Putin's Spies in America ('Right Side News')

January 7, 2011 · Adam Bondaruk, Baptists, Victor Belykh, AUCECB, Persecution, Interview, KGB, Books, Unregistered Pentecostals, Nikolay Kotyakov, On Emigration, United Church of Evangelical Christians, Vestibule, Petr Saenko, Pentecostals, Religious Mafia, Slavik Radchuk, Contemporary Persecution, Security Services

Konstantin Preobrazhensky, a former KGB officer who became one of its harshest critics. He is the author of seven books about the KGB and Japan. His new book is called “KGB/FSB s New Trojan Horse: Americans of Russian Descent” (Новый троянский конь КГБ/ФСБ: американцы российского происхождения).

Mr. Preobrazhensky, welcome to Fronpage Magazine.
Thank you for giving me a chance to address realistically thinking people.
Tell us about your work experience and the circumstances under which you started working for the KGB.
I graduated from the Institute of Asian and African Countries at Moscow University in 1976. Before that, I did an internship at Tokai University in Japan. I am a Japan specialist and speak Japanese fluently. I love Japan very much, and this love brought me to the KGB.
What do you like so much about Japan?
Japan is a fairy‑tale country. In its ultra‑modern society you can see, as through a magic telescope, the medieval society of the samurai. This incredible combination gives Japan a magical charm that is hard to describe in words.
Alright, then tell us how you ended up in Japan.
Well, if you are a Japan specialist, you had to go to the country you studied. And this was possible only if you worked for the KGB. By the way, Soviet specialists in the USA were in the same situation. They were all connected with the KGB, and most of them were officers of that organization. There was only one way to avoid working for the KGB: to become an employee of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, a member of the top elite. But doing that was very difficult. So I had only one choice: either become a KGB collaborator, whose position was very dependent, or turn into a career officer with shoulder boards and a high salary. The second option was much better. But it was very difficult to do. In the end, my father, deputy commander of the KGB Border Troops, “pushed” me into KGB intelligence, which was the most privileged and well‑paid job in the USSR. My spy work in Tokyo in 1980‑1985 was very successful. I worked under cover as a correspondent for the Soviet news agency TASS. But for me, it was not a cover but a very real job, because I am a born writer. My KGB colleagues in Tokyo, chuckling, called me “a writer working under a spy’s disguise.” And they were right. While working for the KGB, I published a couple of books about Japan: “Sports Kimono” (1985) and “Bamboo Sword” (1982). Both publications were successful. Two of my novellas, “Karate Begins with Bows” and “The Very New Old Pagoda,” were published by the Soviet Academy of Sciences in 1987, in the academic anthology “Soviet Authors on Japan, 1917‑1987.” In Tokyo, I spied on China. I recruited a Chinese scientist there, but the Japanese counterintelligence somehow found out about it and intercepted me in 1985 when I was heading to a meeting with this new Soviet agent. It became a spy scandal. The KGB forcibly returned me to Russia and blamed me for the scandal, although no one knew its real cause. This tragically cut short my career as a Japanologist.
So when did you turn against the KGB?
Journalists interviewing me always ask when I became disillusioned with the KGB. I answer: never, because I came there disillusioned. Unlike most young officers, I know about the criminal and inhumane activities of the Committee from my father’s colleagues. So I began writing a book of revelations about the KGB from my first day of work there. It was first published in Tokyo in 1994, shortly after I left the KGB in 1991. The book was called “The Spy Who Loved Japan” and became a bestseller. When I left the KGB in 1991, the organization was falling apart, although under Putin it revived again. I immediately went to representatives of the Japanese press in Moscow and began publishing interviews, articles, and even books exposing the KGB. I became a security columnist for the Moscow Times newspaper, which made me known worldwide. The book “The Spy Who Loved Japan” greatly angered the KGB, but in 1994 they could do nothing to me: it was a short period of Russian democracy. But in the end, my anti‑KGB activities forced me to flee Russia. — Under what circumstances did you come to the USA?

After Putin came to power in 2000, he began persecuting all KGB dissidents. In 2002, Oleg Kalugin, who was accused of revealing KGB secrets, was sentenced in absentia to 15 years. Unfortunately, at that time I was not absent, but was in Moscow. Being a professional, I felt that I would be arrested very soon. I urgently went on a private trip to the USA, where I asked for political asylum. Now I am a permanent resident of the USA. This dramatic story is described in my new book, “KGB/FSB s New Trojan Horse: Americans of Russian Descent.” — The American press and literary circles have ignored your book.

Why did that happen?

My book was ignored. Only a few religious writers reviewed it, as it focuses on the KGB’s penetration into America through the Russian Orthodox Church. It tells how the KGB managed to seize control of Russian Americans by merging the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia with the Kremlin-controlled Moscow Patriarchate. Most likely, that’s why amateur journalists didn’t want to write about such a delicate topic. How can you claim that a church is an instrument of espionage? That would be politically incorrect. Political correctness helped Putin keep his spy activities in America secret. Moreover, political correctness facilitated those activities. Putin knows perfectly well about American political correctness and that U.S. counterintelligence can’t surveil clergy. In Russia, the KGB very aggressively monitors clergy, even though church and state are separate there, too. So we have a situation in which Putin openly spies on the U.S., and Americans are afraid to write about it. This idiotic paradox is a symbol of current U.S.-Russian relations, which will benefit only Russia. Only recently has the wall of silence around my books been broken. Professor Clare Lopez, whose work appears in Gerard Group International, reviewed my book. Professor Clare Lopez reached a conclusion that is very important to me: “For those who think the ‘Cold War’ ended in 1991, this book will make you think again. Konstantin Preobrazhensky wants Americans to wake up and see the intentions of the Russian regime. According to him, under Putin and the KGB, Russia has returned to being a repressive state run by the security services.”
Can you tell us a bit about the spread of leftist ideology in America and how the KGB influenced it?
Well, today the KGB doesn’t have a particular need to influence American leftists. Their predecessors did it for them back in Stalin’s time. They sowed leftist ideology among American intellectuals, and today’s KGB is simply reaping that harvest. On the other hand, many American leftists were recruited by the KGB during Soviet times. They still work for the Russians. There are many KGB accomplices in this country. Besides, many Americans were educated in the left-wing political tradition at left-leaning U.S. universities. Their professors had ties to the KGB in the 1930s or were “useful idiots,” as Lenin cynically called Western intellectuals who devotedly worked for Russia. Their successors now teach at the universities. Graduates of such universities go on to work in the most important government institutions, and this can greatly affect America’s political course. But there is another reason for the spread of leftist ideas. Many people become disillusioned with capitalism. Many Americans still believe that socialism is better. When I tell them that socialism inevitably leads to the Gulag, they don’t believe me. Russian intellectuals of the 19th century made the same mistake, but they were severely punished for it with a 70-year period of horrible communist rule. Americans have not yet experienced such disappointment. Leftism does particular harm to America. Let’s not forget that Julius and Ethel Rosenberg gave Russia the secrets of the American atomic bomb not for money, but because they were leftists. The widespread leftism in the U.S. softens Russian influence here, since Russia is a leftist country.
What is the extent of Russian influence in the U.S.?
It is very great. The Russian mechanism of disinformation and manipulation includes the use of certain American political scientists and “think tanks.” Democratic states are far more vulnerable than authoritarian ones. That’s why Putin’s lying machine not only deceives America but also creates an inadequate, whitewashed image of Russia, which causes America to make wrong decisions regarding that country. One example is the decision to close the Russian service of the Voice of America in 2007. Americans may think the Russian service is a Cold War relic no longer needed in a free Russia, but in fact it remained one of the last sources of independent information for Russians. It irritated the Russian authorities. Putin managed to shut it down with American hands. Yet the Russian propaganda channel Russia Today actively operates in America. Nobody is going to close it or move its broadcasts to the internet! The obvious one-sidedness of U.S.-Russian relations is also clearly visible in the work of the Russian lobby. Open lobbyists for Russia, such as the firm Ketchum and others, operate in America.

But are there American lobbyists in Russia? Of course not. Any Russian who agrees to become an American lobbyist will be declared a traitor to the Motherland. Putin calls such people “jackals in foreign embassies.” Russian tycoon and former president of NK YUKOS Mikhail Khodorkovsky was, according to rumors, something of an American lobbyist. And where is he now? In prison, from which he is unlikely ever to get out. In Russia, it is considered unpatriotic to lobby on behalf of America. “Don’t criticize Russia, because that will strengthen the positions of opponents of the pro-Western course.” This phrase is often used by both Russian and American authors. It is a very sophisticated piece of disinformation. It is based on the assertion that not all members of the Russian elite are opponents of America, and that they have the freedom to argue with Russian anti-Americanism. Such a view of the situation is understandable to Americans. But the truth is that there are no pro-American people left in the Kremlin. Hatred of America is a symbol of loyalty there. If you love America, you cannot work in the Russian government. Sometimes this myth is told differently: “Don’t criticize Russia, or they will become friends with China.” But they are already friends. It is too late to warn about that. This is a disinformation thesis invented by Directorate A of the Foreign Intelligence Service. With this thesis, the SVR disinforms public opinion in America and the West. Many journalists reproduce these false theses without knowing who invented them. But recently some American politicians have begun to voice an even more dangerous thesis: “Let’s give Georgia and Ukraine to Russia, and the Russians will help us in Iran.”

What are the chances that Putin will help the United States in Iran?
Zero. The Russians will never do that. They will never help the US in any Muslim country. They have developed their own special relationship with the Islamic world, a relationship based on anti-Americanism. Russia has four centuries of experience coexisting with Islam, and it does not want to share that experience with America. Moreover, Russia’s strategic goal is to make the US the scapegoat for militant Islam instead of itself.
What are the methods of Russian influence?
In 2004, Putin revived the Stalinist tradition of inviting Western writers to Moscow, where he personally charms them. Putin founded the “Valdai Club” for them. The club’s meetings take place in Golitsyno, one of Putin’s residences in the Moscow region, as well as in other locations. There Putin holds lavish receptions at which he charms American intellectuals. Putin is a good actor. He presents himself as the only liberal captured in the conservative environment of the KGB.

He paints the following picture: they (the KGB officers) are persuading him to deviate from the democratic course, so the West should not criticize him too strongly, otherwise he will have to surrender completely to the KGB. Andrei Piontkovsky, who works at the Hudson Institute, called the members of the Valdai Club the “collective Feuchtwanger.” Leon Feuchtwanger was a famous German writer of the 1930s who admired Stalin’s regime. Today, the “collective Feuchtwanger” spreads an embellished image of Russia that influences American policy toward Moscow. All these mechanisms of Russian influence in America will be revealed in my new book, “How the Russian Federation Is Ruling the United States” (“How Russian Federation is Ruling United States”).

What can Americans do to protect themselves from these Russian threats on their own territory? And what policy toward Putin do you recommend for the United States?
America must put an end to the existing abnormal situation in which Russian intelligence operates openly in the country, because Americans believe they cannot afford to cause a spy scandal against a supposed “ally” in the fight against terrorism. America must stop tolerating Russia by making concessions and offering apologies, which only provoke laughter from the Russians. Americans must understand that Putin and other Russian leaders have a criminal psychology, as they are building criminal capitalism. From the mafia’s point of view, those who make concessions are losers and fools. They deserve further pressure, which Russia is demonstrating. America must behave firmly with the Russians. Only in that case will the Russians respect America. America must get rid of false expectations about Russia, the most dangerous of which is the following: “We need each other to confront China and militant Islam.” America is not needed by Russia for this at all. Russia tolerates both China and Islam by collusion, behind America’s back and to spite it. America must finally understand that Russia does not share American values. Russia is not a democracy. America must treat it the same way as China and other non-democratic countries.
Mr. Preobrazhensky, thank you for answering the questions of Frontpage Magazine.

Konstantin Preobrazhensky, a former KGB officer who became one of its harshest critics. He is the author of seven books about the KGB and Japan. His new book is called “KGB/FSB’s New Trojan Horse: Americans of Russian Descent” (“KGB/FSB s New Trojan Horse: Americans of Russian Descent”).

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