MYSTERIOUS 'OBSERVER' ON USSR

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01350R000200080005-1
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 23, 2004
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: December 12, 1969
• Content Type: NSPR

Approved For Release 2004/T!EMI;Gd44jR88-01350R000200080005-1
j2DEC1969 F'
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A GOOK FOR TODAY
Mysterious '091server' on USSR
By HENRY S. BRADSHER
IAtVSSAGi FROM MOSCOW. .dence." This sounds like cate- tary of the Soviet Communist
By an Observer. Alfred A. `gory No. 2. party and therefore the most
Knopf, 283 pages. $5.95. ? And yet it isn't, and because powerful single individual in
Books about the Soviet itn- it isn't this book deserves a the country, was to speak
ion which avoid detailed anal- wiWr'ittenenin btteri essteover boyslwere caught withocrude
ysis and try to remain on a the Soveit public's almost total bombs. The speech was turned
S.popular level tend to fall into ;apathy to their nation's in- into a kangaroo court with
,,.two categories. vasion of Czechoslovakia to Brezhnev presiding and the
There are the rosy views, crush freedom, the book is ' boys were publicly executed
it 'sometimes based on a political nonetheless an Impressively two hours later.
predisposition to ignore awk- ::.realistic report on some Observer touches on many
ward facts and sometimes " . aspects of life in Moscow and things: the pervasive cheating
"based on: ' the ignorance ac- '...Leningrad today. : of the boss which means the
quired by an Intourist or oth- This reviewer was a corre- government which means no-
erwise conducted tour of the 'spondent in Moscow for more body so it's really all right, the,
country. Lately we have had years than the author says village atmosphere of the cit-
more of the latter type of rosi-' he lived there as a student, ies, the failure of anyone to (;
n
s
e
things they hear. I 'spondents for paying too much behind the facade of Victorian
7 UU1UUi U), JJ ibUUa wilU .vib14 ' ".years. The descriptions, the even working at all, the nar-
the Soviet Union without ever atmosphere, the feelings ring "row-mindedness of those who
knowing how little they; see true rise to the top of the stultify
and how distorted are the He criticizes Western corre- ' i
m thn sexual laxit
s
t
Then there are the tough, attention to the one percent of puritanism.
harsh books. that* focus on the the Soviet population who And he paints some memo
of clover counter-propaganda;
pplants. This book is .a bit Lou
;incisive; a bit too good to leave?
Approved For Release 2004/10/13 : CIA-RDP88-01350 R000200080005-1
bitterly anti-Communist; to be real people, and it is valid '
fair. Surely,'the open-minded ' criticism. But it might be ' 'd massive co womgn
~ driving a Moscow w taxi through'
reader 'will wonder, things asked whether the author, too, `a midnight snowstorm. There
can't be that bad. But it is. concentrates too much on dis- is human warmth in the book.:
doubtful that many open-. 'silent intellectuals. "I confess," hlleauthor.notes'
minded readers get around to ' As a student he was involved particularly depress-;
them; such books are for dedi With them. He tells spy thriller- after one
'aft pose par "that I can no'
cated haters, and others have , type stories of dissident efforts ling onger strike a proper balance,
a weakness for the rosiness- to avoid secret police surveil-
through-ignorance type. lance, but he also tells of the between what is good and,
things which are wrong, They might qualify as intellectuals, rable portraits, particularly
often get dismissed as too ' for being too isolated from the that of Nadezhda Nikolaevna
Now' we have a book trom PUa; coo wui4u % Fvix+:c &IUV : art and someone whom the publisher had in destroying any organ-' tween the great tprogress ~ and '
calls "a Russian-speaking, ;zed dissent. The ruined the terrible cost. It seems that:;
Russia-loving non-Communist careers because of protests the Communists have deliv-.I
Westerner who has chosen to against the suffocating system :eyed Russia from one kind of
remain anonymous to"' avoid , and the prostituting of dissi-?, ,backwardness only to plunge
reprisals against the Soviet. dents into informers are de- her into another."
intellectuals -nd workers who scribed. One question remains: Who
have , takenhim into their, Observer is horrified by the One
the authors
q4m';_, whole drift back toward Stalin- - Is he rnnuv a a~hnlarSh;n
what sanitized, but still bru- stuaenc, a p p a r e n i i y from
u
t '
h
s
o j
tag form. He cites examples ):. Western Europe, w
1? that Western exports had not ' wanted to tell what he saw and
'heard before, exnrnples that perhaps make a little money
might well have been heard by '"tdoing it? Or is there some-
}
student but escaped 'a more thing more devious here, per-
(Isolated journalist or diplomat hips a book cooked up in the
i'in Moscow. ,' West to discredit the Soviet'.
One is a story, important for Union from behind a guise of
the atmosphere it evokes,' honesty?
'whether true or not. (and it is It takes a suspicious mind
ard to believe It is true), that to ask the question. But the
the heard in Leningrad. Leonid recent history of revelations
f= . Brexhnoyh the general ecr@? published by the two super-
?...~,a? ,,..,y,.,; ,,~ ,-v+4,??... < ~hn,.4 -1, AMA" ie nnn