Washington Profile
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Interview with Dr. Edward Lozansky
WP: For many years you have been organizing, practically single-handed, Russian Forums in Washington. Their purpose is a rapprochement between the United States and Russia. Do you believe that your efforts have brought about an improvement in these bilateral relations?
EL: That question is practically impossible to answer, as the relations between the USA and Russia keep changing, now for better, now for worse. The relations right now are extremely downbeat, yet they are much better than in the times of communism. In any case I am not so bigheaded as to say that my activities bring about a significant improvement in U.S.-Russia relations. I am just doing my best to make a modest contribution to this process. The drop wears away the stone, as Ovid said.
WP: Do you really believe in the success of your mission?
EL.: In the course of my life I have had to work on two practically impossible tasks. One had to do with my private life, the other with societal one. Both tasks were eventually resolved, and God loves trinity, as they say in Russia. So right now I am involved with this pretty ambitious, I should say, third task - achieving a rapprochement between the US and Russia, making them strategic partners and eventually, allies.
WP: Tell us a few words about the first two tasks you resolved.
EL: Did I say I resolved them? Do I look like Al Gore who invented Internet? I merely made a small contribution to these two causes. In the first case it was actually my wife, Tatiana who was the main hero. Her father, a high ranking Soviet general and his boss Marshal Ustinov, the USSR defense minister at the time, told her in so many words that she would never leave for the United States to join me. But she left anyway, although it took us 6 years of bitter fighting with the Soviets and that meant that we had beaten the whole kit and caboodle. Senator Bob Dole and Congressman Jack Kemp were on our fighting team and Tatiana and I will always consider them as the members of our family. The other task - freeing Russia from communism - was much harder, and I am proud that our dissident movement through underground publications, including famous magazine Kontinent, international conferences and demonstrations outside of the Soviet embassies throughout the world, rallying the U.S. Congress and media, helped this noble cause of bringing Soviet communism to the ashes of history. The cause led by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher in the West and Mikhail Gorbachev, Alexander Yakovlev and Boris Yeltsin in the East.
WP: Now let us take a look at what goes on right now. You write a great deal, you appear on radio and TV in both countries, and many of those who read and listen to you carefully may conclude that you are practically a lobbyist for the Putin Russia in Washington, or, as some of your enemies say, an organizer of the pro-Russia "fifth column" in the USA. Many of your former dissident friends believe that today's Russia is no improvement on the Soviet Union or even worse. It looks as if you have betrayed your former convictions, doesn't it?
EL: It was not I who reneged on my principles; it is Russia that has become a different country. If someone cannot see the difference between modern Russia and USSR they should see the eye doctor. I have always regarded myself as a Russian patriot and fought not against her, but against communist dictatorship. When communism collapsed, I felt that the war is over and it is time for Russia to join the West. There were million things to be done to achieve this goal but since I come from the educational filed I thought that the best thing I could do to help the cause is to found the American University in Moscow. This was done with the help of Gorbachev Science Advisor Academician Yuri Osspiyan and former Mayor of Moscow Gavriil Popov and I believe we helped a few thousand young Russians to better understand Western ideas of free market and democracy. We also keep organizing these Forums and other conferences in U.S. and Russia, publish books, all that sort of thing. In my view, these projects are like little bricks that help the process of Russia's integration with the West.
WP: Now, what are you planning for your Forum in Washington on May 14? I hear you are bringing over an impressive team from Moscow. Is this to emulate the London Forum, which some wits have dubbed a Courchevel subsidiary?
EL: We are not competing with the London Forum. They have their set, and we have ours. London is a very important city, of course, but Washington is the capital of the only superpower, you know. We do these Forums every year, almost always in the US Senate, with top US and Russian politicians, businessmen, and scholars exchanging ideas. We discuss ways of making Russia and the USA strategic partners or even allies.
WP: Let's talk a bit about the Russian lobby in Washington. Are you in any way involved with it?
EL: My involvement is purely ideological, not practical. I am not a professional lobbyist, because that position requires registering as an agent of a foreign power on Moscow's payroll, which does not appeal to me at all, although this is precisely what some opponents accuse me of. But then again, you can also read on some red-brown internet sites that in actual fact it is the CIA that finances our projects.
WP: You apparently wish to stress the fact that you are not an agent in the pay of Moscow. Then where does your income come from, if you don't mind a personal question? Surely it is not just your professor's salary at the American University?
EL: Actually, it is not the done thing in America - as well you know - to inquire about a person's income, this is the IRS prerogative. However, I come from Russia, so I'll let you in on the secret. Indeed, a professor's salary in the States is relatively modest. That is why my wife and I started a small business under the name of Russia House. It's a house with office space, a bar and a restaurant. The building is smack-dab in the center of the city, on Dupont Circle, and yields quite a handsome return. This allows me to deliberate on the future of Russia - on a strictly volunteer basis. Incidentally, only a few days ago, on April 27, the Washington Post Weekend carried a huge and I'd say highly complimentary feature on Russia House. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/26/AR2007042600666.html
That came as a pleasant surprise, because it is that paper's custom to knock Russia even more enthusiastically than it did the Soviet Union. I keep quarrelling with them over that and publicly called them a "Pravda on the Potomac" in the Washington Times, but they praised us all the same, providing us with enormous - and totally free - publicity. Probably the editor-in-chief did not read Weekend section before releasing it to the printers.
WP: Now, is there a Russian lobby in America, or not?
EL: Not at present, but I am trying to convince Moscow that it is absolutely essential. I have published scores of articles, memoranda, and a whole book
http://store.inter-rel.ru/default_product2.php?productid=10246127
where I argued the need to have a Russian lobby in the US, following the lead of other ethnic communities in our multi-ethnic country. For a long time the Kremlin ignored my appeals; presumably it had its hands full with economic problems, financial meltdown of 1998, all that sort of thing. The only organization that took me seriously was the Russian Academy of Sciences, whose Social Sciences division actually voted for conferring on me the title of doctor, honoris causa. True, the Academy's presidium has so far stalled the matter, owing to the usual academic backstage intrigues, but this is OK. I confess, though, that the fact itself of such a nomination by the most prestigious Russian body is a pleasant one.
WP: What are your links to the Kremlin and the White House? What is their attitude toward your projects?
EL: Practically no links at all, either with the Kremlin or with the White House. In the times of Reagan and George Bush Sr. I was often invited to briefings in the White House and the State Department. On one occasion I even organized the trip to Russia of US Vice President Dan Quayle - true, he was no longer in the White House at the time. My views of the USSR and Russia apparently coincided with those of the then White House administrations; nowadays it looks like they are out of sync. Still, the Senate regularly provides rooms for Russian Forums, for which many thanks.
As for the Kremlin, I was often summoned there in Yeltsin's times, including for conversations with the president himself, his top advisors and Members of Duma or Federation Council. I do not have any contacts with the present Russian leadership but it looks like my unsolicited advices are somehow penetrating through the thick Kremlin walls. During the preparations for the G8 summit the Ketchum PR agency was pressed into service. As far as I know their contract has been extended and, in addition, a number of other contracts have been signed with American and European lobbyist and PR companies. As Gorbachev used to say, the process is off to a good start.
WP: What can a common future of Russia and the United States look like?
EL: Granted, the task of bringing Russia and the United States closer together is not an easy one, with shortsighted politicians on both sides, special interest groups, and all sorts of nuts putting spokes in the wheels. However, as history shows, occasionally even a hopeless undertaking may succeed if you try really hard. Who could have thought 20 years ago that Russia would see freedom? U.S. and USSR were allies once, during World War II, despite the fact that they were then sworn ideological enemies. This ideological standoff is not troubling us any longer, and we have a common enemy. I believe that this enemy is even more fearsome than Nazism was. If we mean to win, Russia and America should stick together. More than that, we need China too, communist or not. Given the current situation in the world, we cannot afford the luxury of allied relations with countries founded exclusively on the ideal Western democracy model.
Edward Lozansky Profile:
Eduard Dmitrievich Lozansky was born in Kiev, Ukraine; educated at the Theoretical Nuclear Physics Department, Moscow Physical Engineering Institute, and got his PhD from the Moscow Kurchatov Atomic Energy Institute and the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna.
In 1976 Lozansky was dismissed from his research and teaching positions for "anti-Soviet activities" and was forced to emigrate. He came to the USA where he worked as professor of physics and mathematics at various US universities. In 1990, Lozansky founded the American University in Moscow which promotes political, business, science, educational and cultural cooperation between Russia and the United States.
Author of 13 books and monographs, as well as of over 400 articles on physics, mathematics, biology, political science, international relations, history, sociology and lobbyism.
Founder and president of the World Russian Forum.