HABITS OF THE SOVIET DINOSAUR

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000404770002-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 25, 2011
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: November 22, 1980
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/04/25: CIA-RDP9O-00552ROO0404770002-9
A,tTICLL
0-4 A-Z
WASBL IGTON STAR
22 IJOVE? ;;'R 1980
Although she had a high regard.
for Arbatov's own intelligence, sae 11
became convinced that his institute;
was little more than a front for a
complex disinformation and espi-
onage operation designed "to get as
much as possible - politically and
-materially - out.of.the policy of de-
fore disturbingly, he describes
the KGB as so riddled wits. n epotism
and careerist. ambition.that much.
of the political reporting sent baclc.-
to Moscow was deliberately s .owed
to fit the ideological?preconceotions
of the doctrinaire old men on- the
Politburo.
.By masquerading as if it was an s.In addition the FBI and the CIA
American think .tank like the have in. the last year succeeded in
Brookings Institution, it has been, 'engineering the defection of two of?
.quite successfulinpersuadingagen- , :':the-most significant KGB officers" eration'; of visiting American offi=?'' ever to-switch sides.-They are still
dials and scholars that there are in under security wraps, but according
fact.rational doves in the gremlin to their testimony the KGB's passiQa..
whose beneficent influence on So- .,for stealing classifledU.S.po!icydoc-
viet policy may be -undermined if uments stems-?frorww the r ealizat on
the US, reacts too strongly to Soviet.! that this is-.the- only safe way of
ggressive moves...., ,-: bringing unpalatable `acts to the
'With the professional staff of the Kremlin's attention. The documents
institute heavily infiltrated by KGB speak for themselves and do not im-',
agents; all staffers have to cooperate plicate the messenger in any critical'
with theKGB in supplying detailed judgment of
the KremliIt's. perior
information-on the personal habits mance
and vulnerabilities of their Ameri- Faced with this h a vilyarmored
can contacts in order to set them but blinkered dinosaur in Moscow,
up for recruitment- By the appear- Ronald Reagan is certainly right to?'
As a gradually emerging Reagan
administration prepares to take over
responsibility for dealing with the
septuagenarians in the Kremlin, it
is faced' with disturbing evidence
that, in spite of its massive espionage
apparatus,. the Soviet regime at the
top may be dangerously out of.touch
with-. reality:: '- -- -'
Public testimony from recent de
fectors to the West from the Russian ?
bureaucratic elite. suggests that they
Politburo is much less well equipped
to reach sober and accurate judg-
ments-on the significance of world? ance of diligent cooperation, Gali a
evens than was previously thought- - finally .won permission to: travel
-by many American Kremlinologists; abroad and used the occasion to de-
.:..Although- there was always the fect to the British.
fear that ideological preconceptions
exercised a distorting effect on So-
viet decision-making. the hope
flourished that policy recommenda-
tions before they reached the-top
were rendered more realistic by the
array of 300 talented analytical ex-
perts assembled in Georgii Arbatov's .
Institute of the United States and.
Canada, . reporting directly - to the..
Kremlin from its prestigious loca-.
tion..in-the Academy of Sciences.
A-First-Hand View
:Carter officials have been badly
- shaken is this hopeful assumption
by an article in the October issue
of The Atlantic. it is a?fascinating
intervieww-th a 33.year-old-woman,
Galiaa Orionova, who- defected last
.year in Landon after working. for -
10, years 'as a professional expert on
the staff of Arbatov's institute. Her -
first-hand- revelations are devastat-
ing to the myth that this institute
can in any gray be relied on to mod-
erate extreme views in the Kremlin.
According to Galina, the institute
is staffed.:argely by the privileged
offspring of t e Moscow party elite,
and the osv time they all show up
for work r on payday. The research
-&ffort is confined to paraphrasing
American publications, which-'.
though, sold openly in the., US. are
classifed'-secret 'in Moscow. - She:'.'
states,'"We'd-be lucky-if-more. than
2 per ;cent of what we wrote was
Having lost all faith in the Soviet
'system and its ideology, Galina felt-.
compelled to escape out of "black
boredom." Looking back, she warns,
"The Soviet Union is like a huge,
primitive dinosaur, with a small
brain but armed from top to tail."
A Masi-of Information
-If the Arbatov institute can no longer be: counted on as a: re
straining influence on Soviet policy,
ther remains the ironic hope that
the sheer scale- of Soviet. espionage :
supplies the Kremlin- with enough
factually-accurate information to re-
duce the danger- of miscalculation
or ideological self-deception. _ But -:
even here. recent testimony from
highly-placed-KGB defectors is not
reassuring. ? -
r ` In a series of interviews with The
Times of London earlier this year,_
Ilya Dzhirkveiov, who defected to
the British, described how as a KGB
officer he-served in Africa.-There,
he saw the rigid application of com-
munist doctrine' o complex African
tribal-disputes result in such disas- -
?- ter that only -the- introduction of
Cuban, troops' could save the day,
as in Angola and Ethiopia. - - -
have.called for "a margin of safety
in our defensive military pr
lio epare-i
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/04/25: CIA-RDP9O-00552ROO0404770002-9