{"id":40566,"date":"2022-08-31T12:26:22","date_gmt":"2022-08-31T20:26:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=40566"},"modified":"2022-08-31T12:26:22","modified_gmt":"2022-08-31T20:26:22","slug":"ray-mcgovern-talks-about-gorbachev-and-us-russian-relations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2022\/08\/31\/ray-mcgovern-talks-about-gorbachev-and-us-russian-relations\/","title":{"rendered":"Ray McGovern Talks About Gorbachev and US-Russian Relations"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"rumble\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/rumble.com\/embed\/v1fivzl\/?pub=1bdfor\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>My best job at CIA was conducting the one-on-one early morning briefings of <em>The President\u2019s Daily Brief<\/em> and updating it with Vice President George H. W. Bush, Secretary of State George Shultz, and Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger during President Ronald Reagan\u2019s first term \u2013 1981-85. (The president preferred to sleep in, and would usually be briefed later in the morning by the above, plus his national security adviser.)<\/p>\n<p>This was the time when Mikhail Gorbachev was coming into prominence \u2013 eventually becoming head of the Communist Party and President of the Soviet Union. Gorbachev had been virtually unknown, so it was easy for Weinberger, CIA Director William Casey and his prot\u00e9g\u00e9 Robert Gates to paint Gorbachev as simply another Commie \u2013 just a more polished, clever one \u2013 and assure Reagan that the Soviet Communist Party would NEVER change: nor would it EVER EVER give up power peacefully.<\/p>\n<p>I found myself in a unique position to critique that benighted attitude by providing my own views (citing concrete evidence), though only, of course, when asked to by the people I was briefing.<\/p>\n<p>Teflon-coated Robert Gates, whom some folks still look up to, has not changed. In his book, <em>Duty<\/em>, he responded dismissively to those warning that Russia would be alarmed by the emplacement of offensive missiles in places like Romania, Poland, and the Black Sea: \u201cMaking the Russians happy wasn\u2019t exactly on my to-do list.\u201d So here we are today with \u201cunprovoked\u201d war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p>During my interview with RT International last evening, I could not resist the temptation to record my brief meeting with Gorbachev when Gates\u2019s name came up. Our until-then cordial conversation ended abruptly as Gorbachev\u2019s face turned cold. \u201c\u043f\u0440\u0438\u0432\u0435\u0442 \u0435\u043c\u0443\u201d (give him a greeting), Gorbachev said. He had been on record, long since, as deeming Gates a major impediment to decent relations between Washington and Moscow. For all we know, Gates may still have the ear of neophytes like Jake Sullivan and Antony Blinken.<\/p>\n<p><em>This originally appeared at <a href=\"https:\/\/raymcgovern.com\">RayMcGovern.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. His 27-year career as a CIA analyst includes serving as Chief of the Soviet Foreign Policy Branch and preparer\/briefer of the President\u2019s Daily Brief. He is co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My best job at CIA was conducting the one-on-one early morning briefings of The President\u2019s Daily Brief and updating it with Vice President George H. W. Bush, Secretary of State George Shultz, and Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger during President Ronald Reagan\u2019s first term \u2013 1981-85. (The president preferred to sleep in, and would usually [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-40566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40566"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40566\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40569,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40566\/revisions\/40569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40566"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=40566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}