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KGB Material Released By Cold War Project, Available Online
pha7boy writes "The Cold War International History Project just released the 'Vassiliev Notebooks.' The notebooks are an important new source of information on Soviet intelligence operations in the United States from 1930 to 1950. Though the KGB's archive remains closed, former KGB officer turned journalist Alexander Vassiliev was given the unique opportunity to spend two years poring over materials from the KGB archive taking detailed notes — including extended verbatim quotes — on some of the KGB's most sensitive files. Though Vassiliev's access was not unfettered, the 1,115 pages of densely handwritten notes that he was able to take shed new and important light on such critical individuals and topics as Alger Hiss, the Rosenberg case, and 'Enormous,' the massive Soviet effort to gather intelligence on the Anglo-American atomic bomb project. Alexander Vassiliev has donated his original copies of the handwritten notebooks to the Library of Congress with no restriction on access. They are available to researchers in the Manuscript Division."
The executive summary please.
Deleted
Given the personal history of the powers that be in Russia, I find hard to believe that this guy is given the "unique opportunity" to access or publish "some of the KGB's most sensitive files".
"Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong." (Oscar Wilde)
Here's an article from the Nation that questions some of Vassiliev's conclusions on the Hiss case
You don't honestly think that is a republican posting, do you?
Those kind of post are people just trying to make all conservatives look ignorant (yet not ignorant enough to post on slashdot anonymously.)
Do you think someone who is that stupid could even work a computer?
Considering Alexander Vassiliev's (not sure where the double "s" came from in )rep and lack of any verifiable evidence to the validity of the data, I see this nothing more than a lengthy and uninspiring work of fiction. He is just using his ex-KGB cred to prop up his book business.
I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.
Yes, I do.
Freaking hilarious. While it's possible that original troll is just an imitation of stupidity as opposed to the real thing, your reasoning is tortured.
— not GP AC
These days, it is a lot easier to publish freely in Russia than in USA - the stuff on the shelves in Moscow and Piter is way more unshackled than the things you will find at your average American Barnes and Noble. Plus, why would KGB bother redacting a work of fiction? They didn't bother with Vasiliev's prior work.
I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.
These notes help corroborate other facts that have been revealed, such as the massive archive that Vasili Mitrokhin brought over with him at the end of the Cold War.
While they may not be 100% accurate, I'm expecting they'll likely be 90% or better. His previous writings have mostly dovetailed with the Mitrokhin Archive.
Yes, Vassiliev is prone to exaggeration and self-aggrandizement, (men of power frequently are) but these notes are not the only glimpse into the KGB's archives.
John
The Venona project, only declassified toward the end of the Cold War, contains a large amount of information vindicating the position that the U.S. government was indeed riddled with Soviet assets. McCarthy didn't have access to Venona, and in all probability his lists of communists working in the government were a wild goose chase. It's unfortunate that his tactics and fervor discredited his larger objective, however, because it turns out that there were quite a number of spies in the U.S. government and other key institutions of American society.
The Rise and Fall of Online Community
Pun
noun
1. the humorous use of a word or phrase so as to emphasize or suggest its different meanings or applications, or the use of words that are alike or nearly alike in sound but different in meaning; a play on words.
2. the word or phrase used in this way.
verb (used without object)
3. to make puns.
Does that help?
I say don't drink and drive, you might spill your drink. Before you get behind the wheel just stop and think.
The Russian government serve considerably fewer "cease and desist" notices than the USA's.
I'm only counting written ones, of cour&
*^
##.;';''[p%$no carrier
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
because it turns out that there were quite a number of spies in the U.S. government and other key institutions of American society.
True. But they were mostly useless. One of the more amusing Soviet documents to surface from that era was a grumbling memo from KGB Moscow Central. They were complaining that too many useless agents had been recruited in places like the State Department, and not enough in atomic and other defense programs.
Some well-known items:
For an good background on that era from the Soviet side, read Anatoly Dobrynin's memoirs. He was Soviet ambassador to the US from 1962 to 1986, and after the Cold War wound down, wrote it all up. Dobrynin became an ambassador due to a whim of Stalin's. One day, Stalin was frustrated with his diplomats, who were mostly old guys left over from the Revolution. He said something like "We need new Soviet men in this job, like young aircraft designers." The next day, Anatoly Dobrynin, young aircraft designer, was taken from his drawing board (literally) by KGB agents and shipped to Moscow, to attend the Higher Diplomatic Academy. And no, he wasn't told why at the time.
If this interests you, check out the book, The Sword and the Shield which is compiled from the notes of a KGB archivist who smuggled documents from KGB archives for about 20 years.
you wog-brained shitcock.
An interesting expletive, is it British or Australian English?
The "shitcock" is a nesting bird primarily located in the northern hemisphere. It is closely related to the "fucktwit" in that both are members of Phasianidae family of birds. While not known for their intelligence, they are considerably smarter than the common wog of the order Galliformes.
Male shitcocks and fucktwits can be identified by a peculiar ability to act annoying and sometimes even hostile. Such behavior and a similar appearance often evokes comparisons to wogs despite their only distant relation. These activities are associated with mating patterns and are surprisingly affective at attracting the female members of the species.
Just callin' it like I see it.
Former KGB operative and defector Yuri Bezmenov said most KGB agents were not involved in "James Bond" type espionage over atmioc secrets etc. Ideological subversion was the primary focus:
On Demoralization & Destabilization
"YURI BEZMENOV: Ideological subversion is the process which is legitimate and open. You can see it with your own eyes.... It has nothing to do with espionage.
I know that intelligence gathering looks more romantic.... That's probably why your Hollywood producers are so crazy about James Bond types of films. But in reality the main emphasis of the KGB is NOT in the area of intelligence at all. According to my opinion, and the opinions of many defectors of my caliber, only about 15% of time, money, and manpower is spent on espionage as such. The other 85% is a slow process which we call either ideological subversion, active measures, or psychological warfare. What it basically means is: to change the perception of reality of every American that despite of the abundance of information no one is able to come to sensible conclusions in the interest of defending themselves, their families, their community, and their country.
It's a great brainwashing process which goes very slow and is divided into four basic stages. The first one being "demoralization". It takes from 15 to 20 years to demoralize a nation. Why that many years? Because this is the minimum number of years required to educate one generation of students in the country of your enemy exposed to the ideology of [their] enemy. In other words, Marxism-Leninism ideology is being pumped into the soft heads of at least three generation of American students without being challenged or counterbalanced by the basic values of Americanism; American patriotism....
The result? The result you can see ... the people who graduated in the 60's, dropouts or half-baked intellectuals, are now occupying the positions of power in the government, civil service, business, mass media, and educational systems. You are stuck with them. You can't get through to them. They are contaminated. They are programmed to think and react to certain stimuli in a certain pattern [alluding to Pavlov]. You cannot change their mind even if you expose them to authentic information. Even if you prove that white is white and black is black, you still can not change the basic perception and the logic of behavior."
Excellent series of videos with Yuri on YouTube. These should be required viewing in schools.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHgYPDvQFU8&feature=related
http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:dW8vp_7B-00J:brianakira.wordpress.com/2008/10/25/videosyuri-bezmenov-on-soviet-subversion-of-the-free-world/+A+person+who+is+demoralized+bezmenov&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=4&gl=us
> True. But they were mostly useless.
Depends on what your definition of useless is. Go read _Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America's Enemies_ by M. Stanton Evans. The fifty year seal on the Senate records has expired and combined with many other sources, all well footnoted, that book makes several things clear.
1. McCarthy had no idea just how far the rabbit hole went. Which is why he lost. But what he did know was for the most part accurate.
2. The US State Dept from the entry of the Soviet Union into WWII to the end of the period covered in the book was essentially in Soviet hands. China and Eastern Europe fell into Communist hands with the heroic assistance of the 5th Column within our foreign service.
3. A non-trivial but not quite majority of the US Congress were either Communists or useful idiots. The majority were Dems but the Pro/Anti Communist line hadn't hardened alone party lines to the same extent. Many Dems were still hard core anti-communist, including for example Robert Kennedy who served with Joe McCarthy for a time.
Again, I dare you kids to read it. It is brutal in the attention to detail and use of actual declassified documents.
Democrat delenda est
No, they have actually formed our recent history. See this post below:
http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1234821&cid=27975543
Their infiltration of our higher ed system and popular culture can be clearly seen today. It's eerie that if you watch Ronald Reagan's farewell address, you notice that at the end, it's the decline in the core of American sensibilities he is worried about, despite the increase in national pride under his administration.
http://millercenter.org/scripps/archive/speeches/detail/3418
The brains of a chicken, coupled with the claws of two eagles, may well hatch the eggs of our destruction.
The world might be quite different if the KGB had realized how wasy it was to get the USA to elect a Communist, foreign-born, Muslim president.
"The mind works quicker than you think!"