Biden's Secret Diplomacy

By: Vladimir Bukovsky and Pavel Stroilov

FrontPageMagazine.com | Tuesday, October 14, 2008

http://97.74.65.51/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=32617

Here before us is a Soviet archival document,* a top secret report by a communist

apparatchik who had received a delegation of US Senators led by Joseph Biden in 1979.
After describing routine arms control discussions, it quotes Biden as telling the Soviets
off-record that he did not really care about the persecution of Russian dissidents. He
and other Senators might raise human rights issues with their Soviet counterparts, but
only to be seen by the public as defenders of human rights, not to have those problems
really solved. They would happily take no for an answer.

Vadim V. Zagladin, the then deputy head of the International Department of the CPSU
Central Committee (the organization formerly known as the Comintern), wrote in the
report:

The delegation did not officially raise the issue of human rights during the negotiations.
Biden said they did not want 'to spoil the atmosphere with problems which are bound to
cause distrust in our relations.' However, during the breaks between the sessions the
senators passed to us several letters concerning these or those 'refuseniks'.

Refuseniks were one of the best known groups of oppressed citizens in the USSR at
that time: thousands of Jews who were refused exit permissions to emigrate to Israel
on various trumped-up pretexts.

Unofficially, Biden and [Senator Richard] Lugar said that, in the end of the day, they
were not so much concerned with having a problem of this or that citizen solved as with
showing to the American public that they do care for 'human rights'. They must prove
to their voters that they are 'effective in fulfilling their wishes'. In other words, the
collocutors directly admitted that what is happening is a kind of a show, that they
absolutely do not care for the fate of most so-called dissidents.

In the same conversation, Biden asked us to ensure that senators' appeals on those
issues are not left unanswered - even if we just reply that the letter is received but we
cannot do anything.

Like most secret documents of the Cold War years, this report still remains classified in
Russia's official archives. However, a copy is available in the Gorbachev Foundation
Archive in Moscow, where it was deposited by Mr. Zagladin - who himself works for the
Gorbachev Foundation since the collapse of the USSR. Under pressure from the
Kremlin, the archive had to limit the access to some of its documentary collections.
However, Zagladin's documents (Inventory 3/1) - including the one quoted above -
were still available to researchers a few years ago, and that is how we obtained copies.

Of course, when people's reputations are at stake, a natural question is: how far can we
believe a document written by a communist? Other things being equal, if it is Zagladin's
word against a word of a U.S. Senator, one would surely believe the latter. Hopefully,
Sen. Biden and Sen. Lugar will fairly soon provide the public with their own accounts of
that episode, and then we will be able to compare.

Yet, we should not forget that these top secret documents were never intended to see
the light of the day. They were written not for us, but for a very narrow circle of
Zagladin's communist bosses. Indeed, it was his job to deceive simple mortals; but
deceiving the Politburo would be both pointless and dangerous. After reading and
analyzing hundreds of suchlike reports by Zagladin, one cannot but conclude that he
always portrayed his foreign collocutors as tougher, not softer, than they really were.
That was natural, because that was safer for Zagladin himself. It was his job to
cultivate foreign contacts, which made him to a degree responsible for their behavior. If
he reported that someone was pro-Soviet and then the man turned out to be anti-
Soviet, Zagladin would be held responsible. That is why he always preferred to err on
the other side.

In any case, diplomacy is not so much about what you mean as how you are
understood. If you go to Moscow sincerely determined to fight like a lion for human
rights, and then leave the enemy with an impression that you don't care this is a
monumental failure. It hardly matters what Senators Biden and Lugar actually thought
about Soviet human rights abuses in the first place. If they really cared for human
rights and meant to pressure the Soviets so much the worse. Be that as it may, they
were understood as the document reads. The message which the enemy received from
them was this: we don't care for those whom you keep torturing and rotting in prisons,
but we would appreciate if you help us improve our public image.

There was more to it than simply the betrayal of dissidents; for this involved the
question of the Senators' own independence. Indeed, they should have known that
every Soviet official who dealt with high-ranking foreigners would see them not as
partners, but as potential targets for recruitment, potential collaborators or fellow-
travelers. On such occasions, the Soviets always searched for a way to corrupt you. The
worst thing you could do was to show the enemy that you depend on him in any way.
For any Western politician, telling the Soviets that his public image depends on their
good will was the first step to becoming an agent of influence, de facto if not de jure.

Today, it is a fact rather than a possibility that the next U.S. administration will have to
lead the free world in the Second Cold War. Respectively, the staunchest critics of
Russia's authoritarianism from recent years - Senators McCain and Biden - are now at
the center stage of the electoral campaign. Yet, fighting and winning this new Cold War
will require more than just rhetoric. In order to work out correct strategies and tactics,
it is more important than ever to analyze the lessons and mistakes of the first Cold
War.

* [Top secret document is printed below]

9-20 April 1979 [?]

The memo by Vadim V. Zagladin, deputy head of the International Department of the
CPSU Central Committee

ON THE BASIC CONTENTS OF TALKS WITH THE US SENATORS

During the official negotiations with the delegation of US senators led by J. Biden and
the unofficial talks with the delegation's head and some members, our collocutors
expressed a number of considerations of certain interest.

1. J. Biden, the head of the delegation, said that the mutual understanding that the
SALT-2 treaty should be ratified is, basically, achieved in the Senate Commission for
Foreign Affairs. However, four reservations should be formulated. The contents of those
reservations have already been reported to us by our embassy in Washington.

While commenting on the contents of those reservations, Biden said they should not
worry the Soviet Union because they do not concern the substance of the treaty. The
only reservation which, in his opinion, may cause our 'displeasure' says that the SALT-2
should not prevent the US from providing the defence capabilities of their allies. In
practice, the collocutor said, this is a way to confirm the US' preparedness to keep
supplying European NATO members with modern US weapons, with the exception,
naturally, of those types which are covered by the treaty itself.

The Senate Commission for Foreign Affairs is going to conclude the consideration of the
treaty by the end of September. However, the Senate itself is starting to work on this
problem later, possibly on the eve of the Christmas.

2. As for the problem of supplying Western Europe with new types of weapons,
including the Pershing missiles etc.;, Biden said that no final decisions had been taken
on this issue yet. Those decisions will be taken in December. And a lot there, he
emphasised, will depend on the position of the Soviet Union.

During unofficial talks, Biden noted rather cynically that he personally and other
members of the US Senate do not very much care about the Europeans' concerns. The
main area of the US citizens' interest is the security of the US itself. Nevertheless, the
feelings of our allies also 'concern us', he said. 'We cannot stop supporting our allies,
because if we did that, we would have weakened America's own security'. Therefore,
Biden continued, the Americans will probably have to solve the question of the supplies
of the new types of armaments to Western Europe positively in principle. In any case,
the majority in the Senate supports that, he said.
Then Biden meaningfully emphasised (and he was actively supported by Senator Prior
here) that if the SALT-2 treaty is ratified before December, and if the Soviet Union
makes some demonstrative steps in favour of further disarmament progress before the
NATO meeting, the European countries probably may refrain from deploying new types
of American weapons in Europe, or at least, postpone the decisions taken on this issue.

To our question on what exactly steps are meant here, Prior answered that, for
example, the Soviet government might state it is not going to increase the number of
SS-20 missiles any further.

3. Something that caught our attention was that this time, in both official and unofficial
talks, the senators would raise more questions about the prospects, about the SALT-3,
than the SALT-2. Unofficially, Biden said that 'the question of the future is more
significant to the more serious senators - although not to all - than the question of the
present treaty. The thing is (he explained) that many in the Senate consider the present
treaty as a kind of an intermediate step, a booster for the further reduction of the arms
race. Many in the US are very serious about this, believing it is possible to negotiate the
reduction of the level of military confrontation with the Soviet Union. However, at the
same time, many people are uncertain whether the USSR will agree to further serious
steps of that kind.'

Most questions concerned two subjects. Firstly, whether the USSR would agree to a
significant reduction of the number of nuclear missiles at the next stage (the senators
were particularly interested in heavy missiles in this connection). Secondly, whether the
USSR would agree to the explansion of control and the introduction of 'more effective
methods' (for example, the 'black boxes', which were discussed during the negotiations
on the prohibition of underground nuclear tests).

It emerged during that talks that, in spite of all huge work we are doing about this,
many statements of Comrade L. I. Brezhnev were unknown to the majority of the
senators - for example, his statement that the Soviet Union was not going to make the
first nuclear strike against anyone. The relevant texts were given to them, along with
some other documents of the CPSU and the Soviet government.

4. It should also be noted that, this time, the delegation did not officially raise the issue
of human rights during the negotiations. Biden said the did not want 'to spoil the
atmosphere with problems which are bound to cause distrust in our relations.' However,
during the breaks between the sessions the senators passed to us several letters
concerning these or those 'refuseniks'.

Unofficially, Biden and Lugar said that, in the end of the day, they were not so much
concerned with having a problem of this or that citizen solved as with showing to the
American public that they do care for 'human rights'. They must prove to their voters
that they are 'effective in fulfilling their wishes'. In other words, the collocutors directly
admitted that what is happening is a kind of a show, that they absolutely do not care
for the fate of most so-called dissidents.
In the same conversation, Biden asked us to ensure that senators' appeals on those
issues are not left unanswered - even if we just reply that the letter is received but we
cannot do anything. According to Biden, letters of this kind - if they are not addressed
to the highest representatives of the Soviet state - sometimes remain unanswered.

To read Part II to this article, click here.

The West's Betrayal of Russian Dissidents

By: Vladimir Bukovsky and Pavel Stroilov
FrontPageMagazine.com | Friday, October 10, 2008

[The article below continues Vladimir Bukovsky and Pavel

Stroilov's Frontpage feature "Biden's Secret Diplomacy," which reveals that
Joe Biden told the Soviets off-record that he did not care about the
persecution of Russian dissidents. To read Part One, click here. - The Editors]

The story told in the Soviet archival document is merely an example of the much more
general weakness of the West. In fact, Biden and Lugar, even as portrayed in Zagladin's
report, were by far not the worst. Many other documents from Zagladin's collection
reveal extraordinary tales of deception and treachery, for he supervised the more
recent version of the Comintern network, the Soviet fifth column in the West - valuable
fellow-travelers, sympathizers and secret collaborators. Clearly, Senators Biden and
Lugar were no part of it. It is just that, rather typically for Western politicians and
diplomats in those times, they saw the arms control as the top priority. To them,
human rights really remained a sore, embarrassing issue which - to use Biden's own
expressions - only "spoiled the atmosphere," "caused distrust," and hampered progress
on much more important problems of global security. The right way to deal with human
rights was through "quiete diplomacy" somewhere on the margins of arms control talks.

What they failed to understand was that the human rights were - and still are - the
cornerstone of East-West relations, for that is where the fundamental difference
between the two worlds lies. The Soviet regime, like its present successor in Russia,
simply could not survive without persecution of dissidents, whereas the free world
naturally could not tolerate brutal human rights abuses - hence the existential hostility
between them, which could not be solved by negotiations or agreements. As the late
Andrei Sakharov rightly wrote, the external aggressiveness of the regime was naturally
connected with internal repression. One naturally follows the other, so you cannot
separate security from human rights.
This simple truth was internationally acknowledged in the 1975 Helsinki Accords, where
the problems of European security, cooperation and human rights were explicitly linked.
That was quite a controversial treaty, where a huge concession was made to the
Soviets: it practically legalized their post-war territorial expansion. In exchange, Moscow
was obliged to observe human rights, a provision it never intended to follow. Among
other things, the agreement provided for the right of independent public monitoring of
its implementation. So the Russian dissidents then organized independent public groups
to that end, led by Prof. Yuri Orlov, only to be arrested and imprisoned for anti-Soviet
propaganda. That was a decisive moment. If the West failed to hold the Soviets to
account, the Helsinki Accords would prove pointless, and the whole dtente policy
would prove to be mere appeasement.

So, here is one of the Western protests about this. On July 5, 1983, Bruno Kraisky, the
then Chancellor of Austria, wrote to the Soviet dictator Yuri Andropov:

I have been asked, on many occasions, by my friends and acquaintances, to

petition you about Yuri Orlov, a Soviet citizen who is imprisoned since early 1977.
[...] Naturally, my intentions are very far from intervening in Soviet internal
affairs. If I address you with such a request, this is only because of compassion
and my firm hope for your generosity. I suppose it would have a positive effect if
you made a generous gesture in this case precisely at the time of growing
tensions which, as I know, both you and I very much want to relax.

A cover note by Andropov's aide recommends to leave this unanswered, and below is a
handwritten resolution by Andropov himself: "I agree." Of course, they were quite right:
at the time when international agreements warranted demands, what else could they
do with such a humble plea but throw it away?

That is what "quiet diplomacy" really was and, of course, it never brought any positive
results. What it did was to corrupt Western politicians, gradually turning them into
collaborators rather than partners.

Yet another example of this kind is the document about Jacques Chaban-Delmas, once
a hero of the war-time French Resistance, who in 1980 was the President of France's
National Assembly. He happened to be in Moscow on an official visit when another
human rights scandal erupted in January 1980: Andrei Sakharov, the famous dissident
physicist, was extra-judicially exiled to Gorky. Chaban-Delmas immediately interrupted
his visit and flew back to France, where he won much applause for his firmness.

It is rather shocking now to read in a secret document what really happened behind the
scenes. After Chaban-Delmas announced he would leave Moscow, the Soviet dictator
Leonid Brezhnev sent an envoy to see him in the French embassy, an envoy who was
none other than Zagladin, and here is what he reported back to his master:

Chaban-Delmas received me with emphatic friendliness and hospitality. He

immediately said that he 'asks the Soviet friends to understand his motives
 correctly'. He claims that his move was motivated by the only consideration: to
preserve his prestige in the West in order to act in the interests of dtente and
Soviet-French friendship in the future. Such is the public opinion in the West, he
continued, that 'no one would understand me if I went on with the visit. Most
important to me is that I have done the essential part of the job: I had an
extremely important meeting with President Brezhnev and very thoughtful
negotiations in the Supreme Soviet. So, I have completed the working part of my
visit. As for the tourist entertainment, I shall have them next time. For now, I
consciously postpone them for the future's sake'.

After listening to my explanation of why the Soviet leadership had to take the
known decisions regarding Sakharov, Chaban-Delmas noted that, in his
impression, Sakharov's actions were certainly punishable 'provided that all of them
are legally proved'. So, he continued, one should emphasize the humanism of
Soviet authorities who only moved Sakharov to another city rather than
prosecuted him. [...]

I remain your friend and shall act accordingly, the collocutor continued. [...] 'The
most important thing is to take care of the future. We have to "survive" the
American elections, which are a real nightmare to all of us. I am going to
Washington after the elections to tell the elected president straightaway that he
has to think again about the problem of U.S. missiles in Europe.' I will say,
Chaban-Delmas continued, that U.S. missiles in Europe are the same as Soviet
missiles on Cuba, and the Americans are wrong when they choose to ignore this.
This should be taken into account when we search for a solution. I shall engage in
that battle without hesitation and I believe I can make a useful contribution. But
the most important thing is to survive the autumn elections, he concluded.

He asked to convey to Comrade Brezhnev his cordial gratitude for hospitable

reception he met in the Soviet Union, and particularly for informing him about
Sakharov, which 'demonstrates that the Soviet leaders trust me and want to see
me as a friend.'

This was a man with spotless reputation, a hero of the Resistance, from whom one
would never expect treachery - no more than from Senators Biden or Lugar. Indeed,
this hardly had much to do with personalities. What really should be condemned and
rejected is the set of ideas which misguided all of them: the groundless belief in
dtente with a totalitarian regime, "influencing" it through "engagement" and
"cooperation," preserving stability at any price, arms control, quiet diplomacy, "working
together" for the sake of global security - all that nonsense.

Today, it has become compulsory for any politician commenting on Russia to begin by
saying that "nobody wants a new Cold War." In a sense, this is right. Nobody wants a
long and painful global conflict - and that is exactly where any attempt of dtente or
appeasement would lead. The West never chose to have a Cold War, and never would -
it was always imposed on us by the Kremlin aggressors. Like 60 years ago, the choice
we have today is between capitulation and defense.

Nobody wants to repeat the mistakes made in the first Cold War. This is precisely why,
now that Moscow has declared a Second Cold War on the rest of the world, it should be
opposed with strength. This is why the West should find a way and bring this Cold War
to a quick and bloodless victory. One way to do that - perhaps the only way - is to put
human rights at the top of the agenda; to realize that the people oppressed by the
Kremlin are your natural - and most reliable - allies; and to give every support to those
brave men and women in Russia who risk their freedom and lives by opposing the
authoritarian regime.

Vladimir Bukovsky is a former leading Soviet dissident who spent twelve years in Soviet
prisons, labor camps and psychiatric hospitals for his fight for freedom. His works
include To Build a Castle and Judgement in Moscow. Pavel Stroilov is a Russian exile in
London and the editor and translator of Alexander Litvinenkos book, Allegations.