As Ted Kennedy was praised and buried over the weekend, little was said about his May 1983 offer to Soviet dictator Yuri Andropov to undermine President Reagan’s campaign against Communist oppression.
The offer, recorded in a Soviet memorandum and uncovered by The London Times in 1991, was no doubt influenced by Kennedy’s intense partisanship, but it was disgraceful (and probably illegal) all the same.
Kennedy’s bold overture was made just two months after Reagan, in the style of President John Kennedy, shamed Communism and gave hope to its imprisoned masses by declaring the Soviet Union an “evil empire.”
Useful idiocy. The Massachusetts senator, through John Tunney, offered Andropov help to brush up on his propaganda and counter Reagan’s moves with clever rhetoric. That and Chappaquiddick have to be Ted Kennedy’s two lowest points.
Frank Warner
Don't forget that he "cheated for those 'wetbacks' in Harvard"
Posted by: Neo | August 31, 2009 at 09:36 AM
While it's easy for some folks to believe that Ted Kennedy would have undermined the interests of his own country in order to get some sort of political advantage, you have to look at a couple of things here. First of all, what was he really offering. Expertise on how to make Reagan look bad? All the Soviets had to do for that was look at Kennedy's speeches. An opportunity to speak to the American nation? Soviet leaders could have that opportunity just about any time they wanted. An interview with a Soviet leader was big news on any terms. The question is whether it was possible for a Soviet leader to speak for more than ten minutes without boring Americans to death with a steady stream of transparent disinformation. A lot of people wanted to bend over backwards to accommodate the possibility of improved relations with the Soviets, but Americans were basically immune to Soviet bullshit at that point. The more they talked, the worse they looked, and they knew it. They weren't talking for our benefit anyway. It was all for internal consumption, just as most of the rantings of dictators are.
So why didn't they take up Kennedy's offer? Put yourself in their position. It wasn't really much of an offer. They probably didn't trust that it was sincere. They looked at it as something sticky and sweet, but couldn't trust what might be inside it. Kennedy was no naif like Carter. What was he up to?
After this stuff was discovered, did any leading Republican take the opportunity to condemn Kennedy for his actions? I don't remember that happening.
Posted by: jj mollo | August 31, 2009 at 11:34 AM
This happened in 1983, the year Reagan was trying to install new NATO missiles to counterbalance the new Soviet short- and medium-range missiles in Eastern Europe.
Like the debates and consultations leading to the 2003 Iraq invasion, the talks on the deployment of these Western Europe missiles were delicate and volatile, both in the U.S. and Europe.
Soviet propaganda points weren't for internal consumption. The Kremlin had its masses under the gun. The propaganda was directed principally at the hysterical, weak-willed appeasers of the West, an influential minority who ate up the Soviet BS with relish. (The 1983 ABC-TV movie "The Day After" didn't help either.)
Kennedy might have believed the "nuclear freeze" was the best policy, but it was not his place to advise the bloodiest dictatorship in world history on how to accomplish anything.
On the "nuclear freeze," history proved Kennedy wrong. Reagan not only used those NATO missiles to negotiate the first reduction in nuclear arsenals, he set the stage for the Soviet Union's full collapse.
History will record that Kennedy had no constructive part in bringing down the Soviet totalitarian system and freeing hundreds of millions of its oppressed. He not only missed the boat; he tried to sink it.
Posted by: Frank Warner | August 31, 2009 at 12:34 PM
I know a lot of Democrats thought Reagan was insane. The way that Reagan was "stirring up the hornets nest" was terrifying to a lot of people. Nuclear war was on their minds. And many of these people also believed that Reagan might actually be mentally unbalanced. Bush's declaration of the "Axis of Evil" brought back some of those feelings. So, it's possible that you could be right about Kennedy's role. I certainly wasn't happy about the thing with taking free oil from Venezuela, which was also a Kennedy idea. The only caveat I'm offering is that we really don't know a lot of things that go on inside our own government.
Posted by: jj mollo | August 31, 2009 at 12:52 PM
We certainly didn't know Kennedy was working with Andropov.
Posted by: Frank Warner | August 31, 2009 at 04:40 PM
And we still don't.
Posted by: jj mollo | August 31, 2009 at 11:24 PM
He was far too eager to help Andropov.
On the same day Reagan was calling the Soviet Union the evil empire, Kennedy was on the Capitol steps saying, "I wish that we had an administration that was more concerned with preventing nuclear war and less concerned in preparing for nuclear war."
He certainly wasn't hurting Andropov's cause.
Posted by: Frank Warner | August 31, 2009 at 11:58 PM
“He was given everything he had in life. He didn’t earn anything. He is Thurston Howell III, and he has the nerve to say to people who built small businesses, restaurants and gas stations that they should have their money stolen from them...” through higher taxes.
- Grover Norquist on Teddy Kennedy
(seen at Ihatethemedia.com)
Posted by: Kevin | September 02, 2009 at 01:15 AM