Ted Kennedy and his ties to the Soviets

At Hot Air today, there was an interview with Paul Kengor, who recently wrote The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the fall of Communism. A very interesting part of the interview is when Kengor talks about Ted Kennedy and how he attempted to collaborate with the KGB and the Soviets to prevent Ronald Reagan's reelection in 1984.

Among its most sensational aspects is a section detailing the domestic opposition to Reagan’s campaign for re-election in 1984 and his decision to deploy intermediate-range nuclear forces (INFs), Pershing II missiles, into Western Europe to counter the Soviet deployment of nuclear weapons across the Warsaw Pact. Specifically, Kengor includes what is purported to be a translated memo from the KGB archives, dated May 14, 1983, that describes an offer made to the KGB on behalf of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA) by former Senator John Tunney (D-CA), a fellow Democrat and close friend of Kennedy’s.

According to the document, Sen. Kennedy offered to help the Soviet leadership mount a media public relations campaign in the United States that would do two things. First, it would convince the American people that the Soviets intended peaceful co-existence with us. Second, it would undermine President Reagan’s efforts to deploy the Pershing IIs and build the Strategic Defense Initiative as well as undermining his national security stances and strategy on a broad basis, which in turn would dent Reagan’s campaign to be re-elected in 1984. In short, Sen. Kennedy was offering to work with USSR General Secretary Yuri Andropov against the President of the United States.

It's amazing to me that the brother of John F. Kennedy, a staunch opponent of the Soviets, would attempt to collaborate with the Soviet Union to hurt the reelection campaign of an American president. You're not supposed to get foreign help for an American election. It's a very serious charge. If completely true, Ted Kennedy is a disgrace to his own country.

One of Kengor's sources was Herbert Romerstein. He is previously known for writing the Venona Secrets. This detailed Soviet spies within the United States during the 1940s. He wrote an article (entitled: Ted Kennedy Was a "Collaborationist") 3 years ago detailing this topic. These documents he is discussing were KGB intelligence memos.

One of the documents, a KGB report to bosses in the Soviet Communist Party Central Committee, revealed that "In 1978, American Sen. Edward Kennedy requested the assistance of the KGB to establish a relationship" between the Soviet apparatus and a firm owned by former Sen. John Tunney (D.-Calif.). KGB recommended that they be permitted to do this because Tunney's firm was already connected with a KGB agent in France named David Karr. This document was found by the knowledgeable Russian journalist Yevgenia Albats and published in Moscow's Izvestia in June 1992.

Another KGB report to their bosses revealed that on March 5, 1980, John Tunney met with the KGB in Moscow on behalf of Sen. Kennedy. Tunney expressed Kennedy's opinion that "nonsense about 'the Soviet military threat' and Soviet ambitions for military expansion in the Persian Gulf . . . was being fueled by [President Jimmy] Carter, [National Security Advisor Zbigniew] Brzezinski, the Pentagon and the military industrial complex."

Carter was too anti-Soviet for Teddy? That says a lot.

Kennedy offered to speak out against President Carter on Afghanistan. Shortly thereafter he made public speeches opposing President Carter on this issue. This document was found in KGB archives by Vasiliy Mitrokhin, a courageous KGB officer, who copied documents from the files and then defected to the West. He wrote about this document in a February 2002 paper on Afghanistan that he released through the Cold War International History Project of the Woodrow Wilson Center.

In May 1983, the KGB again reported to their bosses on a discussion in Moscow with former Sen. John Tunney. Kennedy had instructed Tunney, according to the KGB, to carry a message to Yuri Andropov, the General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party, expressing Kennedy's concern about the anti-Soviet activities of President Ronald Reagan. The KGB reported "in Kennedy's opinion the opposition to Reagan remains weak. Speeches of the President's opponents are not well-coordinated and not effective enough, and Reagan has the chance to use successful counterpropaganda." Kennedy offered to "undertake some additional steps to counter the militaristic, policy of Reagan and his campaign of psychological pressure on the American population." Kennedy asked for a meeting with Andropov for the purpose of "arming himself with the Soviet leader's explanations of arms control policy so he can use them later for more convincing speeches in the U.S." He also offered to help get Soviet views on the major U.S. networks and suggested inviting "Elton Rule, ABC chairman of the board, or observers Walter Cronkite or Barbara Walters to Moscow."

Working with our enemy, the Soviets, to defeat a presidential reelection bid. To say the least, it is un-American. At the worst, ... well you can figure it out.