"Undermining Carter
A later KGB report to the Soviet bosses revealed that on March 5, 1980, Tunney met with the KGB in Moscow on behalf of Senator Kennedy. Tunney expressed Kennedy's opinion that "nonsense about the military threat and Soviet ambitions for military expansion in the Persian Gulf....was being fueled by [President Jimmy] Carter, [National Security Advisor Zbignew] Brzezinski, the Pentagon, and the military industrial complex."
At that time, Carter was running for re-election, and Kennedy was challenging him in the Democrat primaries. That the Massachusetts senator would in effect carry his campaign to the secret police of a hostile foreign power is a back-stabbing scandal of considerable magnitude.
It is relevant (though by no means exculpatory on Kennedy's part) to note that this was at a time when Carter himself, after spending three years dismissing "the inordinate fear of communism," had (temporarily, at least) come to his senses because of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. It seems Kennedy was sneaking behind the back of a sitting president and encouraging an enemy foreign power to undermine that president who — by the way — was of the senator's own political party.
Thus, there was no line drawn between domestic political opposition on the one hand, and sworn enemies of this country on the other. Kennedy undercutting Carter's foreign policy? That is somewhat ironic (more on that below).
..........................................................
A visit to the Soviet embassy
In his 2002 book, Reagan's War, Peter Schweizer cites the diaries of longtime Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin (which have also been reviewed by this writer) to report the following: "Former president Jimmy Carter dropped by Soviet ambassador Dobrynin's residence on a day late in January 1984 to discuss the state of the world. Carter was concerned about Reagan's defense buildup, Dobrynin recalled. The former president went on to explain that Moscow and the world would be better off with someone else in the White House. Otherwise, 'there would not be a single agreement on arms control, especially on nuclear arms, as long as Reagan was in power.'"
Moscow derived encouragement from this and similar anti-Reagan whisperings in Soviet ears from then House Speaker Tip O'Neil and liberal Republican Senator Chuck Percy.
If they were called on the carpet for this (and no one has done that yet), these politicians would use the "working for world peace" defense. That excuse might work for a brainwashed college student. But for elected officials? Grownups? We are all familiar with the good intentions that pave the road to Hell.
"
renewamerica.us |
