***Teddy a traitor, like his father??? --Al
Ted Kennedy and the KGB
By Jamie Glazov
FrontPageMagazine.com | 5/15/2008
Frontpage Interview's guest today is Paul Kengor, the author of the New
York
Times extended-list bestseller God and Ronald Reagan as well as God and
George W. Bush and The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism.
He
is also the author of the first spiritual biography of the former first
lady, God and Hillary Clinton: A Spiritual Life. He is a professor of
political science and director of the Center for Vision and Values at
Grove
City College.
FP: Paul Kengor, welcome back to Frontpage Interview.
Kengor: Always great to be back, Jamie.
FP: We're here today to revisit Ted Kennedy's reaching out to the KGB
during
the Reagan period. Refresh our readers' memories a bit.
Kengor: The episode is based on a do***ent produced 25 years ago this
week.
I discussed it with you in our earlier interview back in November 2006. In
my book, The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism, I
presented
a rather eye-opening May 14, 1983 KGB do***ent on Ted Kennedy. The entire
do***ent, unedited, unabridged, is printed in the book, as well as all the
do***entation affirming its authenticity. Even with that, today, almost 25
years later, it seems to have largely remained a secret.
FP: Tell us about this do***ent.
Kengor: It was a May 14, 1983 letter from the head of the KGB, Viktor
Chebrikov, to the head of the USSR, the odious Yuri Andropov, with the
highest level of classification. Chebrikov relayed to Andropov an offer
from
Senator Ted Kennedy, presented by Kennedy's old friend and law-school
buddy,
John Tunney, a former Democratic senator from California, to reach out to
the Soviet leader****p at the height of a very hot time in the Cold War.
According to Chebrikov, Kennedy was deeply troubled by the deteriorating
relation****p between the United States and the Soviet Union, which he
believed was bringing us perilously close to nuclear confrontation.
Kennedy,
according to Chebrikov, blamed this situation not on the Soviet leader****p
but on the American president---Ronald Reagan. Not only was the USSR not
to
blame, but, said Chebrikov, Kennedy was, quite the contrary, "very
impressed" with Andropov.
The thrust of the letter is that Reagan had to be stopped, meaning his
alleged aggressive defense policies, which then ranged from the Per****ng
IIs
to the MX to SDI, and even his re-election bid, needed to be stopped. It
was
Ronald Reagan who was the hindrance to peace. That view of Reagan is
consistent with things that Kennedy said and wrote at the time, including
articles in sources like Rolling Stone (March 1984) and in a speeches like
his March 24, 1983 remarks on the Senate floor the day after Reagan's SDI
speech, which he lambasted as "misleading Red-Scare tactics and reckless
Star Wars schemes."
Even more interesting than Kennedy's diagnosis was the prescription:
According to Chebrikov, Kennedy suggested a number of PR moves to help the
Soviets in terms of their public image with the American public. He
re****tedly believed that the Soviet problem was a communication problem,
resulting from an inability to counter Reagan's (not the USSR's)
"propaganda." If only Americans could get through Reagan's smokescreen and
hear the Soviets' peaceful intentions.
So, there was a plan, or at least a suggested plan, to hook up Andropov
and
other senior apparatchiks with the American media, where they could better
present their message and make their case. Specifically, the names of
Walter
Cronkite and Barbara Walters are mentioned in the do***ent. Also, Kennedy
himself would travel to Moscow to meet with the dictator.
Time was of the essence, since Reagan, as the do***ent privately
acknowledged, was flying high en route to easy re-election in 1984.
FP: Did you have the do***ent vetted?
Kengor: Of course. It comes from the Central Committee archives of the
former USSR. Once Boris Yeltsin took over Russia in 1991, he immediately
began opening the Soviet archives, which led to a rush on the archives by
Western researchers. One of them, Tim Sebastian of the London Times and
BBC,
found the Kennedy do***ent and re****ted it in the February 2, 1992 edition
of the Times, in an article titled, "Teddy, the KGB and the top secret
file."
But this electrifying revelation stopped there; it went no further. Never
made it across the Atlantic. Not a single American news organization, from
what I can tell, picked up the story. Apparently, it just wasn't
interesting
enough, nor newsworthy.
Western scholars, however, had more integrity, and responded: they went to
the archives to procure their own copy. So, several copies have circulated
for a decade and a half.
I got my copy when a reader of Frontpage Magazine, named Marko Suprun,
whose
father survived Stalin's 1930s genocide in the Ukraine, alerted me to the
do***ent. He apparently had spent years trying to get the American media
to
take a look at the do***ent, but, again, our journalists simply weren't
intrigued. He knew I was researching Reagan and the Cold War. He sent me a
copy. I first authenticated it through Herb Romerstein, the Venona
researcher and widely respected expert who knows more about the Communist
Party and archival research beyond the former Iron Curtain than anyone. I
also had a number of scholars read the original and the translation,
including Harvard's Richard Pipes.
Of course, all of those steps were extra, extra, extra precautions, since
the re****ter for the London Times had done all that work in the first
place.
He went into the archive, pulled it off the shelf, and the Times ran with
the story. This wasn't rocket science. I simply wanted to be extra
careful,
especially since our media did not cover it at all. I now understand that
that blackout by the American media was the result of liberal bias. At
first
I didn't think our media could be that bad, even though I knew from
studies
and anecdotal experience that our press is largely liberal, but now I've
learned firsthand that the bias is truly breathtaking.
FP: So what shockwaves did your exposure of this do***ent set off in the
media?
Kengor: Well, I thought it would be a bombshell, which it was, but only
within the conservative media.
I prepared myself to be pilloried by the liberal mainstream media,
figuring
I'd be badgered with all kinds of hostile questions from defenders of Ted
Kennedy. I still, at this very moment, carry photocopies and the
do***entation with me in my briefcase, ready for access at a moment's
notice. I've done that for two years now. The pages may soon begin to
yellow.
I need not have bothered with any of this prep, since the media entirely
ignored the revelation. In fact, the major reviewers didn't even review
the
book. It was the most remarkable case of media bias I've ever personally
experienced.
I couldn't get a single major news source to do a story on it. CNN, MSNBC,
ABC, CBS, NBC. Not one covered it.
The only cable source was FoxNews, Brit Hume's "Grapevine," and even then
it
was only a snippet in the round-up. In fact, I was frustrated by the
occasional conservative who didn't run with it. I did a taping with
Hannity
& Colmes but they never used it, apparently because they were so focused
on
the mid-term elections, to the exclusion of almost any other story or
issue.
The Hannity & Colmes thing was a major blow; it could've propelled this
onto
the national scene, forcing the larger media to take note. That was the
single greatest disappointment. I think Sean Hannity might have felt that
I
wasn't hard enough on Senator Kennedy during the interview. He asked me,
for
instance, if what Kennedy did could be classified as treason. I told him
honestly, as a scholar, that I really couldn't answer that question. I
honestly don't know the answer to that; I'm not a constitutional scholar.
I
don't have the legal background to accuse someone of being a traitor. I
was
trying to be as fair as possible.
Rush Limbaugh, God bless him, appreciated it. He talked about it at least
twice. So did blogs like Michelle Malkin's HotAir. Web sources like
FrontPage hit it hard. But without the mainstream news coverage, the story
never made the dent I expected it would.
I should note that Ed Klein of Parade magazine recently contacted me. He
himself got a rude awakening on the media's liberal bias when he wrote a
negative book on Hillary Clinton. I've not heard back from him. But he's a
rare case of journalistic objectivity.
If I may vent just a little more on the mainstream press, Jamie: There's a
bias there that really is incredibly troubling. Over and over again, I've
written and submitted the most careful op-eds, trying to remove any
partisan
edge, on issues like Reagan and Gorbachev privately debating the removal
of
the Berlin Wall (I have de-classified do***ents on this in The Crusader as
well), on Reagan's fascinating relation****p with RFK, on various aspects
of
the Cold War that are completely new, based on entirely new evidence from
interviews and archives. When I submit these op-ed to the major
newspapers,
they almost always turn them down. The first conservative source that I
send
them to always jump at them. The liberals, however, are very close-minded.
Nothing is allowed to alter the template. You can construct the most fair,
iron-tight case, and they turn it down. This is not true for everything I
write on the Cold War era, but no doubt for most of it. And certainly for
the case of Senator Kennedy and this KGB do***ent.
FP: How about trying to place some op-eds on the Kennedy do***ent?
Kengor: Here again, all the mainstream sources turned me down. I had no
alternative but to place the op-eds in the conservative outlets. Liberal
editors blacklisted the piece. I began by sending a piece to the New York
Times, where the editor is David ****pley, who's extremely fair, and in
fact
has published me before, including a defense I wrote on the faith of
George
W. Bush. This one, however, he turned down. He liked it. It certainly had
his intention. But he said he wouldn't be able to get it into the page.
I sent it to the Boston Globe, three or four times, actually. I got no
response or even the courtesy of an acknowledgment. It was as if the piece
was dispatched to the howling wilderness of Siberia-right into the
gulag-airbrushed from history.
The most interesting response I got was from the editorial page editor of
the San Francisco Chronicle, another very fair liberal, a great guy, who
since then has retired. He published me several times. We went back and
forth on this one. Finally, he said something to the effect, "I just can't
believe that Ted Kennedy would do something this stupid." My reply was,
"Well, he apparently did." I told the editor that if he was that
incredulous, then he or someone on his staff should simply call Kennedy's
office and get a response. Hey, let's do journalism and make news! It
never
happened.
For the record, one news source, a regional cable outlet in the
Philadelphia
area, called CN8, took the time to call Kennedy's office. The official
response from his office was not to deny the do***ent but to argue with
the
interpretation. Which interpretation? Mine or Chebrikov's? Kennedy's
office
wasn't clear on that. My interpretation was not an interpretation. I
simply
tried to re****t what Chebrikov re****ted to Andropov. So, I guess Kennedy's
office was disputing Chebrikov's interpretation, which is quite
convenient,
since Chebrikov is dead, as is Andropov. Alas, the perfect defense-made
more
perfect by an American media that will not ask the senator from
Massachusetts a single question (hard or soft) on this remarkable
incident.
FP: So, Kennedy's office/staff did not deny the do***ent?
Kengor: That's correct. They have not denied it. That's im****tant. Because
if none of this had ever happened, and if the do***ent was a fraud,
Kennedy's
office would simply say so, and that would be the end of it.
FP: Tell us about the success the book has had in the recent past and the
coverage it has received outside of the U.S.
Kengor: The paperback rights were picked up by the prestigious
HarperPerennial in 2007, which I'm touting not to pat myself on the back
but
to affirm my point on why our mainstream press should take the book and
the
do***ent seriously. The book has also been or is in the process of being
translated into several foreign-language editions, including Poland, where
it was released last November. It is literally true that more Polish
journalists have paid attention to the Kennedy revelation than American
journalists. I've probably sold about 20 times more copies of the book in
Poland, where they understand communism and moral equivalency, than in
Massachusetts.
FP: One can just imagine finding a do***ent like this on an American
Republican senator having made a similar offer to the Nazis. Kennedy has
gotten away with this. What do you think this says about our culture, the
parameters of debate and who controls the boundaries of discourse?
Kengor: History is determined by those who write it. There are the
gatekeepers: editors, journalists, publishers. The left's ideologues are
guarding the gate, swords brandished, crusaders, not open to other points
of
view. The result is a total distortion of "history," as the faithful and
the
chosen trumpet their belief in tolerance and diversity, awarding prizes to
one another, disdainful and dismissive of the unwashed barbarians outside
the gate.
You can produce a 550-page manuscript with 150-pages of single-space,
9-point footnotes, and it won't matter. They could care less.
FP: So, this historical revelation is not a revelation?
Kengor: That's right, because it is not impacting history-because
gatekeepers are ignoring it.
Another reason why the mainstream media may be ignoring this: as I make
clear in the book, this KGB do***ent could be the tip of the iceberg, not
just with Kennedy but other Democrats. John Tunney himself alluded to this
in an interview with the London Times re****ter. That article re****ted that
Tunney had made many such trips to Moscow, with additional overtures, and
on
behalf of yet more Democratic senators. Given that reality, I suppose we
should expect liberal journalists to flee this story like the plague-at
least those too biased to do their jobs.
For the record, I've been hard on liberal journalists in this article, and
rightly so. But there are many good liberal journalists who do real
research
and real re****ting. And it's those that need to follow up on this. I'm a
conservative, and so I'm not allowed into the club. Someone from inside
the
boys' club needs to step up to the plate.
FP: All of this is in sync with David Horowitz's and Ben Johnson's new
book,
Party of Defeat, isn't it? As the book demonstrates, many Democrats are
engaging in willful sabotage in terms of our security vis-à-vis
Islamo-Fascism today. And as the Kennedy-KGB romance indicates, a good
****tion of Democrats have always had a problem in reaching out to our
enemies, rather than protecting our national security. Your thoughts?
Kengor: Obviously, as you know and suggest, this does not apply to all
Democrats, needless to say. But there are many liberal Democrats who were
dupes during the Cold War and now are assuming that role once again in the
War on Terror. President Carter comes to mind, as does John Kerry, as does
Ted Kennedy, to name only a few. When I read President Carter's recent
thoughts on Hamas, it trans****ted me back to 1977 and his stunning
statements on the Iranian revolution, or to 1979 and his remarks on the
Soviets and Afghanistan. Many of these liberals and their sup****ters on
the
left literally see the conservative Republican in the Oval Office as a
greater threat to the world than the insane dictators overseas that the
likes of Reagan and George W. Bush were/are trying to stop. That's not an
exaggeration. Just ask them.
History is repeating itself, which can happen easily when those tasked to
re****t and record it fail to do so because of their political biases.
FP: Paul Kengor, thank you for joining us.
Kengor: Thank you Jamie.
--------------------------------------------------
Jamie Glazov is Frontpage Magazine's managing editor. He holds a Ph.D. in
History with a specialty in U.S. and Canadian foreign policy. He edited
and
wrote the introduction to David Horowitz's Left Illusions. He is also the
co-editor (with David Horowitz) of The Hate America Left and the author of
Canadian Policy Toward Khrushchev's Soviet Union (McGill-Queens University
Press, 2002) and 15 Tips on How to be a Good Leftist. To see his previous
symposiums, interviews and articles Click Here. Email him at
jglazov@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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