Death of a Dissident - Alex Goldfarb [118]
As we were saying goodbye, I could not help wondering how this newly formed brotherhood would be reflected in the operative report that Russian intelligence would shortly submit to Putin. I tried to look at things through the eyes of the services, as Sasha had taught me in Turkey. Surely all our movements and communications were being watched. Would we be classified as a “subversive émigré organization” in the Soviet style? Or “a terrorist sympathizer cell” in the modern way? How many spies would monitor us?
On April 23, 2002, Sergei Yushenkov arrived in Washington with a large box of copies of Assassination of Russia. His schedule, organized by the IFCL, included the usual circuit for an overseas visitor who wanted to make a point to the makers of U.S. foreign policy: the State Department, Congress, key journalists, the expert community. Sergei was not concerned about the absence of direct evidence. He was a politician: he looked at the bombing story from a totally different angle.
“I don’t have to prove anything,” he explained. “The government has been accused of mass murder of its own citizens, and half of the people believe it; this is enough for me. Presumption of innocence does not apply to governments; it’s a device to protect people from the government. Putin has an obligation to dispel the suspicions. Instead, he is covering up. What else is there to prove?”
The meetings in Washington were tough. Tom Graham at the State Department had warned me that barring direct evidence of official complicity in the bombings, the film—and its promoters—would be discounted in Washington.
We brought Aliona from Denver. She and Yushenkov hit it off immediately. They were kindred souls, two Russians on a hopeless mission in the disinterested imperial city.
“The bombings in Moscow? This is like our 9/11, isn’t it?” asked a congressional staffer who listened politely to Yushenkov. His expression of deliberate attention could not conceal profound skepticism: these guys are saying that their secret services did it. Well, some people, the lunatic fringe, say that the WTC attacks were the work of the CIA.
Our visit to the State Department was also discouraging. We were received by a junior officer from the Russia desk, who politely took a copy of the film and uttered some platitudes. We were indeed discounted, as Tom Graham had warned.
“This is to be expected,” Yushenkov said to cheer up Aliona over lunch in the congressional cafeteria. “Just imagine that we’d come to Washington, say, in 1944, to complain about Stalin. We wouldn’t get a sympathetic hearing, would we? Uncle Joe was Roosevelt’s favorite ally, so he could get away with anything. It took Americans some time to realize that he was a more serious threat than Hitler. A very similar situation exists now. Still, it’s important that we say what we have to say. Some years later they will remember our visit when they realize what Putin is all about.”
But some people did take us seriously. After the screening for the staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, our tapes were snatched up like hotcakes.
“Don’t be discouraged,” an aide to one of the most powerful men on the Hill told us. “We just cannot go out and say that the president of Russia is a mass murderer. But it is important that we know it. Your stuff is serious. I will make sure that the senator sees it.”
The most sympathetic hearing we got was from the pundits who packed the conference hall at the Kennan Institute of the Woodrow Wilson Center. It was an act of courage for Blair Ruble, Kennan’s director, to let us show the film in his domain; other major venues in Washington had refused.
“Look, we need to protect our operation in Moscow, we have a branch there,” another think-tanker had told