United States Representative Benjamin A. Gilman, Chairman of the
House International Relations Committee, recently convened his third
hearing in as many weeks on the subject of U.S. policy toward Russia.
During the committee’s Tuesday session, Congressman Gilman made a
significant statement which deserves our attention.
“Our Committee on International Relations … has held a number of
important hearings concerning developments in Russia,” began Gilman.
“Looking back over the testimony … I believe that … a thorough
re-examination of our current policy toward Russia is now warranted and
overdue.”
Gilman spoke of “growing corruption” in Russia. He talked about a
“lack of any real action” on the part of Russian officials. Gilman then
mentioned the allegation that $100 to $500 billion had been “siphoned”
out of the Russian economy and moved to the United States.
Gilman then said that Russia’s security and police agencies were
“themselves culpable in this massive thievery.” In making this point,
Gilman has hit upon the key to the whole business. What appears to be
ordinary crime and corruption is actually an organized operation of the
Russian secret police. Perhaps the congressman does not fully realize
this, but his statement on Russian police and security involvement in
the “siphoning” of billions cries out for clarification. It has to be
understood that Russian
corruption has become a useful strategic tool in a clandestine war
against the United States. Rather than being a serious state problem
for Russia, official corruption is a clever Kremlin solution.
Pointing his finger at the “former” KGB structures within Russia,
Congressman Gilman said that Americans cannot condone this sort of
corruption. Therefore we must do something. The problem, of course, is
that the United States has sunk into a complacency and corruption of its
own. In fact, our corruption goes far beyond the mere decay of morals.
Our corruption is also an intellectual corruption — and a corruption of
our most basic perceptions.
Right now life is good. We do not want to set aside our economic
optimism — the kind of optimism that has pushed the stock market to
undreamt-of heights. Our prosperity has become our narcotic. It has
distorted our perception of reality, and it has destroyed our sense of
self-preservation. Our society and our government are sick.
Acting to exploit America’s sickness, the secret structures of the
KGB have moved hundreds of billions of dollars into the United States.
This so-called “laundering” of funds has not been accomplished for the
aggrandizement of a few Russian tycoons because such tycoons are merely
KGB stooges. Rather, the mass movement of money from Russia should be
viewed as an investment in overseas intelligence assets and organized
crime fronts — Russia’s hidden army in America. Of course, this is a
controversial thesis that few will immediately credit. Nonetheless, it
is a thesis supported by defector testimony and circumstantial
evidence. As the data points mount and the picture clarifies,
observers in America will begin to recognize that
Russia’s money scandals are not random or haphazard, but strategic and
calculated.
Congressman Gilman is right when he says that “it is time to begin an
exploration here in the United States of where that Russian money has
gone.”
Hundreds of billions of dirty dollars can buy a great deal of help
and protection for tens of thousands of Russian agents and their
criminal networks in this country. The large influx of Russian cash
into the United States is not merely a financial scandal. It is an
operation involving tens of thousands of Russian immigrants, thousands
of intelligence agents and hundreds of criminal organizations.
The weapons used by this criminal conspiracy are more than monetary.
Sex and drugs are significant components in a campaign to corrupt,
compromise, and blackmail American state and federal officials in key
agencies. The purpose of this campaign is to control bureaucratic
outcomes, to tip the scales of justice against the innocent, and to
extend Russia’s criminal network to all levels of American government —
city, state, and federal.
Yesterday morning I interviewed a Russian immigrant who has been
caught up in this underground campaign of blackmail, extortion and
espionage. He told me that the Russian mafia is under the control of
the Russian foreign intelligence service (SVR) and the GRU (the Main
Intelligence Directorate of the Russian General Staff). In other words,
the Russian mafia is an instrument of Kremlin policy.
Here is an example of how this Kremlin-controlled mafia operates:
A couple of years ago the Russian mafia network in California needed
a favor from a state agency. Therefore, a special operation was
planned. A Russian immigrant was chosen to research which state
official had the power to grant the favor. Next, another Russian
immigrant was told that he would deliver a bag of money to the aforesaid
state official. If the official refused the bribe, then a third Russian
agent — a beautiful woman — would begin to make sexual advances on the
targeted state official. If any of the Russian immigrants or agents
refused to do their assigned jobs, their families would be harmed. In
other words, there would be immediate punishment. Some of the Russian
operatives were ordinary immigrants with little intelligence training,
recruited by promises of financial reward or threatened with unspecified
consequences.
The Russian intelligence agents, who direct the various agent
networks and crime groups, tell the Russian immigrants (in their
jurisdiction) that any attempt to report them to authorities will be met
with ridicule. “The Americans either will not believe you or they are
working for us.” This adds to the terror and intimidation applied to
these poor people, who in most instances have little choice but to
perform the jobs assigned to them.
Techniques of sexual and financial corruption are basic to the work
of the East European mob. Such techniques are routinely applied to
American officials in key jobs throughout the government and in law
enforcement. The sophistication of the Russian approach, its high
degree of organization, its ruthlessness together with the human and
financial resources available to the organizers, render it virtually
invulnerable to current U.S. law enforcement.
Congressman Gilman, in talking about the influx of illicit cash from
Russia into the United States, has pointed to a many-headed serpent. It
is doubtful if he understands how powerful and pervasive this creature
has become — not merely in Russia, but in America. This monster can
turn its attention on a solitary congressman as easily as it can apply
pressure to a poor family of frightened Russian immigrants.
In asking where the Russian money has gone, Congressman Gilman has
taken an important step. “If such huge amounts of Russian money have
been siphoned, stolen, or laundered,” noted Gilman, “do we dare make a
complacent assumption that those who have arranged that thievery will
not put their financial power to use here in America in ways we would
not approve?”
Unfortunately the horse is already out of the barn.
The KGB-organized mafia groups in America have already done serious
damage to the integrity of banks, law enforcement, regulatory agencies,
and the Executive Branch of the federal government. The rot is deep and
we have no counter-intelligence organizations that can cope with it.
Something has to be done and the United States Congress has to do it.
Congressman Gilman spoke of “dozens of witnesses” which “have raised
warning flags about our policy” toward Russia. Gilman also noted that
“Some observers now question, in fact, whether progress toward
democratization in Russia is as substantial as we would like to believe,
and whether elections there have resulted more in a facade of democracy.
…”
Once again, Congressman Gilman is on the right track. There is no
time to waste. We must follow the money trail from Russia. We must go
wherever it leads us. We have to destroy the Russian mafia in this
country and root out the agent networks of the SVR and GRU. America is
in grave danger as long as this kind of Russian activity is tolerated.
Rather than worrying about reforming Russian institutions our attention
should be directed to our own. We must support the continued efforts of
congressmen like Benjamin Gilman.
