Whatever you might think of the Senator's personal history, he is being celebrated as a legislator and a liberal icon. But he was more than that. He was such a fervent partisan, liberal Democrat that he would do just about anything to help his side whether it was demagoguing Robert Bork's record to cozying up to the Soviets if he thought it would help the Democrats electorally.
Robinson summarizes the damning story of the 1983 approach that Senator Kennedy made, through his friend, Senator John Tunney, to Yuri Andropov, the general secretary of the Communist Party. This is an amazing story.
Kennedy's message was simple. He proposed an unabashed quid pro quo. Kennedy would lend Andropov a hand in dealing with President Reagan. In return, the Soviet leader would lend the Democratic Party a hand in challenging Reagan in the 1984 presidential election. "The only real potential threats to Reagan are problems of war and peace and Soviet-American relations," the memorandum stated. "These issues, according to the senator, will without a doubt become the most important of the election campaign."John O'Sullivan wrote more about this move by Senator Kennedy in O'Sullivan's excellent book, The President, the Pope, and the Prime Minister.
Kennedy made Andropov a couple of specific offers.
First he offered to visit Moscow. "The main purpose of the meeting, according to the senator, would be to arm Soviet officials with explanations regarding problems of nuclear disarmament so they may be better prepared and more convincing during appearances in the USA." Kennedy would help the Soviets deal with Reagan by telling them how to brush up their propaganda.
Then he offered to make it possible for Andropov to sit down for a few interviews on American television. "A direct appeal ... to the American people will, without a doubt, attract a great deal of attention and interest in the country. ... If the proposal is recognized as worthy, then Kennedy and his friends will bring about suitable steps to have representatives of the largest television companies in the USA contact Y.V. Andropov for an invitation to Moscow for the interviews. ... The senator underlined the importance that this initiative should be seen as coming from the American side."
Kennedy would make certain the networks gave Andropov air time--and that they rigged the arrangement to look like honest journalism.
Kennedy's motives? "Like other rational people," the memorandum explained, "[Kennedy] is very troubled by the current state of Soviet-American relations." But that high-minded concern represented only one of Kennedy's motives.
"Tunney remarked that the senator wants to run for president in 1988," the memorandum continued. "Kennedy does not discount that during the 1984 campaign, the Democratic Party may officially turn to him to lead the fight against the Republicans and elect their candidate president."
Kennedy proved eager to deal with Andropov--the leader of the Soviet Union, a former director of the KGB and a principal mover in both the crushing of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution and the suppression of the 1968 Prague Spring--at least in part to advance his own political prospects.
According to Chebrikov, Kennedy thought that a meeting with Andropov "would equip him with the Soviet positions on arms control and add conviction to his own appearances on the subject in the U.S."Try to wrap your mind around this story. A sitting senator approaching the Soviets behind the back of the sitting president to help the Soviets in their negotiations with the United States.
As Robinson points out, this story has never been refuted. O'Sullivan adds that Senator Tunney, when asked about the story dismissed Chebrikov's letter as
"Someone trying to sound bigger than they were. It was in their self-interest to be seen with me and with Kennedy."O'Sullivan adds,
Former senators are important people, of course, but Tunney's explanation is nonsense on stilts. Chebrikov was the chairman of the KGB and, as such, the second most powerful man in the Soviet Union. He had no reason to inflate his importance in dealing with Andropov, who was one of his closest associates, and every reason to express himself as candidly as Andropov had done in writing to Gromyko and Ustinov....The only mystery is why Andropov turned down Kennedy's offer. The answer seems to be that, when it came to left-wing Western politicians hoping to assist the Kremlin's foreign policy, the Soviets were suffering from an embarrassment of riches.This wasn't the only time that Kennedy reached out to the Soviet Union to sabotage President Reagan. O'Sullivan quotes from a report by Vadim Zagladin, the deputy head of the International Department, to Gorbachev and the Politburo on his talks with Senator Kennedy about the Geneva Summit, the first meeting between Reagan and Gorbachev.
E. Kennedy emphasized the following ideas. 1. The recent meeting has changed the climate of the world in many respects....The change is for the better, the birth ofhopes for a better future. However, this process also has a negative side. President Reagan actively uses the new climate. And the problem is not only that his popularity is growing after Geneva. In fact Geneva allowed Reagan to slow down the process of movement to any positive results in negotiations with the USSR. He says that the situation has already changed, that he has instituted dialogue with the Russians, while in fact he does nothing or manges things in the old direction, i.e., that of increasing military preparations. From the Democrats' point of view, all of this is very bad. This does not mean they are against Geneva or the spirit of Geneva -- they are for it. But they think it important not to allow Reagan to abuse a good thing for bad purposes... In his [Kennedy's] opinion, it is important to keep increasing pressure on the administration from different sides, both abroad and at home.Later on Kennedy met with Gorbachev and then again with Zagladin who reported on Kennedy's response.
At the same time, in E. Kennedy's opinion, "my Soviet friends have not yet thoroughly understood the psychology of the Americans and the essence of Reagan's tactics."...The average American sees the situation as follows: "Reagan has managed to establish contacts with the Russians, gaining much from them, but giving nothing. He is a great leader!"...The senator's speculations seemed to suggest that Geneva was a great success for Reagan and a doubtful one for us. SO I aasked him a direct question: "Well, do you think it was a mistake to go to Geneva?" The senator replied without hesitation: "No, it was not, but you should keep pressing, be firmer."Amazing. Now he's telling the Soviets to be firmer with the United States. And giving them some ideas on how to outmaneuver President Reagan in the future.
We should choose two or three points which could be achieved and constantly put pressure on Reagan in order to restrict his freedom of maneuver. These points might be the following: confirmation of the ABM treaty; restriction of the nuclear test limits and a cut in their number; missiles in Europe" (though Reagan, Kennedy said, will demand the elimination of missiles from Asia.)Of course, we only have the Soviet summary of these conversations with Senators Kennedy and Tunney. Sadly, the American media ignored these reports of Kennedy's outreach to the Soviets on how to outmaneuver the American president. However, there is no reason for a Soviet official to lie in a classified report back to the Soviet premier about what an American senator is saying.
Summarizing, Kennedy said, "The present complacency of the Americans, their almost Christmas mood, must be broken. You should put more pressure, and firmer pressure, on Reagan.
Beyond the utter perfidy of Senator Kennedy in seeking to undermine the United States in delicate arms control negotiations with the Soviet Union, there is also the clear misunderstanding that Kennedy had about the state of the Cold War at this point. He is still seeing the Soviet as having a remarkably strong economy equal to that of the United States. Kennedy was hoping that Gorbachev would stand firm against SDI and force Reagan to drop the initiative. He hopes that that pressure will break the Americans' "almost Christmas mood." Yes. He can't stand the support that Americans were giving Reagan and is seeking any effort to tarnish Reagan's foreign policy plans. And so he turns to the Soviets to do that dirty job for the Democrats.
There is something very low and slimy about these exchanges that Kennedy had with the Soviets.The opening of the Soviet archives has given historians a glimpse into several sacred cows of the American left from the Soviets' ties to Americans such as Alger Hiss and the Rosenbergs. And now we can see how one American senator was doing his own bit to undermine the foreign policy of an American president with whom he disagreed. As Peter Robinson writes,
When President Reagan chose to confront the Soviet Union, calling it the evil empire that it was, Sen. Edward Kennedy chose to offer aid and comfort to General Secretary Andropov. On the Cold War, the greatest issue of his lifetime, Kennedy got it wrong.
28 comments:
It wasn't that Kennedy got on the wrong side of the Cold War issue. It's that he got on the wrong side of the war.
Communists or Nazis.
Runs in the family
In what describes Ted Kennedy's "bipartisanship" better than the fawning accolades of last week, we can also hold up the fine example of Kennedy endeavoring to undermine President Carter on Afghanistan:
"Kennedy offered to speak out against President Carter on Afghanistan. Shortly thereafter he made public speeches opposing President Carter on this issue."
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=33301
Then he follows that up with his offer to assist the leaders of the Soviet Union against his own country. What an incredibly selfish and dangerous act - to offer surreptitious aid to the foes that tested his two brothers before him and had been a persistent and growing threat to America.
I'm just waiting for the liberal spin machine to try to step in and fix this stinking mess. Maybe a neck brace...and a claim that Ted Kennedy was trying to build a "peace bridge" to the Soviet Union.
Blind drunk with political ambition, Ted Kennedy was swerving recklessly toward Andropov with our car. Things like this remind me of the saying, "Character is defined by what you do when people are NOT watching."
So Ted conspired with the enemy to bring down his own government so that he could run for President-and others in his party conspired with him.
Interesting that the MSM is telling us that Kennedy passed "the torch" to Obama.
Skay,
Passing the torch to a fellow arsonist!
The best thing I can remember about Sen Tunney was that he was such an inept senator that SI Hayakawa won easily against him in 1976. Ah, the moaning and gnashing of teeth. How dare those Californians elect a semanticist that was lucid, logical and not Noam Chomsky. Good times!
Funny how this apparently earth-shattering claim only came out *after* Kennedy died.
As soon as Kennedy physically cannot refute a right-winger claim, out they pour. A lot of apolitical Americans are getting really sick of right winger/GOP lies.
I would lay off them for a bit, if you want the GOP to survive.
Jaw Bone,
The memo is reproduced in a book published in 2006. Various talk show hosts discussed it and a number of columnists wrote about it. None from the MSM. Not the kind of propaganda the MSM wants to spread.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/08/kgb_kennedy_the_ted_kennedy_i.html
http://www.amazon.com/Crusader-Ronald-Reagan-Fall-Communism/dp/0061189243/ref=ed_oe_p
I see Stan has anticipated much of what I wanted to say, but why waste good logic and invective? Here's what I wrote before I read the 5:28 comment:
JawBone: Betsy's first link goes to a recent Forbes story by Peter Robinson which references a 1992 London Times story by Tim Sebastian and a 2006 book by Paul Kengor, The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism. Her other quotations come from a book by John O'Sullivan which came out last October, as anyone can see by following her Amazon link. I don't have immediate access to any of the three, but it seems highly unlikely that (e.g.) Robinson is lying when he says that Kengor's book "reprinted the memorandum in full", because it would be so easy to check. Kengor's book is only $6.69 (+ shipping) in paperback from Amazon, so you could get Robinson fired from his weekly column at Forbes if you could show that it contains bald-faced lies.
The accusation was in fact made by at least three sources, and substantiated with a reprinted memorandum, while Kennedy was alive. He doesn't appear to have bothered to try to refute it, since he could count on the media to ignore it.
If you can't be bothered to follow the links Betsy provides before writing easily-refutable comments, please just go away and stop wasting everyone else's time here. Or is that the point of being here? And please take all your alter egos with you when you go.
OK, so it's basically another poorly-sourced rightwing fanatic lie. Throw enough of them out there, and see what sticks.
Like I say, ordinary Americans are getting pretty sick of GOP distortions and obstructionism.
Some of us are old enough to remember that this is the second time the GOP and rightwingers have tried to prevent Americans getting the same standard of nationally organized health care that everyone else in the west gets.
So now something in the London Times is "poorly-sourced"? And a book which reprints the source document is "poorly-sourced"?
Some of us are old enough to remember when people who behaved as badly as 'Jaw Bone' has here would feel obligated go away and leave decent people alone at least for a while. 'Jaw Bone' doesn't even have the grace to acknowledge that three sources made the accusation well before Kennedy's death, in direct contradiction to what he wrote. Refusing to acknowledge demonstrated error is the moral equivalent of lying.
Do not interfere with the continued apotheosis of the Kennedys. Or else!
And this traitor lies buried in Arlington! It's an insult to every PATRIOT who lies there. He does NOT belong in the company of American heros. His memory fouls that hallowed ground.
So Cal Jim,
True.
Forbes only published the smear after Kennedy died. They must have been counting down the days, they were so quick on the draw. So can your faux bile, Michael, before you strain something more important than your credibility.
Actually days before and the day of kennedy's death other sites were reviewing Kengor's charge originally made in 1993 and then republished again in 2006. That is when Kennedy should have offered a defense of the charges which were allowed to swirl about him for over sixteen years. Here's the memo:
http://tinyurl.com/ynt9pl
Poor Jaw Bone can't seem to figure out that this "smear" was published in the London Times in 1992, and in two books that came out in 2006 (giving the evidence) and 2008. It may have been in poor taste for Forbes to quote the accusations so soon after Kennedy's death, but saying that the accusations were made after his death so he could not defend himself against them is simply false, as anyone who followed Betsy's links knows. They were made in plenty of time to be refuted, if he cared to try to do so, and there is no evidence that he did. Is Jaw Bone capable of admitting that he was wrong? Is he capable of even realizing it? Liar or fool, that is the question.
Dr Weevil,
The answer to your final question would be "C" - Both.
But Michael, no American politician has to refute idle gossip purveyed by superannuated commies in foreign journals.
Charges leveled by serious domestic periodicals, albeit highly partisan rightwinger ones, are another matter. It surprises me the thing you need explained to you.
Forbes is a "...foreign journal?" Stop digging that hole now!
And Jaw Bone once again confirms that he is (a) Bill Biddle and (b) an utter creep, using his knowledge of my real-life name to feel all smug and superior behind his own wall of anonymity. So, "Bill", if that's even your real name, are you the 92-year-old Pennsylvanian Bill Biddle, or the Bill Biddle who's a professor in Vermont, or the one who lives in Dustin, Oklahoma, or . . . just which one of the 80+ Bill Biddles in America are you? You use your knowledge of my real name to make stupid and mostly inaccurate ad hominem remarks, so why do you feel entitled to conceal your own identity?
And why do you continue to pretend that The London Times is just some 'foreign journal' whose testimony can be safely ignored? It's not the Bratislava Shoppers' Weekly or the Ljubljana Goat Gazette, it's the London Freaking Times. That doesn't prove that the accusation is true, but it does prove that it is not "idle gossip", and Kennedy's failure to respond to it is damning. Is there anyone besides your mother who would find your argument convincing?
The fact remains that you accused the right of waiting until Ted Kennedy was safely dead to attack him for his contemptible dealings with Soviet leaders, and your accusation was a bald-faced lie. At least three people attacked him for that long before he died. If you'd withdrawn your accusation immediately when called on it, you could pass it off as an unusually stupid mistake made by someone who couldn't be bothered to follow Betsy's links, but the fact that you cling to it makes you a liar as well as a creep.
Make your mind up, Michael. Are you going to rant about who you think which foreigners Kennedy should refute, or are you going to rant about your given name, or are you going to vent your spleen about poor old bill biddle? (What's he ever done to you to deserve such feminine venom?)
Trying to do all three just makes you seem like a unempowered angry minimum wage drone.
That is exactly my point, Pat.
Senator Kennedy felt no need to refute lies published overseas about him.
And the domestic publication, Forbes, waited until Kennedy was dead to re-publish the same old rightwinger lies in the USA.
Biddle Bone,
When you're not bragging about your $350k/year income, you're lecturing us on the wide range of foreign periodicals you peruse.
Now you don't like foreign press articles? Or are you the only one permitted to read them?
Read the entire Soviet document in Paul Kengor's book, The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism, published in 2006.
http://www.amazon.com/Crusader-Ronald-Reagan-Fall-Communism/dp/0061136905/sr=8-1/qid=1161398223/hotair06-20
You still read books, right? Even if they were published a couple of years ago?
Of course we could make the same claim about Kennedy considering that now that he is dead and safe from any questioning leaks of his memoirs whitewashing his claims of innocence. Plus on his deathbed Kennedy sent a contrite and begging letter to Pople Benedict trying to mitigate the sins he had committed. Sort of a triple play version of being against abortion before he was for up but died opposing it. Too bad that indulgences are out of favor in the Church as his missives basically failed to convince anyone in the Vatican.
Betsy's post from 8/30 neatly captures the dilema that Kennedy faced and fled from because he decided his political career was more important than the life of another person. All those good works tainted irretrievably except by deadenders who will defend his memory like acolytes burning candles to the Glorious Cause.
Poor Jaw Bone / Biddle thinks I'm "ranting" when I ask him repeatedly to give honest answers to simple questions. He has never explained why he feels entitled to pretend to be at least three (that we know of) different people in this comment section, to violate a signed promise he made to Betsy to address his opponents by their chosen pseudonyms, and to lie repeatedly about the personal lives of other commenters (my last minimum-wage job was in 1978) as well as the various subjects discussed.
As long as he keeps up his lying, his hypocrisy, and his general swinishness, I will continue to call him on all three.
I could write more on the issue at hand here, but why bother? His 'arguments' have been refuted, and he is (intellectually) the proverbial man who is "dead, but too dumb to lie down".
Pat Patterson,
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