warmonger and labeling him a belligerent who wanted to plant missiles on the soil of Western nations that never hosted such weapons. In addition, the Western nuclear freeze movement gave the Kremlin a vocal ally extending from London to Bonn to New York. The nuclear freezers led massive protests and assailed Reagan in the harshest terms. The international left was convinced that Ronald Reagan was dragging the world to nuclear Armageddon. Freezers like Dr. Helen Caldicott of Physicians for Social Responsibility and certain Catholic bishops feared Reagan might blow up the world.24
Ultimately, Andropov refused Reagan’s offer, which was actually rooted in proposals made in the late 1970s by West Germany’s Helmut Schmidt and President Jimmy Carter. Defying all odds, Reagan’s team persuaded leaders like West Germany’s Helmut Kohl and Britain’s Margaret Thatcher to accept INF deployments. Through 1984, the missiles were deployed, and the left was incensed.
Reagan ideas like the INFs, as well as SDI and many others, infuriated most liberals, including Senator Edward “Ted” Kennedy (D-MA), who, according to a highly sensitive KGB document, was motivated to do something quite unusual. Indeed, the most intriguing opposition to Reagan’s nuclear policies has sat for decades in the Soviet archives.25 If the details of the document (see Appendix) are accurate, Ted Kennedy may have pursued an extraordinary partnership with Yuri Andropov.
Back in 1983, specifically on May 14, 1983, KGB head Viktor Chebrikov had sent a message of “Special Importance” with the highest classification to Yuri Andropov. The subject head to the letter read: “Regarding Senator Kennedy’s request to the General Secretary of the Communist Party Y. V. Andropov.” It began: “On 9–10 May of this year, Senator Edward Kennedy’s close friend and trusted confidant J. Tunney was in Moscow. The senator charged Tunney to convey the following message, through confidential contacts, to…Andropov.” The Tunney referred to in the letter was former Senator John V. Tunney (D-CA), who served in the U.S. Senate from 1971 to 1977. Defeated in 1976, Tunney was a private citizen in 1983.26
For Tunney to serve as Kennedy’s liaison would not be a surprise, since Tunney and Kennedy were close. They had been law school roommates at the University of Virginia and often went sailing and mountain climbing together after law school. Tunney named his first child after Ted Kennedy, who is his son’s godfather.27 Along with their former wives, they rode on Kennedy’s yacht together. They frequented the same social circles and shared many of the same friends. Remarkably, Tunney was said to somehow even share Kennedy’s Hyannisport accent, even though he was not a native of the area. They were so close that Tunney once feared, “I didn’t want to go through the rest of [life] being known as Teddy Kennedy’s friend.”28
After Tunney had been friends with the Kennedy family for a while, he even got the chance to meet Ted’s famous big brother. When Tunney first considered running for Congress, John F. Kennedy himself—who, unlike Ted, was a fierce anti-Communist—advised Tunney to ditch his middle name, Varick, the name used by his friends and family since childhood. It sounded too Russian, said Jack the Cold Warrior—Tunney might strike the electorate as a Communist.29
According to the KGB’s account of events, in May 1983, John Varick Tunney went to Moscow to tell the Communists that Senator Ted Kennedy was “very troubled” by the state of U.S.–Soviet relations. Kennedy believed the main reason for the dangerous situation to be “Reagan’s belligerence”—particularly his commitment to deploy INFs in Western Europe. “According to Kennedy,” reported Viktor Chebrikov in his letter to Andropov, “the current threat is due to the President’s refusal to engage any modification to his politics.” That refusal, said the letter, was made worse because of Reagan’s political success, which made him even surer of his course, and obstinate.
Chebrikov’s view was that Kennedy held out hope that Reagan’s 1984 reelection bid could be thwarted. But how? Where was the president vulnerable? The Soviet interpretation of what transpired concluded that Kennedy had provided a possible answer. “The only real threats to Reagan are problems of war and peace and Soviet- American relations,” wrote Chebrikov. “These issues, according to the senator [Kennedy], will without a doubt become the most important of the election campaign.” Within the nuclear freeze movement and Congress there was resistance to Reagan. Yet, according to Chebrikov, Kennedy lamented that the opposition to Reagan was still weak; Kennedy regretted that Reagan was good at “propaganda,” whereas statements from Soviet officials (not propaganda, presumably) were quoted “out of context” or “whimsically discounted.”
Chebrikov then relayed Kennedy’s alleged offer to Andropov: “Kennedy believes that, given the state of current affairs, and in the interest of peace, it would be prudent and timely to undertake the following steps to counter the militaristic politics of Reagan.” The first step, according to the Soviet view of the Tunney meeting, was a recommendation by Kennedy that Andropov invite him to Moscow for a personal meeting. Chebrikov reported: “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 would be better prepared and more convincing during appearances in the USA.” Kennedy, reported Chebrikov, offered to bring along liberal Republican Senator Mark Hatfield.
Second, wrote the KGB head, “Kennedy believes that in order to influence Americans it would be important to organize in August–September of this year [1983], televised interviews with Y. V. Andropov in the USA.” By Chebrikov’s account, the Massachusetts senator had suggested a “direct appeal” by Andropov to the American people. “Kennedy and his friends,” stated Chebrikov, would hook up Andropov with television reporters like Walter Cronkite and Barbara Walters. According to Chebrikov, Kennedy suggested arranging interviews not merely for Andropov but also for “lower level Soviet officials, particularly from the military,” who “would also have an opportunity to appeal directly to the American people about the peaceful intentions of the USSR.” This was judged necessary because of so-called distortion by the Reagan administration.
In essence, Chebrikov’s interpretation was that Kennedy offered to help organize a Soviet PR campaign, which would “root out the threat of nuclear war,” “improve Soviet-American relations,” and “define the safety for the world.” “Kennedy is very impressed with the activities of Y. V. Andropov and other Soviet leaders,” explained Chebrikov.
In the final paragraph of the letter, Chebrikov talked of Kennedy’s political plans and prospects for 1984. “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.” “We await instructions,” finished the KGB head to the head of the USSR: The senator “underscored that he eagerly awaits a reply to his appeal,” the answer to which could be delivered through Teddy Kennedy’s friend—John Tunney.
According to the KGB document, Kennedy’s goal in reaching out to Andropov was to defeat Reagan on two fronts: He hoped to reverse the president’s defense policies and foil his 1984 reelection bid. If the memo is in fact an accurate account of what transpired, it constitutes a remarkable example of the lengths to which some on the political left, including a sitting U.S. senator, were willing to go to stop Ronald Reagan—gestures not surprising to some who worked for the president.30 Reagan’s moves from the spring of 1983 into 1984, from the INFs to SDI, apparently sent some liberals over the edge. Reagan faced enormous opposition not just from Moscow but in Washington, and almost from Moscow and Washington (or at least certain elements of Washington) working together.
After Reagan left office, Tunney admitted to the London Times that he had made some fifteen trips to the USSR during the period, in which he acted as a “go-between” (his word) for a number of members of the U.S. Senate, as well as some unnamed others. He conceded: “I represented the views of some senators.” He disputed certain portions of Chebrikov’s memo, a few sentences of which were reported in the Times in February 1992. “I told them instead it would be good PR if they announced a cutback [in arms],” he said only.31
At one level, observers will decry Kennedy’s actions as shameless political opportunism. Irate conservatives may try to label his overture “treason,” charging that he sought to assist America’s enemy during a time of “war,” albeit an undeclared “cold” war, and will dub him everything from a useful idiot to Benedict Kennedy to Red Ted for reaching out to the Kremlin at the height of the Cold War.
Kennedy defenders, on the other hand, will maintain that the senator did what he felt was best for world peace, even if that meant extending his hand to Yuri Andropov.32 They will say that he was rightly concerned that the U.S.–USSR confrontation was spiraling out of control, edging closer to the precipice of nuclear oblivion. Andropov and other high-level Soviets actually feared the United States might launch a nuclear attack, as did many leftists in the West, including Ted Kennedy.
Yet, Democrats eager to defend Kennedy should know that this may not have been the first time he reportedly reached out to Moscow to undermine a sitting president’s foreign policy in an election season: according to another KGB document, the previous target of the Massachusetts senator had been Democratic President Jimmy Carter, Kennedy’s own political flesh and blood, whom Kennedy somehow believed was guilty of belligerence
