THE AMERIKANISTI SOVIET UNION SETS UP HIGH-LEVEL INSTITUTE TO STUDY U.S. AFFAIRS SPECIALIZED SCHOLARS PROBE POLITICS AND ECONOMICS TO INFORM SOVIET LEADERS RATING NIXON'S LEADERSHIP

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01314R000300600015-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 13, 2004
• Sequence Number: 15
• Publication Date: June 10, 1970
• Content Type: NSPR

STAT
Approved For ReleaseV/20>MWA2aT CIAFjRi1B88-01314R00030
10 JUN 1970 11
T he A~iTerilza~Zisti ^' The n;ansidri headquartering Moscow's are currently In the U.S. on trips that may last.
Amerikanisti once belonged to the Prince Vol- as long as a semester at a university. Yuri
konsky family, familiar to readers-of Tolstoy'siRlgin, a senior specialist in urban affairs at the
.Soviet Union Sets Up "War and Pence," The high-ceilinged rOOms,Instituto, is in the U.S. on a six-month trip tak-
x decorated,: with baroque -plaster work, now Ing him to Now York University, the Univer-
1 ~i i' LeVE'~ IZStltute house about ?150 persons, of whom some 80 are city of Illinois and Harvard University, among
technical and research specialists. other places.
Study English Spoken Isere Michael Zakhmatov, a specialist In East-
To SU.S. Affairs The director, Gcorgi Arbatov, Is n? suave, West trade and U.S. foreign policy, says he Is
smartly dressed official who was well up the gathering his notes together for a book based
7~ p ladder in the Coin munistParty's Central Com-ion his recent three-year hitch In Washington as
Specialized' Scholars 1 lrofx mittee apparatus when the Institute was the Soviet embassy's commercial attache. And
l launched two years ago. Like all the key people he is planning more trips to the U.B. "First-
conom is at the institute, he speaks fluent English. hand investigation in good for people in our line
? Politics and
E
The Institute's scholars now are studying of work," says Mr. Zakhmatov.
To Inform .Soviet Leaders'nuch topics as the U.S. balance of payments International conferences of economists,
problem, the effects of burgeoning U.S. Invest- urban planners, political scientists and other
menu overseas and American management specialists are becoming targets for institute
Rating; Nixon's Leadership and industrial techniques. But much energy researchers. h u Director and two aides
annual meeting
still is devoted to creating a top-drawer staff at last fall's
for Strategic Studies at the Hague, at-
from specialists who have distinguished them- rnstitute showed
By RAY VICxi a selves in American studies at various govern- tending as observers. "The presence of the
Staff Reporter of Tom WALL STREET JOURNAL ~ ment agencies, at the Soviet embassy in Wash- Russians Inhibited some of the discussions,"
MOSCOW - The "Amerikanisti" are draw-: ington and elsewhere.. says one Western Kremlinologist, "But Mr. Ar-
.Ing some conclusions about the United States: This January the institute launched Its
-President Nixon has yet to prove himself! monthly magazine "USA." The first issue had
as a leader. Hp tends to let events shape his ac-;a press run of 22,000. This was increased to
tions rather than shaping events with his ac-;25,000 for the second issue, and circulation now
tions. Is being expanded to 40,000. Articles have in-
-The U.S. is overextended in the interna-'eluded an instalment of Theodore H: White's
cholar on many of us."
The Institute hopes eventually to attract
American scholars and technicians to seminars
in the Soviet Union for exchange of ideas. It
now Is establishing contacts with American
universities
.
tional s here, financial) as well as m
p y "The Making of the President: 1968"; a discus- "Nearly every visiting American of copse=
so the dollar inevitably will come under strain lion of U.S. foreign policy, a report on a recent quence is invited to the institute to make an ad-
again, producing a swing toward gold. U.S. Congressional session and an interview dress or hold discussions. Former' Vice Preai-
-U.S.-Soviet trade has enormous scope for'with Cyrus Eaton, the American industrialist dent Hubert Humphrey, Senators Birch Bayh
? expansion, but this isn't a propitious time for i (who predicted an. early end to the Vietnam of Indiana and Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota
that development. war and a subsequent improvement in U.S.-So- and Charles B. Thornton, chairman of Litton
These are some of the things being told in- viet relations). Industries, have been among the visitors so
fluential Russians by a prestigious now Soviet!Love and Hate far, the institute reports.
agency, the Institute of the United States of ' "Interest.in America Is very strong in the Despite the institute's evident attempt to be
America. Created by a Kremlin mandate, this Soviet Union," says one official a~, l c institute. dispassionate and scholarly, observers here
arm of the Soviet Academy, of Sciences is ex- But foreign observers say that interest has a find that Communist ideology creeps into its
amining American economic, political and so? love-hate aspect. Soviet scholars, fascinated by deliberations.
cial matters for the edification of political sci- American efficiency and productive capacity, For Instance, its opinion is that race prob-
entists, economists and government leaders',in don't like to acknowledge that those qualities lems in the U.S. will continue as long as the
the USSR. are fruits of the free enterprise system. capitalist system endures. Institute scholars
The institute, housed in an 18th century. The institute is expanding its subscription say that racial friction is aggravated by the
mansion in central Moscow, Is producing a new list of American publications. A researcher contradictions found in a capitalistic society,
kind of Soviet scholar, the Americknologists, or strides through a creaky-floored hall with a with the capitalsts exploiting the blacks.
Amerikanisti. "Our country and the United copy of the Washington Post under one arm. In
.States are the two most powerful countries in an office a bespectacled scholar peers at the Investments And, says the institute, the huge American
the world. We should know each other better," Congressional Record. -Racks in the library lism that at results in the s overseas
in the e explxploi form mtiation of of forpign Imperl.
n ;says Yuri I. Bobrakov, an earnest former dip-, hold copies of The New York Times, The Wall It
nations. These nations must be alerted to the
lomat in the Soviet embassy In Washington. Street Journal, The American City, the Federal
.who now heads the institute's 'economic sec-: Reserve Bulletin and other journals. dangers of U.S. capital, the institute avers.
ion. However, the library still is skimpy by mica- There is disagreement here with the oft-
stated "convergence theory," which argues
Hopeful Development demie standards. 'We are just starting, and that technological societies tend to evolve in'
U.S. diplomats have fretted in the past that we haven't had time to build up our documen- the same direction regardless of their ideolo?
Soviet citizens-and policy makers-received a tation," explains a? librarian. One institute aide glee. "Nonsense," says Mr. Bobrakov. "This
distorted picture of the U.S. They hope the in- offers an aside: "We don't have 'Playboy." theory places economic, social and political
stitute will contribute to better understanding' (That magazine sells for $10 to $15 on the black factors at the same plane. Our societies will
that could improve relations between the two market In Moscow.) converge only when America risen to the bjgh.'i
The American Embassy here has been pro-
big powEr;s. eat poltticA,)Level andbecomes Communist.
stitute deems to be trying to present viding the institute some books and documents
i
"Th
n
e
a more accurate picture of America than peo-;under a reciprocal arrangement whereby 'the)
pie here have been getting," says one U.S. dip- embassy gets certain Russian pueucauons in~
lomat. "And it doesn't seem to be a spy outfit return. The institute, however, doesn't have to
either." rely on such deals; its budget, though undis-i
The Western counterpart of Americanology closed, is believed to be large. I
,-Kremlinology--i5 an advanced, scholarly ape- There is an unlimited travel budget tort
cialty. The casing of East European travel bar- sending researchers on study trips to the V.B.
tiers has contributed to accumulating informs- Institute aides may the only hindrance tq such!,
tion about the Soviet Union, and in the West a travel is the slowness of the, U.S. embassy here)
small army of experts on Communism toile at to grant visas (the embassy says visas are pro-
cea
:monitor radio stations, special institutions, Uni?'?,; sed rapidly).
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