Rummypedia I
Telecommunications Infrastructure Act of 1982
Title III of the Telecommunications Infrastructure Act of 1982 gave the Federal government jurisdiction over international of or potentially cross-national communications architectures which could be deemed of significant impact to national security. The idea was to be able to control any communications network which might be used to transmit information out of the United States, or which could be accessed outside the United States by a hostile power seeking to use a communications infrastructure to access secret information within the United States, whether directly or through the manipulation of human sources.
The Act was in fact extended by the Rumsfeld Administration to extend federal government control over all international communications coming into or going out of the United States, including the U.S. Mail which was deemed a communications infrastructure under the Act.
The Act was challenged twice in court. Once in the CSNET case (see below).
In the other, Bob Guccione, publisher of Penthouse Publications challenged the definition of communications infrastructure and the constitutionality of the Act, after Guccione had been arrested for making international phone calls to discuss the content of his magazine. The magazine itself was pornographic, and the Rumsfeld Administration argued that Guccione had effectively undermined U.S. National Security by presenting a “degrading” and “obscene” view of American culture, one which could be used as anti-U.S. propaganda and motivate foreign nationals to attack U.S. security and commercial interests as a result of “understandable outrage.”
Guccione was convicted at the District Court level, but won at the Appellate level. The Supreme Court upheld the District Court ruling in 5-4 decision.
As a result Penthouse publications was seized by the Federal government, and Guccione was sentenced to life in prison, although this was later reduced to fifteen years on appeal.
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CSNET – The Computer Science Network
Lawrence Landweber at the University of Wisconsin-Madison prepared the original CSNET proposal, on behalf of a consortium of universities (Georgia Tech, University of Minnesota, University of New Mexico, Oklahoma University, Purdue University, University of California-Berkeley, University of Utah, University of Virginia, University of Washington, University of Wisconsin, and Yale University). The US National Science Foundation (NSF) requested a review from David J. Farber at the University of Delaware. Farber assigned the task to his graduate student Dave Crocker who was already active in the development of electronic mail. The project was deemed interesting but in need of significant refinement. The proposal eventually gained the support of Vinton Cerf and DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), where at the same time it was drawn to the attention of Dr. James Reese at the Department of National Intelligence Coordination and Oversight. In 1980, the NSF awarded $5 million to launch the network. It was an unusually large project for the NSF at the time. A stipulation for the award of the contract was that the network needed to become self-sufficient by 1986.
The first management team consisted of Landweber (University of Wisconsin), Farber (University of Delaware), Peter J. Denning (Purdue University), Anthony Hearn (RAND Corporation), and Bill Kern from the NSF.
By 1981, three sites were connected: University of Delaware, Princeton University, and Purdue University. By 1982, 24 sites were connected and further expansion was planned, including to overseas sites. Only one was ever added though, that one being in Israel.
At this point DNICO, then headed By Secretary William Casey stepped in, deeming the growing network to be of National Security interest under the Telecommunications Infrastructure Act of 1982. The conclusion of the DNICO and DARPA at the Pentagon was that the rapid communication and free software distribution presented dangers to both secure control of communications networks and because of its diversified nature offered too many points of “relatively unsecured entry to hostile foreign powers and other entities.” On this basis a revised control program for research was set up under DNICO and the Pentagon, which focused on the development of internal, secure networks for the Pentagon and the U.S. government. Eventually a military contractor and heavy backer of the Rumsfeld Administration, TRW, gained control of the technology and patents. As a legacy of the original CSNET, the Israeli site remained active, though under the control of that country’s Ministry of Defence.
Landweber and others tried to bring suit against the federal government on the basis of unlawful expropriation and patent infringement, arguing effectively that the government had stolen private research without just payment and that the actions in taking the work of non-governmental researchers was un-Constitutional under the Fourth amendment, amounting to a seizure of property (tangible and intellectual) without warrant.
The case was heard in-camera in the federal courts (the government invoking national security to justify a public information ban), and the government’s position that an unchecked or public CSNET could pose a security risk was upheld at both the trial and appellate level. Landweber never accepted the verdict, and after another non-government entity – TRW – got involved he repeatedly charged that the CSNET had been stolen by the federal government.
Landweber was terminated by the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1984 and eventually moved to the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom, from where he could continue his research and become an outspoken critic of what he called “the theft of free speech” by the United States government, outside the jurisdiction of the U.S. government. In 1987 the British government awarded Landweber British citizenship, in part to protect him from extradition requests by the U.S., which wanted to try him for violating National Security laws.
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James Schlesinger (b. 1929)
James Rodney Schlesinger was born in New York City, the son of Jewish parents, Julius and Rhea Lillian Schlesinger. His mother was a Lithuanian emigrant from what was then part of the Russian Empire. James was educated at the Horace Mann School and Harvard University, where he earned a B.A. (1950), M.A. (1952), and Ph.D. (1956) in economics. Between 1955 and 1963 he taught economics at the University of Virginia and in 1960 published The Political Economy of National Security. In 1963, he moved to the Rand Corporation, where he worked until 1969, in the later years as director of strategic studies.
In 1969, Schlesinger joined the Nixon administration as assistant director of the Bureau of the Budget, devoting most of his time to Defense matters. In 1971 President Nixon appointed Schlesinger a member of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and designated him as chairman. Serving in this position for about a year and a half, Schlesinger instituted extensive organizational and management changes in an effort to improve the AEC's regulatory performance.
Rumor had it that Nixon had decided to name Schlesinger as Richard Helms’ replacement at the CIA during Nixon’s second term. However, Nixon left office in January 1973 and his successor, Spiro Agnew, cut Schlesinger loose.
Schlesinger came back in 1974, during the Gavin Administration, as an aid to Defense Secretary Stuart Symington. During the debate over the adoption of the F-15 Eagle, Schlesinger took on the Air Force, which had Symington’s ear, arguing that the less costly F-16 Falcon, along with the ground attack aircraft, the A-10 Thunderbolt II, were needed in the U.S. inventory.
Although Symington at first disregarded Schlesinger, the analyst found a supporter in President Gavin himself, who was persuaded to push for the F-16 and A-10 programs. Having served at the Pentagon, the President was long a critic of Defense procurement processes, and was heavily involved in looking over the Defense Secretary and Joint Chiefs shoulders during his Administration.
Despite finding him helpful, the President never liked Schlesinger, finding him to be “arrogant.” Nonetheless, before leaving office he awarded Schlesinger a civilian service award for his work on the F-16 and A-10.
Schlesinger returned to academia after his service in the Gavin Administration, where he remained a persistent critic of the Defense Department, and the Rumsfeld Administration overall.
He spent several years in prison as a result of his outspoken opposition to Rumsfeld, on a charge of disrupting National Security.
(Nod to Archibald)
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The TU-160 Blackjack
The Tupolev Tu-160 (Russian: Туполев Ту-160, NATO reporting name: Blackjack) is a supersonic, variable-sweep wing heavy strategic bomber designed by the Tupolev Design Bureau in the Soviet Union. Although several civil and military transport aircraft are larger in overall dimensions, the Tu-160 is currently the world's largest combat aircraft, largest supersonic aircraft, and largest variable-sweep aircraft built. In addition, the Tu-160 has the heaviest takeoff weight of any military aircraft besides transports.
The first competition for a supersonic strategic heavy bomber was launched in the Soviet Union in 1967. In 1972, the Soviet Union launched a new multi-mission bomber competition to create a new supersonic, variable-geometry ("swing-wing") heavy bomber with a maximum speed of Mach 2.3, in direct response to the US Air Force B-1 bomber project. The Tupolev design, dubbed Aircraft 160M, with a lengthened flying wing layout and incorporating some elements of the Tu-144, competed against the Myasishchev M-18 and the Sukhoi T-4 designs.
Work on the new Soviet bomber continued and the design was accepted by the government committee. The prototype was photographed by an airline passenger at a Zhukovsky Airfield in November 1981, about a month before the aircraft's first flight on 18 December 1981.
The aircraft never went beyond the prototype. While it the TU-160 had been championed by various officials during the Brezhnev and Suslov-Andropov eras, by late 1981 the production cost had come under intense scrutiny. In early January 1982 Deputy Premier Nikolai Ryhzkov ordered the project cancelled because of the cost. The prototype was kept for on-going experimental purposes and for use at air shows.
Ryzhkov was reportedly challenged over this decision, the counter argument being that the TU-160 was needed to match recent American developments in the B-1 project. Ryzhkov counted that the B-1 was a white elephant that was going to cost the U.S. millions and never produce tangible results, and that the Americans were welcome to chase a “dead goose” at their leisure. The remark as attributed demonstrates that not only was the Soviet Deputy Premier receiving excellent intelligence from inside the U.S. military-industrial complex (his remarks resemble closely the conclusion of a top-secret study of the B-1 that the Rumsfeld Administration tried to supress) but that he was studying the problem closely enough to reach his own conclusions on the matter. This has often been cited as key moment in the beginning of the “Ryzhkov reforms”, or as they have often been dubbed in the west “MBA Communism.”
According to Oleg Gordievsky, Ryzhkov was later asked why he was opening up the Soviet Union to strategic vulnerability from the air. Ryzhkov reportedly replied: “If they send their bombers this far, either our missiles will shoot them down, or we are finished anyway. This thing of strategic bombing, it is a fantasy left over from the last war. Our land based missiles and submarines can destroy the United States – we have certainly invested too much in them already, so they should do at least this much – why do I need bombers?”
Asked about fighter aircraft to intercept the American bombers, which were also costly, Ryzhkov replied “those are easier. I can cut out most of the design and testing costs. I just have to wait for the French to develop it – the latest Mirage – and then steal the specifications.”
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834 TK 208 Dmitriy Donskoy
This was the name given to the only “Typhoon” class submarine ballistic missile submarine completed for service with the Soviet Navy.
With a submerged displacement of 48,000 tons, the Typhoon was the largest class of submarine ever built, large enough to accommodate decent living facilities for the crew when submerged for months on end. The source of the NATO reporting name remains unclear, although it is often claimed to be related to the use of the word "Typhoon" ("Тайфун") by Leonid Brezhnev in a 1974 speech while describing a new type of nuclear ballistic missile submarine. Soviet doctrine for these vessels was to patrol under the Arctic ice cap and surface to launch SLBMs, avoiding the need to transit the GIUK gap and remaining safe from the enemy attack submarines and anti-submarine forces. Technically, Typhoons were also able to successfully deploy their long-range nuclear missiles while moored at their docks .
In 1982 Deputy Premier Nikolai Ryzhkov was instrumental in getting this project killed, as it was prohibitively costly. In fact one projection completed for him by unknown sources estimated that if the Soviets actually built a fleet of these that it would eventually bankrupt the Soviet Union. Ryzhkov seems to have been convinced.
In place of the Typhoon class, Ryzhkov ordered further development on the existing Delta III and Delta IV designs, as well as diverting some funding for increased production of the Project 971 Щука-Б (Shchuka-B, 'Shchuka' meaning pike, NATO reporting name "Akula") class attack submarines, meant to intercept western SSBNs at sea. While cancelling the Typhoon initially earned Ryzhkov the ill-feeling of the Navy, his program of increasing number of Deltas and Akulas created more commands for ambitious officers, which won the Deputy Premier loyalty among the Captains who benefited from this.
A second Typhoon, TK-202 was nearing completion at the time of cancellation. This boat was cancelled, and its state-of-the-art components removed for use in later Delta class upgrades. The unfinished hull remained in Murmansk for many years, before being destroyed.
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The B-1A Lancer
The Rockwell (later TRW-Boeing) B-1A Lancer is a four-engine variable-sweep wing strategic bomber used by the United States Air Force (USAF). It was first envisioned in the 1960s as a supersonic bomber with Mach 2 speed, and sufficient range and payload to replace the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress.
President Richard Nixon re-established the program after taking office, keeping with his administration's flexible response strategy that required a broad range of options short of general nuclear war. Nixon's Secretary of Defense, Melvin Laird, reviewed the programs and decided to lower the numbers of FB-111s, since they lacked the desired range, and recommended that the AMSA design studies be accelerated. In April 1969, the program officially became the B-1A. This was the first entry in the new bomber designation series, first created in 1962. The Air Force issued a request for proposals in November 1969.
Proposals were submitted by Boeing, General Dynamics and North American Rockwell in January 1970. In June 1970, North American Rockwell's design was selected and was awarded a development contract. The original program called for two test airframes, five flyable aircraft, and 40 engines. This was cut in 1971 to one ground and three flight test aircraft. The company changed its name to Rockwell International and named its aircraft division North American Aircraft Operations in 1973. A fourth prototype, built to production standards, was ordered in the fiscal year 1976 budget. Plans called for 240 B-1As to be built, with initial operational capability set for 1979.
Rockwell's design featured a number of features common to 1960s U.S. designs. Among these was the use of a "crew capsule" that ejected as a unit during emergencies, which was introduced to improve survivability in the case of an ejection at high speed. Additionally, the design featured large variable-sweep wings in order to provide both high lift during takeoff and landing, and low drag during a high-speed dash phase. With the wings set to their widest position the aircraft had considerably better lift and power than the B-52, allowing it to operate from a much wider variety of bases. Penetration of the USSR's defenses would take place at supersonic speed, crossing them as quickly as possible before entering into the less defended "heartland" where speeds could be reduced again. The large size and fuel capacity of the design would allow this portion of the flight to be relatively long.
In order to achieve the required Mach 2 performance at high altitudes, the exhaust nozzles and air intake inlets were variable. Initially, it had been expected that a Mach 1.2 performance could be achieved at low altitude, which required that titanium be used in critical areas in the fuselage and wing structure. The low altitude performance requirement was later lowered to Mach 0.85, reducing the amount of titanium and therefore cost. A pair of small vanes mounted near the nose are part of an active vibration damping system that smooths out the otherwise bumpy low-altitude ride. Normal crew of the B-1A consists of pilot, copilot, offensive-systems operator, and defensive-systems operator. The first three B-1As featured an escape capsule that ejected the cockpit with all four crew members inside. All subsequent production models, with the exception of the B-1S (see below) were equipped with a conventional ejection seat for each crew member as a cost saving device. The B-1S were equipped with the prototype escape capsule, and also included a self-destruct mechanism.
The B-1A mockup review occurred in late October 1971. The first B-1A prototype (serial no. 74-0158) flew on 23 December 1974. Three more B-1A prototypes followed. As the program continued the per-unit cost continued to rise in part because of high inflation during that period. In 1970, the estimated unit cost was $40 million, and by 1975, this figure had climbed to $70 million.
In January 1975 President James Gavin put a freeze on the development of the B-1A program, feeling that the costs had gotten out of hand and reasoning that the maintenance costs for the existing B-52 fleet was less than the replacement aircraft. However, flight testing on two prototypes continued until mid-1976. At the time the Gavin Administration was also trying to cut defense spending in order to meet the increasing demands of the recession in the American economy.
The B-1A received the prestigious Collier trophy in 1976. The Collier Trophy is an annual aviation award administered by the U.S. National Aeronautic Association (NAA), presented to those who have made "the greatest achievement in aeronautics or astronautics in America, with respect to improving the performance, efficiency, and safety of air or space vehicles, the value of which has been thoroughly demonstrated by actual use during the preceding year."
In 1977 President George Wallace ordered the B-1A program resumed as a sign of his renewed commitment to a strong defense. Wallace had served in the 20th Bomber command during World War II and may well have been influenced by that experience to revive the development of a bomber fleet. Wallace’s Secretary of Defense W. Graham Claytor jr. reportedly tried to talk him out of it, but the Air Force Chiefs had the President’s ear on this matter.
By 1981 President Donald Rumsfeld wanted more of them, as he envisioned a wider role for U.S. air and naval power in regional conflicts in Africa and Asia. His first Secretary of Defense, John Connally, didn’t challenge that assumption.
In January 1982 a USAF study noted that the rate of B-1A bomber production was not keeping pace with the deterioration of the B-52 fleet, which had been subject to greater attrition since the second phase of the Vietnam War in 1973-1975. As a consequence the U.S. Strategic Air Command is faced imminent shortfalls in bomber air craft inventory for its mission, especially as more operational aircraft are diverted to other missions. A copy of the report, which recommended further funding of the B-2 project (after pointing out the B-1A’s limitations), was sent to the Rumsfeld White House, where, as many Air Force analysts note, “it disappeared into a black hole.” Opposition to the costly program re-surfaced in 1983 when U.S. intelligence confirmed that the Soviets had ended their TU-160 strategic bomber program. This was ignored by the President, who insisted on more B-1As.
Production of the B-1A continued through the Rumsfeld years, reaching close to 430 units built. In addition to the B-1A a B-1R reconnaissance variation was developed for high altitude intelligence and reconnaissance work. An experimental side product of the B-1R was the production of two B-1S models, which were modified to insert HALO equipped Special Forces units behind enemy lines. Later production models had some maintenance issues due to demand-pull for them from the Pentagon which may have by-passed some quality control measures.
B-1A - Specifications
Primary Function: Long-range, multi-role, heavy bomber
Builder: Rockwell International, North American Aircraft
Operations Air Frame and Integration: Offensive avionics, Boeing Military Airplane; defensive avionics, AIL Division
Power Plant: Four General Electric F-101 GE-100 turbofan engine with afterburner
Thrust: 30,000-plus pounds (13,500-plus kilograms) with afterburner, per engine
Length: 150.2 feet
Wingspan: 136.7 feet extended forward
78.2 feet swept aft
Height: 33.6 feet
Weights: Design Maximum Takeoff: 389,800 lbs.
Design Maximum Ramp: 395,000 lbs.
Maximum Landing: 350,000 lbs.
Speed: Max Speed: at 500 ft. (750 mph)
Max Speed: Mach 2.0 at 50,000 feet (1,320 mph)
Cruise speed: at 50,000 ft (648 mph)
Range: 5,300 miles unrefueled
Ceiling: Over 30,000 feet (9,000 meters)
Crew: Four (aircraft commander, pilot, offensive systems officer and defensive systems officer)
Armament: 115,000 lbs
24 AGM-69B SRAM
conventional bombs:
75,000 lbs internal plus 40,000 lbs external 32 SRAM
Date Deployed: 1979
Unit Cost:
Inventory: 427 constructed.
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MBA Communism
MBA Communism (also “Management Marxism”) is a term associated with the economic reforms instituted in the Soviet Union beginning roughly in 1982, and the term is most closely associated with then-Soviet Deputy Premier and later Premier Nikolai Ryzhkov, as well as group of Ryzhkov’s acolytes who came into power in the 1980’s. At its core, MBA Communism (officially called All-level Economic Responsibility by the Soviet state) stressed the accountability of workers and managers at all levels in return for incentives and bottom-up input on production targets and methods.
As state policy, this management scheme focused on six main points:
1] Integrated production targets as opposed to quotas with decision making devolved from Moscow to regional centers in return for input on national economic goals. In effect regional and local managers were given an opportunity to buy into a production target and given responsibility for meeting it. This ended the arbitrary diktat of quotas from the top.
2] Incentives and responsibilities. Once regional units had bought into the production plan they were given incentives to meet or exceed targets. Similarly responsibility in the form of penalties and demotions were handed out for failure to meet integrated targets. A system of audits was also put in place to evaluate all enterprises and identify where efficiencies could be increased and where further re-structuring was required.
3] Small private enterprises were encouraged, along with limited internal competition. Rewards based upon quality as well as quantity were also put in place.
4] The Communist Party encouraged more forums for discussion of local and industrial issues, with ombudsmen charged with producing results for local problems with assistance from the Party structure as needed. Ombudsmen who failed were replaced, no matter who their political patron was. Political pluralism was not encouraged (indeed a Soviet education program of the time focused on the chaos produced by pluralistic political system. Real, relatively uncensored, news coverage of the fractured political situation in the United States was used as an example of why this was not a road the Soviet system wanted to follow. A contrast was also drawn with France and Italy, where left-wing governments appeared to be imposing a form of stability. The Soviet Communist Party, it was argued, could prevent a slippage into chaos and yet produce real results).
5] More competitive exams and promotion by merit were encouraged, in an effort to root out the worst excesses of political patronage and stamp out official corruption in particular.
6] Soviet foreign policy became more pragmatic. Exporting revolution was de-emphasised as it produced great costs with limited returns. MBA Communism was encouraged in the satellite states, which were also encouraged to develop economic specializations. The Soviet military was ordered to make due with less on the theory that the United States had its hands full in China and Africa; and that the current world balance of power was unlikely to encourage a repeat of 1914 or 1941. A version of management discipline was also imposed on the military in an effort to identify economies and squeeze out savings in the Soviet military budget.
Many old line Communists resented this change, which encourage Ryzhkov to retire many old hardliners and open-up opportunities for a younger generation of technocrats. Ryzhkov reportedly became fascinated with Chile’s so called “Chicago Boys,” a group of young Chilean economists, most of who trained at the University of Chicago under Milton Friedman and Arnold Harberger, or at its affiliate in the economics department at the Catholic University of Chile. Essentially they achieved the opening of the Chilean economy at a time of strict political authoritarian rule. Ryzhkov was not interested in a complete free market approach, but he took from the Chilean example an idea of how to blend a more open economic system to a closed political order.
Ironically, the opening of public information about the west came at a time when the Soviet people received their first unfiltered look at the inner workings of the U.S. political system during its worst domestic dysfunction since the Civil War era. U.S. President Rumsfeld called this “the messy side of freedom,” but what many Soviets saw from their perspective was the mess.
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Charles Pasqua (b. 1927)
Pasqua was born in Grasse, Alpes-Maritimes and has a degree in Law. From 1952 to 1971 he worked for Ricard, a producer of alcoholic beverages (most notably pastis), starting as a salesman.
In 1947, he helped create the section of the Gaullist Party RPF movement for the Alpes-Maritimes.
With Jacques Foccart, he helped create the Service d'Action Civique (SAC) in 1959 to counter the terrorist actions of the OAS during the Algerian War of Independence (1954–1962). The SAC would be charged with the underground actions of the Gaullist movement and participated in the organization of the 30 May 1968 Gaullist counter-demonstration; it was officially dissolved by President Mitterrand in 1982, after the "Auriol massacre" on the night of 18 July 1981 (the five members of the Auriol commando were condemned on 1 May 1985 to sentences between 15 years of prison and life-sentences; however, the mastermind behind inspector Massié's murder was never identified).
Charles Pasqua was first elected deputy of the UDR Gaullist party in 1968, ten years after having founded the Service d'Action Civique (SAC) organisation.
From 1968 to 1973, he was deputy to the French National Assembly for the Hauts-de-Seine département for the UDR party, of which he was a leading member from 1974 to 1976. After being identified with Jacques Chirac’s failed attempt to take the lead of the party in 1974 his political fortunes went into decline, and he was not part of the UDR government under Olivier Guichard. He was a principle agitator against the Socialist President Francois Mitterrand in 1974 and 1975, and as such is considered one of the authors of the Grand Gachis, or deadlock and malaise, which gripped France at that period.
After UDR candidate Jean-Pierre Fourcade placed third in the first round of the 1981 Presidential election (a second in a row third place showing for the UDR), the UDR leadership underwent a shake-up, which Pasqua used to climb back into the forefront, arguing as he did the need to move from the center to a more center-right stand against Mitterrand and the Socialist governments of Gaston Deffere. In particular, Pasqua sought to blunt the growth of the National Front on the extreme right, and re-direct some of its energy back into a new rightist, anti-Socialist coalition.
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Jacques Chirac (b. 1932)
Chirac, born in the Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire clinic (Paris Ve), is the son of Abel François Chirac (1893–1968), a successful executive for an aircraft company, and Marie-Louise Valette (1902–1973), a housewife. His great grandparents on both sides were peasants, but his two grandfathers were teachers from Sainte-Féréole in Corrèze. According to Chirac, his name "originates from the langue d'oc, that of the troubadours, therefore that of poetry". He is a Roman Catholic.
Chirac was an only child (his elder sister, Jacqueline, died in infancy before his birth), and was educated in Paris at the Lycée Carnot and at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand. After his baccalauréat, he served for three months as a sailor on a coal-transporter.[citation needed]
Chirac played rugby union for Brive's youth team, and also played at university level. He played no. 8 and second row.
In 1956, he married Bernadette Chodron de Courcel, with whom he had two daughters: Laurence (born 4 March 1958) and Claude (14 January 1962). Claude has long worked as a public relations assistant and personal adviser, while Laurence, who suffered from anorexia nervosa in her youth, does not participate in the political activities of her father.
Inspired by General Charles de Gaulle, Chirac started to pursue a civil service career in the 1950s. During this period, he joined the French Communist Party, sold copies of L'Humanité, and took part in meetings of a communist cell. In 1950, he signed the Soviet-inspired Stockholm Appeal for the abolition of nuclear weapons – which led him to be questioned when he applied for his first visa to the United States.
In 1953, after graduating from "Sciences Po" (more formally known as the Paris Institute of Political Studies), he attended Harvard University's summer school, before entering the ENA, the Grande école National School of Administration, which trains France's top civil servants, in 1957.
Chirac trained as a reserve military officer in armoured cavalry at Saumur, where he was ranked first in his year. He then volunteered to fight in the Algerian War, using personal connections to be sent despite the reservations of his superiors. His superiors did not want to make him an officer because they suspected he had communist leanings. After leaving the ENA in 1959, he became a civil servant in the Court of Auditors.
In April 1962, Chirac was appointed head of the personal staff of Prime Minister Georges Pompidou. This appointment launched Chirac's political career. Pompidou considered Chirac his protégé, and referred to him as "my bulldozer" for his skill at getting things done. The nickname "Le Bulldozer" caught on in French political circles.
At Pompidou's suggestion, Chirac ran as a Gaullist for a seat in the National Assembly in 1967. He was elected deputy for his home Corrèze département, a stronghold of the left. This surprising victory in the context of a Gaullist ebb permitted him to enter the government as Minister of Social Affairs. Although Chirac was well-situated in de Gaulle's entourage, being related by marriage to the general's sole companion at the time of the Appeal of 18 June 1940, he was more of a "Pompidolian" than a "Gaullist". When student and worker unrest rocked France in May 1968, Chirac played a central role in negotiating a truce. Then, as state secretary of economy (1968–1971), he worked closely with Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, who headed the ministry of economy and finance.
After some months in the ministry of relations with Parliament, Chirac's first high-level post came in 1972 when he became Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development under Pompidou, who had been elected president in 1969, after de Gaulle retired. Chirac quickly earned a reputation as a champion of French farmers' interests, and first attracted international attention when he assailed U.S., West German, and European Commission agricultural policies which conflicted with French interests.
On 27 February 1974, after the resignation of Raymond Marcellin, Chirac was appointed Minister of the Interior. On 21 March 1974, he cancelled the SAFARI project due to privacy concerns after its existence was revealed by Le Monde. From March 1974, he was entrusted by President Pompidou with preparations for the presidential election then scheduled for 1976. These elections were moved forward because of Pompidou's sudden death on 2 April 1974.
Chirac vainly attempted to rally Gaullists behind Prime Minister Pierre Messmer. Jacques Chaban-Delmas announced his candidacy in spite of the disapproval of the "Pompidolians". Chirac and others published the call of the 43 in favour of Giscard d'Estaing, the leader of the non-Gaullist part of the parliamentary majority, who placed second in the first round of the 1974 Presidential election.
The Socialist candidate, Francois Mitterrand won the second round and was elected President in May 1974.
The UDR, then still the dominant political party in the legislature, then split over whether to co-operate with the new President or confront him. After some negotiation with the new President, Olivier Guichard was chosen as the new Prime Minister and formed a “co-habitation” Cabinet of relative moderates. Charles Pasqua and Chirac emerged as leaders of the hardline faction, encouraging resistance to Mitterrand, kicking off the period of deadlock and malaise known as “the Grand Gachis.”
In 1975 Mitterrand dissolved the parliament over the Gachis, and the Socialists won a majority that year, and again in 1979. Chirac and Pasqua were marginalized by other Gaullists as it was felt that their overt resistance to co-habitation had created the Great Gauchis, which had handed the Socialists a clear political victory in the 1975 elections.
Chirac spent the rest of the 1970’s in opposition, and even had a falling out with Giscard, who ran again for President in 1981.
Paradoxically, Chirac benefited from President Mitterrand’s decision to create the office of mayor in Paris, which had been in abeyance since the 1871 Commune, because the leaders of the Third Republic (1871–1940) feared that having municipal control of the capital would give the mayor too much power. Mitterrand had been advised that a Socialist ally could win the Mayoralty and add a significant ally to the Socialist Administration. Mitterrand’s instincts, usually dead-on, had been misguided in this case. In 1977, Chirac stood as a candidate against 31 year old Socialist Laurent Fabius, a protégé of the president, and was elected to a six year term of office.
Chirac ran as an independent in the first round of the 1981 Presidential election put received only 2% of the vote.
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Valéry Giscard d'Estaing (b. 1926)
Valéry Marie René Giscard d'Estaing was born in Koblenz, Germany, during the French occupation of the Rhineland. He is the elder son of Jean Edmond Lucien Giscard d'Estaing (1894–1982), a civil servant, and his wife, Marthe Clémence Jacqueline Marie (May) Bardoux, who was a daughter of senator and academic Achille Octave Marie Jacques Bardoux and a great-granddaughter of minister of state education Agénor Bardoux, also a granddaughter of historian Georges Picot and niece of diplomat François Georges-Picot, and also a great-great-great-granddaughter of King Louis XV of France by one of his mistresses, Catherine Eléonore Bernard (1740–1769) through his great-grandfather Marthe Camille Bachasson, Count of Montalivet, and by whom Giscard d'Estaing was a multiple descendant of Charlemagne.
Giscard has an older sister, Sylvie (b. 1924). He has a younger brother, Olivier, as well as two younger sisters: Isabelle (born 1935) and Marie-Laure (born 1939). Despite the addition of "d'Estaing" to the family name by his grandfather, Giscard is not descended from the extinct noble family of Vice-Admiral d'Estaing, that name being adopted by his grandfather in 1922 by reason of a distant connection to another branch of that family, from which they were descended with two breaks in the male line from an illegitimate line of the Viscounts d'Estaing.
In 1948, he spent a year in Montreal where he worked as a teacher in Collège Stanislas.
He studied at Lycée Blaise-Pascal in Clermont-Ferrand, École Gerson and Lycées Janson-de-Sailly and Louis-le-Grand in Paris. He graduated from the Ecole polytechnique and the École nationale d'administration (1949–1951) and chose to enter the prestigious Inspection des finances. He acceded to the Tax and Revenue Service, then joined the staff of Prime Minister Edgar Faure (1955–1956).
In 1956, Giscard was elected to Parliament as a deputy for the Puy-de-Dôme département, in the domain of his maternal family. He joined the National Centre of Independents and Peasants (CNIP), a conservative grouping. After the proclamation of the Fifth Republic, the CNIP leader Antoine Pinay became Minister of Economy and Finance and chose him as Secretary of State for Finances from 1959 to 1962.
In 1962, while Giscard had been nominated Minister of Economy and Finance, his party broke with the Gaullists and left the majority coalition. The CNIP reproached President Charles de Gaulle with his euro-scepticism. But Giscard refused to resign and founded the Independent Republicans (RI). It was the small partner of the Gaullists in the "presidential majority".
However, in 1966, he was dismissed from the cabinet. He changed the RI in a political party, the National Federation of the Independent Republicans (FNRI), and founded the Perspectives and Realities Clubs. He did not leave the majority but became more critical. In this, he criticised the "solitary practice of the power" and summarised his position towards De Gaulle's policy by a "yes, but...". Chairman of the National Assembly Committee on Finances, he harassed his successor in the cabinet.
For that reason the Gaullists refused to re-elect him in this function after the 1968 legislative election. In 1969, unlike most of FNRI’s elected officials, Giscard advocated a "no" vote in the referendum about the regions and the Senate, while De Gaulle had announced his intention to resign if the "no" won. The Gaullists accused him of being largely responsible for De Gaulle's departure.
During the 1969 presidential campaign, he supported the winning candidate Georges Pompidou and returned to the Ministry of Economy and Finance. On the French political scene, he appeared as a young brilliant politician, and a preeminent expert in economic issues. He was representative of a new generation of politicians emerging from the senior civil service, whose profile was as "technocrats".
In 1974, after the sudden death of President Pompidou, Giscard announced his candidacy for the presidency. His two main challengers were François Mitterrand for the left and Jacques Chaban-Delmas, a former Gaullist prime minister. Supported by his FNRI party, he obtained the rallying of the centrist Reforming Movement. Moreover, he benefited from the divisions in the Gaullist party. Jacques Chirac and other Gaullist personalities published the "Call of the 43" where they explained Giscard was the best candidate to prevent the election of Mitterrand. Giscard crushed Chaban-Delmas in the first round, but on 20 May was narrowly defeated by Mitterrand in the second round, receiving 49.7% of the vote to Mitterrand’s 50.3%. Most critics at the time blamed Giscard’s defeat on his continued support of the western intervention in Syria, which had proved unpopular in France at the time. Mitterrand had run against it.
As Mitterrand took office his opponents blamed each other for the defeat, and those who had joined the “call of 43” were particularly blamed on the right for dividing the anti-Socialist opposition. Giscard, himself still in parliament, advocated co-operation with the new President as opposed to the resistance of Chirac and others, but refused a place in Olivier Guichard’s co-habitation government. As such he was largely on the sidelines during the Grand Gachis that followed; however his cooperationist position insured that his name was not tainted with the political fall-out of the period.
Giscard spent the next seven years holding the FNRI together as the Socialist Party consolidated its power, and the Gaullists floundered in their efforts to adjust to the new reality. On several occasions Giscard lead the FNRI in co-operation with the Socialist government of Gaston Deffre, freeing the Prime Minister of over-dependence on his Communist Party coalition allies. Giscard pointed-out his efforts as attempts to minimize Communist influence, and to strike a statesman-like tone over partisan opposition to the government. He considered running for Mayor of Paris in 1977, but decided against it.
In the 1979 legislative elections FNRI nearly outperformed the UDR, winning 110 seats to the UDR’s 112 seats; however the Socialists and their coalition partners still controlled the majority.
He ran again for President against Mitterrand in 1981 and received 24.2% of the vote in the first round, winning a spot in the second round against the incumbent. Despite his efforts to point out the failures of the Mitterrand Administration, and a late breaking scandal that reflected poorly on Mitterrand, Giscard won only 46.2% of the vote, a more lackluster result than his close finish in 1974. Some analysts blamed his past co-operation with the Socialists for his poor performance with anti-Socialist voters on the right. Jean Marie Le Pen, the leader of the ultra-right National Front, had called for a boycott of the second round, which he termed “the choice between a hardline Socialist and a milquetoast Socialist.” His boycott may have had an influence on some voters on the hard right.
After the 1981 Presidential election Giscard retired from politics for a time.
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Jean Lecanuet (b. 1920)
Jean Adrien François Lecanuet was a French centrist politician. He was born to a family of modest means, and gravitated towards literature during his studies. He received his diploma at the age of 22, becoming the youngest agrégé (full professor) in France. He participated in the Second World War French Resistance movement. He was arrested by the German forces in August 1944 but managed to escape. After the Liberation, he became a general inspector at the Ministry of Defence. Under the Fourth Republic, he held ministerial posts numerous times (11 posts in 10 years) and was a member of the Christian-Democratic Popular Republican Movement (MRP). From 1951 to 1955, he was MRP deputy from the Seine-Inférieure region. He became senator from Seine-Maritime in 1959 and was president of the MRP from 1963 to 1965.
In 1965, he ran in the presidential election as a center-right candidate. He was supported by Paul Reynaud. He advocated modernity and European integration and declared to represent à third way between Gaullism on the one hand and the Socialist and Communist Left on the other hand. His "modern-style" campaign and dashing smile had some journalists nickname him "the French Kennedy". Lecanuet obtained 3 777 120 votes (15,6%) in the election's first round, forcing Charles de Gaulle to compete in a second round against François Mitterrand. He replaced the ageing MRP by the Democratic Centre, integrating the liberal-conservative National Centre of Independents and Peasants.
In 1972, he founded the Reforming Movement with Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber. During the French legislative elections of 1973, Lecanuet negotiated the withdrawal of candidates with Pierre Messmer to ensure the success of the majority. Elected deputy of Seine-Maritime. Actively participated in the 1974 presidential election campaign in support of Valéry Giscard d'Estaing.
After Giscard’s defeat, Lencanuet worked with Giscard to build the FNIR as a parliamentary party, and agreed with Giscard’s strategy of co-operation with the new Socialist government. He again supported Giscard’s Presidential bid in 1981, which also failed.
After Giscard’s 1981 retirement Lencanuet became the leader of the FNIR.
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Michel d'Ornano (b. 1924)
A descendant of both Marie Walewska and Philippe Antoine d'Ornano, he began his political career as mayor of Deauville in 1962. He served as president of the General Councils of both Calvados and Basse-Normandie before going on to represent the fourth district of Calvados in the Parliament of France; in that body he sat as an Independent Republican under the leadership of Valery Giscard d’Estaing.
He worked closely with Giscard on his failed 1974 and 1981 Presidential bids. D’Ornano came in third in the election for Mayor of Paris in 1977.
Despite these electoral set-backs, d’Ornano emerged as a leader of the FNIR after Giscard’s 1981 retirement.
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Jean-Pierre Soisson (b. 1934)
Is a leader of the FNIR Party, having served as Secretary-General of the Party from 1977 to the present. Soisson was born in Auxerre. He was first elected to the National Assembly in the June 1968 parliamentary election and has been re-elected in every election since. His prominence within the FNIR rose after Giscard’s retirement in 1981.
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Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber (b. 1924)
Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber, often referred to as JJSS was a French journalist and politician. He co-founded L'Express in 1953 with Françoise Giroud, and then went on to become president of the Radical Party in 1971. He oversaw its transition to the center-right, the party being thereafter known as Parti radical valoisien. He tried to found in 1972 the Reforming Movement with Christian Democrat Jean Lecanuet, with whom he supported Valéry Giscard d'Estaing's conservative candidature to the 1974 presidential election. Notably, he supported President Mitterrand in their 1981 re-mach.
General De Gaulle's resignation in 1969 persuaded Servan-Schreiber to try his hand at politics. In October 1969, he became secretary-general of the Radical Party. He helped to reform the party, writing its manifesto, and became its president in 1971. After the splitting away of the left-wing Radicals, who formed the Left Radical Party (PRG), Servan-Schreiber became the president of the center-right Parti radical valoisien. He was elected Deputy of Nancy in 1970, but, later on the same year, he made the surprise decision to run against Jacques Chaban-Delmas in Bordeaux. He was soundly defeated, which tarnished his image. He served several terms or partial terms in the French National Assembly.
During his political career, he frequently waged progressive campaigns against the current of a sociologically conservative France. He advocated decentralization through regionalization; reallocation of resources from the Concorde program to the Airbus; an end to nuclear testing; reform of the grandes écoles; and computerization. He refused to cooperate with Georges Marchais's Communist Party. He seemed unable to play political power games. His centrist strategy was never successful and eventually brought down his party.
Wanting to extricate himself from the daily management of L'Express, he sold it to financier Jimmy Goldsmith in 1977. Deprived of its power base, his political career quickly deteriorated. He lost his Assembly seat in 1979. He left the party in 1979 at the time of the first direct European elections, to present a list of candidates under the slogan Emploi, Égalité, Europe (Employment, Equality, Europe) with Giroud. The list won only 1.84% of the votes, and Servan-Schreiber decided to retire from political life.
He was for a time a behind-the-scenes advisor to President Mitterrand, but the two fell out over French policies in Africa and with regard to the Spanish Republic.
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Yegor Gaidar (b. 1956)
Gaidar was born in 1956 in Moscow, RSFSR, Soviet Union, the son of Ariadna Bazhova and Pravda military correspondent Timur Gaidar, who fought in the Bay of Pigs Invasion and was a friend of Raúl Castro. His paternal grandfather was Soviet writer Arkady Gaidar and his maternal grandfather was writer Pavel Bazhov.
Gaidar graduated with honors from the Moscow State University, Faculty of Economics, in 1978 and worked as a researcher in several academic institutes. In 1981 Gaidar’s work on reforming industrial management attracted the attention of Nikolai Ryzhkov, then Deputy Premier of the Soviet Union. Ryzhkov took him on as an assistant. Gaidar is known as a principal author of what became known as MBA Communism.
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Alexander Lebed (b. 1950)
Alexander Lebed joined the Soviet Army's VDV airborne troops in 1969. He spent seven years as company leader at the VDV officer school in Ryazan, then served as battalion commander with distinction with the Soviet advisor force in Portugal 1976 – 1977, Southern Africa 1978 – 1981, and in Mauritania 1981 – 1982. He reportedly engaged in covert operations in Spain during his posting to Portugal, and was reputed to have personally assassinated a Palestinian Jihad Organization leader in Mali in 1981.
In 1982-1985 he studied at the Frunze Military Academy, Moscow. Among his duties was being a member of the Funeral Department during the period of many deaths among the Soviet gerontocracy.
Noted as a leader by his military trainers, Lebed increasingly became the center of a group of young officers opposed to the polices known in the west as MBA Communism.
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Viktor Chernomyrdin (b. 1938)
Chernomyrdin's father was a labourer and Viktor was one of five children. Chernomyrdin completed school education in 1957 and found employment as a mechanic in an oil refinery in Orsk. He worked there until 1962, except for two years of compulsory military service from 1957 to 1960. His other occupations on the plant during this period included machinist, operator and chief of technical installations. He became a member of the CPSU in 1961.
In 1962, he was admitted to Kuybyshev Industrial Institute (which was later renamed Samara Polytechnical Institute). In his entrance exams he performed very poorly. He failed the math sections of the test and had to take the exam again, getting a C. He got only one B in Russian language, and Cs in the other tests. He was admitted only because of very low competition. In 1966, he graduated from the institute. In 1972, he completed further studies at the Department of Economics of the Union-wide Polytechnic Institute by correspondence.
Chernomyrdin began developing his career as a politician when he worked for the CPSU in Orsk between 1967 and 1973. In 1973, he was appointed the director of the natural gas refining plant in Orenburg, a position which he held until 1978. Between 1978 and 1982, Chernomyrdin worked in the heavy industry arm of the CPSU Central Committee. Under Deputy Premier Nikolai Ryzhkov’s direction Chernomyrdin became director of the Soviet Oil Export program, where he developed a number of contacts in Western Europe.
He is noted for his involvement with Ryzhkov’s economic reforms, known as MBA Communism, and with his oil export position requiring foreign contact, he evolved into the role of Ryzhkov’s personal foreign minister.
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Ruslan Khasbulatov (b. 1942)
Khasbulatov was born in Tolstoy-yurt, a village near Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, on November 22, 1942. Following Stalin's decision to deport the entire Chechen population on February 23, 1944, Khasbulatov was moved, along with his mother, to the Kazakh SSR; his father, mortally ill, remained behind in hospitalization and soon died.
After studying in Almaty, Khasbulatov moved to Moscow in 1962, where he studied law at the prestigious Moscow State University. After graduating in 1966, he joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. He continued his studies, focusing on the political, social and economic development of capitalist countries, and received several higher degrees between 1970 and 1980. During the 1970s and 1980s, he published a number of books on international economics and trade.
Through the 1980’s his works became increasingly critical of Premier Nikolai Ryzhkov’s reforms – the so called MBA Communism movement – arguing that the business school values were “anti-Russian” in character. He based this on his own work critical of western capitalism. This made Khasbulatov a favorite of hardliners who protected him from retaliation by Ryzhkov. Nonetheless Khasbulatov had to spend some time in exile in Cuba to avoid arrest, from where his anti-capitalist work was appreciate by the Castro brothers.
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Sergey Akhromeyev (b. 1923)
Sergey Fyodorovich Akhromeyev (Russian: Серге́й Фёдорович Ахроме́ев; b. May 5, 1923 ) was a Soviet military figure, Hero of the Soviet Union (1982) and Marshal of the Soviet Union (1983).
Akhromeyev was a Naval Infantry junior officer during the German-Soviet War, serving with distinction on the Leningrad front. At one point he was ordered to guard and hold a road on which the German Army would be trying to advance. Despite a bloody battle, he was able to accomplish the task. Relating the story during a meal with General Bernard Rogers in Damascus, Akhromeyev told the American general that his accomplishment was not only a great sign of his patriotism, as Rogers had suggested, but also was because had he abandoned the road, Stalin would have had him shot.
Akhromeyev commanded units in combat during the Mongolian War (1973) and the Soviet contingent in Syria and Iraq (1974 – 1978). He was responsible for operations in Mauritania (1981). In late 1982 he became Chief of the General Staff under Defence Minister Marshall Kulikov.
Akhromeyev was discreet about his politics, but as the 1980’s progressed he became an opponent of the Ryzhkov reforms and at some point aligned himself with the hard line opposition to “MBA Communism”.
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Konstantin Chernenko (1910 – 1985)
Konstantin Ustinovich Chernenko (24 September 1911 – 10 March 1985) was a Soviet politician. Chernenko was born to a poor family in the village of Bolshaya Tes (now in Novosyolovsky District, Krasnoyarsk Krai). His father, Ustin Demidovich (of Ukrainian origin),[citation needed] worked in copper and gold mines while his mother took care of the farm work.
Chernenko joined the Komsomol (Communist Youth League) in 1929, and became a full member of the Communist Party in 1931. From 1930 to 1933, he served in the Soviet frontier guards on the Soviet-Chinese border. After completing his military service, he returned to Krasnoyarsk as a propagandist. In 1933 he worked in the Propaganda Department of the Novosyolovsky District Party Committee. A few years later he was promoted head of the same department in Uyarsk Raykom. Chernenko then steadily rose through the Party ranks, becoming the Director of the Krasnoyarsk House of Party Enlightenment then in 1939, the Deputy Head of the AgitProp Department of Krasnoyarsk Territorial Committee and finally, in 1941 he was appointed Secretary of the Territorial Party Committee for Propaganda. It was in the 1940s that Chernenko established a close-knit relationship with Fyodor Kulakov. In 1945, he acquired a diploma from a party training school in Moscow, and in 1953 he finished a correspondence course for schoolteachers.
The turning point in Chernenko’s career was his assignment in 1948 to head the Communist Party’s propaganda department in the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic. There, he met and won the confidence of Leonid Brezhnev, the first secretary of the Moldavian SSR from 1950 to 1952 and future leader of the Soviet Union. Chernenko followed Brezhnev in 1956 to fill a similar propaganda post in the CPSU Central Committee in Moscow. In 1960, after Brezhnev was named chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet (titular head of state of the Soviet Union), Chernenko became his chief of staff.
In 1964 Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev was deposed, and succeeded by Leonid Brezhnev. During Brezhnev's tenure as Party leader, Chernenko's career continued successfully. He was nominated in 1965 as head of the General Department of the Central Committee, and given the mandate to set the Politburo agenda, and prepare drafts of numerous Central Committee decrees and resolutions. He also monitored telephone and wiretapping devices in various offices of the top Party members. Another one of his jobs was to sign hundreds of Party documents daily, a job he did for the next 20 years. Even after he became General Secretary of the Party, he continued to sign papers referring to the General Department (when he could no longer physically sign documents, a facsimile was used instead). In 1971 Chernenko was promoted to full membership in the Central Committee: Overseeing Party work over the Letter Bureau, dealing with correspondence.
After Brezhnev was deposed in 1974 Chernenko found a position on Mikhail Suslov’s staff. However, after Suslov’s death in 1979 Chernenko was moved aside to an administrative post at Moscow University.
Despite his demotion, Chernenko maintained a circle of prominent associates in the party apparatus, and for a time affiliated himself with the Romanov wing.
A long held conspiracy theory holds that Chernenko wrote the memoir Behind the Fortress Walls using his own memories and that of other colleagues, compiling them under the narrative of a single composite, though fictious eye witness to the events in the Politburo between 1972 and 1982. He supposedly did this to show that Brezhnev had been the victim of conspiracy by the opportunistic Andropov, and to embarrass both Andropov and new generation of leaders generally, whom the book characterised as unprincipled opportunists who had lost sight of the goals of the Russian Revolution.
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Anatoly Sobchak (b. 1937)
Anatoly Sobchak was born in Chita, Siberia, USSR, on August 10, 1937. His father, Alexander Antonovich, was a railroad engineer, and his mother, Nadezhda Andreyevna Litvinova, was an accountant. Anatoly was one of four brothers. In 1939, the family moved to Uzbekistan, where Anatoly lived until 1953 before entering Stavropol Law College. In 1954, he transferred to Leningrad State University. In 1958, he married Nonna Gandzyuk, a student of Hertzen Teacher's College. They had a daughter called Maria Sobchak born in 1965.
After graduating from Leningrad State University, he worked for three years as a lawyer in Stavropol, then returned to Leningrad State University for graduate studies (1962–1965). After obtaining his Ph.D., he taught law at the Leningrad Police School and the Leningrad Institute for Cellulose and Paper Industries' Technology (1965–1973) and from 1973 he taught at Leningrad State University. In 1980 he married Lyudmila Narusova, at that time a history student at the Leningrad Academy of Soviet Culture.
In about 1977 he became a legal advisor to Soviet leader Yuri Andropov. After Andropov’s decline, he became a legal advisor to Deputy Premier Nikolal Ryzhkov.
After obtaining his D.Sc. in 1982 he was appointed Professor and Head of the Department of Common Law in Socialist Economics. He was very popular among law students, especially for his mildly anti-government comments. One of his protégés was Vladimir Putin, whom he managed to get attached to Andropov’s staff. Putin later transferred to Nikolai Ryzhkov’s staff.
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Vladimir Putin (b. 1952)
Putin was born on 7 October 1952, in Leningrad, RSFSR, USSR, to parents Vladimir Spiridonovich Putin (b.1911) and Maria Ivanovna Putina (née Shelomova; b.1911). His mother was a factory worker, and his father was a conscript in the Soviet Navy, where he served in the submarine fleet in the early 1930s. Two elder brothers were born in the mid-1930s; one died within a few months of birth, while the second succumbed to diphtheria during the siege of Leningrad in World War II.
Vladimir Putin's paternal grandfather, Spiridon Ivanovich Putin (1879–1965), was employed at Vladimir Lenin's dacha at Gorki as a cook, and after Lenin's death in 1924, he continued to work for Lenin's wife, Nadezhda Krupskaya. He would later cook for Joseph Stalin when the Soviet leader visited one of his dachas in the Moscow region. Spiridon later was employed at a dacha belonging to the Moscow City Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, at which the young Putin would visit him.
The ancestry of Vladimir Putin has been described as a mystery with no records surviving of any ancestors of any people with the surname "Putin" beyond his grandfather Spiridon Ivanovich. It has been suggested that the Putins are descended from the royal Tverskoy family. The 'family book' of the Tver region where Spiridon was from mentions the name of Putyanin who it claims were a clan of Russian aristocrats descended from Mikhail of Tver, the Grand Prince of Tver in the Middle Ages. It became common practice for family names associated with the former aristocracy to be abbreviated, e.g. Repnin becoming "Pnin" and, perhaps, Putyanin becoming "Putin".
On 1 September 1960, he started at School No. 193 at Baskov Lane, just across from his house. By fifth grade he was one of a few in a class of more than 45 pupils who was not yet a member of the Pioneers, largely because of his rowdy behavior. In sixth grade he started taking sport seriously in the form of sambo and then judo. In his youth, Putin was eager to emulate the intelligence officer characters played on the Soviet screen by actors such as Vyacheslav Tikhonov and Georgiy Zhzhonov.
Putin graduated from the International Law branch of the Law Department of the Leningrad State University in 1975, writing his final thesis on international law. His PhD thesis was titled "The Strategic Planning of Regional Resources Under the Formation of Market Relations" and it argued that Russian economic success would depend on creating national energy champions. While at university he became a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Also at the University he met Anatoly Sobchak who later played an important role in Putin's career. Anatoly Sobchak was at the time an Assistant Professor and lectured Putin's class on Business Law (khozyaystvennoye pravo).
Putin joined the KGB in 1975 upon graduation, and underwent a year's training at the 401st KGB school in Okhta, Leningrad. He then went on to work briefly in the Second Chief Directorate (counter-intelligence) before, on Anatoly Sobchak’s initiative, he was transferred to the personal staff of former KGB Chairman and then Soviet Communist Party General Secretary Yuri Andropov.
When Andropov’s declining health ended his rule in the early 1980’s Putin was transferred to the staff of Nikolai Ryzhkov, then the Deputy Premier, at a time when Ryzhkov was beginning his economic reforms.
It is unclear whether he was a supporter of the Ryzhkov reforms. During the period of many funerals (when a number of elder members of the Politburo died between 1982 and 1985) he met and became associated with the anti-reform figure Alexander Lebed. This may have been a genuine friendship or a KGB assignment.
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Christopher Boyce (b. 1953)
On January 21, 1980, Christopher Boyce escaped from Lompoc Prison in California. While a fugitive, Boyce carried out 17 bank robberies in Idaho and Washington State. Adopting the alias of "Anthony Edward Lester," Boyce did not believe he could live as a fugitive forever, and began to study aviation in an attempt to flee to the Soviet Union, where he believed he would accept a commission as an officer in the Soviet Armed Forces.
On August 21, 1981, Boyce was nearly arrested while eating in his car outside "The Pit Stop," a drive-in restaurant in Port Angeles, Washington. He barely managed to escape when he noticed the arrest squad seconds before it was in place to take him. Authorities had received a tip about Boyce's whereabouts from his former bank robbery confederates.
Boyce didn’t realize his idea of travelling to the Soviet Union. Instead he escaped to South Vietnam aboard a cargo ship. From South Vietnam he reportedly made his way to North Vietnam, where he attempted to defect. He reportedly visited the Soviet Embassy in Hanoi in an effort to gain Russian assistance, but was rebuffed by them. The North Vietnamese had little use for Boyce and deported him back to South Vietnam where police, alerted to his identity, arrested him and began proceedings to return him to the United States.
Boyce subsequently escaped from South Vietnamese detention and disappeared. Some U.S. officials believe he entered the narcotics trade.
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Magnus Malan (b. 1930)
General Magnus André De Merindol Malan (b. 30 January 1930) was the Chief of the South African Defence Force (SADF) and Chief of the South African Army. From 1979 he was also Prime Minister of the South African Union, and then President when the two officers were merged. He was the dictator of South Africa during its war with the ZPLF.
Malan's father was a professor of biochemistry at the University of Pretoria and later a Member of Parliament (1948–1966) and Deputy Speaker and Chairman of Committees (1961–1966) of the House of Assembly. He started his high school education at the Afrikaanse Hoër Seunskool but later moved to Dr Danie Craven’s Physical Education Brigade in Kimberley, where he completed his matriculation. He wanted to join the South African armed forces immediately after his matric, but his father advised him first to complete his university studies. As a result of this advice, Malan enrolled at the University of Stellenbosch in 1949 to study for a Bachelor of Commerce degree. However, he later abandoned his studies in Stellenbosch and went to University of Pretoria, where he enrolled for a B.Sc. Mil. degree. He graduated in 1953.
In 1962 Malan married Magrietha Johanna van der Walt; the couple had two sons and one daughter.
At the end of 1949, the first military degree course for officers was advertised and Malan joined the Permanent Force as a cadet, going on to complete his BSc Mil at the University of Pretoria in 1953.
He was commissioned in the Navy and served in the Marines based on Robben Island. When they were disbanded, he was transferred back into the Army as a lieutenant.
Malan was earmarked for high office from early on in his military career; one of the many courses he attended was the Regular Command and General Staff Officers Course in the United States of America from 1962 to 1963. He went on to serve as commanding officer of various entities, including South-West Africa Command, the South African Military Academy and Western Province Command.
In 1973 he was appointed as Chief of the South African Army and three years later as Chief of the South African Defence Force (SADF).
As Chief of the SADF he implemented many administrative changes that earned him great respect in military circles. During this period he became very close to P.W. Botha, the then Minister of Defence under Prime Minister B.J. Vorster.
Fearing Vorster would negotiate with the ZPLF, and sell-out the tottering white regime in Rhodesia which served as a buffer for South Africa, Malan compelled Vorster to retire by backing more hard line elements in the National Party government of South Africa in a behind-the-scenes coup. In the tense war environment Malan was able to use conservative support for the military to catapult himself into the office Prime Minister, while assuming a quasi-military authoritarian position. Malan initially offered his friend Botha (thought to have been Vorster’s choice as successor) the ceremonial office of President, but Botha refused to have any part of the coup. Malan then fused the two offices of Prime Minister and President, later drafting a constitution which gave South Africa a strong Presidency and eliminated the office of Prime Minister altogether.
Malan acquired a reputation as the Pinochet of South Africa. Under his authoritarian rule South Africa, supported by the United States, fought a war in Rhodesia, South West Africa and Mozambique against Soviet backed guerrilla forces, while at home his secret police ruthlessly suppressed both black and white dissenters with equal force. His military used chemical, biological and nuclear weapons indiscriminately during this conflict, causing a series of environmental disasters in Southern Africa.
As Malan’s rule became more despotic, and after some set-backs in Rhodesia, he faced increasing political problems at home from white, English-speaking opponents of his regime. Anger was also fuelled by riots in internment camps where white Rhodesian refugees were kept, supposedly to isolate them from the South African white population where they might spread defeatism (and to keep them from leaving for Britain, as many of them wanted to). Malan personally thought of these Rhodesians as cowards who had run in the face of his enemy, and as a result he had no respect for them. This translated into their poor treatment at the hands of this regime.
The white, English speaking South African population never accepted Malan’s dictatorship with its manipulated elections. In return Malan stirred-up nationalist feeling and historic anti-British resentment among the Boer population. A combination of bribery and racial or ethnic resentments, together with a strong climate of terror, were common tools of the Malan regime. His regime accused the anglo-South Africans of being soft on Communism and “traitors.” He closed the electoral system to all but Boer voters only, and relied heavily on Boer ultra-nationalists to man his secret police and, reportedly, imported advisors from Chile to help with political suppression and torture techniques. He also relied on conservative social prejudices, often denouncing his opponents as “rabid homosexuals” and “devil worshippers.”
In the words of anti-Apartheid and anti-Malan activist Helen Suzman, who spent many years in Malan’s notorious prisons, South Africa under Malan was “hell for all people. The good thing about it though was that for the first time the whites got to experience, first hand, just how bad it had been for the blacks for all these years. Apartheid no longer became racial; it became a statement for the regime against everyone else. Some of the whites found they had more in common with the black nationalists than they did with the regime.”
The issue of the white Rhodesian refugees, many of whom were British citizens, caused tension between South Africa and Britain. General Malan refused to recognize the Rhodesians’ British nationality, and argued that all would be re-settled in Rhodesia “where they belonged.” He once tore-up a letter King George had sent to him on their behalf asking for their release and humane treatment, throwing the pieces into the face of a startled British Ambassador.
Malan believed “that strength will win, and then we will re-shape Africa our way, once and for all, and the Communist plague.”
Ironically, Malan’s regime also raised regiments of black shock troops, who were induced to fight through manipulation of tribal resentments or offers of bonuses and support for their families. When some of these troops defected, or mutinied in the field, Malan’s forces executed their families as a warning.
In addition to Pinochet, Malan also reportedly studied Stalin and Mao as models for achieving control over his nation. Ideology mattered little, he was looking at their techniques, particularly Stalin’s use of terror.
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OTL background and technical specifications sourced at Wikipedia.
