SOVIETS CHARGE HOLLYWOOD SPAWNS 'PATHOLOGY OF HATRED'

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000100600005-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 21, 2011
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: January 4, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/21: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100600005-3
WASHINGTON POST
4 January 1986
Soviets Charge Hollywood
Spawns `Pathology of Hatred'
By Celestine Bohlen
Washington Pod Foreign Service
MOSCOW, Jan. 3-American
films like "Rambo," "Red Dawn,"
"Rocky IV" and a proposed televi-
sion production called "Amerika"
showing the United States under
Soviet occupation are helping
spawn a "pathology of hatred"
against their country, leading So-
viet cultural figures charged today.
At a press conference on U.S.-
Soviet cultural relations, a group
headed by a deputy minister of cul-
ture accused the U.S. entertain-
ment industry of warping the image
of the Soviet people seen by aver-
age Americans and fanning anti-
communist fanaticism.
"The new hero kills 'reds' and
Russians not for money, with a kind
of perverse relish," said Deputy
Minister Georgi Ivanov. "A new
generation of Americans is being
brought up to consider killing as
something natural or even neces-
sary."
" 'Red Dawn' and 'Rambo' cannot
be called artistic,, but nevertheless
they fill movie screens and televi-
sion screens," said Genric Borovic,
a playwright and journalist who con-
cluded that "such selling of hatred
will bring on a sickness."
In the weeks since the Geneva
summit between President Reagan
and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorba-
chev, Soviet officials and the gov-
ernment-controlled press here have
shown increasing sensitivity to
"anti-Sovietism" in the United
States. They also have made fre-
quent references to recent surveys
revealing widespread ignorance
about Soviet history among the
American public.
? As the atmosphere surrounding
IB.S.-Soviet relations has improved,
typified by the televised exchange
of New Year's greetings between
the two leaders, Soviet officials are
stressing the importance of over-
coming cultural hostility in the
West, particularly in America. U.S.
officials, on the other hand, have
stressed an improvement on human
rights as vital to improving popular
perceptions of the Soviet Union.
The difference in perceptions
highlights the difference in political
gystems: Soviets never seem fully
persuaded that the U.S. govern-
ment has no role in regulating the
American cultural diet.
Meanwhile, the view of the Unit-
ed States seen on Soviet films and
television is hardly flattering-
showin a world o led most! b
agents, the homeless and un-
employed minorities. But Soviets
note that few, if any, of their films
portray Americans as a criminal
people.
"We will never, never make such
films to create hatred of the Amer-
ican people," film director Stanislav
Rostotsky said today. "We will not
retaliate."
Today's press conference, while
attacking examples of "anti-Soviet
hysteria," also stressed new coop-
eration in the cultural field, which
has been increasing since the sign-
ing of a cultural and scientific ex-
changes agreement in Geneva.
A new round of officially sanc-
tioned exchanges, cut off after the
Soviet intervention in Afghanistan
in 1979, will begin this weekend
when the Empire State Institute for
the Performing Arts opens a week-
long stay at the Children's Musical
Theater here.
The ministry's Ivanov, stressing
that he did not want to end the
press conference on a "pessimistic
note," also mentioned artistic ex-
changes expected next year, includ-
ing U.S. tours by Leningrad's Kirov
Ballet and the Moiseyey folk danc-
ers.
Soviet poet Yevgeni Yevtushen-
ko, who has made frequent appear-
ances in the United States even
during the freeze on official cultural
exchanges, also stressed the "ben-
eficial" effects of the mass media, as
compared to the "dangerous hyp-
nosis" of what he called "war-
nography."
He mentioned such films as "On
Golden Pond," "Terms of Endear-
ment" and "ET." "Then our children
would finally get to see this 'ET'
they have heard so much about," he
said.
Yevtushenko, who recently spoke
to a writers' congress here urging a
loosening of censorship and other
controls, urged today that U.S.-So-
viet cultural exchanges be handled
by artists, not bureaucrats.
Answering a question, Yevtu-
shenko said his speech was in keep-
ing with the ideas he expressed
throughout his poetry.
But while Yevtushenko and the
other cultural figures stressed the
importance of cultural exchanges,
they returned repeatedly to com-
plaints about U.S. portrayals of So-
viet life and culture.
Rostotsky, the director, de-
scribed seeing a cartoon of an
American boy being chased by a
Russian gorilla and remembered
going into an American classroom
and watching an American girl
tremble with fright at the sight of a
Russian.
"This is really horrifying if a child
thinks this way," he said.
The same subject came tip at an-
other press conference last month
when Georgi Arbatov, head of the
Institute for the Study of the U.S.A.
and Canada, also singled out such
films as "Rambo" and the proposed
production "Amerika" now under
consideration at ABC-TV.
Several Soviet officials have reg-
istered their protests over the "Am-
erika" project, which apparently
portrays life in the United States at
the point of a Soviet gun.
STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/21: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100600005-3