USSR.13 This was later captured by
As Reagan pursued a second term, this morale boost had the key dual, opposite effect of sapping Soviet confidence. Vladimir Kontorovich and Michael Ellman noted that the Soviet leadership had always been keenly aware of the need to “score successes” in the competition between the Soviet and American systems. However, by the mid-1980s, the Soviets noticed that market economies like that of the United States were full of confidence in the superiority of their system. This confidence was driven home via Reagan’s constant declarations of that superiority. This, reported Kontorovich and Ellman, had a psychological effect, as it devastatingly reflected reality, particularly among elite government officials who traveled to the United States and other Western countries, where they discovered the stark contrast in the two systems.15 Clearly, the restoration of the United States was playing a key role in the Cold War, cementing the role of Reagan’s domestic policy in his broader foreign policy mentality. Here his focus on morale had paid off in that it led to broad popular support at home and came at the expense of Soviet morale.
Yet, while there may have been a grudging appreciation of what Reagan had accomplished, the Kremlin still wanted him defeated, and badly so. There was severe apprehension of that first Reagan administration and its prospects for a second term. Yevgenny Novikov recalled: “The Central Committee realized that they were facing a committed government in Washington. They saw activity on all fronts….It frightened them to death.”16 At the start of 1984, the Soviet media was filled with examples of this siege mentality: TASS “economic writer” Vladimir Pirogov said it was “no secret” that Reagan was aiming to “exhaust” the USSR.17
According to a number of sources, such fears prompted a KGB “active measures campaign” that was underway by January 1984 and designed to disrupt Reagan’s reelection prospects. None of these sources elaborate on the details, though such an operation would not be a surprise.18 “The clear and widespread belief was anyone was preferable to Reagan,” said Yevgenny Novikov.19 If Reagan won a second term, the Soviets faced four more years in the crosshairs of the Crusader. Not surprisingly, they did not sit silent. They would go down swinging.
As Reagan kicked off his reelection campaign in January, sirens were sounded in
[I]t was the present White House incumbent, invoking God, who declared the “crusade” against socialism…. [T]he present U.S. administration has announced in official documents that its aim is to “destroy socialism as a sociopolitical system.” U.S. political, economic, and ideological life is increasingly subordinated to that unreal task….
As we can see, the psychological warfare conducted by the United States and its allies against real socialism is organized, coordinated, and directed….
Washington is deeply involved in an exceptionally dangerous “crusade” against socialism as a social system. The most highly placed U.S. officials, headed by the president, are the spearhead of this spiritual aggression…. The U.S. President personally participates in the subversive actions. He does this in different ways.20
Korionov was joined by Vladimir Lomeyko, who two weeks later wrote in
One of the strongest Soviet statements on the Reagan challenge, including the economic assault in particular, was offered in a January 27 article by two Soviet academics who held high posts in the military. Titled, “Imperialism’s Economic Aggression,” the article’s coauthors were listed as “Doctor of Economic Sciences professor Major General A. Gurov and Candidate of Economic Sciences Lieutenant Colonel V. Martynenko.” It was published in
The United States, assured the authors, had “in point of fact, already mounted an economic, ideological, and psychological war against the USSR and the other socialist community countries.” Among other tactics, they cited “the unprecedented arms race mounted by Washington.” “The economic war,” they wrote, “is very closely linked to the arms race.” “[T]the Soviet Union and the other socialist community countries,” warned Gurov and Martynenko, “cannot close their eyes to the fact that Washington has declared a ‘crusade’ against socialism as a social system.” They zeroed in on the economic assault:
Economic warfare occupies a very important place in the “crusade” against socialism. Its strategic aims are directly linked, first with attempts to interfere in the socialist countries’ internal affairs and with the desire to undermine their economies. Second, the schemes of economic warfare are very closely interwoven with plans to achieve military superiority, since it is precisely the economy that is the material basis of defense. Third, imperialism’s aggressive foreign economic actions are accompanied by corresponding acts of subversion in the political and spiritual spheres aimed at liquidating the socialist social systems.
The intensity of the economic war is increasing at a very high rate…. The United States has taken on the role of “commander in chief ” in this war. The Reagan administration spent several years preparing its allies for it and directing the elaboration of a “united approach” to economic relations with the East. This was one of the chief issues at the conferences of leaders of the capitalist “Seven” in Ottawa (1981), Versailles (1982), and Williamsburg (1983).
This assessment by comrades Gurov and Martynenko was unerringly correct. With exactness, the authors spelled out precisely what the Reagan administration was doing, laying out details numbing in their surprising accuracy. Their only mistake was believing the USSR and Soviet bloc—amid its alleged “deepening fraternal cooperation” and “unbreakable cohesion,” as they put it—would survive Reagan’s assault.23
The reality was that Moscow was on its heels, and bitter at Reagan’s success. The Soviet leadership was particularly enraged that Reagan, who had been low in the polls through much of 1982 and 1983 because of the recession, was now unexpectedly resurgent. The Soviets wanted Reagan to lose in November so badly that it hurt, and it seemed that they were about to be solicited from the most unlikely of places—from no less than the U.S. Senate.
THE TED KENNEDY FACTOR
It was during the 1984 campaign season that, according to a high-level Soviet document, Moscow almost got help from an unlikely corner in its attempt to defeat Reagan. If what Soviet documents allege actually transpired, it would no doubt prove to be the most fascinating aspect of the 1984 presidential race—one which was known by only a handful of people at the very top of the Soviet leadership and, as a result, never made America’s newspapers or nightly news broadcasts. If it had, it would have been the major story of the 1984 campaign.
During his first three years in office, and particularly since the spring of 1983, Ronald Reagan had pushed a plan to deploy intermediate-range nuclear forces (INFs), also known as Pershing IIs, in Western Europe. His goal was to prompt the Soviets to remove their medium-range nuclear missiles from Eastern Europe. He told Yuri Andropov that if the Kremlin removed its missiles, there would be no need for the United States to deploy INFs. Reagan called this the zero-zero option: he wanted both sides to slash INFs to zero levels. If Andropov would not agree to do this, Reagan would ask NATO to deploy INFs.
Opposition to this policy was ferocious, with the Soviet propaganda machine dubbing Reagan a nuclear
