pointless that we just ended it.”
The United States had attempted to embarrass Soviet officials and challenge their lies. The Soviet leaders saw the episode as a provocation, a deliberate attempt to trip them up.
On September 27 in Washington, Gates, the deputy CIA director, delivered to Shultz an intelligence assessment that said relations between the United States and the Soviet Union were as “pervasively bleak” as at any time since Stalin’s death in 1953. Gates said the Soviet leaders feared Reagan’s administration more than any in history. 19
On September 28, Andropov issued one of the harshest condemnationsever of the United States, published in both
Pravda
and
Izvestia
and read on the evening television news broadcast. The Reagan administration, Andropov said, is on “a militarist course that represents a serious threat to peace … if anyone had any illusion about the possibility of an evolution for the better in the policy of the present administration, recent events had dispelled them completely.” According to Dobrynin, the word “completely” was emphasized. “The Soviet leadership had collectively arrived at the conclusion that any agreement with Reagan was impossible,” Dobrynin said.
A few days later, in the Crimea, Andropov went for a short walk in the park; lightly dressed, he became tired, and took a breather on a granite bench in the shade. His body became thoroughly chilled, and he soon began shivering uncontrollably. Volkogonov quotes Chazov, who treated Andropov for several years, as saying that when he examined Andropov in the morning, he found widespread inflammation, requiring surgery. “The operation was successful, but his body was so drained of strength that the post-operative wound would not heal…His condition gradually worsened, his weakness increased, he again stopped trying to walk, but still the wound would not heal…Andropov began to realize that he was not going to get any better.” 20 Chazov wrote in his memoir, “On Sept. 30, 1983 the final countdown on Andropov’s health began.” 21
In London, three “flash” telegrams from Moscow arrived in quick succession on Oleg Gordievsky’s desk on September 4. The first claimed that the shoot down was being used by the United States to whip up anti-Soviet hysteria. The second and third suggested that the airliner was on an intelligence mission. This story was later embroidered with bogus reports that the captain of the plane had boasted of his spying and shown friends the intelligence gear on the plane. None of the telegrams actually acknowledged that a Soviet interceptor had shot down the airliner. Two more telegrams followed a few days later urging KGB agents to plant stories that the Americans and Japanese were in full radio contact withthe plane. At one point, it was falsely claimed, the pilot had radioed, “We’re going over Kamchatka.” 22 Gordievsky recalled, “So manifestly absurd was this lie that many of my colleagues in the Residency were dismayed by the damage done to the Soviet Union’s international reputation.” 23
Guk, the KGB chief in London, had been in Moscow during the shoot down, and he later took Gordievsky aside and told him that eight of the eleven Soviet air defense radar stations on Kamchatka and Sakhalin were not functioning properly. 24 Dobrynin heard a similar account from Ustinov in Moscow. 25
The telegrams from Moscow were passed to the British. Geoffrey Howe, then foreign secretary, recalled that one “very powerful impression quite quickly built up in my mind: the Soviet leadership really did believe the bulk of their own propaganda. They did have a genuine fear that ‘the West’ was plotting their overthrow—and might, just might, go to any lengths to achieve it.” 26 Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who also knew of the reports, visited Washington and met with Reagan on September 29. She found him worried that “the Russians seemed paranoid about their own security”
The United States had attempted to embarrass Soviet officials and challenge their lies. The Soviet leaders saw the episode as a provocation, a deliberate attempt to trip them up.
On September 27 in Washington, Gates, the deputy CIA director, delivered to Shultz an intelligence assessment that said relations between the United States and the Soviet Union were as “pervasively bleak” as at any time since Stalin’s death in 1953. Gates said the Soviet leaders feared Reagan’s administration more than any in history. 19
On September 28, Andropov issued one of the harshest condemnationsever of the United States, published in both
Pravda
and
Izvestia
and read on the evening television news broadcast. The Reagan administration, Andropov said, is on “a militarist course that represents a serious threat to peace … if anyone had any illusion about the possibility of an evolution for the better in the policy of the present administration, recent events had dispelled them completely.” According to Dobrynin, the word “completely” was emphasized. “The Soviet leadership had collectively arrived at the conclusion that any agreement with Reagan was impossible,” Dobrynin said.
A few days later, in the Crimea, Andropov went for a short walk in the park; lightly dressed, he became tired, and took a breather on a granite bench in the shade. His body became thoroughly chilled, and he soon began shivering uncontrollably. Volkogonov quotes Chazov, who treated Andropov for several years, as saying that when he examined Andropov in the morning, he found widespread inflammation, requiring surgery. “The operation was successful, but his body was so drained of strength that the post-operative wound would not heal…His condition gradually worsened, his weakness increased, he again stopped trying to walk, but still the wound would not heal…Andropov began to realize that he was not going to get any better.” 20 Chazov wrote in his memoir, “On Sept. 30, 1983 the final countdown on Andropov’s health began.” 21
In London, three “flash” telegrams from Moscow arrived in quick succession on Oleg Gordievsky’s desk on September 4. The first claimed that the shoot down was being used by the United States to whip up anti-Soviet hysteria. The second and third suggested that the airliner was on an intelligence mission. This story was later embroidered with bogus reports that the captain of the plane had boasted of his spying and shown friends the intelligence gear on the plane. None of the telegrams actually acknowledged that a Soviet interceptor had shot down the airliner. Two more telegrams followed a few days later urging KGB agents to plant stories that the Americans and Japanese were in full radio contact withthe plane. At one point, it was falsely claimed, the pilot had radioed, “We’re going over Kamchatka.” 22 Gordievsky recalled, “So manifestly absurd was this lie that many of my colleagues in the Residency were dismayed by the damage done to the Soviet Union’s international reputation.” 23
Guk, the KGB chief in London, had been in Moscow during the shoot down, and he later took Gordievsky aside and told him that eight of the eleven Soviet air defense radar stations on Kamchatka and Sakhalin were not functioning properly. 24 Dobrynin heard a similar account from Ustinov in Moscow. 25
The telegrams from Moscow were passed to the British. Geoffrey Howe, then foreign secretary, recalled that one “very powerful impression quite quickly built up in my mind: the Soviet leadership really did believe the bulk of their own propaganda. They did have a genuine fear that ‘the West’ was plotting their overthrow—and might, just might, go to any lengths to achieve it.” 26 Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who also knew of the reports, visited Washington and met with Reagan on September 29. She found him worried that “the Russians seemed paranoid about their own security”
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