Charles Via is the chairman of the Center for Intelligence Studies, a private non-profit and tax exempt foundation dedicated to educating the American people and their elected representatives about intelligence, counterintelligence, and related matters. Mr. Via was personally instructed in the art of intelligence by the late James Angleton, former chief of Counterintelligence of the CIA, and has more than 14 years of experience in national security affairs. Prior to becoming chairman of CIS, Mr. Via was president of the Security and Intelligence Foundation. Mr. Via was interviewed for The New American by Thomas R. Eddlem.

The Fatima Crusader presents here part of that interview. The picture that emerges is vastly different from what your newspaper and TV "news" reports would have you believe. Essentially what is happening in Russia is not conversion of Russia nor do the changes of Aug. 19-22, 1991, bode well for world peace. Anything but.

Intelligence expert Charles Via

       Q. The Center has put out a few research papers in the past indicating that the changes in Eastern Europe were part of a communist deception plan. Is the same thing happening in the USSR today?

       A. Only partially. I believed the initial strategic deception, which was designed to lull us into a sense of complacency, jumped the track. As a result, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and its primary operational arm, the KGB, were desperately attempting to put it back on track up to the time of the coup, which revealed fundamental schisms in each organization, both the Communist Party and the KGB have been thrown into almost complete disarray.

       Q. What kind of disarray?

       A. My understanding of the coup is that it was initially planned by Gorbachev with the intent of installing "hardliners" in such positions of power that he could plausibly claim he was being forced to return to the hard-core Marxist-Leninist, neo-Stalinist line. He could then escape personal responsibility in the West for a planned crackdown, and for all the bloody repression that such a move implies.

       It is my further understanding that at some point along the line the people Mr. Gorbachev picked to lead this coup decided they did not need him, and decided to therefore dispense with him. It was at that point that the schisms opened in the Communist party apparatus and the KGB, and the coup began to fall apart. The net effect of this "coup within a coup" was to shatter the institutional cohesion of both these institutions.

       Q. What do you think of Boris Yeltsin?

       A. I think he is an extremely formidable adversary.

       Q. By that do you mean he is loyal to the old apparatus?

       A. I am not at all convinced he is loyal to the old apparatus. Mr. Yeltsin is a rabid Russian nationalist who is perfectly willing to use the old apparatus or any other to achieve his aspirations.

       Q. What do you know about Yeltsin's "Russian" KGB?

       A. I have to say that it is somewhat preposterous. Although the Russian Republic has been the only republic that did not have a "republican" KGB, the distinction was meaningless. All of the KGB was run from "the center," as they call it. Yeltsin maintains that he created a truly independent KGB in order to offset the power of "the center"; yet for reasons unknown he installed this new KGB in the Lubyanka [headquarters of the old Soviet KGB]. And that is the last place anyone would locate an "independent" republican KGB. The notion of an "independent" republican Russian KGB is inherently implausible as its positioning makes it dependent upon, and therefore subject to control by, the Soviet KGB.

       Q. Are the recent pronouncements about the independence of the Baltics real, deceptive, or a mix?

       A. I think you have to look at the nature of a deception. To be effective, a deception must be essentially real: 90 to 95 percent of the information conveyed to the "target" must be absolutely true. In this case I believe the Baltics will in fact achieve independence, but I do not believe they will achieve sovereignty.

       The historical parallel is Finland, which was also allowed to leave the Russian empire after the Bolshevik Revolution. Finland has been and remains independent, but it is simply not sovereign. The Soviets have historically exercised a veto over the personalities and politics of Finnish government and especially over Finnish defense policies. The Soviets do not control Finnish society, but they have successfully insisted upon the right to define its political parameters. I think you will find precisely the same situation arise in the Baltics.

       Q. What can you tell us about the personalities that are involved in the Baltics? Vytautus Landsbergis of Lithuania has a pretty good history of opposing communism, but many of the others seem to have a rather cloudy past. Are you familiar with the biographies of these new Baltic leaders?

       A. Only vaguely. You have to bear in mind that the biographies have been distorted quite substantially over the years and biographical information is not necessarily to be trusted or believed. My information is that in most cases these are party hacks turned opportunists who are bending with the wind in order to retain their power.

       Q. Albert Weeks, a columnist who normally writes on intelligence matters, has spoken of an "Ogarkov Kindergarten" [young students of Brezhnev's military chief, Nikolai Ogarkov] that is taking a number of important positions in the new regime. What do you think of Week's theory?

       A. It fits. Indeed it is utterly consistent with the classic Soviet maneuver of using the military to control the KGB, and then using the KGB to control the military. In the 1930s, for example, the army was unleashed against the NKVD [predecessor of the KGB]. Subsequently, the reconstructed NKVD was turned upon the Army. By playing one off the other, the Soviet Communist Party has long succeeded in controlling both. But there is another point that should be made: If Weeks is correct, this is a powerful indication of the strength of continuity and the weakness of change in the Soviet Union.

       Q. Are you saying that since KGB influence has grown dramatically over the last decade, including one KGB chairman who was briefly head of the Soviet Union [Yuri Andropov] it is now time for a swing the other way?

       A. I think the civilian masters have concluded it is time to put the KGB back in its place, under its thumbs. To do so, they need the military.

       Q. There is a lot of talk about the KGB increasingly having its hands tied behind its back. The KGB's several hundred thousand-strong border guards have been transferred to the armed forces, the new KGB chairman Vadim Bakatin claims that the spying on Soviet citizens will stop, and other KGB operations will be transferred or ended. Has that much really changed since the coup?

       A. I don't believe so. Transferring units from one organization to another is one more ancient Soviet practice, as is the renaming of organizations. It is as simple as changing uniforms and coming up with a new label.

       Q. What do you know about Vadim Bakatin, the new KGB Chief?

       A. He has a very interesting history. On the one hand, as the former Minister of the Interior he has been closely associated with actions that can only be described as neo-Stalinist. On the other hand, he represents himself as a flaming liberal, which I doubt very much is true.

       Q. What kind of repressive activities did Bakatin take part in as Minister of the Interior?

       A. The Interior Minister controls not only the regular police, but also some very large paramilitary forces and the special troops, often referred to as "internal spetznaz." In addition, he controls the more recently created but already infamous Black Berets. All of these repressive forces were under his command during at least some of the outrages in the Baltic States during the past winter.

Father Paul Trinchard discusses the Awesome Fatima Consecration with Father Gruner on Fatima: "The Moment Has Come". Watch for Father Trinchard's book on this subject soon to be released.

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