Down with Big Brother (20 page)

“It is very easy to destroy a social order, particularly one in which there are many hidden reasons for dissatisfaction, where nationalism is just under the surface,” Andropov told his associates. “Dissidents are enemies of our social system, although they conceal their aims beneath demagogic slogans.”
¹⁷

For all his sophistication and willingness to experiment, Andropov remained a prisoner of the system. A revolutionary mind-set prevented him from challenging its basic features: the overwhelming weight of the military-industrial complex; central planning; the dominance of politics over economics. Like many Soviet leaders, he had become a victim of his own absolute power.

Andropov was a great admirer of Eisenstein’s epic film
Ivan the Terrible
, a thinly disguised apologia for autocratic rule that had been made to order for Stalin. He was particularly impressed by a scene early on in the movie, when the new tsar is attempting to impose his will on the rebellious boyars. The boyars grumble that neither Europe nor Rome will recognize the young ruler, to which a Jesuit priest retorts, “He who is strong will be recognized by everybody.” Andropov would cite these words approvingly when arguing
the need for a tough stance vis-à-vis the American “imperialists.” “Both we and the Americans live according to this principle,” he told his associates. “Neither of us wants to appear weak.”
¹⁸

Like Stalin and Ivan the Terrible before him, Andropov lived in a world dominated by scheming domestic enemies and hostile foreign powers. The only way to survive in such a world, and ensure the well-being of his people, was through ruthlessness, cunning, and a large dose of paranoia.

Military strength was the foundation stone of the Russian state. The obsession with security frequently undermined the Kremlin’s other foreign policy goals, which required a “peacemaker” image. Even as general secretary Andropov was reluctant to go against the wishes of the military-industrial complex. When the Korean airliner affair erupted, the Foreign Ministry urged him to assume responsibility for the shootdown, while accusing the United States of organizing a deliberate intrusion into Soviet airspace. But the defense minister, Ustinov, was categorically opposed to admitting that the Soviet Union had destroyed a civilian airliner.

“Don’t worry,” he told Andropov in a conference call to his hospital room. “Everything will be all right. Nobody will be able to prove anything.”
¹⁹

E
VER SINCE THE DAYS OF
S
TALIN
, Politburo meetings had followed a well-established ritual. They were less a forum for open debate than a weekly loyalty ceremony for members of the party’s inner elite. The course of the proceedings was usually predetermined by the general secretary and a handful of powerful vassals, each of whom enjoyed a great deal of autonomy in running his particular fiefdom. There was always a strict pecking order around the Politburo table. Junior members were expected to give the floor to their elders and then chime in respectfully in support of the established party line. By voicing ritualistic support for a particular decision, they automatically assumed responsibility for it. The process was then repeated over and over again, all the way down the party hierarchy, until it became binding on all eighteen million Soviet Communists. Under the rules of “democratic centralism,” once the Politburo had taken a formal decision, no dissent was permitted.

In its language and rituals the Politburo resembled a group of Mafia dons who have clawed their way to the top of a gigantic protection racket. The Communist Party was at root a conspiracy. The original purpose of the conspiracy—the building of an earthly utopia—had long since been forgotten.
Ideology had given way to cynicism, but the gang mentality had remained. In order to preserve their power and privileges, the party bosses understood that they had to stick together.

Contrary to the cherished notion of some Kremlinologists, the Politburo was not divided into hawks and doves. Under both Brezhnev and Andropov, all Politburo members were hawks by definition. (The only way for a dove to survive when surrounded by hawks is to become a hawk itself.) It was part of the ritual that everyone prove his credentials by sounding at least as hawkish as the previous speaker. Disagreements were expressed in nuances and subtle differences of emphasis, rather than open argument. The biological law of Kremlin politics was survival of the blandest. That meant having an intuitive feel for the emerging consensus—as spelled out by the
gensek
or one of his top vassals—and climbing on board. All Soviet politicians, with the partial exception of the
gensek
, were required to wear a mask.

In Andropov’s absence, the Politburo debate on the Korean airliner affair was opened by Konstantin Chernenko, the wheezing asthmatic who used to light Brezhnev’s cigarettes. Thanks to his late patron, he was now the party’s chief ideologist. He reacted to the destruction of a civilian airliner—and the deaths of 269 people—as a bureaucrat whose orderly world has been disturbed by an unwelcome intrusion.

“One thing is clear,” he sputtered, “we cannot allow foreign planes to overfly our territory freely. No self-respecting state can allow that.”
²⁰

Next to speak was Defense Minister Ustinov, who was determined to defend the honor of the military establishment. His report to the Politburo included several blatant lies, designed to relieve his subordinates of all responsibility. His assertion that the Boeing 747 was flying “without warning lights” flatly contradicted the testimony of the interceptor pilot. He insisted that “repeated instructions” had been given to the intruder to land at a Soviet airfield and that warning shots had been fired “with tracer shells, as stipulated in international rules.”

“My opinion is that in this situation we must show firmness and remain cool,” the defense minister barked. “We should not flinch. If we flinch, it gives all kinds of people the opportunity to overfly our territory.”

The only Politburo member who might have had the authority to stand up to Ustinov was Andrei Gromyko, who would be required to bear the brunt of international outrage over the shooting down of a civilian airliner. But the seventy-four-year-old foreign minister was exceptionally cautious. This survivor of Stalin’s purges had managed to climb to the top by always
backing the winning side. Every gene in his body told him not to get into an argument with someone as forceful as Ustinov. If he judged that the timing was right, “Grim Grom” could be an effective advocate for arms control negotiations with the United States in internal Politburo discussions. Faced with a choice between antagonizing the military and abandoning policy positions favored by the Foreign Ministry, he almost always chose the latter. He did not want his ministry to acquire a dovish reputation.
²¹

Gromyko told the Politburo that the Soviet military had acted “correctly” in shooting down the Korean plane. At the same time, he believed that the Soviet Union should anticipate the likely thrust of “imperialist propaganda” and acknowledge that “shots were fired.” “We should say so frankly, so as not to allow our adversary to accuse us of being deceitful. Our main argument should be that the plane was flying over Soviet territory and had penetrated an exceptionally long way into our territory.”

Now it was Mikhail Gorbachev’s turn to speak. The youngest member of the Politburo was in a delicate position. Everyone knew he was a favorite of Andropov, who had encouraged him to broaden his range of interests beyond agriculture. His elders needed his youthful energy and competence, but they also felt threatened by him. Here was a man who could push them all aside. In order to retain their confidence and have a shot at the top job, Gorbachev had to tread a very fine line. He had to prove that he could be an enthusiastic and creative spokesman for the party without threatening the vested interests of any section of the Soviet bureaucracy.

Gorbachev resorted to the standard stratagem of Kremlin politics: When in doubt, attack the “forces of imperialism.” He told his colleagues that the Americans must have been aware of the unauthorized incursion into Soviet territory. The length of time that the Korean plane had been in Soviet airspace, some two hours, showed that this was a well-planned “provocation.”

“It’s no use keeping quiet now; we must go on to the offensive,” he concluded, striking a hawkish note.

That evening, in keeping with Andropov’s declared intention of introducing greater “openness” into political life, the Soviet people were informed that the Politburo had met. A communiqué read out on the main television news bulletin said that the subjects under discussion included “improving the production of color television sets” and measures “to increase labor productivity.”
²²
There was no mention of the KAL tragedy. It took another five days for the Soviet authorities to acknowledge that they had indeed shot down a civilian airliner. On September 10 the Kremlin
moved over to the offensive, just as Gorbachev had proposed, broadcasting a television interview with the man who had blasted the Korean airliner out of the sky.

G
ENNADY
O
SIPOVICH WAS SHOCKED
and bewildered. He tried hard to conceal his feelings, but his mental anguish was apparent to anyone who met him. His normally firm handshake was cold and lifeless. His expression seemed hopelessly distracted. He behaved like someone suffering from an attack of nausea or perhaps a merciless tongue-lashing from a superior. Wrapped up in his own world, he seemed to tune out of a conversation and gaze off into the distance.

“Perhaps there was no one on the plane,” he would say to no one in particular. Or, “Who can tell me exactly how many seats there are on this Boeing?”
²³

The pilot’s world had turned upside down several times in the space of a few days. When he brought his Su-15 back to Sokol Air Base, he was greeted like a hero. The entire regiment turned out to welcome the man who had shot down an “intruder.” There were hugs, kisses, and celebratory shots of vodka. The younger pilots looked at him with envy, but Osipovich felt a twinge of anxiety. He phoned Kornukov, the general who had given the order to “destroy the target,” to find out what had really happened. Perhaps the plane had been “one of ours”?

“No,” the general had replied in his gruff tone. “It was a foreigner. So make a hole in your shoulder boards for a new star.”
²⁴

Then the rumors started. Western radio stations reported that the Soviet Union had shot down a passenger airplane, with 269 people on board. Government commissions arrived from Moscow. There were endless questions and investigations. The higher-ups, trained in the art of playing it safe, began to look strangely at Osipovich.

“Why are they treating me as if I am insane?” the pilot complained to a journalist for the army newspaper
Red Star
, who had flown in to interview him. “For days I have not even been able to go to the bathroom by myself. They keep me locked up.”
²⁵

The journalists had been fully briefed before leaving Moscow. Their task was to get the interceptor pilot to confirm the official propaganda line about downing a “spy plane.” That meant mouthing the same lies that the Soviet Union had been telling the rest of the world. The entire script had already been written in Moscow. All Osipovich was required to do was to memorize
his lines and repeat them in front of the camera. He did as instructed, but the result seemed hopelessly artificial and wooden. The television correspondent was dissatisfied

The pilot asked for a break. Someone produced a bottle of vodka, which he downed in a succession of quick shots. He felt more relaxed now. When he reappeared in front of the television cameras, the words of outrage and indignation seemed to come spontaneously. He spoke about the threat of a nuclear war, describing how he had been scheduled to give a talk on “peace” to a school in Sakhalin on the very day that the United States organized its provocation. The television reporter, Aleksandr Tikhomirov, asked if he was certain that the intruder had been an “enemy plane.”

“Yes, this is what I thought,” replied Osipovich, slouching in an easy chair. “After it crossed our border, it only made me more certain. This enemy aircraft which had broken into our territory was now flying over my home. It passed almost over our base. People at this time are peacefully sleeping, and he’s up there on a spying mission.”
²⁶

T
HE
K
OREAN AIRLINER TRAGEDY
was a cathartic experience for both superpowers. It brought them closer to nuclear Armageddon than at any time since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, but it also laid the psychological foundation for a new era in East-West relations. Like punch-drunk fighters clutched in a deadly embrace, the leaders of Russia and America staggered to the edge of a cliff, looked over the edge, and then took a step back.

Hearing the rhetorical missiles hurtling back and forth between Moscow and Washington, one could be forgiven for concluding that the world was on the edge of an abyss. The Reagan administration accused the Kremlin of “a crime against humanity” and the deliberate “massacre” of 269 innocent civilians. The Soviets responded by depicting Reagan as a “madman,” comparable to Adolf Hitler, who wanted to dominate the world. At the same time, however, there was a reassuring predictability about these barbs. It was as if each side knew that it possessed the means to inflict unacceptable devastation on its rival and was therefore compelled to find other ways of giving vent to its hostility. The balance of terror was matched by a balance of rhetoric.