Death of a Dissident - Alex Goldfarb [162]
“His main goal today is to make trouble for V. V. Putin, to undermine his regime,” wrote Gaidar. “His means [to that end] is harming Russia’s relations with the West.
“As someone who is not much of a friend with the Kremlin,” argued Gaidar, Soros would be “particularly effective” in smearing Boris. He suggested that in doing so Soros should allege Boris’s “cooperation with international terrorism.”
The publication of the leaked letter to Soros caused a storm in the liberal camp. Most commentaries urged Gaidar to disavow it as a fabrication. But Gaidar remained silent. Eventually Soros’s office in New York confirmed to a reporter, without comment, the receipt of the letter.
In early April 2007, in the departure hall of Berlin Airport, I bumped into Katya Genieva, a prominent liberal figure in Moscow who had accompanied Gaidar to the Dublin conference. I was curious to learn more. Is it possible that Gaidar had simply had a stomach bug and made a fool of himself over nothing?
“Good Lord, Alex! How could you say that?” responded Katya in horror. “He nearly died. I was poisoned too.”
It turned out that she was having breakfast with Gaidar that morning. Apparently she got a much lower dose, and her symptoms were milder, but she was very ill for four months and her own doctors believe that she had been poisoned by an unknown substance. She had no doubt it was an attempted assassination. She also confirmed the authenticity of the Soros letter.
“Is it possible that Gaidar was blackmailed by the Kremlin into smearing Boris?” I wondered.
“Of course not,” said Katya. “Yegor Timurovich really believes Berezovsky is behind it.”
I agree with Gaidar on one thing. His poisoning was related to Sasha’s and was meant to reinforce its public effect. There are only two theories worthy of consideration explaining these events, and two principal suspects. If one of them is not the murderer, the other is. The problem is, as far as I am concerned, only one theory stands up to scrutiny of the facts.
Moscow April 16-17, 2007: Thousands of protesters battle riot police in the streets of Moscow and St. Petersburg in two days of anti-Putin demonstrations. The White House calls the Russian authorities’ reaction “heavy-handed.” Observers note that the disturbances may be a prelude to a bloodless revolution of the kind that toppled governments in Ukraine and Georgia. “Previously, the CIA would channel money to opposition forces in the countries…. Now opposition forces are being financed through a system of various institutions and foundations. This probably explains why such organizations have been mushrooming in this country,” observes ex-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
London, April 19, 2007: In a letter to Home Secretary John Reid, Yuri Fedotov, the Russian ambassador to the United Kingdom, urges the British government to take immediate action over Boris Berezovsky’s recent comments calling for the overthrow of the Putin regime. “The absence of a reaction would have some impact on bilateral relations,” the letter warns. A copy of a warrant for Berezovsky’s arrest, signed by the Russian prosecutor general Yuri Chaika, is also enclosed.
Writing about death, it’s impossible not to think about one’s own mortal self. Sasha died before my eyes the most horrible death imaginable, long, torturous, and inescapable. Visions of atomic annihilation—from the mushroom cloud of Hiroshima to the fallout of Chernobyl, which haunted my generation, turning millions into neurotics—came back to me as I watched him fading away. He had no chance from the instant he swallowed that tea: the doctors said that he received a dose equivalent to being in the epicenter of the Chernobyl catastrophe twice. All of those who were there once died within two weeks. His case will make medical history as the only instance of exposure to such a high dose of radiation from within: the initial gastric and intestinal symptoms; then a latent