by Nomad
In 1987, real estate mogul Donald Trump was invited to Moscow by the Soviets- with the approval of the KGB. What this business or was it funny business? Even at the time, the trip and the thing Trump did soon after raised eyebrows.. at least, among conspiracy theorists.
The Stopped Clock of Conspiracy Theories
In its day, the magazine Executive Intelligence Review (EIR) had a deserved reputation for being conspiratorial.
Amid pages and pages of dry - like dust- material such as the IMF forecasts and trade with India, EIR also featured articles on the news that Queen Elizabeth II was the head of an international drug-smuggling cartel and how the Oklahoma City bombing was, in fact, the first strike in an attempt by the British to overthrow the government.
The EIR is a weekly news magazine and was founded in 1974 by the American political activist Lyndon LaRouche. The Washington Post describes LaRouche as "an extremist crank and fringe figure" - something closer to a cult leader than a political figure who also ran for president eight times, once while in prison for mail fraud. At the age of 96, LaRouche with a worldwide following based on conspiracy theories, economic doom, anti-Semitism, homophobia and racism died without much notice only last month.Amid pages and pages of dry - like dust- material such as the IMF forecasts and trade with India, EIR also featured articles on the news that Queen Elizabeth II was the head of an international drug-smuggling cartel and how the Oklahoma City bombing was, in fact, the first strike in an attempt by the British to overthrow the government.
Needless to say, as a news source, EIR is certainly not particularly trustworthy. Yet, as the saying goes, even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
Cut to 18 September 1987 to a small article in the usual Elephants and Donkeys section. It is entitled "Trump card- but whose is it?"The latest (tentative) entry into the Republican Party presidential race is New York construction king Donald Trump. Talk about chutzpah! Trump's qualifications boil down to owning big chunks of prime New York real estate and a hefty slice of the mob-linked Resorts International gambling casino in Atlantic City.
Rumors have been circulating that Trump was eying a possible presidential run. They took on substance in early September when Trump let it be known that he had accepted several speaking engagements in New Hampshire, and at the same time, shelled out $100,000 to purchase full-page ads in the New York Times and other key newspapers, assailing the Reagan's administration's current Persian Gulf military deployment.
The ads claimed that "The world is laughing at America's politicians as we protect ships we don't own, carrying oil we don't need, destined for allies that won't help," and suggested that the US slap a tax on Japan and other American allies for the deployment.
Trump's particularly nasty and uninformed attack on Western strategic interests came just weeks after he travels to Moscow, to hold preliminary negotiations with Mikhail Gorbachev and other Russian officials on building some of his trademark glitzy hotels in Red Square. (Apparently like most of the Democratic presidential hopefuls, Trump thinks it necessary to get the Kremlin's green light before running for the White House.)
Could it be that Trump is trying to curry favor with Moscow for his presidential bid (and maybe get a good deal on his proposed Soviet business ventures in the bargain) by trying to rally public opinion against the Persian Gulf deployment, a deployment that Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger has identified as crucial to prevent the further spread of Soviet influence in the Mideast?
Joint Venture
Throughout the campaign, candidate Trump told voters that he no business ties with Russia. Never had. Eight times he said that right up until the moment back in November last year when he "revealed" that everybody knew his organization spent months during the 2016 election negotiating a "very cool" deal with Russia to build a Trump Tower in Moscow.
In truth, Tycoon Trump has been dancing with the Russians for decades. In The Art of the Deal, Trump writes:“In January 1987, I got a letter from Yuri Dubinin, the Soviet ambassador to the United States, that began: ‘It is a pleasure for me to relay some good news from Moscow.’ It went on to say that the leading Soviet state agency for international tourism, Goscomintourist, had expressed interest in pursuing a joint venture to construct and manage a hotel in Moscow.”As we know, for whatever reason, the hotel project never took off.
The Soviet Union dissolved on 26 December 1991. Things were spinning out of control and absolutely nobody was interested in building hotels in Moscow.
At that time, Trump's own empire was on the verge of collapse. In 1991, the Trump Organization and its subsidiaries owed $9 billion and Trump's personal debt totaled $975 million and was facing bankruptcy. Poorly-thought-out business plans and a slowed economy meant that Trump’s winning streak ground to a halt. About the same time, his marriage with Ivana was on the skids, thanks to his brazen philandering.
That was the end of that.
In his book, Collusion: Secret Meetings, Dirty Money, and How Russia Helped Donald Trump Win, foreign correspondent at the Guardian Luke Harding, took a closer look at Trump's first trip to Moscow.
First, let's set the stage.
Clearly, Trump was on the KGB file of desirables. To what end has never been firmly established.
A follow-up op-ed piece in the Washington Post provides us with further tantalizing information. Naturally, Trump's ad sparked a lot of head-scratching.
No big surprise. Whenever a prominent private person spends $94,801 to publicize such a message, it raises intriguing questions. (And we all know how tight-fisted Trump can be when it comes to spending his own money on something besides himself.)
Another interesting tidbit and it regards the creation of the ad itself.
Recruiting Trump
One writer has studied the evidence and has speculated that Trump's Moscow invitation was, in actuality, a carefully calculated recruitment by the Russian authorities of businessman Trump.In his book, Collusion: Secret Meetings, Dirty Money, and How Russia Helped Donald Trump Win, foreign correspondent at the Guardian Luke Harding, took a closer look at Trump's first trip to Moscow.
First, let's set the stage.
In the late 1980s, Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev's new policy of detente and glasnost was forcing the KGB to come up with new strategies, in particular, intelligence gather and opinion influencing. The first step for the KGB was to find a way to recruit American citizens to provide inside information.
The KGB also distributed a secret personality questionnaire, advising case officers what to look for in a successful recruitment operation. In April 1985 this was updated for “prominent figures in the West.” The directorate’s aim was to draw the target “into some form of collaboration with us.” This could be “as an agent, or confidential or special or unofficial contact.”
The form outlined what would have been the ideal prospect for recruitment.
The most revealing section concerned kompromat. The document asked for: “Compromising information about subject, including illegal acts in financial and commercial affairs, intrigues, speculation, bribes, graft … and exploitation of his position to enrich himself.” Plus “any other information” that would compromise the subject before “the country’s authorities and the general public.” Naturally the KGB could exploit this by threatening “disclosure.”
Finally, “his attitude towards women is also of interest.” The document wanted to know: “Is he in the habit of having affairs with women on the side?”That's not conclusive, of course. There's no proof that Trump was ever actually recruited. However, evidence does suggest that the 1987 Moscow visit was arranged by the top level of the Soviet diplomatic service with assistance from the KGB.
It was around this time that Donald Trump appears to have attracted the attention of Soviet intelligence. How that happened, and where that relationship began, is an answer hidden somewhere in the KGB's secret archives. Assuming, that is, that the documents still exist.Even without the supporting documentation as proof, one thing we can be sure of:
The KGB wouldn’t invite someone to Moscow out of altruism. Dignitaries flown to the USSR on expenses-paid trips were typically left-leaning writers or cultural figures. The state would expend hard currency; the visitor would say some nice things about Soviet life; the press would report these remarks, seeing in them a stamp of approval.
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Trump at Winter Palace with Ivana |
Mission Accomplished?
As far as the full-page ad in the New York Times- the one specified by EIR, it did indeed run on 1 September 1987 on prestigious newspapers like The Washington Post, The New York Times and The Boston Globe.A follow-up op-ed piece in the Washington Post provides us with further tantalizing information. Naturally, Trump's ad sparked a lot of head-scratching.
No big surprise. Whenever a prominent private person spends $94,801 to publicize such a message, it raises intriguing questions. (And we all know how tight-fisted Trump can be when it comes to spending his own money on something besides himself.)
Another interesting tidbit and it regards the creation of the ad itself.
The Persian Gulf ad was developed with advertising executives who were part of the "Tuesday Team" that prepared the media ads for President Reagan's 1984 reelection campaign. But one of them, Tom Messner, said he knew of no larger political agenda, and Norma Foederer, an assistant at the Trump Organization, said any bid for office "was the furthest thing from his mind."
Trump "wrote the letter himself," Messner said. "The idea of doing it was his. We were merely expediters. We designed the ad, we recommended the newspapers, handled the money and placed it. Our creative input was minimal."
That begs the question: where did the idea for the ad come from and, if it wasn't in advance of a presidential bid, then what was its actual purpose? And of course, there's the question of timing: why had the ad come just weeks after Trump's return from Moscow?
Looking back through our 20/20 hindsight, it is not exceedingly difficult to imagine that Trump's full-page ad castigating the president's Persian Gulf plan was his first test for his KGB minders. Proof that the target was willing to take the bait.
If so, then the initial step in the recruitment of "Agent Orange" began back when Reagan was president.
If so, then the initial step in the recruitment of "Agent Orange" began back when Reagan was president.
Just as the wacky conspiracy theorists said.