DETENTE AND VIGILANCE: UNEASY COEXISTENCE IN MOSCOW

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP85T00875R001100130033-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 14
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 18, 2008
• Sequence Number: 33
• Publication Date: February 15, 1972
• Content Type: IM

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? Secret
DIRECTORATE OF
INTELLIGENCE
Intelligence Memorandum
Detente and Vigilance: Uneasy Coexistence in Moscow
G I A
DOCUMENT SERVICES
B!ANCH.
FILE COPY
D(9 Not flSTROY
Secret
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15 February 1972
No. 0834/72
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CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
Directorate of Intelligence
15 February 1972
INTELLIGENCE MEMORANDUM
Detente and Vigilance: Uneasy Coexistence in Moscow
The east few months have been a time of stress
for Soviet leaders. This has probably helped produce
a series of phenomena inimical to US-Soviet relations
and to the program of detente enunciated by party
chief Brezhnev last spring. Beginning in late 1971,
the Soviets launched a campaign of internal vigilance
and discipline, sharpened criticism of US foreign
policies, and sanctioned harassment of US citizens
in the USSR, including a military attache and a
congressman. The recent untoward events stem largely
from Moscow's growing apprehension over President
Nixon's approaching trip to Peking and strains en-
gendered by his planned visit to Moscow. This does
not mean that Brezhnev's policies of detente are in
jeopardy. Indeed, these policies and Brezhnev's
leading role in their enunciation have been under-
lined in Soviet media since the beginning of the year,
leaving no doubt that his views constitute the founda-
tions of current Soviet policy. But some of thF re--ent
events and themes may be in part the handiwork of
Brezhnev's conservative critics, and therein lies the
potential or detente to go awry.
Note: This memorandum was prepared by the Office of
Current Intelligence and coordinated within CI'A.
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Vigilance and Discipline
1. After the announcement last October that
President Nixon would visit Moscow, the Soviets began
to play down issues straining US-Soviet relations.
Simultaneously, Moscow began to tailor its comments
on US-Chinese relations to avoid blatant abuse of
Washington. The tone was a mixture of optimism and
caution, emphasizing the need for normalization of
US-Soviet relations, but without discounting the
many differences and obstacles that could hamper
such a development.
2. A discordant note was struck early in No-
vember when Politburo member and Ukrainian party
boss Shelest warned against "conciliation" in dealings
with the West. Speaking in Kiev, Shelest dwelt on
the bogey of subversion from abroad and on the at-
tendant need for discipline and conformity at home.
The thrust of his speech called into question the
soundness of detente policies. Shelest is no new-
comer to an obstructionist role. Earlier he had
appeared to be in opposition to the regime's policies
toward West Germany and the Strategic Arms Limitation
Talks.
3. Shelest also was in the forefront of a wave
of anti-Zionist propaganda that started in the Ukraine
last autumn. In December, this anti-Zionist drive was
subsumed in a broader campaign for vigilance and dis-
cipline against subversion from the West, particularly
the US. The crackdown was heralded most authoritatively
in an article in the Central Committee journal Part
~y
Life. The article incorporated the narrower attack
against Zionism and nationalism, but it concentrated
on alleged subversive activities of the CIA, USIA,
Radio Liberty, Radio Free Europe, NTS (the Russian
emigre organization) and even the Republican Party in
the US. The same article stressed the need for vig-
ilance and warned Soviet citizens against passing
information to foreigners traveling "in the guise of"
diplomats, tou'ists, businessmen, and scientists.
4. Subsequent propaganda combined both themes
in a broader attack on US policies,. On 13 January,
for example, a writer in Pravda alleged the US wants
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to split East European countries from the socialist
world, and to employ Maoists in its struggle against
Communism. He charged that nationalism was an American
weapon against socialist countries, citing counter-
revolutionary actions and disorders in Croatia as an
example of how the West exploits .rationalism.
5. In a related vein, the Ukrainian press on
5 January reopened the subject of an alleged wartime
collaborator who is now living in the US. Scoffing
at American "democracy," "freedom," and "justice,"
the article claimed that the Soviet people were
astounded and indignant over US protection of the
collaborator, and demanded his extradition. On 16
January the newspaper detailed the war crimes of
additional collaborators said to be living in thc: US.
Propaganda Translated into Action
6. Against this propaganda backdrop the
authorities undertook, or at least sanctioned, a
series of actions against Soviet and American cit-
i.zens. On 5 January an American military attache
was roughed up at the public airport in Riga, On
the same day, the trial of V. Bukovsky, a prominent
member of the dissident movement and one of its
principal contacts with Western newsmen, opened and
closed in Moscow. Bukovsky received a haxsh 12-year
sentence on charges of working to "undermine and
weaken Soviet power," including an attempt to smuggle
printing equipment into the country and er:t ourago
army personnel to disobey orders. The blistering
press denunciation of Eukovsky warned others of the
dangers of contacts with Western correspondents.
7. Congressman Scheuer was briefly detained
by police on the evening of 12 January while attending
a dinner party at the home of a computer expert,
Aleksandr Lerner. Lerner bad recently been stripped
of his professorship, dismissed from all posts, and
expelled from the Communist Party after applying to
emigrate to Israel. On 14 January the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs, citing "improper activities" on
Scheuer's part, demanded that he leave the country
immediately, even though he had planned to depart
in a couple of days anyway. On 17 January, Izvestia
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scathingly attacked Scherer and two members of his
group charging them with a variety of "subversive
activities," including participation in "conspira-
torial-instruction meetings" with Soviet citizens
and distributing religious literature. Scheuer was
accused of following instructions of US "special
services" and seeking "slanderous information" from
V. N. Chalidze, a founder of the unofficial Committee
for Human Rights in the USSR.
8. A new series of investigations and arrests
of Moscow dissidents and Ukrainian nationalists began
on the day Scheuer was detained. Police arrested
seven Ukrainian nationalists :*n Lvov and several more
in Kiev. On 15 January the apartments of historian
Petr Yakir, a leader of the dissident movement in
Moscow, and seven or eight other Moscow dissidents
weret searched. Police detained a Western correspondent
as he left Yakir's apartment the next day and then
barred the door to other newsmen. On 17 January the
police arrested astronomer Kronid Luibarsky in Moscow.
On 18 January, they searched the apartment of the
noted Ukrainian author Viktor Nekrasov in Kiev. On
19 January they arrested eight more Ukrainian nation-
alists in Kiev. II. report that a sociology teacher
was arrested in Vili:ius, Lithuania, on 14 January
suggests that police action may have extended well
beyond Moscow and the Ukraine.
9. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and his latest novel,
August 1914, were publicly criticized on 12 January,
even though it has been Soviet practice generally to
ignore Solzhenitsyn. The article stressed the use
that foreign enemies were making of the novel and
described the wealthy, bourgeois life the Solzhenitsyn
family led in the Caucasus before the revolution.
10. Beyond the sweep of the vigilance campaign,
authorities responded to attacks on Soviet officials
in the US by instigating a new wave of telegrams and
telephone calls to American diplomats in the USSR
protesting the activities of the Jewish Defense League.
Beginning on the evening of 31 December, the messages
threatened harm to American personnel in the USSR un-
less effective measures were taken to curb the league's
harassment of Soviet officials in the US. A few tele-
grams drew a link between President Nixon's trip to
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the USSR and the need to control the Jewish Defense
League's activities. Moscow had previously registered
its concern over the league through diplomatic channels
but had generally refrained from threats of retaliation
or extensive publicity of incidents.
Attacks on US Policies
11. Other occasions for vituperation againot
the US arose during December and January. The Indo-
Pakistani war and the bombing raids against North
Vietnam in late December provided fresh opportunities
to take issue with US policies. December also saw
an end to the cautious, wait-arid-see attitude adopted
by Moscow after the announcement last summer of Pres-
ident Nixon's visit to Peking. Until then, the Soviets
had given only light treatment to the turmoil in the
Chinese leadership. The Indo-Pakistani war and the
coincidence of US and Chinese policies on the sub-
continent prompted some of the stiffest Soviet com-
mentary against China in years.
12. At first., Soviet criticism of Chinese policy
on the subcontinent included only brief mention that
the Chinese had sided with the US at the UN. But
before long, Moscow let loose a broadside at Chincz'c
alleged support of all aspects of US foreign policy,
charging that the coincidence of US and Chinese posi-
tions in the struggle against Langladesh was matched
by similar common views on the Middle East, Iie.tochina,
Africa, and Latin America. Izvestia on 11 January,
for example, claimed that intens i " cation of US
aggression coincided with a drawing together of
Washington and Peking, which "recognI.ze the parallel
nature of their interests." Two days later Pravda
denounced the US and China for conspiring to form
a bloc against the Soviet Union.
Counterpoin.;: Soviets Troop to Washington
13. But even in the midst of these unpropitious
developments in December and January, there were many
indications that the Kremlin wanted to limit the im-
pact of its propaganda and to pursue high-level, well-
publicized contacts w:Lth the US. The top Soviet
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leaders did not themselves join the outcry for vig-
ilance, nor did they indulge in inflated criticism
of the US. Moreover, the Soviet press generally
avoided calling into question the utility of dealing
with the US and continued to carry positive accounts
of America and the prospects for detente. The press
did not report Dr. Kissinger's background remarks about
the potential impact on the President's Moscow visit of
Soviet actions on the Indian subcontinent, and it has
avoided attacking the President personally.
14. In late November the Soviets accorded Sec-
retary of Commerce Stans and a group of American
businessmen a warm reception, and official and unoffi-
cial Soviet visits to the US proceeded successfully.
Agricultural Minister Matskevich toured the US in De-
cember, and a trade delegation led by the Deputy Min-
ister of Foreign Trade, Manzhulo, visited in January.
Minister of Culture Furtseva opened a Soviet arts and
crafts exhibit in Washington on 12 January and trav-
eled about the country until the 20th. The head of
the Central Committee's administrative department,
Georgy Pavlov, who is a confidant of Brezhnev's, ar-
rived in the US on 30 January for a 15-day stay as
guest of Soviet Ambassador Dobrynin. On a less of-
ficial plane, the Soviet establishment's poet-
radical, Yevgeny Yevtushenko, arrived in January
for up to six weeks of travel and television appear-
ances.
Motives and Implications
15. What accounts for these divergencies in
Soviet behavior? No single explanation is entirely
satisfactory; indeed, there may be no direct rela-
tionship between some of the events and propaganda
themes of recent months. The domestic vigilance
campaign, for example, is not necessarily linked
with Soviet propaganda attacks on US policies in
South and "'outheast Asia. The impetus for sharpened
criticism of US foreign policy can easily be found
in the events themselves. The new bombings of North
Vietnam and the war on the subcontinent dramatized
differences between the US and the USSR, and for
Moscow they exacerbated the conflict between the
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imperatives for detente with the West and for
leadership in the Communist world. Moreover, the
Indo-Pakistan war forced the Soviet leadership for
the first time to face simultaneous US and Chinese
opposition on a matter of international importance.
Moscow probably already was finding it difficult to
maintain a calm exterior as the President's trip to
Peking neared. Thus, while visions of rapprochement
between Washington and Peking have spurred Soviet
efforts to secure its own relationship with the US,
it also has led Moscow to warn that Sino-US ties
may threaten the USSR.
16. Similarly, conditions of the moment may
have prompted heavier attacks on Zionism beginning
last fall. I':lurs made on Judaism and on the loyalty
of Soviet Jews and the attention given to emigre
Jews sugges+: that Soviet authorities are experiencing
some discomfort over the implications of the growing
exodus of Jews.
17. But the broader vigilance campaign and the
crackdown on dissidents and nationalists are different
matters. Certainly such affairs as Bukovsky's trial
and moves against Ukrainian nationalists had been
long in preparation, at least in some quarters.
18. The leadership may have sanctioned the
broader vigilance -.arnpaign as a sort of preparation
for expanding US-Soviet contacts and the Pre-Ident's
visit. A parallel might be drawn with the rash of
articles stressing vigilance that precedes each
summer tourist sea;-on. Thus, a-harsher propaganda
line and a crackdown on dissidents might be expected
before such an exceptional event as a visit by the
US President and serve, as a natural concomitant to
detente, to reassert the regime's ideological fidelity
and to warn the populace not to expect any relaxation
of internal controls.
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19. Whatever the immediate causes, the intrusion
of harsher themes at home and in US-Soviet relations
reflects the conflicting aims--or "contradictions,"
as the Communists would call them--in current Soviet
foreign and domestic policies. The regime has moved
toward political detente with the West with no in-
tention of relaxing either its ideological hostility
toward the West or its internal controls. The lessons
of Czechoslovakia are not forgotten. Even those who
are most eager to improve relations with the West
probably acknowledge that it is necessary to keep
the lid on at home. Reassertion of the principle
of ideological hostility toward the West is dictated
by the Soviet Union's undiminished interest in main-
taining its control over Eastern Europe and leadership
of the Communist world. Continued warnings about
Western, as well as Chinese, schemes to dismember the
"soc;.i.alist camp" betray Soviet sensitivity on this
scar::. An important element in Moscow's detente
policy is its desire to regulate Communist approaches
to the West so that other Communist countries will
be unable to pull ahead of the USSR.
The Conservative Needle
,20. Inconsistencies in policy may be a product
not only of contrasting needs felt by the leadership,
but also of conflicting views within the leadership.
It is no secret that some Soviet leaders and various
interest groups in the USSR take a suspicious view
of detente with the West. Evidence of this repeatedly
turns up in Soviet commentary on such matters as rela-
tions with West (..armany and the Strategic Arms. Limita-
tions Talks.
21. A matter as important as President Nixon's
trip to the USSR almost certainly has brought out
differing views within the Soviet leadership, if only
on the seemliness of an invitation so soon after his
trip to China was announced. Those who supported the
President's visit to the USSR probably would prefer
to play down tensions in US-Soviet relations. Others,
concerned from the beginning over the warming trend
in Soviet relations with the West, probably prefer
to highlight the potential of ideological contagion
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and see US gestures toward China, and the coincidence
of US-Chinese policies on the Indian subcontinent, as
confirmation of their worst fears.
r
22. Although recent propaganda and incidents
inimical to better Soviet relations with the US are
not completely their doing, conservative elements
in the leadership probably have encouraged such
developments, where possible, in hopes of spoiling
the atmosphere for detente. Ideological and vig-
ilance themes have always been favorites of the
conservatives, who employ them not just as antidotes
to contact with the West but to undermine the policy
that fosters such contact.
23. Hostile intent is evident in some of the
incidents of recent weeks. Pravda Ukrainy's ny's at-
tacks on the US for harboring awr criminals is
typical of the kind of barbs that Ukrainian leaders
and the press directed at West Germany as its rela-
tions with the USSR improved. The assault on the
American attach4 in Riga was clearly a provocation,
although of a type that recurs periodically. The
episode of Congressman Scheuer is a more complicated
matter. He and his party seem to have acted with
considerable boldness and at a tine when the author-
ities were preparing for a round-up of dissident
elements. For their part, the Soviets seemed intent
on creating an embarrassing scene. They put the
delegation under unusually heavy surveillance from
the beginning, and, considering the status of the
group, they could have avoided expulsion and vicious
public attacks.
24. Beyond the question of motives, develop-
ments of the past two months demonstrate how events
in one arena of Soviet national policy can influence
those in another; thus a crackdown in domestic af-
fairs can put a different light on foreign policy.
There is always the possibility in the USSR that
hostile acts and propaganda will escalate out of
the bounds first set by the leadership and spill
over into other areas of policy. Given the strong
conservative forces in the USSR, the possibility of
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a serious challenge to detente would become very
real should a major setback, such as West German
failure to ratify its treaty with the USSR, occur.
The Leadership Balance
25. Whether this will happen ultimately rests
on the balance of forces within the leadership and
the dynamics of leadership politics. These are al--
ways obscure, but in this case the problem is sim-
plified to the extent that Party Chief Brezhnev has
publicly become the leading champion of detente, while
at least one other member of the Politburo, Ukrainian
Party Chief Shelest, can be tagged as an outspoken op-
ponent.
27. As Brezhnev has embraced the policy of detente,
Shelest has preserved the hard-line attitude he displayed
in the Czechoslovak crisis of 1968. He has also come
into conflict with Brezhnev on other political and policy
matters. But his present position illustrates the weak-
ness of the conservatives, at least on the question of
detente. Shelest's political standing has become de-
cidedly more precarious, and he is open to some challenge
himself for tolerating nationalists in the Ukraine. His
attack on Zionism and bourgeois nationalism may have been
designed in part to cover his own vulnerabilities.
Ironically, the crackdown on dissidents--at least po-
tentially an irritant in relations with the West--was
to the extent that it involved Ukrainian nationalists,
a political embarrassment to Shelest, a bitter foe of
the West.
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28. Meanwhile, Brezhnev's authority is at a peak.
The enhancement of his position and the Soviet Union's
approach to the West are long-term, carefully fostered
goals that have already weathered periods of, trial.
President Nixon's trip to Peking and the presidential
visit to Moscow will further test the leadership's
commitment to present policies. The strains these
events are causing already have produced discordant
notes; more are likely in the future. For now, how-
ever, the dominant line in Soviet foreign policy is
detente, and there is no evidence of a concerted ef-
fort to,close the openings to the West.
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