BOROVIK: REAGAN JOKE, PLATFORM INSPIRE FEAR

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP09-00997R000100300004-2
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 27, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 16, 2013
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: August 28, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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Declassified and Approved For Release 2013/07/16: CIA-RDP09-00997R000100300004-2
28 Aug 84
A 6 USSR INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES & CANADA
BOROVIK: REAGAN JOKE, PLATFORM INSPIRE FEAR
LD232247 Moscow Television Service in Russian 1700 GMT 23 Aug 84
[From the Vremya newscast]
[Text] Over to Genrikh Borovik, secretary of the Board of the USSR Union of Writers.
[Begin Borovik recording] Hello, comrades. Last week an astonished world learned how
the President of the United States amuses himself in front of a radio microphone. That
amusement, taking into account the power and speed of today's communications, could
have cost mankind its life. Judge for yourselves: The President of the United States,
announces on the radio that in 5 minutes he will start bombing Russia. It is just as
well that these words did not resound immediately around the globe. If they had!
The world was horrified by the prank of the master of the White House. But he himself,
does he know what he is doing? Yesterday in an interview to a newspaper he only said
one thing: It would have been better if I had not said it. He said it was all the
fault of journalists: If it were not for them, this story would not have grown to the
scale of an international incident. The statement, to put it mildly, is strange, and
sounds just like the words "it would be better if nobody knew that an American atom
bomb was delivered on Hiroshima" would sound. The President creates the impression that
we are dealing with a first-grader who happens to have been naughty, but the overgrown
prankster holds in his hands not a tube from which you fire crumpled paper pellets at
your neighbors, but the entire nuclear and other might of the United States of America.
It has become known today that U.S. congressmen are collecting signatures to a letter
to Reagan in which they demand that he should publicly dissociate himself from his
provocative statement. The letter says: Your remark, which you obviously wish to wipe
off the slate as an insignificant slip of the tongue, inspires fear in the hearts of out
allies and, unfortunately, confirms their worst fears.
No, it was not a joke, and not a slip of the tongue either; just as the Republican Party
platform, adopted in Dallas, where the party convention is taking place, is neither a
joke nor a slip of the tongue. It was elaborated by none other than lunatics and
those from the extreme right wing.
Madam Kirkpatrick, the U.S. representative at the United Nations, made a speech at the
convention. She pronounced anathema on our country, raising questions -- What would
happen to Europe if the United States left? What would happen to Asia if it fell under
the influence of the Soviet Union? What would happen to Central America if it became
a Soviet satellite? The energetic madam thought up these questions herself -- so let
her look for answers to them. We, without any questions, know very well what happened
to Asia when the American forces invaded Vietnam; we know what happened to Chile when
the CIA carried out a fascist coup there; we know what took place in Nicaragua when the
country was a satellite of the United States. There are no elderly there because the
average lifespan is 51, and there were no youths because young people were killed with
American submachine guns, as future revolutionaries. We know what has happened in the
Near East, where Arab lands are occupied by Israel, and what happened to Beirut, when
an American battleship fired directly at it. So let us leave the questions thought up
by Madam Kirkpatrick to her -- I almost said, to her conscience -- but I remembered in
time that that word is in no way suitable here.
The Republican Party platform has been adopted. In it, the President's wild jibe has
been developed and translated into a systematic call for an imperialist course in
foreign policy.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2013/07/16: CIA-RDP09-00997R000100300004-2
Declassified and Approved For Release 2013/07/16: CIA-RDP09-00997R000100300004-2
III. 28 Aug 84
A 7 USSR INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRs
UNITED STATES & CANADA
There are demands that the United States should be stronger than anyone else in the worL
in military might; there is a proclamation of the United State's right to interfere in
the affairs of any regions of the world, and so on. It is now mid-day in Dallas. Ses-
sions are still underway in the hall where the convention is being held. That means the.;
are singing pop songs; the sweating delegates are playing with balloons, dancing, eating
hot dogs, drinking them down with beer, and behaving like schoolchildren on holiday: In
other words an ordinary American party convention, the triumph of democracy!
It was in such an atmosphere that the platform was adopted -- a program fully in line
with the provocative idea contained in the President's jibe, adopted to the enthusiastic
roar of a crowd driven to a frenzy by free whiskey, bare-legged showgirls, and chauvinis-
tic speeches.
The American press says that the convention
of the actors was carefully rehearsed, down
may be so, but it reminds me most of all of
me: I have a professional knowledge of the
was staged like a play in which every gesture
to the tiniest twitch of the muscles. That
some bad and very dangerous show. Believe
theater.
ZORIN REVIEWS REACTION TO REAGAN OMBING JOKE
LD252342 Moscow in English to Nor h America 2200 GMT 25 Aug 84
["Moscow Viewpoint" by Valentin Zo in]
[Text] Although several days have passed since President Reagan made his sinister re-
marks about outlawing the Soviet Union and starting to bomb the country, the subject
still continues to disturb world pu lic opinion and, as fas as I can tell, American pub-
lic opinion as well. Hundreds of commentaries, statements, and speculations have been
made about the motives behind Ronald Reagan's so-called joke, a warped one at that. And
yet people around the world are still discussing it.
I can judge the reaction of Soviet p ople to Reagan's remarks by the large number of
letters I have received recently and that are continuing to come in from all over the
Soviet Union. None of the people wh have written view the President's tirade as a joke
or even a bad joke. Common sense su gests that there are some things that just should
not be joked about. For instance, co id Reagan think of attending his daughter's weddin;
in a funeral suit, or offer a hearse or the wedding procession? If he did, well, we'd
just have to question whether the per on who was President of the United States is capa-
ble of sober thinking or whether he i responsible for his own actions. All those who
have written me recently agree that P esident Reagan must have felt at ease at that mo-
ment outside the official framework o his post and therefore spoke in a way that was
characteristic of his views and thoug t process.
When Ronald Reagan talks about his de ire for peace, about wanting negotiations with the
Soviet Union, about being ready at an time to meet with the leaders of the Soviet Uni0n.
that is when he is not the real Reagan but the creation of the current election campaign.
Reagan's recorded hostile remark demon trated to the world the real Ronald Reagan with .
his type of thinking and his level of ihinking, not the Reagan conceived and designed fc.
election publicity purposes. Reagan a a peace champion is an image that has nothing Cc
do with the man who has broken all records in speeding up the arms race and developing
programs to create more and more illega weapon systems, threatening the existence of
civilization.
When the organizers of the Republican e ection campaign got their candidate to speak
words of peace they made him contradict imself, the Regan who from the platform of the
British Parliament declared a crusade agtinst the Soviet Union, the Reagan who dared to
threaten to dump the Soviet Union in the garbage heap of history.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2013/07/16: CIA-RDP09-00997R000100300004-2