliberately flawed designs for stealth technology and space defense sent Russian scientists down paths that wasted time and money.
The technology topping the Soviets' wish list was for computer control systems to automate the operation of the new trans-Siberian gas pipeline. When we turned down their overt purchase order, the K.G.B. sent a covert agent into a Canadian company to steal the software; tipped off by Farewell, we added what geeks call a "Trojan Horse" to the pirated product.
"The pipeline software that was to run the pumps, turbines and valves was programmed to go haywire," writes Reed, "to reset pump speeds and valve settings to produce pressures far beyond those acceptable to the pipeline joints and welds. The result was the most monumental non-nuclear explosion and fire ever seen from space."
Our Norad monitors feared a nuclear detonation, but satellites that would have picked up its electromagnetic pulse were silent. That mystified many in the White House, but "Gus Weiss came down the hall to tell his fellow NSC staffers not to worry. It took him another twenty years to tell me why."
Farewell stayed secret because the blast in June 1982, estimated at three kilotons, took place in the Siberian wilderness, with no casualties known. Nor was the red-faced K.G.B. about to complain publicly about being tricked by bogus technology. But all the software it had stolen for years was suddenly suspect, which stopped or delayed the work of thousands of worried Russian technicians and scientists.
Vetrov was caught and executed in 1983. A year later, Bill Casey ordered the K.G.B. collection network rolled up, closing the Farewell dossier. Gus Weiss died from a fall a few months ago. Now is a time to remember that sometimes our spooks get it right in a big way.
I'd call it a nice peach color.
I'm trying to catch up on the live thread, but can't. Half say Kerry is doing terrible. Half say Bush is doing terrible. What's your call?
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