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Excerpts from the JRL E-Mail Community :: Founded and Edited by David Johnson

#5
Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2001
From: Alexis Klimoff <klimoff@vassar.edu>
Subject: Putin

Dear David,

If you have not ceased including contributions from individuals as opposed to published media accounts, I would like to submit the following response to a recent item you carried.

I'm sure I'm not alone in finding the allegations in S.Frederick Starr's December 11 article in WSJ (JRL 5593) deeply disturbing, both for the message it conveys and for the manipulation of the news by our side to which it testifies so clearly.

We all remember the way Putin was praised in the Western media for what was then described as his well-nigh heroic effort of working the phones to browbeat his military people into accepting a U.S. presence in Central Asia. But Fred Starr now tells us that in reality Putin's telethon had a diametrically opposite purpose.

Left unmentioned either then or now is the intriguing question on what this information is based, since Putin's attempts at persuasion, whatever his ultimate aim might have been, could not have been meant for public consumption. One has little choice but to assume that Putin's conversations were intercepted with the help of the vaunted eavesdropping equipment of the NSA.

What are we then to make of the two radically different emphases in the evaluation of Putin, both being based on the very same source? In mid-September we were told of Putin's admirable pro-Western efforts, but now, it would seem, we are being advised to be wary of Putin and his hidden proto-Soviet agenda. I have no idea which version is closer to the truth, but it does not take a great effort to realize what a heavy-handed spin factor was involved ­ perhaps both times -- in feeding this information to the media.

In the bad old Soviet times this was called disinformation, and it is painful to see such a flagrant example of this detestable practice in the United States.

Alex Klimoff

Vassar College

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