In a recent conversation with a wealthy member of the US corporate world with whom I have been in close contact since childhood and who has done extensive business in the communist world (yes, he's my older brother), he gave me -- I, a long-time student of Russia (an intriguing country about which I am still learning, after 40 years of observation) -- his somewhat unconventional, but -- upon further thought -- provocative take on the recent Russian "spy" scandal in the U.S.:
The FSB actually let the word out to the FBI about the undercover activities of these so-called spooks so that it (the FSB) could get them (its spooks) off its payroll, given the huge costs (for the hard-up Russian government budget) of keeping these silly amateurs fed, housed, and bourgeois-comfortable in the USA.
Makes a lot of sense to me, given the sorry state of the Russian "economy."So does the notion, towards which I incline, that the so-called "spies" were the privileged relatives/contacts of ex-KGB bigwigs who were given a free long-term komandirovka (business trip) in the US thanks their "godfathers" in what was once the USSR -- following the Russian age-old custom of po blatu. Is it that surprising that the straight-out-of-a-James-Bond movie sex kitten/"spy" Anna Chapman is the daughter of a former KGB officer?
The jeunesse dorée of the elite sent overseas for its enlightenment/amusement at the state's expense is a recurrent pattern in Russian history since at least Peter the Great. So are denunciations by Russians of Russians perceived to live privileged lives abroad by those, stuck in Russia, who believe such privileged lives should belong properly to them.
Please forgive the generalizations, but I am trying to understand events about which we have so little real information.
If you think the above is nonsense, read the court documents (which actually are interesting information) cited in Anne Applebaum's article "Up to their old spy tricks again," Washington Post. It's quite clear, from perusing this record, that "Moscow Center" was not exactly happy with how little its "agents" were "doing" in the Land of the Free at state expense. Some quotations:
A Moscow Center message to spook Richard Murphy:
You were sent to the USA for long-term service trip. Your education, bank accounts, car, home etc. -- all these serve one goal: fulfill your main function, i.e., to search and develop ties in policymaking circles in US and send intels [intelligence reports] to c [Center].
Talk about the C- student being told why he's going to school free of charge!
And then there's this from the record:
B. THE YONKERS CONSPIRATORS
BC. The Yonkers conspirators have also worked to gather information on behalf of the SVR [Moscow Center]. Thus, for example, throughout 2002 and 2003, law-enforcement agents, acting pursant to judicial orders, intercepted aural communications taking place inside the Yonkers House. On September 10, 2002, JUAN LAZARO and VICKY PELAEZ, the informants, were recorded discussing Moscow Center's disappointment with the quality of LAZARO's then-recent reporting:
LAZARO: They tell me that my information is of no value because I didn't provide any source ... it's of no value to them.
PELAEZ: Really?
LAZARO: Yes. They say that ... " ... without a source ... without stating who tells you all of this ... It isn't ... your report isn't ...
PELAEZ: [interrupts] Put down any politicians from here!
...
LAZARO: I'm ... I'm going to give them what they want want. But, I'm going to continue what I'm telling them ... If they don't like what I tell them, too bad ... but, [unintelligible] work because they like it . ... they're [unintelligible]. They say their hands are tied. On the inside, they don't even care about the country ...
PELAEZ: So ... why do they have you? If they don't care about the country ... what do we have intelligence Services for?
What would you -- if you were an underpaid FSB apparatchik sitting in a dumpy office in Moscow with a ruble salary -- do with these freeloaders?
Full of envy, you'd do all you can to get rid of them, despite their KGB connections, living off the hog in America thanks to Kremlin-provided dollars! Off with their heads! Now!
And you'd let the FBI do it! The Americans are efficient, after all, and they can do the job better without our no-nonsense leader Stalin around ...
Meanwhile, with this minor episode over, how about serious public diplomacy on the part of our century-old Eurasian neighbor if it wishes to present/represent itself to American citizens? Of course, the same recommendation, flip-side, could be made to us, the relatively young United States of America, vis a vis Russia, with which we do share many common aspirations (common values, in the Putin era, is perhaps too strong a word, at least as regards Russian officials close to an ex-KGB operative who spent perhaps too many formative years in communist East Germany).
Chapman Image from
No comments:
Post a Comment