The USA and the agony of the USSR: why Sakharov offered to surround the USA with nuclear charges

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The USA and the agony of the USSR: why Sakharov offered to surround the USA with nuclear chargesWe bring to your attention the continuation (second part) of the cycle of seminars by the famous statesman Valentin Mikhailovich Falin, which took place at the Institute of Dynamic Conservatism (Moscow). The first part was republished by the REGNUM 28 August.

V.M. Falin. Last time we came to the finale of the Second World War. Allow me, however, to go through some final milestones of our conversation in order to speak about the NTV shown on the eve of 22 June, a film created by co-authors Rezun (aka Suvorov). Paradox: in the same Germany, you will rarely meet those who are eager for handicrafts, ready to outrage over history. Professional Russophobes do not count. They are Russia, Russia and the more so the Soviet Union has always been and remain a thorn in the face. We by definition cannot be right, be right a hundred times.

Despite the defeat of Stalin in 1937-1938 years. military and political intelligence, data that comes the most difficult test for the Soviet people, flowed to Moscow abound. The question rested on one thing - when the thunder clap. Approximately two-thirds of the reports of "reliable" agents focused on the fact that Hitler did not dare to rush to the east, until one way or another is not divided or does not agree with the UK. In short, before 1942, you can count on a breather. It is not superfluous to take into account that London before 15 June 1941 proceeded from the fact that the Germans would try to get the most out of economic cooperation with the USSR, before they raised the visor, they would begin to seize the "living space" in the east. Washington from 10 in January 1941 owned the full text of the Barbarossa plan, in which the schedule of aggression of the Third Reich against the USSR was painted. But he did not share this secret even with the British.

The problem of Stalin at the time of the preparation of the Nazi attack was as follows. He knew better than anyone else how unprepared for decisive armed battles our army, navy and aviation. After the Finnish war, and it was preceded by a reprisal against senior and middle command personnel, a radical reorganization of the armed forces began and their transfer to new military equipment, which took time. Stalin stubbornly held on to the priority of delaying the hour of truth at all costs. If necessary, at the cost of far-reaching concessions, Hitler’s economic pacification. Since January 1941, he personally oversaw the economic component of Soviet-German relations. German applications for the supply of grain and raw materials (manganese, copper, nickel, etc.) were satisfied. The readiness was expressed to increase sales of Soviet oil products, to expand the transit through our territory of goods from other countries. Stalin did not know that in the fall of 1940 Hitler ordered: not to occupy his time with questions of trade deals with the USSR. And to themselves, the Nazis decided that Stalin’s nervousness is an additional sign of Moscow’s weakness and fear of the threat of conflict.

No less important were the miscalculations of the political and military leadership of the USSR in understanding the experience of the strategy and tactics of the Nazis in the seizure of Poland, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Holland and especially France. It was believed that the Wehrmacht would gradually introduce into battle the main forces against the Red Army, so that we could build a proper defensive wall in two or three weeks. In the reports of friends from the Red Chapel, from Rado and Sorge, there was a thought that the war would begin with the presentation of an ultimatum, and thus Moscow would have time for some kind of maneuver. Read the speech Molotov 22 June, written by him and sanctioned by Stalin without noticeable amendments. Germany, said Molotov, attacked, without making any claims, and without a declaration of war. Later, when the appeal to the people was reproduced, the phrase about complaints was dropped. In general, the mood was not to give the Germans a pretext for treachery, which led to the fact that a couple of weeks before the invasion, the Supreme refused to sanction the bringing of the Soviet armed forces to elementary combat readiness.

It is necessary to dwell briefly on speculation, as if during the first hours of the war Stalin had fled to the “nearest dacha”, did not meet with anyone, and did not accept anyone. Take the book "At the Reception of Stalin," published by A.A. Chernobaev and his group. It contains (p. 337-340) a list of people who visited Stalin's office during the first hours and days of the Patriotic War. 22 June - 29 meetings, 23.06 - 21, 24.06 - 20, 25.06 - 29, 26.06 - 28, 27.06-30, 28.06 - 21. "Black Square" is hardly appropriate to cross out.

The authors of this film voluntarily or unwittingly detract from the dedication, feat of those "referent" who gave their lives in the fight with us against the Nazi plague. Who has at least an approximate idea of ​​the technology of intelligence services, they know how sometimes the very last clerk can be an invaluable and even fatal transmitter to the fate of a country of information. Yes, we didn’t then have sources equivalent to Canaris, Oster, Halder, who first of all informed London to the minute when the attack on Poland, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Holland or France would occur. Probably, in this context, it was worth asking how and why the French Republic, which was in a state of war with Germany from 03.09.1939 and was not inferior in size and equipment of the armed forces to the Reich, knelt before the Nazis in 17 days. After all, in the eyes of the diaries of the Soviet Union, Western politics and marshals were incomparably wiser than the “Russian barbarians”.

Such a plot is usually taken in brackets. The ruling circles of the United States were overwhelmed by the discord - which position to take in the event of aggression by the Third Reich against the USSR Fr. Roosevelt, I remind you, encouraged W. Churchill: if Albion declares Russia to be his ally at X-hour, Washington will accept his reaction with understanding. But. In a memorandum sent by President War Minister G. Stimson to 22.06.1941, we read: "This German act (attack on Russia) almost resembles the gift of providence. This last illustration of Nazi ambition and perfidy opens up ... opportunities for the United States to win battles in North Atlantic and provide protection for our hemisphere in the South Atlantic. " The minister spoke out against helping the Soviet Union. It is understandable. To the funeral of Russia, he and his advisers set aside "at least a month, maximum, perhaps three months." Against the expression of solidarity with the victim of aggression were the State Department, intelligence, congress. From the standpoint of "encouraging" the Soviet resistance to the invasion of the Wehrmacht were G. Hopkins, presidential adviser, and E. Stettinius (Lend-Lease Program Manager; the USSR will become its user in November 1941).

The right-wing factions of the American establishment, the klerus, the media moguls imposed on Washington the concept of preferring the victory of the Nazis in the interests of "political reorganization of continental Europe". In any case, according to the model of G. Hoover, J. Dulles and his ilk, the Soviet Union had to leave the war exhausted and drained of blood, lacking the potential to influence the balance of power in Europe and other parts of the world.

There is no reason to idealize Fr.Roosevelt and, especially, to take on faith the words of Winston Churchill. The reasons for this are legion. I will mention the Atlantic Charter (published on 14.08.1941). It does not say a word about the German attack on the Soviet Union or Japan on China and the readiness of the “democracies” to share the burden of struggle with aspirants to world domination. Washington and London were well aware that the fall of Moscow should have been a signal for Japan to enter the war against the USSR in the Far East, Turkey in the south and, possibly, Sweden in the north of Europe. In this case, W. Churchill was preparing to annul the July (1941) agreement with Moscow, which prohibited separate negotiations with the Nazis and reconciliation with Berlin behind the back of the USSR. After the failure of Operation Typhoon, which Hitler raised to the rank of the “last, decisive battle of the Second World War,” the “democrats” began to figure out how to prevent the “excessive” strengthening of the Soviet Union and, above all, cut its influence in determining the future configuration of Europe.

In this context, I would like to draw your attention to the books of V. Lota - "The Secret Front of the General Staff", "Without the Right to Mistake", "Covert Operations of the Second World War", which summarize the documents of the main intelligence directorate of the Soviet armed forces. From these publications, as well as from other sources, it follows that as a result of the Moscow battle, in which the Red Army fought and the whole Central and Western Europe mobilized for the needs of the Wehrmacht, Nazi Germany could have been defeated already in 1942. By the summer of 1943. Whoever doubts such an assessment, I invite you to familiarize yourself with the US staff documents. Consequently, the collapse of the doctrine of lightning wars for continental and global domination could then be capitalized into a total and rapid defeat of the Nazi monster.

It was at this time (December 1941 - January 1942) that Churchill imposed on Roosevelt his own purely political strategy of confrontation with Germany, according to which the final stage of the war was attributed to 1944 if collapse did not happen in the Reich before. It followed from this - no cooperation in the development of operational plans with the Red Army, from "direct assistance" to the Soviet Union to refrain, to indirectly render metered. As some Allied generals cynically expressed, it was enough to support the "current eastern front." These references to the documents of the "democrats" should not be understood in any way as a derogation of the value of lend-lease supplies, especially with regard to vehicles, industrial materials and equipment, medicines and food.

After Stalingrad, politicians in the United States and Britain were doubtful whether the prestige of the Soviets was growing too steeply. Obviously, it was not by chance that a week before the German grouping surrendered to the Volga, Roosevelt demanded the "unconditional surrender" of the aggressors - Germany, Italy and Japan. Moods were brewing in the Wehrmacht at that time, would it not be possible to hang out “Barbarossa” and throw off the Nazi yoke. "Democrats" were quick to correct the script frondy. In order to avoid the "chaos" of Hitler, it was proposed to clean up after the Anglo-American landing on the continent. The Battle of Kursk showed: the USSR is capable of defeating Germany without assistants. The problem of the second front acquired a qualitatively new content. We talked about how this issue was discussed by the President of the United States, the British Prime Minister and their chiefs of staff at the 20.08.1943 meeting in Quebec, last time.

Very briefly about the Warsaw uprising. In February, Churchill asked 1944 about his military what reserves are there to preempt Russian control, in particular, over the situation in Poland. The prime minister was informed that the Polish Craiova Army, formed with British funds, was armed and trained by the British. From 1940 to 1944, the Craiova Army avoided clashes with occupiers. Its transition to active operations, primarily to disrupt the communications of the Wehrmacht, was attributed to the time after the landing of Anglo-American troops in France. Army commander General Bur-Komarovsky felt that he was given a blank check on Operation Storm, that is, on the organization of an uprising in Warsaw. What happened after that is known.

Let's move now to the end of the war. All forecasts of the chiefs of staff and intelligence, predicting the collapse of the western front immediately after the landing of the Allies in Normandy and the elimination of Hitler, was refuted by living life. In the autumn of 1944, Mr. Roosevelt finally signed the document prepared by the European Advisory Commission on the division of defeated Germany into occupation zones. It was necessary in the event of an unforeseen development of the situation to bind themselves with obligations to the USSR Then our allies burned themselves on the Ardennes and Alsace operations, when in a panic that seized them they begged Stalin to provide them with relief assistance. At the same time, Washington and London did not stint on compliments and assurances of a fiery friendship almost to the end of the century. And as usual with the "fathers of democracy", Churchill gave orders to collect German trophy weapon for its possible use against the Russians and, without delay, to prepare for the operation “Unthinkable”. The Third World War, I remind you, was prepared against the backdrop of the Yalta Conference. At the peak of Churchill, President Roosevelt formulated 01.03.1945 his concept of "peace for all", built on the foundations of the Tehran and Yalta agreements with the cardinal disarmament of the winners and losers.

Judging by the documents, Stalin was preparing to extend the US hand of friendship. Churchill, on the contrary, received Roosevelt's statements with hostility. A prominent American military historian M.Matloff stated: the first cracks in the anti-Hitler coalition were denoted not between the United States and the USSR, but between Washington and London. Notice, the United States, urging Moscow to support their efforts in the fight against Japan, practically did not allow the British to make final operations in the Pacific theater of operations.

Next was Potsdam. From the positive to humanity, the rose "Gloria Day" fell from him. Archival tablets were enriched with statements of good intentions. In fact, the peoples were held hostage by the "balancing on the brink of abyss" that Washington had instituted in the name of establishing "Pax American." The splitting of the atom translated the apocalypse into the category of an actual threat. Nobody knows what the American atomic monopoly would have ended if the Soviet Union had not broken off in August 1949. For reference: the Soviet leadership received the first information about the Manhattan Project in the USA and the uranium project in the Third Reich in 1942. The initiator of the German "uranium project" was A. Speer. At the initial stage, the Germans were ahead of American research by about two years. Provided that they will be allocated the necessary resources, physicists and technologists undertook to militarize the atom in 1944. Hitler, however, ordered to concentrate forces to improve aircraft designs, tanks and other systems that ensured him success in the campaigns of 1939-1940.

The Germans took up the uranium project right after the Battle of Kursk. By this time, the United States, which mobilized the best scientific personnel (A. Einstein, R. Oppenheimer, E. Fermi, K. Fuchs), already took the lead. The incompetence of Hitler, complained after the war A. Speer, prevented the Reich from mastering the first weapon that could change the course of world events. Thus, poker "democrats" with a second front in the hope of loading the Soviet Union with the basic warfare was extremely risky. The Nazis lacked half a year - a year to complete work on the "miracle weapon", which was by no means an empty bluff.

The information of K.Fuchs, "Harry" and a number of our other friends, whose names have not yet been disclosed, allowed the Soviet leadership to responsibly evaluate the time factor and, as far as it depended on us, bring the day of judgment closer. At 1943, we had an atomic coordination center. They were headed by L.P. Beria and M.G. Pervukhin. Scientific and technological research headed by I. Kurchatov.

Among the difficulties that the Soviet side was to overcome should first of all be the shortage of raw materials. Own deposits of uranium-containing ores have not been explored. We were lucky that uranium mines were in the Soviet occupation zone of Germany. We received some amount of raw materials from Czechoslovakia. If the Western powers had accepted in 1946 our proposal to hold free elections in Germany according to the law common to all zones, to create an all-German government, to conclude a peace treaty with it and to withdraw occupation forces from German territory within two years, our possibilities extracting uranium in Thuringia could come to naught. The United States rudely rejected this Soviet proposal, the French said they did not want to hear about the union, the British acted in the same spirit. The United States felt then in the saddle, believing that the Soviet Union would need at least 10-12 years to master the nuclear weapons.

12 April 1945 Fr. Roosevelt died suddenly. The owner of the White House became G.Trumen. Truman’s meeting failed because of the resistance of the military to annul the Yalta agreements. But little by little he and his new team took up the soil erosion under the anti-Hitler coalition. Visible station on this route was the signing of A. Idel 07.05.1945 in Reims "preliminary" (in our interpretation) of the act of surrender of the Wehrmacht. The head of the OKW headquarters sent to Eisenhower's headquarters could not fully implement the instruction of Dönitz, Hitler's successor: the war on land, sea and in the air against the Western powers would immediately end, the war against the Soviet Union should be fought to the last bullet. The Americans and the Germans agreed on a compromise. The fulfillment of the act of capitulation stretched for 48 hours. During this time, the Wehrmacht units, breaking away from the Red Army units that pursued them, surrendered to the Americans and the British. In total, 1 million 850 thousand Wehrmacht soldiers and officers and SS were removed from the eastern front.

The Soviet Union insisted on the re-signing of the 8 in May by the Wehrmacht commander in Karlshorst, a suburb of Berlin, for a truly general capitulation of the German armed forces. The war in Europe ended in 00 hours 9 May GMT. Although, in fact, clashes in East Germany with Nazi units breaking through to the West continued until May 11-12.

The meaning of these perturbations reveals the memorandum of the Acting US Secretary of State J. Grew, who reported to him on 19.05.1945 President. We read: "If there is something inevitable in the world, then a future war between the United States and the Soviet Union is inevitable." Americans need to start this war before the USSR restores the economy destroyed by the war and turns its natural and human resources into effect. In the meantime, pressure should be exerted on the Soviet Union along all lines. Two days later, the British military reported Churchill their vision of Operation Unthinkable. Starting a war, they stressed, is easier than ending it. Moreover, the idea did not meet the unequivocal approval of the United States.

G.Trumen, judging by the documents, tuned in to break with Moscow after the Soviet side assists in defeating Japan. At a meeting with Stalin in Potsdam, the president summoned us to enter the war of August 8-9. After that, the order was given to drop a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima 6 August. The use of nuclear weapons was not caused by military necessity. By incineration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Truman demonstrated determination to command in the post-war world. On the way back to Washington, the president ordered Eisenhower to prepare Operation Totality against the USSR. At the end of August, 1945, the craftsmen were engaged in calculations, how many, taking into account the atomic raids on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, nuclear warheads would be needed to destroy the 15 of the Soviet industrial centers. Japan has not capitulated yet. Its rulers bargained with the United States for an indulgence for Emperor Hirohity. He under no circumstances should have appeared before the tribunal.

The French Marshal Foch, justifying the interventionist actions of the "democrats" against Soviet Russia, declared that if the First World War ended without destroying the outcast, it would be necessary to consider that this war was lost. In essence, Donovan pursued the same idea in August of 1943, reporting views of the OUS to Roosevelt and Churchill. If "after the defeat of Germany any single individual country or one group of powers in which we (the United States) do not have a strong influence, will be able to control the power of Europe, we can assume that the United States lost the war." As the "only way to defeat the Soviet Union only by force," the OSS called (or recommended) "a turn against the USSR of all the power of a still strong Germany, that is, Germany, ruled by Nazis or generals."

Not having the best arguments, the American rulers to this day issue as evidence of their commitment to the ideals of freedom, refraining from using nuclear weapons against the Gentiles at a time when the United States was a monopolist or possessed an overwhelming superiority in nuclear components of military potential. Indeed, in more than 250 wars and military interventions in various parts of the world, the United States did not resort to an "all-consuming (nuclear) trump card." True, this weapon was repeatedly uncovered to put pressure on the USSR, China, Korea, Vietnam, India, Arab and other countries.

Numbers will tell a lot about Washington’s “restraint” during the atomic monopoly period. Estimate (December 1945 g.) Drop 20-30 nuclear bombs on 20 cities of the USSR - available 2 charge. The "Pincher" plan (in Russian "ticks") June 1946, 50 strike with bombs on 24 cities - in stock 9 charges. In 1947, the Americans have 13 bombs. Prior to 1948, as the chairman of the atomic energy commission, D. Lilienthal, noted, the United States "did not have any suitable bombs or their reserves." The turning point came in 1949. The Soviet Union produced a test explosion of a nuclear device in August. The United States put on stream the production of "Mark-6" charges. The American script "Pax Atomic" was disavowed by the creation in the USSR in 1953-54. first ready to real use hydrogen bomb. This did not mean that the threat of nuclear war went beyond the horizon. The conflicts in Korea and Indochina nearly crossed the threshold of atomization.

Fast forward to 1961. From the meeting of J. Kennedy and N. S. Khrushchev in Vienna blew cold. 12-13.08.1961 Berlin cut the wall. In mid-October, the President of the United States issued an order to demolish temporary border barriers established around West Berlin. In response, Khrushchev ordered that Soviet tanks with a full battle charge be put forward at a distance of direct fire and shoot to kill if American bulldozers began to follow Kennedy's orders. I.Konev was appointed commander-in-chief of the Soviet grouping of troops in the GDR. Without exaggeration, everything hung in the balance - the world stood apart from the clash of two superpowers on 80-100 meters. I attended the meeting with Khrushchev and I know what I'm saying. Both sides had the excerpt and the mind to disperse from the world.

A month later, the pre-Council called me into his office and ordered me to prepare an answer to the message of the US President. Kennedy offered to taxi for a political settlement. In this and subsequent messages, he spoke in favor of modernizing the status of West Berlin, reflecting the changed realities. There was a clear desire to legalize the “bonds” of the western sectors of Berlin with Germany and to extinguish the establishment of the Control Council (1947), which the “big Berlin” was designated as “an area jointly occupied by four powers, and at the same time the capital of the Soviet zone”. In the case of reaching agreement on Berlin, the head of the White House did not rule out making major amendments to Bonn’s policies. He undertook to have a corresponding impact on Adenauer.

Gorbachev once said: the architects of the Berlin Wall were the Western powers. In the American sector of Berlin housed the largest foreign headquarters of the CIA. The appearance of the wall, the head of this headquarters has publicly recognized, has for years disrupted the infrastructure of planned NATO operations against the USSR. West German figures called West Berlin "the cheapest atomic bomb" inherent in the space controlled by the Soviet Union. In 1961-63 my service schedule looked like this: from 9.-00 to 17.00 in the service at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and from 18.00 until late at night - in the secretariat at Khrushchev. Nobody asked my opinion in favor of or against the erection of the wall, but it was not forbidden to observe and hear what was happening in the corridors of power. The decisive argument for arranging the border between antipode state formations sounded like this: the watershed between the Warsaw Pact and NATO is strategically necessary. The Americans had long stretched the atomic belt along the border with the GDR, mined all the bridges and other important objects, prepared vast areas along the Weser and the Rhine for flooding. Of course, the GDR’s interest in suppressing economic sabotage and exodus of citizens of the republic to the West played a role. After Vienna, Khrushchev incessantly exaggerated the theme of the conclusion by the Soviet Union of a peace treaty with the GDR, over which full control was transferred to the republic, in particular, over communications connecting West Berlin and Germany. These statements spurred flight. At the peak of the day it took up to 3 thousand people.

The Cuban crisis interrupted Khrushchev’s dialogue with Kennedy on the German problem. At a meeting in Vienna, the president took responsibility for the landing of the anti-Castro mercenaries at Pigs Bay and promised that this would not happen again. However, on the very same days, preparations began for the invasion of regular US ground forces in Cuba with the support of aviation and naval forces. She was engaged in a commission of 400 people led by R. Kennedy. The operation, code-named "Mongoose", was to be carried out in October 1962. There was no connection between Operation Mongoose and Khrushchev's decision to create our missile base in Cuba, I do not know. Formally, the transfer of medium-range missiles was a response to the advancement by the Americans of Jupiter missiles to Turkey and Italy. Be that as it may, US intelligence only at the end of September - beginning of October, 1962, spotted the fact that the positions on the Freedom Island for Soviet missiles had been arranged. A crisis headquarters was called immediately. In it, with the exception of the president and his brother, the participants spoke in favor of striking Cuba with the prospect of a crisis likely to escalate into a global conflict. It was believed that Moscow had given rise to plans for delivering an all-destructive attack on the Soviet Union and at the same time on China, which had been worked out in detail during the Eisenhower presidency. According to one of the projects on the Eisenhower desktop, in the first hours of the war, 195 million people were supposed to die in our country and in the PRC.

In the 90s. Washington revealed the secret: when, three decades earlier, the available potential of the United States, as well as of England and France, was alerted to crush the objectionable, the "democrats" relied on Penkovsky's intelligence. They refuted Khrushchev's bragging, as if the country had the proper number of intercontinental missiles to wipe any enemy from the face of the Earth. In fact, the USSR had half a dozen missiles capable of hitting United States targets. Our long-range aviation in all respects did not compare with the US Air Force, about the sea navy and there was no need to speak. At the same time, the CIA misled politicians by claiming that nuclear warheads for missiles were not brought to Cuba. Meanwhile, they were already on the island before the delivery of the missiles and remained there after the evacuation of missile weapons. And God forbid, if the worst began then, there would be no “nuclear winter”.

NS Khrushchev quickly sobered up, being put before a choice - to be or not to be. For an ultimatum to John F. Kennedy, limited by a tight deadline, he immediately ordered the withdrawal of Soviet missiles from Cuba by Ambassador AF Dobrynin to give a positive answer and duplicated it in an open air, so that the agreement reached the US President before the expiration of the ultimatum. Eight months later, in June, 1963, Nikita Sergeevich instructed his adviser O.A. Troyanovsky and me to compile an explanatory note for members of the Politburo outlining the motives that prompted him to transfer nuclear missiles to Cuba. This assignment confirmed that the Politburo as the highest authority did not take this fatal decision. The vicious practice of autocracy is quite capable of bringing the country to irreparable misfortune.

The United States in the settlement, in turn, made some concessions. They pledged not to use force against Cuba and "voluntarily" remove their medium-range missiles from the territory of Italy and Turkey. The concept of "voluntariness" revealed to me the former US Secretary of Defense R. Macknamar. We met with him in Geneva at sessions of the Pugwash movement. After leaving the post of Minister of Defense, McNamara showed readiness for objective reflections on the past, present and future. From him I heard that the United States and the Soviet Union are more than enough 400 nuclear charges to protect their national interests. Then I asked the former minister a question: "Mr. McNamara, does the order remain in force, according to which, in the event of a lack of communication with the center for more than six hours, the commander of the American submarine can launch missiles on specified targets in a crisis situation?" The interlocutor angrily replied: there was no such order and no. We agreed that when he returned home, he would deal with this issue. A week later, I get the message: "The order was and remains in force." Like this. I do not know whether similar instructions were given to the captains of our submarines. In any case, decades of biological life on Earth could end at any crazy moment.

At the end of Brezhnev’s reign, the Americans deployed the “Pershing-2” strategic missiles in the Federal Republic of Germany. They were designed as a means of defeating command underground centers and decapitation, thus, of the armed forces of the USSR. To achieve the goal they needed 6 - 8 minutes. Our space defense proceeded from the premise - if during 2 - 3 minutes it was confirmed that "Pershing" was heading east, the Soviet missiles would be automatically launched in response to NATO targets. It is not difficult to imagine what fate awaited Germany and its allies. Let me remind you, the point against the point was not our choice. A.D. Sakharov suggested not to serve the Washington strategy of ruining the Soviet Union with an arms race. He advocated placing 100 megatons each of nuclear charges along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the United States. And with aggression against us or our friends, push the buttons. He said this before a quarrel with Nikita Sergeevich in 1961 due to disagreements over the testing of a thermonuclear bomb in 100 megatons above Novaya Zemlya. Sakharov did not single-handedly warned the Soviet leadership against plunging the country into the bottomless whirlpool of the arms race. I.N. Ostretsov and his companions argued in 70-80's that the Satan rocket created by the Utkin design bureau (according to the NATO classification) with its 16-th individual warheads of 2 each megaton is the most reliable defensive shield. And one could pause for the 15-20 years ahead.

However, our MIC did not succumb to conversion. Metastases of militarism struck power structures, the state apparatus, science, and the country's economy. I refer to the fact that 83% of scientists and technologists were engaged in military and paramilitary topics. More than a quarter of the Soviet Union’s GDP was consumed by the insatiable Moloch. The experts openly tried to convince the powers that be: we are engaged in samoedism, servicing the US doctrine aimed at bringing our country to an economic and social collapse.

Another topic related to today's exchange of views. The overthrow of Stalin from the pedestal Khrushchev accompanied the cupping of the archives. Everything that provoked the question was removed or thrown out, and which line did Nikita Sergeevich himself keep when he was doing business in Ukraine, was dispersed with dissidents in Moscow. After all, his "execution lists" the father of nations reduced by two to three times. No, not without reason, Khrushchev in the redemption of his sins gave Ukraine the Crimea.

In October 1964, the Soviet state led the triumvirate. Brezhnev became the party's general secretary. For inappropriate dashingness and bravado during the war years, he received a strong suggestion from Stalin. However, in peacetime, Leonid Ilyich was not averse to show off. But by character, Brezhnev is a man of compromise. And in this capacity, as the antipode to his predecessors, he arranged various trends that washed the Soviet Olympus. The post of chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Council, the nominal president of the country, went to N.V. Podgorny. The government was headed by A.N. Kosygin. At first, important decisions were made due to the presence of a consensus in the named trio. Soon, however, they began to make themselves felt, and, not for the good of the cause, differences in the mindsets of the three leaders.

I will cite an example, the witness of which I happened to be. 1967 in the Foreign Ministry, I was responsible for relations with the countries of the British Commonwealth. In addition, Gromyko, without explaining the reasons, still loaded me with Middle Eastern affairs, namely, the problems of the Arab-Israeli confrontation. When it came to the six-day war, a crisis headquarters was created under the general secretary. I was included in its composition. Podgorny, Kosygin, Grechko, Chief of the General Staff Zakharov, Deputy Gromyko Soldatov participated in its meetings.

Early in the morning Leonid Brezhnev convened a meeting. At night, he told the crowd, a message was received from Ambassador S.Vinogradov. Nasser asked to immediately transfer tanks, artillery and some other equipment to Egypt in order to create a barrier for Israelis who crossed the Suez Canal and are moving towards Cairo. “I gave the command,” continued Brezhnev, “to load the equipment onto the planes ...” It was at that moment that the duty officer reported: an extraordinary telegram was received from Vinogradov. Nasser has a severe heart attack. The Secretary General addresses those present - how do we decide? And he himself adds: the nearest flight of E.I. Chazov to fly to Cairo. Podgorny takes the word: "I am on Chazov's business trip, but I must wait with the weapon." Brezhnev asks: "How and how much to wait? Israelis are a hundred kilometers from Cairo!" Podgorny insists: "It is not known how everything will turn out. I suggest that you wait until tomorrow with arms." Podgorny rises after this and is removed. Brezhnev beside himself. Orders to send weapons without the consent of Podgorny. The fate of Nikolai Viktorovich was sealed.

The "group of comrades" got a taste and began to lay a mine under another member of the triumvirate. I accompanied A.N. Kosygin during his state visit to England in 1967. The productive negotiations with G. Wilson and J. Brown brought the parties to the conclusion of an Anglo-Soviet cooperation agreement. Alexey Nikolaevich gathered his entourage in a hotel apartment. Suddenly there was a call on an open international telephone. “Alexey,” he heard Brezhnev’s voice, “we enjoyed watching your performance in the Golden Town Hall on television. Congratulations. As for a possible agreement, for a number of reasons you shouldn’t force it back. Come back, let's talk in more detail.” Kosygin's face was drawn. He locked himself in and the remaining one and a half days was in a depressed mood. It was clear to him and us, the prime minister was excommunicated from foreign affairs. In 1970, Mr. Kosygin was honored with the right to sign his signature under the Moscow Treaty with Germany. But it was made even clearer that his destiny was to do business (under the supervision of MA Suslov and others like him), and also to represent the USSR at the funeral of foreign statesmen — the same Nasser, Indian Prime Minister Shastri, etc. . Personally, I do not exclude that A.N. Kosygin was not forgiven for his opposition to the intervention in Czechoslovakia.

And the last for today. When did the agony of the Soviet Union begin? Most often they say that everything happened unexpectedly. In my opinion, it is not. I will not indulge in the analysis of how the de-Stalinization proceeded, I invite you to ponder the consequences of the restoration of our agriculture by NS Khrushchev. It was with him with 1962-1963. The USSR began to buy millions of tons of grain. Together with GA Arbatov and NN Inozemtsev, we tried to convince Nikita Sergeyevich: pay our peasant as much as Vneshtorg pays the American farmer - in a couple of years there will be a grain blockage in the country. "Not to encourage private ownership tendencies!" - such was the sentence. At the whim of Khrushchev, consumer cooperation was derailed, moreover, our experience was extended to other "socialist countries", which caused them very tangible damage. In the GDR and Czechoslovakia, for example, the share of small-scale producers and household trade accounted for almost a third of their economies. On economic councils and say nothing.

With the elimination of Khrushchev voluntarism, the economy, unfortunately, did not know recovery. There was no way to tie the ends to the ends. Press MIC prevailed all harder. The social climate has deteriorated. Interruptions and imbalances in the consumer market, in healthcare, culture, science, and school are a daily occurrence. Separatism challenged the integrity of the "union of the indestructible republics of the free". In the last five years of his life, L.I. Brezhnev reigned, but did not rule. Mortally ill Yu.V. Andropov was not destined to give stability to the state ship. Distemper was added when K. U. Chernenko. The country could not live as before. The categorical imperative said: qualitative changes are needed. Changes designed to bridge the gap between word and deed.

Ready to answer your questions.

K.A. Gevorgyan By education I am not a historian, but a philologist, and for a long time I have been interested in the question regarding the expression "cold war". I tried to find his roots. It turned out that for the first time (but, perhaps, this was not the case) Hitler applied it in relation to the situation with Yugoslavia in 1939. Similarly, the expression "Iron Curtain" belongs to Goebbels. I would be very grateful if you can somehow clarify this or comment on it. For me, this would be the key to some further thinking.

V.M. Falin. In the two volumes of the memoirs of A.M. Kollontai one can read that the expression "iron curtain" was used at the beginning of the 1920s. in Norway as a way of reflecting the danger of spreading the ideas of October. When did the term "cold war" come into use? Not able to answer this question. Most likely, the authorship of the Truman administration. I can also cite the Eastern proverb: "War is war, and the semi-wars are also war."

G.Ya. Mysuna. In connection with the start of the atomic project in the Soviet Union, Lieutenant Georgy Flerov wrote a letter directly to Stalin in the summer of 1941, in which he wrote that for several months Western scientific journals (Flerov - a physicist by education, graduated from Moscow State University) stopped publishing materials on nuclear issues. The letter Flerov supposedly triggered.

V.M. Falin. As I recall, Flerov paid attention to the disappearance of publications on nuclear development in 1942. His letter came to Stalin and was superimposed on information received from Rado and a little later from Fuchs. Then the order was given to the mathematicians, physicists, and other natural scientists to withdraw from the active army, so that they could get involved in nuclear affairs. The repressed specialists partially fell into the sharashka.

VG Budanov. There is a version, it is reflected in the film "17 moments of spring", as if, thanks to the efforts of our intelligence, the German project "Retribution" went the wrong way: the Germans did not engage in the ideas of splitting uranium nuclei, but tried to set fire to heavy water with a thermonuclear reaction. No one without an atomic fuse could solve this problem. Were any conscious actions actually taken to induce Nazi Germany to move in a nuclear project on the wrong path?

V.M. Falin. In the course of many versions. We are given to choose the most reliable. A few years ago, the book The Black Sun of the Third Reich was published in Russian. Author J. Farrell summarized information about German technological developments in it. Among other things, the following fact is mentioned: at the beginning of 1945, an explosion of some device was made on the island of Rügen, accompanied by the appearance of a mushroom familiar to us from tests of nuclear charges. Surveys conducted by our experts, that neither is thorough, did not reveal any traces of radioactivity. Some clues might be found in the von Ardenne archive involved in the "uranium project." After the war, the Ardennes led in the GDR the institute created to implement the ideas of the scientist. According to Farrell, in the Third Reich, two major groups worked on nuclear weapons projects. One was headed by the Nobel laureate Heisenberg (scientists, concentrated in it, did not show much zeal). Another group operated under the SS wing, and, quite successfully. As Speer noted in his post-war memoirs, the "uranium project" failed because of the whim and incompetence of Hitler, who refused to give him the highest priority in 1942. In addition, German developments were seriously hampered by a joint operation by the Norwegians and the British, who destroyed the only heavy water plant in Norway.

Toward the end of the war in Europe, the Nazis, responding to the request of the Japanese, sent a submarine with a group of German physicists and a cargo of uranium-235 to their allies. On the way to the destination, the captain, who had raised the boat to recharge the batteries, caught a radio message about the surrender of Germany and surrendered to the Americans. It is alleged that the captured uranium was used by the United States in the manufacture of a bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

Farrell curious information about the German work on the flying saucer, about some of the bases of the Nazis in Antarctica. The head in these projects was the SS-center for new technologies, based in the area of ​​Prague. In late April - early May, all documents of the center, models of new types of weapons, along with most of the design personnel, were destroyed. Maybe for the better. A.Einstein himself bequeathed to burn all his unpublished calculations and drawings so that they would not be used to the detriment of humanity.

VG Budanov. In the context of the atomic project, a certain "conspiracy of physicists" is mentioned. Both Oppenheimer, Bor, and Einstein proceeded from the fact that, in the name of parity, data on the militarization of the atom should not be available to only one power. Therefore, they organized a leak. Tesla did the same in its time.

V.M. Falin. Klaus Fuchs adhered to this position.

K.A. Gevorgyan My friend Olga Tabachnikova, she was a simultaneous interpreter at the Nuremberg process, told very interesting things. When the word was given to people who were supposed to be silent, the American officers gave, in particular, to her some materials with a proverb: "Ours do not fulfill the agreements reached with you, and this should be with you." It was about the materials of a specific property. I am now specifically quoting - the type of materials of the Ahnenerbe Institute. It seems that some of these archives were in the United States, and some of us. Is it possible to hear a few words about the fate of these developments?

V.M. Falin. The archives of defeated Germany were primarily interested in the Americans and the British. Our side was more zealous in dismantling the equipment of factories, other equipment vital for the restoration of our destroyed economy and infrastructure, as well as the search for prototypes of the newest weapons. The United States almost completely got the archive of Hitler's personal office.

K.A. Gevorgyan But we got the diaries of Goebbels?

V.M. Falin. I held them in my hands. For a long time we did not recognize that we have diaries. The reason - Gebels made notes about secret attachments to 1939 contracts, about which others were not supposed to know. Along the way, we got quite a lot of documents and materials, including the most secret ones, and the question is how Moscow dealt with them. I will cite an example. There was a "Special Literary Archive". What it is? Gestapo materials, personal papers of Joseph Wirth, Rothschilds (French and German), trophy files of French and a number of other intelligence services settled in it. On the instructions of Molotov, I had a chance to look into some of these files. Many papers were handwritten in gothic typefaces, and specialists capable of reading - just a little. A record was kept of the names of those who could cooperate with the Nazi special services, and before the war, with the intelligence services of England, France and the USA. When the USSR collapsed, this archive was abolished, and the contents of Volkogonov and Co., without bothering to make copies of at least the most important papers, were squandered.

K.A. Gevorgyan To whom and where did you give them? To Germany?

V.M. Falin. To Germany, France, to anyone who was not lazy to bend down or unfasten his daily bread donor.

There was no order in other archives. In Podolsk, as far as is known, most of the bags filled with documentation from the Nazi commandant's offices, which were rampant in the occupied Soviet territory, have not been dismantled. Written by hand, let's face it, papers are hard to read, and there are not many people who want to break their eyes for 3-4 thousands of rubles a month. The proposal of the Germans to send specialists to Podolsk who, on the instructions of German research institutes to systematically systematize this stratum, did not receive a response.

Father John (Mirolyubov). Once I was a scientist in the field of applied mechanics. My question is related to the arms race. I would like to delve deeper into its ideology. The military and political components are more or less clear to me, but what about the economic and technological components? Wasn’t this arms race imposed to us also so that the Soviet 83% of scientists worked on military equipment, and everything else was doomed to a technological lag?

V.M. Falin. At the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, politics degraded during the war by other means, became similar, borrowed the aphorism of Goethe, fate. The mask of violence varied. It was not necessary to drive people "with bombs into the stone age", what the US did in Korea, Indochina, and before that in the Philippines. Lime can target a victim of such a siege as an arms race, the accumulation of "all-consuming trumps," which on the other side does not find an adequate response.

From 1946 to the middle of 80, the concepts of "preventive actions" against the USSR, China and their allies were built by Washington on the use of, in addition to nuclear, also biological and chemical weapons (prohibited by international conventions in 1925). "Civil defense" window of vulnerability is not closed. The potential intruder should have known in advance that payment would not take long.

In 1981, the United States and its retinue in NATO adopted two programs - "Army 2000" and "Fofa". The race in the segment of the so-called "smart weapon" was imposed on the Soviet Union. Its design and production required 5 - 7 times more investment than nuclear weapons. "Democrats" were calculating - the Soviet economy will not cope with such a challenge. A similar calculation was laid in the program of "Star Wars" Reagan. This is easily seen by reading the report of the Minister of Defense Weinberger, partially disclosed in 1986 by the newspaper "New York Times".

The Soviet Union came down from the world arena. The threat mirage vanished. Did tectonic shifts in the planetary landscape lead to a decline in American militancy? Alas. This year, the US Department of Defense has released 761 billion dollars (spending on the war in Iraq and Afghanistan does not count), plus 580 billion allocated for the mastery of the latest military technology. The above exceeds the military spending of all other countries combined. In stating this, let us not forget that the competition in the field of military technology is a catalyst for the arms race.

George Bush, Jr., passing the baton to B.Obame’s power, revealed the meaning of what is happening: the US does not intend to curtail a crusade to rally the people of both hemispheres to the imperatives of the American "democracy." Compassionate Bush refrained from including Indians in the list of nations eager for American favor. They still stay on reservations to which they were driven out by aliens during the exploration of the "wild West." It seems that the bet is that time itself will somehow solve the problem of the aborigines. In the twentieth century in the United States ended the earthly existence of more than 20 Indian tribes.

M.V. Demurin. Let me go back to the 50 years. I would like to know your opinion about LP Beria. There is an opinion that he had his foreign policy program, different from Khrushchev's. Did he have such an internal political program and could it be implemented in the USSR?

V.M. Falin. As far as I can judge, Lavrentiy Pavlovich had the concept of the struggle for power, and it was from her that both external and internal programs were derived. Undoubtedly, Beria was perhaps the most far-sighted in the leadership of the USSR, but from the point of view of organizational skills, he knew few equals. If his fate were different, Beria would hardly have been reborn as a lamb. Perhaps my view on this figure is colored by the next episode of his own life. In 1951, with the sanction of Beria in Georgia, the “Mingrelian affair” was inspired. The main accused was the Minister of Internal Affairs, G. T. Karadadze. With his son, I studied at MGIMO and was closely friends with him. So, I was led in the named case from 1951 to 1953 as a resident of French intelligence in the Soviet Union. If Beria came to power, it seemed that I could not have found an atom from me.

But anyway. After the death of Stalin, bypassing the Politburo, Beria ordered his "personal agents" (in Germany they were Olga Chekhova and Prince Radzivil) clarify what England and the USA are willing to give compensation for reconstructing Germany approximately on the terms of "democracies". In the center of accusations of Lavrentiy Pavlovich of treason, etc. there was an intention to surrender a socialist ally - the GDR. "Guilt" Beria did not soften his order to spare no ammunition when suppressing the June 1953 events that shook East Germany.

VG Budanov. At the last meeting you said that Stalin was against the division of Germany, that he wanted to create a single state in opposition to the Anglo-Saxons. It turns out that Beria continued the same line?

V.M. Falin. In a sense, Beria continued the line of Stalin. With significant, however, amendments. After the "democrats" dismembered Germany, Stalin set aside 5 - 7 for the restoration of its unity. Beria forced the process, believing that the GDR was not economically able to withstand West Germany. Further. Stalin linked the unification of Germany with its acquisition of the status of "non-aligned state". Beria, as far as is known, did not make such a reservation.

VG Budanov. Let me ask you a question about the atomic weapons of China. Does she have thermonuclear charges? Chinese scholars have told me that Beijing has a different strategy — an asymmetric response strategy. When the Americans tried to blackmail them, draw them into an arms race, as they did with the Soviet Union, the Chinese allegedly said: our trump card is trade, the cargo of container ships is a charge on duty.

V.M. Falin. China obviously has thermonuclear charges. But Beijing does not only bet on military might. I will repeat what I heard in 1991 from Zhao Ziyang, an ally and follower of Deng Xiaoping. He reasoned like this: “China has 5 thousands of years on its shoulders. No one knows how many are ahead. In any case, there is nothing for the Chinese to rush. By 2040-2050 we will catch up with the Americans and then surpass the States. Direct conflict with the Americans Beijing absolutely not needed, and so long as the Soviet Union is with it, such a conflict is unlikely. The situation, of course, can worsen if one of us stumbles ... "

Now, China controls 95% of the world's reserves of rare-earth elements necessary for the production of electronics. The Japanese recently detained two Chinese fishing vessels in disputed territorial waters and did not react to the protests of the PRC. Then Beijing interrupted the delivery of these very elements to the Japanese, and literally a day later the fishermen were released. Up to 45% of US-made electronic military devices made in China or created on a Chinese electronic base. On household appliances and say nothing.

A solid journal "Economic Strategies" in the latest issues highlighted the differences in the practice of Russia and China in the implementation of "perestroika". In 1989, at the invitation of the PRC leadership, I visited a number of regions of the republic. I was shown a millionth city, built over 10 years on the site of a village with 10 thousand inhabitants. Not a single hectare of land was sold to foreigners. Want to open a business, rent sites for them for a period of 30 years. After three decades - new trades. If you want to extend the use of land, offer no worse conditions than competitors. Only unprofitable enterprises fell under privatization. Direct investment was due to the transfer or use in the production of new technologies. We, as we remember, are the opposite. Only profitable enterprises, such as Norilsk Nickel, have been privatized.

Of course, it is difficult to deny that the Chinese have a special mentality. Living far away abroad, a native of this country through the years, decades and even centuries continues to consider himself a Chinese. He does not lose touch with the Middle Kingdom, he visits the graves of relatives who have been preserved, they say, for a thousand years. It is difficult for us to understand all this, but, nevertheless, it is necessary to try, in order to avoid the nonsense for which we are whale.

M.V. Demurin. Valentin Mikhailovich, another question on 1950-1960. Apparently, the last, because we work for a long time. We talked about the opposition of the USSR, on the one hand, and the United States and Great Britain, on the other. France and Germany remained on the sidelines. When, at what point and in what plot, in your opinion, have these two countries declared themselves as powers capable of not only defending their interests, but also seriously influencing world politics?

V.M. Falin. It is clear with France: she gained the status of a full-fledged power when she entered the nuclear club. Germany regained a significant role due to economic and technological advances. In this case, you should note the following. The idea that Europe was unified was made due to the internal needs of the states of the region. This is only partly true. From the formation of the European "six", Paris made its dependence on the creation of the FRG and its rearmament dependent. The Bundeswehr was originally to be removed from the sovereignty of the given states and integrated into NATO, subject to the command of the bloc. Control over the heavy industry of West Germany passed to the institutes of the type “Combining Coal and Steel” and “Euratom”. In addition, Germany should have to withdraw huge funds for the maintenance of the troops of the United States, Britain and France, as well as to the treasury of the Common Market.

Choice Bonn provided extremely narrowed. K. Adenauer believed that sooner or later the FRG will come to the best option. Meanwhile, L. Erhard, the father of a social market economy, preferred the “third world” to the European arena. The Social Democrats also tied the economic chances of Germany with its entry into the markets of the states that threw off colonial oppression (the Congress of the Social Democratic Party of Germany 1953). A similar line was pursued by adviser Erhard Gross, editor-in-chief of the influential body of business circles “Handelsblat” ...
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4 comments
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  1. +4
    3 October 2011 18: 31
    I liked becoming especially about China cleverly told
  2. oper66
    +3
    3 October 2011 20: 06
    Really true, scientifically and historically substantiated information without a touch of politicking, without bulging L. the merits and okhayivanii contemporaries - excellent material
  3. +1
    3 October 2011 23: 19
    A short course in recent history. It was nice to master it.
  4. +1
    23 October 2011 00: 59
    I read it with pleasure.
    Thanks to the author!

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