Peace: A Soviet View

Gennady Vasiliev: According to official figures, something like 20 million or maybe 22 million people died in the Second World War, and we still remember those days. What is not understood in this country either is that for many people the war was first of all starvation. For instance, I was too young to go to the front, but I remember, yes, 40 41 was still more or less okay but 42 43 44 as the years of permanent hunger when a piece of bread was something you know beautiful from time to time some officials in the united states or some newspapers call those who are active in peace movement in this country kind of Moscow agents but I met many peace activists in this country and I know they are ingenious Americans they are American patriots in highest sense of the word and it was announced that the Soviet Union is starting to deploy the same kind of missiles in German Democratic Republic and in Czechoslovakia, that we will have some additional missiles near American coasts which can reach your cities also approximately in the same time. I don't think that it's in our interests, neither our or yours, you know. We have to do something to defuse this highly dangerous situation.

Speaker 2: The director of the Washington Bureau of the Soviet newspaper Pravda is with us to talk about U.S.-Russian relations tonight on Alternative Views.

Speaker 3: . . .

Speaker 2: Several months back, we did an interview on Alternative Views with Yuri Zamoshkin, who's a leading Soviet intellectual at the University of Moscow. And a person came up to me a week or so later after she'd seen the program, and she said it was one of the most touching things she'd ever seen because she'd never actually seen a Soviet citizen in a personal situation. And it made her think, hey, those Russians are really people after all. And they're not just these ogres that our government continuously tells us that they are. Well, this is one of the hopes that we have for our program tonight on Alternative Views to help bridge the gap in one tiny wee way in the in our country, because we have with us Gennady Vasiliev, who has been a journalist in the Soviet Union for many, many years, and now he's a Washington correspondent for Pravda, which is the official paper of the Communist Party. But before we talk to our guest, here are a couple of news stories.

Speaker 4: I have an article from the March 5th issue of Businessweek that gives the late 1983 figures for federal revenue now we reported last year that the corporate tax their share of federal revenue was under eight percent seven point nine seven percent to be exact and this is up for down from twenty three percent in nineteen sixty six well in nineteen eighty three the share corporate share of federal revenues has fallen to six percent And corporations, some different corporations are getting kind of irritated about this because the benefits don't seem to be distributed evenly through the corporate structure. In telecommunications, for instance, the U.S. effective rate averages about 2% of pre-tax profits. In insurance, about 6.3%. In banks, 3.8%. In railroads, 4.1%, broadcasting about 9%, beverages at 20%. But some of the other corporations don't get the same incentives through the Reagan program that the others have. For instance, trucking pays an effective rate about 37%, tobacco about 36%, and wholesalers at 36%. Now, you must remember that the tax rate supposedly for corporations is 46%. But through the various incentives and loopholes, these corporations are paying much less. Now, some companies pay little to the U.S. because of the credits that they get for heavy foreign taxes. This one is hard to believe. The chemical industry is a minus 17.7%. In other words, the government pays them because of the foreign taxes that they have to pay about 67.4%. So worldwide, they're actually averaging about 47%. And less than a fourth, this whole total of the corporate share of federal revenues is less than a fourth as much as that from the personal income tax. Now, I don't know if Eric can zoom in on this. I have a little chart. It's quite interesting. You'll notice that the narrow sliver right here that gets smaller as you go across here, that's the corporate share. So it's almost to a pinpoint there. And this bottom part is your personal income taxes. And this has created such a brouhaha that you have several different members of Congress from different wings of different parties saying that they ought to do something about that. For instance, Senator Bill Bradley, a Democrat from New Jersey, and Jack Kemp, good old Jack, a Republican from New York, want corporate flat rate taxes that are similar, and they're talking 25 or 30%. And you know, last year they were saying 15% and some of the corporations were squealing over that. You can imagine what they see about 25 or 30.

Speaker 2: And 25% is still less than what it was during the 50s when corporations were paying on an average of the total tax bill in the country, the corporations were paying something like 37%. 35 to 37 percent. So even that 25 isn't like the good old days in the 50s.

Speaker 5: I guess it pays to control government then. It sure does. Here's an example of where the corporations actually got beaten by a grassroots organizing campaign that was trying to get corporations to label products that had dangerous chemicals or other substances in them so that both the consumers and workers could know what they were dealing with in buying certain different corporate products. So there was a grassroots campaign that developed called a right to know movement that put bills through 11 states so far requiring corporations to label hazardous products on the outside of the product so that the consumer would know what toxic chemicals and other dangerous materials might be in them. Industry fought tooth and nail to try to prevent this, claiming that labeling would cost extra money, it would drive prices up, it would force some plants to shut down, etc. The usual arguments, but of course none of this really happened. Meanwhile, while the states are passing tougher labeling right-to-know laws. The Reagan administration has backed off of some earlier efforts to pass federal legislation and have quit doing this.

Speaker 2: And now for our interview with the director of the Washington Bureau of Pravda, Gennady Vasiliev. What brings you to Austin, Texas? Are you on a recruiting? Are you giving recruiting interviews at the journalism school?

Gennady Vasiliev: I think... What brought me here is the fact that still some relations even at present tense times exist between our two countries. Probably you know that in your city there is a group called USA-USSR Citizens Dialogue Committee. So it started quite unexpectedly for me several years ago when I came to this country by invitation of USA-USSR Dialogue Committee representing Soviet public you know that's how we got acquainted with many people on american side including mr wayne brian who is with united ministries in your city at your university and also who is a member of dialogue committee so by invitation of this committee and student debating society i came to austin i want to say how grateful i am to the people of austin who invited me Yesterday I had very moving experience. I was invited to the city hall and your mayor presented me a diploma proclaiming the day Gennady Vasiliev's day. So now I am a kind of honorary citizen of Texas. And I will tell you that I am greatly moved not only because I was honored personally. I think that this is a reflection on the desire of many Americans still to have good relations with my country. As in this diploma, they say, to offer our hand in warm extension of friendship and understanding. Friendship and understanding, that's what we need very much in our present dangerous times.

Speaker 2: Can you give us some of your personal history of your journalistic career? It started back in Korea, back in 1949.

Gennady Vasiliev: Yes, yes. You know, it started long ago. I even, you know, feel a little bit... hesitant about admitting you know how long ago I started my journalistic work because then you will know how old I am though I am not a woman and then I have the right to admit it honestly well we're not exactly spring chickens either it started long ago you know after graduating from a college of international relations there is such a college in Moscow And many diplomats, many prominent diplomats, journalists graduated from this college, including the people who are working now with Soviet embassy in Washington. So in 1949, I graduated from this college. But somehow I didn't like diplomatic job. Therefore, when I had different choices, I preferred to go to TASS news agency, which is our Soviet news agency like your UPI or AP. And after several years of working in Moscow with TASS news agency, I was assigned to North Korea. It was quite unexpected to me, you know, because I never knew Korean language. and I thought myself by that time to be already a specialist on America you know though later I found out that I know almost nothing about the country but that I understood when I came here so but I was sent to North Korea it was a unlucky time you know of Korean War so I came to Pyongyang in May or June 53, just before two, three months before the armistice was signed. I remember devastated Pyongyang, sufferings of people, and I hope it will never be repeated again. After North Korea, I was back to Moscow, then I was in New York with TASS news agency, then in London with Pravda, in Washington with Pravda, and this is my third time in the United States.

Speaker 2: Let's see, when you were in Korea, the Soviet Union was still building its way, coming out of the horrible devastation of World War II, was it not?

Gennady Vasiliev: 1953, yes, yes, because we felt the results of war for a long, long time. I would say that still now we feel the effects of war, which was over, almost 40 years ago yes next year we will celebrate 40th anniversary of the victory over nazism together with the united states britain and france and we realized that that time which is very important to remind now so we feel the effects of water now in many ways including the number of male population, which is still smaller than female population of our country.

Speaker 5: Because so many soldiers were killed.

Speaker 2: Yes. It was not only World War II. If you go back to World War I, Russia lost as many or more people than anybody else in that war, even though they were only in it for a couple of years. And then there was the horrible Civil War. There was a war with Poland when Poland grabbed a lot of Russian territory. Then, of course, the There was intervention by western powers including the United States invading the Soviet Union and there have been of course there were the problems of the excesses and brutality of the Stalin years all the purges so the Russian people have suffered incredibly for several decades and I can this is one plea well Doug you visited the Soviet Union and other people in 1970 One of the first things everybody says, you know, let's have peace, let's have peace.

Speaker 5: I was struck by the genuine desire for peace on the part of the Soviet people, all of whom told horror stories about World War II and that they simply didn't want to go through the brutalities of war again and had a genuine desire for peace with the American people.

Gennady Vasiliev: I agree with you 100% that peace feelings are very deep in heart of Russian, of Soviet people, because very often all of us are called Russians, but we are Ukrainians, Jews, Georgians, and so on. very deep because according to official figures something like 20 million or maybe 22 million people died in the Second World War and we still remember those days and I would tell you that maybe because of that The most moving holiday in our country is the Victory Day. It's 9th of May. On the 9th of May, people are going to the cemeteries where soldiers are buried. And those who survived the war, veterans of war, come to certain places in Moscow, in Minsk, in Kyiv, standing with placards, I am from such and such brigade. maybe somebody will find him because so few people remained alive especially among those who started the war when they were young as far as i know among younger soviet people those who may be 18, 19, or 20 years old when the war started in 1941, only 5% of people returned back home. Almost the whole generation was wiped out. Therefore, it's very dear to us this problem of prevention of nuclear war because we understand in comparison with Second World War, nuclear war will be something really terrible.

Speaker 2: Well, of these 22 million people who perished, a lot of those were civilians who were butchered by the Nazis, as I understand it. Well, for instance, in Obiella, Russia, something like only... one out of five people survived, the Nazis. Because in Belarus they had a very strong partisan movement. But also when the Germans shipped so many civilians back to Germany for slave labor, and they just massacred. I understand when the Soviet army liberated Kiev, for instance, I think it was Kiev, they found graves with a hundred thousand people. There were whole villages, you know, destroyed.

Speaker 5: They killed more Russians than Jews. This is not known to a lot of Americans.

Gennady Vasiliev: Yes, yes. I would say, you know, this is of course very questionable privilege, you know, questionable privilege to claim that your nationality was destroyed greater than another but really there is misperception in the west when people think that mainly Jews were executed by Nazis Ukrainians Belarusians Russians were executed especially if the village had supported partisan movement in the nearby forests if they thought that there is a support They destroyed the whole village.

Speaker 5: Which is what they're doing in Central America now, in Guatemala and in El Salvador, there's almost a repetition.

Gennady Vasiliev: According to what I read, yes. Genocidal policies.

Speaker 2: And then also as the Russian armies advanced, the Germans took whatever able-bodied men they could find from the villages and took them along with them because the Russians would then recruit these men. and put them into the army to help build up their military strength so of the 22 million who perished would that also include the civilians or is that only military casualties?

Gennady Vasiliev: I think it's including military and civilians and I think you have to include in this figure many people who died of hunger of starvation because what is not understood in this country either is that for many people the war was first of all starvation for instance I was too young to go to the front but I remember yes 41 was still more or less okay, but 42, 43, 44 is the years of permanent hunger when a piece of bread was something beautiful.

Speaker 2: And where were you living at the time?

Speaker 5: In Moscow. And what about the younger people? Are there participation among the young people and also a consciousness of the dangers of war? You told about how the older generation that had suffered from World War II was obviously conscious of the need for peace. But what about younger generation?

Gennady Vasiliev: I think that with younger generations, there are certain problems you know which are quite objective you understand the origin of those problems you know when i talk to my son about second world war it sounds to him as if i am speaking about you know, Tatar-Mongolian invasion which took place several hundred years ago, you know, he didn't live through the war, and for him it's just something abstract. but still I think we can and we are doing our best to to explain to younger people what the war is how can we can do it through literature first of all Russian people are great enthusiasts of reading books you know and there is a whole whole I would say river of literature on the second world war younger people are reading those books and they know what the war was there are movies then in our schools there are different i would say projects you know to educate school children about peace and war they have groups of children investigating the places where the battle took place trying to find the names of those people who died who were killed and maybe probably till now their mothers don't know where they were buried this is a kind of reminding uh to young people what happened to our country what we have to prevent in future what is their consciousness and activity in the peace movement today in the soviet union around the issue of nuclear war i think that the cloud of nuclear danger the danger of nuclear war is over the heads of younger people and older people all over the world and it affects you know their behavior very often not in good way because some young people maybe think that they have too little time to live and therefore better just to enjoy life why to work hard you know but i think probably this is the minority you know the minority in my country majority think that they have to work hard first of all to improve the living standards in our country to make our life richer more enjoyable and of course they support those initiatives which are put forward by our government to reach some meaningful disarmament agreements.

Speaker 5: Could you tell us a little bit about some of your involvement or some of the things that are going on with the peace movement in the Soviet Union, of how the Soviet people are involved in the peace movement, some of the initiatives of the Soviet government?

Gennady Vasiliev: First of all, it's a very broad public movement. It's a non-governmental movement. Organizations of peace activists are created on factories, on plants, in schools, by people themselves who contribute money to support their activity.

Speaker 5: And it's independent of the government, you're saying?

Gennady Vasiliev: I say that. It's independent of the government, though it includes among... its people some amongst its activists some people in high position maybe in government maybe in party some people like George Arbatov who is the head of American Studies Institute you know some academicians famous scientists and the idea is somehow to help to help to move our foreign policy in the direction of peace. And I would say that probably some of the ideas which were expressed by our government officially, they came from the peace movement like the idea to cut military spendings 10% which is still standing which was proposed in the United Nations and we will be glad to fulfill this pledge if the other side also takes such a pledge like a proposal or kind of proclamation against the first use of nuclear weapons which was made by our government and we very much expect that western governments will follow our example till now we haven't heard anything of the kind but it came also from the ideas of peace movement

Speaker 5: how are these ideas generated by the peace movement are there just activists in the peace movement that formulate these ideas like renouncing first strike use of nuclear weapons and lowering defense budget it's people in the movement propose them and then the movement as a whole adopts them and then they propose them to these ideas to the soviet government is this how it works there are many ways

Gennady Vasiliev: of expressing your opinion. For instance, we had very massive demonstrations in the Red Square, in many parks of Moscow, in support of United Nations Disarmament Conference. and many ideas were expressed at those meetings there are more recreational types of activity like the recent bike for peace people were riding on their bicycles soviet norwegians it seems to me british and somebody else through the whole europe from moscow and they came finally to washington dc and i was among those people who met them Then, of course, we have in our peace movement different professional groups, because in peace movement, different people are involved, not only workers, peasants, but scientists. And there are groups in that we have, first of all, the Central Peace Committee, peace committees in cities, in the republics. And in those committees, there are special commissions on disarmament, on other problems which consist of ordinary people and of some specialists in this field who can judge the problem really in detail professionally and their recommendations go to our central committee they go to our parliament supreme soviet and some of them become official later become official law of our country

Speaker 2: I noticed that particularly the scientific communities of the United States and the Soviet Union seemed to have a pretty close relationship. There was a television program on C-SPAN with My satellite had the Soviets in Moscow with some Americans there and Soviet scientists with some American scientists in Washington, I believe it was.

Gennady Vasiliev: I've been at this conference in Washington.

Speaker 2: Were you there? Yes, yes. And that was where they talked about the... Nuclear winter. Nuclear winter, yeah. That was, to me, really a touching thing to see both countries' scientists there. What is the nuclear winter concept?

Gennady Vasiliev: It seems to me the idea which was moved forward by Carl Sagan and the group of American scientists who say that actual consequences of nuclear exchange, even of limited scope, will be much greater than previously thought. Because previously we thought about heat wave, radiation, fallout. Now the scientists found out that as a result of clouds which will cover almost the whole globe, there will be such fall fall down of temperature, that vegetation stops, you know, life practically will be destroyed. Photosynthesis will cease, animals will be killed, crops will be killed. And I was very glad, by the way, there was a hearing on the Washington Hill arranged by Senators Kennedy and Hetfield to which Soviet scientists were invited so from the American side it was Carl Sagan some other important scientific figures from our side also very important scientists and as you just said It was interesting that in spite of different social economic systems, they came almost to the same conclusions, yes.

Speaker 5: And how does the media in the Soviet Union treat the peace movement in the Soviet Union? Is there a lot of discussion in the media of the aims and activities of the Soviet peace movement? And also, do they focus on peace movements in the United States and Europe in the Soviet media? How is this handled?

Gennady Vasiliev: It's handled very widely. We devote much space in my newspaper, Pravda, to peace demonstrations, peace conferences, to the peace movement in the United States. and we think this is a important force though we understand that the obstacles are very serious there is military industrial complex you know and not often the feelings of the people become a policy in this country and I know even that from time to time some officials in the United States or some newspapers call those who are active in peace movement in this country kind of Moscow agents but I met many peace activists in this country. And I know they are ingenious Americans. They are American patriots in the highest sense of the word to me.

Speaker 2: The Soviet Union gets credit for a lot of activities around the world.

Gennady Vasiliev: Probably somebody thinks us to be richer than we are.

Speaker 2: In some of the Eastern European countries, such as East Germany, there have been massive peace demonstrations. But the government does not support them, I understand. But in the Soviet Union, the government does have a peace movement. What is the difference here between the other Eastern European?

Gennady Vasiliev: Frankly speaking, I don't know about those demonstrations.

Speaker 2: 125,000 people, I think it was reported in, was it Leipzig or Dresden?

Speaker 5: It was a couple cities in East Germany. There's two peace movements in East Germany. One is the official government-sponsored peace movement, and another tends to be rooted in Protestant churches in East Germany. It's outside of the spectrum of the East German government, and there's some tension between this basically religious peace movement in East Germany and the official government peace movement.

Gennady Vasiliev: Doug, I'm surprised to hear it from you. Maybe I have no information at all, but this is the first time I hear about some contradictions between religious peace movement and official peace movement, because in our country, the leaders of our religious community are maybe the most active participant of the movement. Patriarch of Russian church is very outspoken. The leaders of our churches are also recently, we had, not recently, maybe two years ago, we had a convention of all religious leaders of the Soviet Union who disguised the problems of prevention of nuclear war and Billy Graham came to this conference and he

Speaker 5: Supposedly, he was very moved by that conference. He reversed his position on nuclear weapons and on American foreign policy. Previously, he'd been a defender of the American military policies, and he began criticizing after that conference some of the arms buildup, which was a reversal.

Gennady Vasiliev: Have you seen his movie? There was a movie made by Billy Graham about his trip to the Soviet Union. I saw it on TV in Washington. Very impressive, very impressive.

Speaker 2: Well, is there a contradiction or are there problems between the Soviet peace movement then and the government's war in Afghanistan, or do they just only concentrate on U.S. and Soviet relations?

Gennady Vasiliev: you know so far as Afghanistan is concerned we think that our troops came there by invitation of the lawful government of the country the whole problem was created by some unfavorable changes in Afghanistan it was always a country either neutral to the Soviet Union or even to Russia, or friendly.

Speaker 2: It was a very complicated situation in Afghanistan. As you said, for many years the regime in Afghanistan was neutral or friendly with the Soviet Union, even though it was very backward, very despotic. there was no modernization at all. Well, into this situation, there were more and more young Afghanistanis who went abroad to study, particularly in the Soviet Union. And when they came back to the country, they were appalled, of course, by what was going on in the country. And so they tried to, they formed a Communist Party and tried to make changes. This Communist Party was not supported by the Soviet Union as, for instance, like in China when Stalin did not support Mao but supported Chiang. And so they eventually took over the government, had a revolution, and they tried to have some reforms to, like health reforms, educational reforms to liberate women, etc. do away with slavery, but all of this quite greatly offended the old power structure of the various tribes that had control of the dope trade and the slave trade, whatever. But in the meanwhile, there was a split. It was a very complicated situation. There was a split within the Communist Party there, and the more liberal leaders, I would say, were kicked out. Well, there were purges, a lot of them killed, and then some were kicked out and left and went to the Soviet Union. In the meanwhile, the leaders, the communist leaders who remained, really started some great excesses and made themselves very unpopular in the country. So when they did this, a number of the people started an uprising, and then the Soviet Union was in a bind. You could tell they didn't want to go into the country, but if they didn't do anything, then the reforms and all would go down the drain, but they didn't like the government was there, so they wanted to support their government in exile. So it was really a very complicated situation, and the Soviet was in the horns of a dilemma. They were damned if they did and damned if they didn't go into Afghanistan, and now they're in a situation, a bad situation.

Gennady Vasiliev: And of course we would like those troops to be brought back we are not for continuation of the war but in our opinion what makes this withdrawal difficult is the interference from the outside from Pakistan from some other countries which feeds I would say not resistance resistance against the Afghanistan Afghani regime there are bases in Pakistan supported by CIA you know supplied by American or some other weapons you know paid by in dollars you know and probably some people think that to continue this kind of actions across the border is a kind of weakening the Soviet Union we are sincerely interested in stopping the war in Afghanistan and in withdrawal of our troops but we think there is a condition to to stop this interference from outside across the border. This is our official position.

Speaker 5: And what about the response within the peace movement? Like, for instance, as you know, the great peace movement in America against the Vietnam policy really played a major role in stopping the US aggression in Vietnam and making people conscious of some of the problems with American foreign policy, as did the number of dead US citizens when there was something like 30,000 or 40,000 Americans killed in Vietnam. This also created a consciousness among the people of some of the problems with this foreign policy. Is there anything remotely similar in the Soviet Union vis-à-vis Afghanistan? Has the peace movement been critical of this policy? Have a lot of Soviet soldiers been killed in Afghanistan that has created dissension at home, or is it different? situation in both scale and content?

Gennady Vasiliev: I don't think that our people think in terms of some parallels of Afghanistan and Vietnam. I think that majority of them support the present government, the present policy as something necessary for the country. But of course we would like to stop this war and from our national point of view it seems to me this is my personal opinion not an official position it was very dangerous for us if the country could become could become a kind of territory for foreign bases which will be aimed missiles from which will be aimed at our country.

Speaker 5: It's right on your border.

Gennady Vasiliev: It's our border and very long, very long border. For many, many years, maybe even since last century, always it was neutral in between, you know, Russia and the Russian competitors.

Speaker 5: Is there any possibility that the military conflict in Afghanistan will come to an end? Are there prospects for peace, or is it a long, difficult road ahead?

Gennady Vasiliev: I think that it has to come to an end, you know, and I think that the government afghanistan government is improving strengthening its positions it's improving control over the country and finally those people who are acting from abroad who are instigating you know some you know, peasants in remote villages, especially deeply religious, and who, as you said, don't accept modernization, finally they will see the usefulness of their cause. Because it seems to me in the interests of Afghanistan, of Afghan people, is to come to some kind of solution. Maybe some kind of compromise, you know.

Speaker 5: So you think the people will be educated as to what their interests are? Yes. And that this will stop the war. Maybe we could move to Europe now and talk about relationships between the Soviet Union and the European countries and also what the Soviet people and you and the government think about putting the cruise and Pershing missiles.

Gennady Vasiliev: in Europe. We consider it very dangerous development the fact that deployment of Pershing 2s and cruise missiles started in Western Europe. For many years since the NATO decision in 1979 it seems to me, we were saying that for us it's unacceptable development that we will have to react in kind that better not to do it but you know there was an opinion here in high circles and that was expressed by the administration that if we push forward if you take the position of strength Russians will finally agree to some kind of compromise not unfavorable to them it was of course to me very serious miscalculation maybe even not miscalculation it was a deceit of public because i cannot believe you know that somebody who has information about soviet union about our history who knows our country could have thought that Soviet Union under pressure will agree to some dangerous you know dangerous compromise dangerous to our interests and it's really dangerous because what how we see this those missiles Pershing-2 are highly accurate you know missiles they can almost find somebody in the crowd and pinpoint him and hit him. Then it takes only six or eight minutes to reach Moscow or Leningrad. It makes the situation very dangerous because with with strategic missiles, though they are also dangerous. It takes something like 30 minutes to reach the Soviet Union or to reach the United States. Still, two governments have time to think about maybe to use hotline to find out what happened. when you have six minutes your reaction must be almost automatic I don't mean automatic reaction by machine but some generals commanders and the leaders of the country have very little time to think They have to react, to respond. Therefore, it seems to me it's an unwise decision to start deployment of nuclear missiles in Europe. We think that before this deployment started, we had already overall balance in Europe and in the world between the United States and between two military blocs. It doesn't mean that in all In all missiles, in all planes, we had the equal number. But there was overall balance, and it was admitted by many political figures in this country, too. And the deployment of nuclear, of those Pershing IIs and cruise missiles is an attempt to change this military balance in favor of NATO. It's very bad development.

Speaker 2: It's terrifying because if people go on launch on warning,

Speaker 5: then that means that any malfunction of a piece of equipment can cause the holocaust and there have been computer malfunctions on both sides that we've read about so this really increases the danger of course the european peace movement has protested in some of the most massive demonstrations in history against the persian and cruise missiles yet there seem to be conservative governments in power in britain in germany that has gone along with the implementing of those missiles. What is the Soviet Union able to do in this sort of situation? Are you able to negotiate with the conservative governments, or do you just hope that there'll be elections, say, in England and Germany, where more liberal governments will be voted in that will think again? How is the Russian government reacting to this?

Gennady Vasiliev: As you know, presently Geneva negotiations are terminated, both on European missiles and on strategic weapons. And our official position is, and it was repeated by Mr. Chernenko recently, that if the NATO countries return to the situation, which existed before the deployment then we will come to those negotiations and we will try to find some kind of solution you know in present conditions we have no other way I must say but to do something to counterbalance you know those dangers which those missiles present to us and it was announced that the Soviet Union is starting to deploy the same kind of missiles in German Democratic Republic and in Czechoslovakia that we will have some additional missiles near American coasts which can reach your cities also approximately in the same time I don't think that it's in our interests neither our or yours you know we have to do something to defuse this highly dangerous situation and I think you know why it's also very dangerous because with this deployment there are plans to start space anti-nuclear defense idea is that you will have a kind of umbrella over your heads. Then you will have those precise missiles in Europe which can decapitate. And this is official term used in many military publications in this country, to decapitate the Soviet Union and win the victory. But it's foolish dream, you know, because even if NATO will be, you know, foolish enough to start to make the first strike still a number of missiles will remain in the Soviet Union which will be used to strike back and still it will be catastrophe.

Speaker 5: And you have submarines and airplanes as the United States. Many of them will survive that's certain. So it's impossible to have a first strike on either side and yet some people at least in the Reagan administration and US military circles are actually thinking of a first strike, which is why they developed things like Pershing and Cruz. Well, it's possible to have a first strike, but not without being destroyed yourself. Be the last strike.

Speaker 2: That's right. But all this is so ironic because there's been a history of economic relationships between the Soviet Union and the United States for many, many years, starting even back when the Soviets were first starting out building their state, even with Lenin. And there were a lot of big U.S. corporations who helped and participated in the five-year plans with the Soviet Union. And recently, I read one of your translations, one of your articles, which indicated that there's a U.S.-USSR trade council, and they are resuming meetings. Is this correct?

Gennady Vasiliev: Yes, yes. It exists. It's based in New York and in Moscow. It helps regular meetings. But recently, of course, the whole... general atmosphere of our relations affected many other fields of relations besides negotiations on armaments you know it affected cultural exchanges which were curtailed greatly it affected scientific exchanges it affected students exchanges and it also affected our trade which decreased recently and it could be much larger because we are two great powers and we have something to trade with each other and i'm sure that people from soviet american trade council they are greatly interested in increasing the trade from the point of view of their profits and from the point of view that trade improves international relations. I met Dr. Hammer several times ago, several times in Moscow and in Los Angeles. Occidental petroleum. Occidental petroleum. It's a very interesting man who met Lenin in 1922. Yes, and since that time was active.

Speaker 2: There are a lot of other large multinational corporations who are on this U.S.-USSR Trade Council, and also it's interesting and ironic as a study of American power structure that a congressman who was on our program recently indicated that the reason Reagan couldn't put across his idea to stop the gas pipeline between Europe and the Soviet Union was because 50% of it was owned by Exxon and Chase Manhattan. And so that's where the real power is. As a matter of fact, it's also ironic that number one Karl Marx Square in the Soviet Union is a Chase Manhattan Bank. So maybe there's hope.

Gennady Vasiliev: I think it's symbolic that the Chase Manhattan Bank is located somewhere near Marx Square because Lenin, who is a follower of Marx, put forward the idea of peaceful coexistence, you know. We cannot change each other either by threats, by persuasion, or by war, you know. Only nations themselves have to choose their way of life. We should coexist, we must coexist. There is no way out, there is no alternative.

Speaker 5: Gennady, could you perhaps conclude our discussion with a discussion of how people in the United States and the Soviet Union can create relationships between each other and how we can work for peace in our respective nations.

Gennady Vasiliev: You know, recently I was covering a conference in Washington of lawyers from both countries. Soviet delegation came and they met American lawyers. They had rather productive discussions. They published a joint paper saying that peaceful coexistence is something absolutely, absolute necessity nowadays. And then there was a reception. And one gentleman, he is a prominent lawyer from Harvard, he told me, i have a feeling that if they let us stay in the same house for months at least we will settle all our problems we will not change our ways of life but most outstanding problems we can change Maybe he exaggerates opportunities of lawyers, but in general this is a good approach. We must increase our exchanges. We must know each other better. This will help, I think, the governments also to come to an agreement. I want to... To tell you frankly and honestly that not a single Russian citizen, Soviet citizen, is thinking about war against the United States in terms of winning this country, in terms of spreading communism. This is a lie which is very often repeated by right-wing politicians. groups. We want peaceful coexistence with this country. We respect this country very much. American literature is thought to be the greatest maybe literature of the 20th century and so many books are translated into Russian. We want to know this country more and we want to have peaceful relations with you.

Speaker 4: I see we have time for a couple of news stories.

Speaker 2: It seems like there's a new trend taking place in the cable industry. Now, in the defense industry, we have cost overruns where they bid low and then they get the contract and then suddenly they find, oh, we've got all these costs, so we've got to have more money. So they get more money from the government. This is, I guess, a reverse situation to that. What has happened is that, particularly in the case of Warner Amex, they have the franchise for cable television in a lot of cities and when they came into the cities and the franchising bidding wars they they all we're going to give you this we're going to give you that all kinds of wonderful things and also they had very they got high marks from the various cities because they had a good financial backing I mean American Express right and Warner Communications one of the top 50 in the fortune 500 what's stronger than that well it seems that now Warner Amex is pleading poverty. Drew Lewis, who used to be Secretary of Transportation, and he's one who destroyed the Air Traffic Controllers Union, he's going around to cities like Milwaukee and Dallas, etc., and saying, hey, We're not going to provide this service. We don't want to provide these access channels. Instead of, oh, maybe 20, we're only going to give you about six or eight. We want to take back our two-way communication system. He says that Warner Amex is just in bad shape, and so they want these givebacks. Does that sound? If you're union folks, you're familiar with that, givebacks. And what is really curious about it? are two things. First of all, I talked to people in Dallas who are familiar with the situation. They said one of the problems with Warner Amex up there is that it's just plain incompetence, perhaps, because they've only have about 25% of the total possible subscribers who have actually taken the system. And this could, I mean, it's a pretty good bargain, actually, cable television is. And for only 25% of the people to take it really says something either about the relation of the company or maybe they're not very good marketing. In addition to that, there have been a lot of problems up there in Dallas with people getting bad service, people getting bad bills and getting mad and then turning the whole system back in and said, I don't want to fool with you. So it's not just poverty. But one of the key things I think is so interesting about this is that when Warner Amex got the contract for one of the boroughs in New York City, One of the high marks they got was for financial backing. But later on, it was determined that neither Warner Communications, one of the parents, nor American Express, the other parent company of Warner Amex, would underwrite Warner Amex operation or installation costs or the whole company. They wouldn't even support their own subsidiary on it. It's incredible.

Speaker 5: Frank, on a related note, I just read that the same cable companies are trying to pass a bill through the Congress in the last days of this session to completely eliminate any regulation whatsoever where there would be neither federal nor state nor local city regulation of cable television. Moreover, this new bill would make it possible for these cable companies that sign contracts with various cities promising a certain amount of access channels, a certain spectrum of channels, certain price structure, etc. It would enable them just to throw out these previous engagements or agreements and just do whatever they want. So the cable company is really a greedy one in terms of their trying to get their way.

Speaker 2: There's another angle to this, too, that is reported in the Village Voice and also in the Dallas newspaper, and that is that they think perhaps the cable companies are, it's not just Warner Amex, other companies are doing it also, they're trying to develop a history or a track record on the cities because when the cities balk at these poor companies who are in such tough financial straits, then they'll go to Congress and say, see, the cities are incompetent. They won't help us out with our problems. Take away the power of the cities to do any regulation. This is another angle.