Gorbachev and the Opportunity for Peace Wasted
DW (2018)
Film Review
This is a fascinating documentary featuring a rare appearance by former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev. It begins by examining a mutual disarmament treaty Gorbachev and President Ronald Reagan negotiated in 1987. Reagan was clearly acting in opposition to the reigning military-industrial-complex, just as Trump is in his negotiations with North Korean president Kim Jong-un. This seems to be why Reagan waited to launch disarmament talks until he safely won re-election in 1984.
The arms reduction treaty had scarcely come into effect when Gorbachev’s Glasnost (openness) and Perestroika (restructuring),, in concert with CIA meddling, triggered the rapid break-up of the Soviet block. By 1990, thanks to Gorbachev’s commitment to non-intervention in Soviet allies’ internal affairs, the Berlin wall had fallen and Communist governments had been overthrown in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Romania.
An August 1991 coup, led by (CIA-backed) hard line Communists, failed but significantly weakened the Soviet Union by strengthening the hand of CIA-backed (see US Agents Helped Yeltsin Break Coup) Russian president Boris Yeltsin.
Within months, Yeltsin conspired with the presidents of Kazakstan, Belarus and Ukraine to declare independence simultaneously with the Russian Federation. The move would lead to Gorbachev’s resignation in December 1991.
The EU, concerned about preserving the Reagan-Gorbachev arms reduction treaty, proposed a number of countermeasures to improve Russian economic stability. Among them were a proposal to integrate Russia into western Europe by admitting them to the G7 and the NATO missile defense strategy and granting them $30 billion in aid. All were vetoed by the Bush senior and his successor Bill Clinton in favor of NATO expansion.
*In his book Manifest Destiny, F William Engdahl talks about the Enterprise, a private intelligence/security network created by George H W Bush and run by Oliver North and Richard Secord. In addition to organizing illegal weapons sales to Iran (see Iran-Contra Affair), the Enterprise recruited corrupt KGB generals to help bring down Gorbachev’s government. According to Engdahl, these generals and their young proteges would become Russia’s corrupt billionaire oligarchs. The Enterprise financed the KGB generals’ coup against Korbachev in 1991 and installed Boris Yeltsin as president. The latter allowed the oligarchs, with the help of George Soros, Jeffrey Sachs and other Harvard economists to loot Russia exactly as they had looted Poland. See Russia’s Criminal Oligarchy: The Role of Bush Senior and the CIA).
The Most Revolutionary Act 