In a Nov. 28 article for National Review Online, the highest-ranking Soviet Bloc intelligence defector, Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa, said there was "no doubt" in his mind that former KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko "was assassinated on Putin's order." According to Pacepa, Litvinenko was killed "because he revealed Putin's crimes and the FSB's secret training of Ayman al-Zawahiri, the number-two in al Qaeda." Pacepa further stated, "I know for a fact that the Kremlin has repeatedly used radioactive weapons to kill political enemies abroad."
Despite the fact that the Soviet Union supposedly collapsed, the logic of the Soviet Union never collapsed. The New York Times offered the following front-page headline on Tuesday, Dec. 12: "Eastern Europe Still Struggles To Purge Its Security Services," by Craig Smith. Most Americans will be shocked to learn that the secret police organizations of Eastern Europe continue to use blackmail and murder to control politicians and businessmen. The words "communism" and "Soviet" have been removed, but the old objectives remain firmly in place. The brother organizations of the KGB refuse to hand over files, block investigations into past crimes and misdeeds, using old informant networks to dominate politics and business. As the leader of Romania's Institute for the Investigation of the Crimes of Communism told the Times, "In '89, only Communism was killed, but the former state security and Communist Party chiefs took the economic power." He also noted that the old communist rulers, now ruling in a different way, "are not happy when you start to dig into what happened after 1989." And that is what Alexander Litvinenko was doing when somebody poisoned him with polonium-210 on the first of November.
We all know that the Soviet Bloc changed in the period 1989-91. But there is much we don't know. Talk to those involved in the Soviet Bloc revolutions and another picture comes into focus: specifically, a picture of controlled changes, of secret structures and strategic deception. Anyone who dares to look closer, to examine things in detail, will find that the changes of 1989-91 were directed from Moscow. Hailed as an American victory in a decades-long struggle, these changes were prepared and organized so that Moscow's agents within Eastern Europe's dissident movement could come to power. In Poland Lech Walesa has already been exposed as an agent of the Communist secret police. In Czechoslovakia, Vaclav Havel was authorized to take power by officers of the KGB who set special ground rules in advance. In Romania the supposed path to freedom was smoothed by a KGB-directed coup against an old Communist dictator. In countries like Bulgaria and Hungary, the communists continued to govern through false fronts and devious games.
Buried in the back pages of the New York Times we find the following Oct. 24 headline: "Clashes Disrupt Hungarians' Celebration of Anti-Soviet Revolt in '56." The Times describes a "month-old anti-government protest movement" that "marred the 50th anniversary of Hungary's uprising against Soviet domination." What occasioned "violent clashes in Budapest"? The country's socialist prime minister is a former official of Hungary's Young Communist Organization. But it's not simply the prime minister who has a checkered past. It's the entire "democratic" system. The Times quoted one protestor as saying, "We should learn from the spirit of '56. We should finish off what began in 1956, because in 1989 there wasn't really a complete change."
There wasn't really a complete change?
We must heed the words of Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa when he says that Alexander Litvinenko was assassinated "because he revealed Putin's crimes and the FSB's [KGB's] secret training of Ayman al-Zawahiri, the number-two in al Qaeda." Pay close attention and heed the words of the Communist defectors. You may not hear such words again because those who speak them are being systematically silenced, one by one.
On November 28, the same day Pacepa issued his warning to the West, conservative columnist Patrick J. Buchanan came to the defense of the KGB and its man in the Kremlin. With regard to Litvinenko's death, Buchanan began his column by asking, "Is Putin Being Set Up?" I have great respect for Mr. Buchanan, but he is making a terrible mistake. As implausible or unpleasant as it sounds, we've all been deceived by Moscow and the sooner we admit the truth the sooner we can look to our security. (Especially since the German police have found a trail of polonium leading from Moscow to London, and the Russian government is refusing to cooperate with the British and German investigators.)
The guilt of the Russian government in Litvinenko's murder is obvious, but many are predisposed to believe "Putin had nothing to do with it." Buchanan says that Litvinenko was not a credible figure, with his charges of KGB involvement in 9-11...." But Mr. Buchanan, you have mistaken the changes in Eastern Europe. You have mistaken their purpose. You have mistaken the way in which they were organized. And you have neglected to discover who remains in control of those countries.
In politics we must not believe what people say. We must watch what they do. Russia's KGB president has eliminated freedom of the press and freedom of speech in Russia (such as it was). His critics are being assassinated, one by one. Here we find the new NEP of Gorbachev giving way to the new Stalinism of Putin. The history of the 1920s in Russia has repeated itself, and we are clueless.
For many years I have argued that Russia's security services did not change their ways when the Soviet Union became the Russian Federation and the Commonwealth of Independent States. My book, Origins of the Fourth World War, published before Putin came to power, says that secret totalitarian structures continue to work toward the old Soviet strategic objectives in "former" Communist countries. The totalitarian mentality continues under a new program. Is that so hard to grasp? Or do we prefer the comforts of self-deception?
No matter what events transpire, no matter what evidence or testimony emerges, no matter how many witnesses are assassinated, both conservatives and liberals will refuse to acknowledge the deceptive nature of Russian institutions. The Kremlin strategy to destroy America is not a paranoid fiction. It is a forgotten historical fact in a time of forgetfulness. If you honestly examine today's headlines, and turn them over and over, you will find a disturbing pattern. Moscow hasn't stopped butchering, tyrannizing and blackmailing innocent people. It hasn't stopped supporting its Cold War allies, or newly emerging Communist states like Venezuela or South Africa. If the response of Western politicians, experts or bureaucrats is to deny Russia's moves - then they are unintentionally facilitating their own elimination. The Kremlin is working against American forces in Iraq. They are passing intelligence to our enemies in every corner of the world. They are helping Iran to develop nuclear weapons. They are actively buying up mineral and energy companies and using these businesses to further a campaign of economic blackmail and sabotage.
Nothing is more urgent, in terms of American national policy, than the recognition by Democrats and Republicans that the Kremlin is America's most dangerous enemy; that if the Islamists have nuclear weapons then Moscow and/or Beijing arranged for them to have the weapons; that if America suffers an economic crisis, Russia will exploit that crisis to advance its strategy of wholesale destruction.
Wake up, wake up, wake up.
