Konstantin Preobrazhenskiy (a former KGB officer and an intelligence expert), and Vladimir Bukovsky (former
leading Soviet dissident who spent twelve years in Soviet prisons,
labor camps and psychiatric hospitals for his fight for freedom), discuss Putin's success in continuously bamboozling Western leaders. This is a fascinating, though disheartening, read. Some excerpts:
As for Bush, the key for him was a naïve story about Putin’s neck cross. According to this story, in 1996, Putin’s country house in the suburbs of Saint Petersburg was burnt down through arson. And only one thing was found in the ashes: an aluminum neck cross, presented to Putin by his mother. At that very moment Putin understood that the highest spiritual forces are ruling this world.
Though this story would never seem convincing to us Russians, it deeply impressed Bush. Because he became a believer in his middle age and acquired the most heartfelt respect for religion. It made him decide that he and Putin had spiritual integrity. . .
Preobrazhensky: And Bush believed it. But Putin forgot to tell him that he had begun his KGB career in the “fifth line” of the Leningrad KGB. The “fifth line” was aimed at destroying the Church.
Bukovsky: Yes. And quite another method was devised for the French President, Sarkozy. During our meeting a year ago, he told me the following about Putin: “A man who loves women and the beautiful life so much, cannot be a bad man!” But Putin doesn’t have the reputation of a womanizer at all. This theme has been thoroughly avoided by his propagandists. It means that this false postulate was invented especially for Sarkozy. Because Sarkozy himself is such a person. It is he who loves women and the beautiful life. Now he is sure of having the same blood as Putin.
But the Kremlin psychologists began this practice even in Soviet times. They were preparing the Soviet leaders for meetings with Western colleagues. For example, in 1979, during negotiations with President Carter, Brezhnev put his hand on his shoulder and pronounced a phrase which was totally unacceptable for a Soviet leader: “Jimmy, God will not forgive us if we do not come to an agreement.”
Can you imagine for how many weeks Brezhnev was trying to pronounce the word “God”? But Carter took it in good faith. The Kremlin psychologists were addressing and exploiting his religious faith. Later Carter is said to have thought that he had brought Brezhnev to Christianity. And Gorbachev succeeded in persuading Margaret Thatcher that he was a pragmatist. I spent a lot of time explaining to her that a Communist cannot be a pragmatist. If he is a pragmatist, he cannot be a Communist, and vice versa. But she believed Gorbachev in spite of herself being a most experienced politician. I asked her to give a definition of a Communist-pragmatist, but she could not do it. Then I gave the following possible definition: a Communist who has no money. . .
The greatest mistake by the American leaders is that they consider their Russian colleagues to be similar to themselves while they are following quite a different kind of logic. For negotiation with them, America should appoint, not highly educated diplomats, but a sheriff from Chicago who understands the psychology of the mafia. He would cope there. [more . . .]
Concluding sentences:
Preobrazhensky: And in terms of the evidence before us, how do you see Russian-American relations ensuing under Obama? Bukovsky: As it stands now, and if there is no drastic rethinking and reformulating, a chain of endless concessions by America.