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"?
"Romanov... Be a man for once in your life... Show us who he is and how you learned that he is from California."
What are you about 12? What's next? A "Double-Dare"?
"If there was any doubt as to Romanov's vocation, this post dispels it."
Oh, please do tell, Spanalot - just what is my vocation???
When are you going to DENOUNCE your Ukrainian organization UNA/UNSO that has called for the killing of American troops? When? When?! Why is that so hard for you to do?
You are disloyal to America. Perhaps it's time for you to return to Lvov and your National-Socialist brothers...
"What I can't understand, Spanalot, is why they are trying so hard to convince others and myself that Golitsyn was a total fraud.
Either they are so deluded of their opinions, as their burnished "military" credentials speak for them, or they have more sinister motives..."
I'll put my credentials, experience, etc., versus yours and the Ukrainian Socialist-Nationalist who calls himself "Spanalot" any day of the week.
I slam Golytsin and his idolizers because he is a KGB AGENT!!! What more about that do you NOT understand? Why do you slavishly worship a false prophet? Do you really hate Ronald Reagan that much?
We all know he was a KGB agent who defected to the United States.
Is this supposed to be your best argument? Screaming that Golitsyn WAS a KGB agent?
Whether or not he was still working for them when he made his predictions is not known AT ALL. You dont know, I don't know, NOBODY knows.
So don't scream that Golitsyn was STILL a KGB agent when he DEFECTED.
Like the Ukraine you love is such a bastion of capitalism.
Let's make this perfectly clear - Golytsin is STILL A KGB AGENT. You've been duped into forsaking Americans and following a KGB thug designed to attract non-thinking Lemmings into believing his ridiculous "predictions" that he changes "ever so slightly" in sad attempts at trying to make himself appear relevant. What's next? What would you think of a Russian who believed and followed Aldrich Ames if Ames had defected?
Romanov and Gary could shout from the rooftops until their voices were gone.
It doesn't change the fact that they have no PROOF that Golitsyn is still a KGB agent.
Their weak argument for Golitsyn not reneging on his past ties is that he wanted to lead the CIA and FBI "astray".
They are disinformation agents sent to smear and distort.
You cannot really be that delusional? You'd rather put your beliefs in the hands of a KGB agent, who was only a Major when he defected, than believe in the strength of your own country and the legacy of Ronald Reagan's victory in the Cold War. How sad. Well, how's it feel to be on the side of the KGB?
This is what Romanov is reduced to. Trying to paint me as a "KGB" sider, when in reality HE is the one who still claims Golitsyn was a KGB agent.
I say Golitsyn was a KGB defector. And he was trying to help America.
Which puts me on America's side. And makes Romanov simply an idiot, which he always has been.
You really are desperate. Let's see - you're on America's side because you believe in a guy that set the Angleton-led CI branch of the CIA after a non-existent mole, ruined the reputations of career CIA men and women, paralyzed the CIA, and destroyed legitimate defectors? Just how in the hell does that make you "on America's side"???? Are you unable to cipher through to whom's advantage such activities would have been [hint: starts with K and ends with B]? Are you unable to grasp this simple concept? You'd be better off not chasing around a false prophet by his tail.. You look foolish - just as foolish when you were trumpeting Golytsin's laughable "successful prediction percentages."
Since you worship Golytsin would you like to tell us how Reagan did NOT win the Cold War? I'd find it interesting to read how you Golytsinites bismirch one of the greatest American presidetns...
"One of them poses on FR as a "Polish" citizen, when in reality he's from California."
Roman ? Could you provide more informations ?
Go to their website and figure it out. It's not too terribly hard, is it? Wink Wink Nudge Nudge
Our intel folks were focusing on their building the Bomb, not stealing it. The Soviets can thank Klaus Fuchs and Ted Hall, at least as much as any of their own scientists, for the accelerated time table.
Romanov you failed to back you claims, you are liar.
Nice try funny guy. I'm not inclined to identify the fake Pole. If you are that interested you have all the tools to figure it out yourself.
Who you callin' a phony Freeper? Those are fighting words Mr. Ruski handle.
RE: "In addition, there is the possible existence of a secret bloc headquarters staffed by senior representatives of the major communist states"
No longer a secret. It's called the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. The most dangerous World War Axis ever to arise in the history of the Earth.
Are you yet another of the mail order bride buyers?
As it turned out, NATO did not need to break up, for it was transformed into a clone of UN blue helmets. NATO is now a limp wristed policing force, and is no longer oriented toward strategic global war. So was Golitsyn wrong, per se? I would say not. If anything, he almost was too conservative in his assessment of how the West would overreact to Perestroika. The West's naivete must have proven to be a surprise to even him.
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