QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong, you tend to be humble about your influence. You may not be able to answer or prefer not to answer this question, but it is rumored that you had more impact on the Reagan-Gorbachev meeting than you let on. From the Russian side, it is believed that Mikhail Gorbachev was aware of your work and attempted in the 1980s to break the cyclical pattern of Soviet economic stagnation and political repression through reforms (Perestroika and Glasnost). He faced fierce opposition from the hardline Communist Party, who were invested in maintaining power. This led to a coup attempt against him in 1991, which ultimately resulted in the collapse of the USSR.
You have confirmed that you were the Western Financier that the Communists accused of influencing Galina Starovoitova, who was assassinated on November 20, 1998. Your book, The Plot to Seize Russia, demonstrates that you have had firsthand experience with Russia’s turmoil for decades. Are you willing to answer the question that, since Mikhail Gorbachev was trying to reverse the cycle of oppression in Russia, is it true that he was also at least influenced by your forecast that Communism would collapse starting in 1989.95?
You apparently wrote how the Communists were after Gorbachev in 1991:
“In Australia, an ex-KGB agent lived quietly in Queensland. He went to school with Mr. Gorbachev and perhaps had some dirt or insight into his past that might prove to be politically useful at home. He was abducted and drugged – placed in a box and shipped off into the outback under the disguise of a mining expedition. The US CIA was tipped off as to this plot and worked with Australian security forces. An old-fashioned shoot-out took place on an old abandoned World War II air st rip. The abductors were killed and the ex-KGB agent recovered. Two similar incidents have taken place in other parts of the world. Clearly, someone in Russia is trying their best to gain control of Gorbachev. Based upon the resignation speech of Mr. Shevardnadze, we can safely assume it is the military.
The food shortages in Russia have been planned. They should not be taking place to this extent given the record crops of last year. Reliable sources tell us that food has been left to rot outside Moscow. The hard-liners may be out of the lime-light but they are still in control at the local levels throughout Russia. There is indeed a sinister force rising behind the scenes and it is stemming from the KGB and the military.“
Would you at least confirm that you did write this?
Uri
ANSWER: Yes that was an intelligence report I wrote back then. OK, only since Mikhail Gorbachev is now dead, I suppose I can confirm. I was asked questions on Gorbachev’s behalf when I was in London. He understood cycles perhaps instinctively like Thatcher. Yes, the Communists accused me of being behind Galina Starovoitova, who was a prominent democratic reformer, and Gorbachev shared ideological alignment. Yes, Galina Starovoitova certainly knew Mikhail Gorbachev. They were prominent political figures in the same transformative era of Soviet and Russian history. Their relationship was primarily one of political allies and fellow reformers. Both were key figures in the democratic and reform movements during the perestroika and glasnost period.
Starovoitova was a democratic deputy in the Congress of People’s Deputies and a fierce advocate for human rights and national self-determination. Gorbachev, as the last General Secretary of the Communist Party, initiated the reforms that made her political activity possible. They moved in the same high political circles in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Starovoitova was a close advisor to Boris Yeltsin on nationalities issues, which placed her at the center of the political struggles between Gorbachev’s Union government and Yeltsin’s Russian republic—struggles that ultimately led to the USSR’s dissolution.