Keys of This Blood (66 page)

Cooperation, for instance, in the “social sciences” turned a blind eye to the official prostitution of psychiatry and psychology by the Soviet Union as clinical tools for inflicting mental and physical torture as political punishment and for disposing of dissidents. The USSR had been effectively banned from the World Psychiatric Association in 1983 for just such practices. It had not been readmitted at the time of the signing of the
General Agreement
; and in fact, a delegation of American experts reported after their 1989 visit to the Soviet Union that nothing substantial had changed in the field. Diplomatic connivance seemed not to be strained by this factor, however.

Or take cooperation in the humanities. As taught in the Soviet Union, all humanities are marinated in Leninist Marxism as a matter of course. And as a matter of course, history is distorted by a thoroughgoing Marxization of ideas, by the systematic suppression of facts, and by downright lies. One might wonder, therefore, what common curricula might be drawn up between the USSR and the United States, or any other country of the West. Presumably, the same blithe and trusting spirit that reigned in trade and finance assumed that such problems would take care of themselves.

Cooperation in science and technology presented interesting problems of its own, meanwhile. John Paul was hardly alone in seeing all the advantage flowing to the Soviets in these areas. He saw nothing but a
greater hemorrhaging than had already taken place of vital American technology in favor of the USSR.

Without the 1985
General Agreement
, the Soviets went to great lengths to obtain such technology, chiefly by the subterfuge of espionage, and by the adulterous actions of third-party governments and entrepreneurs. Just how far the
General Agreement
would go in making such irregular activities unnecessary for the Soviets became a fascinating subject of discussion among some in the Vatican.

According to Dr. Stephen D. Bryen, who headed the Pentagon's security program for the Reagan administration, in 1988 over half the technology that makes the weapons systems of the Soviet Union possible already came from the West. And the United States Department of Defense has stated on the basis of actual figures that trade and technology transfers to the Soviet Union have already saved the USSR billions of dollars, have reduced weapons-development time, and have amounted to a gain of $6.6-$13.3 billion in military technology.

Apparently, however, there is no such thing as too much technology; and, apparently, the Soviets would rely only so far on the
General Agreement
to acquire it. In 1989, four years after the Geneva summit, the Soviets paid, to the Toshiba Company of Japan, a good chunk of that hard cash the West was providing. In return, and acting in violation of solemn agreements, Toshiba supplied the Soviets with the American machine-tool technology that enabled them to build nearly undetectable submarines. The case made headlines and met with public outrage. But it was hardly an isolated incident; and Japan was not the lone transgressor.

In something of the same vein, the Soviets continued their aid to foreign surrogates, to the tune of some $127 billion in 1988—$1 billion to Nicaragua; $2 billion to Vietnam; $5 billion to Cuba; more billions to Central Europe, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Angola and Latin American surrogates such as the powerful Shining Path Marxist group so troublesome to Peru.

Without a shadow of a doubt, the aim of the
General Agreement
—at least from the point of view of the Wise Men of the West—was “to transform the shape of the world,” to quote Internationalist George Ball, because “sooner or later we are going to have to face restructuring our institutions so that they are not confined merely to the nation-states. Start first on a regional [U.S.A.-USSR] basis, and ultimately you could move to a world basis.” In that quintessentially Internationalist view, the
General Agreement
is a blueprint for what is called a “comfortable merger” of the populations of the United States and the Soviet Union.

Taking into consideration not only the sweeping scope of the
General Agreement
, but his own intimate knowledge of the Soviet Union and his equally intimate knowledge of the process of diplomatic connivance, Pope John Paul came to an inescapable conclusion. That
Agreement
was not drawn up specifically for approval at the November 1985 summit. It was not put together in a day, or even in the few months between March, when Gorbachev was elected to the top Soviet post, and November, when he met with Reagan.

Rather, that
Agreement
came from already established drawing boards. It took time, effort and organization to produce that Agreement, just as it took time, effort and organization to effect the helter-skelter eastward rush of banking and trading interests.

Without question, the policies visible in both areas reflected the sweeping ambit of Gorbachevism, as well as the equally sweeping intentions of the Wise Men. For both parties intend to create nothing less than a new arrangement in all human affairs—a “new world order,” to use a consecrated phrase both Gorbachev and the Wise Men employ.

In John Paul's assessment, however, the early advantage rested with Gorbachev. For those early policies also reflected that blithe and trusting acceptance by the Wise Men of basic Leninist thinking. An acceptance—a continuing connivance—that was becoming the hallmark, if not the battle cry, of the Wise Men, as they took the field with the leader who had been judged—and not by Yuri Andropov alone—as most likely to succeed in fulfilling Vladimir Lenin's ultimate dream of Soviet messianism.

Following Mikhail Gorbachev's seminal speech at the United Nations in December 1988, spokesmen in Pope John Paul's Holy See felt constrained to underline the positive promise the Soviet leader held out for world peace and development.

John Paul himself, however, withheld any papal comments. On his ultimate analysis of what makes Mikhail Gorbachev tick, and of what gives Gorbachevism its momentum, depends a whole gamut of important papal decisions that bear directly on the welfare of his universal Church and the success of his papacy. Because the specific terrain for both men is the society of nations, the Pope must make that judgment of the Soviet leader in a geopolitical context that necessarily involves the vast world forces with which Gorbachev is either in collusion or in contention.

And while it is true that ultimately John Paul must make his judgment in the light not merely of facts derived from his intelligence sources, but of facts coming to him by papal privilege, it is also true that, on this occasion, as Gorbachev took his bow in the U.N., the Pontiff was in possession of his own sources of information about Kremlin councils, about Mikhail Gorbachev's outlook, and about what had passed between President Reagan and the General Secretary at their Geneva and Moscow summits. He was aware of the possibilities, acquainted with the assurances and apprised of the realities behind the public relations and propaganda efforts on both sides.

As 1989 progressed, therefore, all during the startling actions that were to propel Gorbachev into the middle of the organized policies and plans of the United States and the West nations and the Wise Men, Pope John
Paul's attention remained on the fundamental mind-set of the parties involved. And there, he found little to surprise him.

Before reviewing those startling events of 1989, and in order to understand how Papa Wojtyla views the astounding success achieved by Mikhail Gorbachev before the spring of 1990, one should become acquainted with the Pontiff's summation of Gorbachev and his Gorbachevism, which goes a long way toward explaining where John Paul stands today, and how he views the present geopolitical structure that is abuilding among the nations and peoples of Europe (including the USSR in an altered condition) and of the North American continent.

The familiar process of the Wise Men was over forty years old. It had congealed all international activity in well-worn ruts. It progressed by fits and starts. It sometimes took two steps backward for each step forward. It relied on an “either-or” atmosphere, warning of an ultimate lethal collision or, at the very least, of a series of shocks to the entire world system of nations. In terms of ultimate international harmony and cooperation, it appeared more and more to be barren of real hope and meaningful change.

Yet so taken did the West remain with its position on the world stage and with its own in-club program for the development of nations, that its reaction had become predictable to every new
ballet d'invitation
orchestrated by Leninist intelligence. Each time, the West was first surprised; then fascinated; then mesmerized; then taken in; and finally disappointed—but always ready to enter the cycle again.

By the time President Reagan was prepared to break that pattern with his own principle of “Trust, but verify,” the difficulty was that no Western government was capable of the verification required.

Obviously, no Western intelligence agency—and therefore no Western government—had any inkling that the Soviet system could actually produce such a character as Mikhail Gorbachev from its enigmatic innards. Or, once they took note of him, that he could be promoted to the position of supreme Soviet power. Or that, once promoted, he would—or even could—steal such a long march on his Western colleagues in statecraft and in the molding of international opinion. “It breaks protocol!” sputtered one French official, as if to make John Paul's very point, when Gorbachev dropped his July 14 letter like a Bastille Day cannonball into the “Group of Seven” meeting. “Protocol be damned,” answered a Britisher. “What do we do with it?”

But the principle followed by the Pope in assessing Western reactions
to the Gorbachev phenomenon is much more fundamental than observations about oversmug policies or debilitated intelligence capabilities. Rather, it has to do with the fact that the Western mind has found no way to fathom the attitude of the genuine Leninist mind; and that it is unlikely to do so. For not even the basic notion of arid humanitarianism has a place in the rulebook of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao. In moral terms familiar to the Western mind, there is no way to understand the Communist mentality—what Dostoyevski called “the fire of the mind”—that animates the champions and guardians of the Leninist Party-State.

The information sources at the disposal of John Paul's Holy See indicated to him that, true to form, throughout the varied reactions of the West nations to the early phases of the Gorbachev phenomenon, there were grains of truth mixed with generous dollops of fond and wishful thinking, long-standing distrust, latent and patent fears, and the inertia of Western bureaucrats in their analytic thinking.

On the other side of the coin, the fundamental principle used by Pope John Paul in making his own overall judgment of the Gorbachev phenomenon stands in stark contrast to the one he applies to the West. And the principle in this case, while confirmed by John Paul's Kremlin-watchers throughout Soviet territory, is drawn from his long firsthand experience of the Leninist mentality as he learned its real features at close quarters in his Polish motherland.

In essence, that principle recognizes the keynote of the Leninist Party-State as a counterintelligence organization from start to finish. And in practice, that principle takes President Reagan's cautionary slogan, “Trust, but verify,” to its deepest significance.

Trust Gorbachev, Reagan was saying; but verify his words by his deeds. John Paul's experience has taught him that promises made and deeds accomplished both come from the heart of an institutionalized counterintelligence operation. One way or another, both words and actions aid the overall purpose of the Party-State to strengthen itself in all circumstances and to achieve its ultimate aims for its own exclusive success throughout the capitalist West and the world at large.

As unpleasant and cynical as that principle may sound, every information source and reliable indication at the disposal of John Paul tells him that the bones and structure of the Leninist Party-State—the secretariat, the KGB and the Red Army—remain intact and operative.

That being so, it defies credibility to think that Gorbachev is an entirely
original mind secretly bent on turning the Party-State system upside down and restoring the Soviet Union to the comity of free nations. The Leninist system does not allow for such a character—even if he is Mikhail Gorbachev—to live any longer than it takes to snuff out a human life. Thus, as long as the Leninist Party-State remains intact and operative, so long does John Paul's fundamental principle of understanding Gorbachev remain intact and operative.

None of all that is to say, however, that little or nothing has changed in the Kremlin with the advent of Gorbachev. Leninist principles do remain valid. But there has been a switch in operations. And that switch has been based mainly on two things: on the special personal and geopolitical talents of Mikhail Gorbachev himself, and on the principles urged upon his Communist brothers over fifty years ago by the unsung Italian genius, Antonio Gramsci.

Of those two elements in the new mix of Leninism, in certain respects Gorbachev has been the greater surprise for Pope John Paul. For he is the first Soviet leader who has risen to the top free of the ham-handed crudity, personal unculture and counterproductive provincialism of his predecessors in high office. It is no wonder to John Paul that even Margaret Thatcher, never a friend of Leninist Marxism, said on meeting Gorbachev for the first time that she felt the impact “in every molecule of my being.”

Nor was Mrs. Thatcher alone in her enthusiasm as the vibrant General Secretary displayed to the world an undoubted superiority in statecraft and leadership by comparison to the already known and uninspiring performances of his European and American counterparts. His success on the world stage became so palpable, in fact, that as throaty chants of “Gorbi! Gorbi! Gorbi!” followed him all through his triumphal state visit to West Germany, the tabloid
Bild
cooed that “what meant fear and threat to us has become a cuddly animal without bloody paws.”