Big GOP Donors To Fund Gorbachev Come-Back, Democrats’ Nuclear Disarmament Agenda

In a textbook case of politics — or at least political fundraising — making strange bedfellows, the National Republican Senatorial Committee has offered ex-Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev some $70,000 to address the upcoming 4 November meeting in Washington of its top contributors. Committee Chairman Phil Gramm’s invitation to his "Inner Circle" to attend the Gorbachev affair was long on the value that membership would provide to such personalities:

"The unique relationship Inner Circle members have developed with U.S. presidents, world leaders, Cabinet officers and diplomats is certainly illustrative of why the Inner Circle is a powerful force in foreign and domestic affairs."

 

Covert Bipartisanship?

Senator Gramm chose, however, not to elaborate on the likely uses to which Gorbachev’s speaking fee would be put. The reason is not hard to discern: Under the best of circumstancesDemocraticSenator Alan Cranston who now heads the U.S. arm of the Gorbachev Foundation. the money will wind up in the hands of a man anathema to many of them, former

In fact, Mr. Gorbachev’s speaking engagement is part of a campaign to fund his Foundation’s three-part "Global Security Project" launched last month at a symposium in Moscow. The project — which lists among its primary objectives the elimination of nuclear weapons, the elimination of nuclear weapons testing, and the creation of a new "architecture" for global security — features among its advisors such "national security experts" as former DemocraticSenator Dick Clark, former Democratic Representative Mel Levine and former liberal RepublicanCharles Mathias. Senator

These project participants, among others, are scheduled to convene "stage two" next January in Washington and to conclude with a final symposium in New Delhi in June. Long identified with the left-wing fringe on arms control matters, Sen. Cranston will be chairing "Working Group One" dealing with nuclear weapons reductions.

Thanks to the Gorbachev Foundation — and its sponsors — moreover, Sen. Cranston appears to be living the style of life to which everyone would like to become accustomed. In recent interviews he has enthused over his frequent international travel to Russia and elsewhere. He has also crowed about the Foundation’s new office in a building at the historic Presidio, a military facility recently disestablished as part of the recent round of defense budget cuts and attendant base closures. Sen. Cranston describes the latter as affording him with "the best office in San Francisco" featuring a superb view of the Golden Gate bridge.

In remarks delivered on the occasion of his "liberation" of the Presidio, Sen. Cranston exhibited the low regard in which he held Ronald Reagan and his Administration. He opined that "[Gorbachev] did more than any other person to change the world and end the Cold War."

The Worst Case: Money for Gorbachev’s Campaign

If the idea of sponsoring such Americans and their dubious activities is not horrifying enough for stalwart Republican funders, the prospect that at least some of the money might actually wind up supporting the former Soviet leader himself should be. During the crisis in Moscow late last month, Gorbachev made clear repeatedly that — in the struggle between Yeltsin and the communist/fascist-dominated parliament, he favored the latter.

Specifically, Gorbachev condemned Yeltsin’s dissolution of Soviet-era parliament as "senseless and unconstitutional." He asked with a straight face, "What kind of free elections can we have if representative bodies are just abolished and kicked out?" Speaking of the Soviet-era constitution belatedly repudiated by President Yeltsin, Gorbachev lamented that "Such treatment of the constitution, when somebody wipes his feet on it, simply creates Bolshevism."

What is more, as a feature story in today’s Washington Post makes clear, Mr. Gorbachev is at best a has-been, at worst a still-malevolent force determined to reverse whatever progress has been made toward genuine Russian democratization and free enterprise. After repeatedly denouncing President Boris Yeltsin, Gorbachev intimates a desire to run against Yeltsin in upcoming presidential elections. Gorbachev avers:

"I have not yet decided, but I’m looking very seriously at the situation. I’m not passionate for power, I’m not passionate for government. But I will not be able to avoid the responsibility if I decide that as a citizen I have to do it, that I have to leave aside everything and try to be of service to my people, my country. I will not evade this."

 

The Post could not refrain from ridiculing the delusions of grandeur of the man with whom Sen. Gramm wants prominent Republicans to pay good money to hob-nob:

"Long before he left office, Gorbachev was Russia’s own incredible shrinking president, far more popular in the West than he was at home. While the West marveled at his initiatives and elan, Russians tired of a transition figure who never really gave up on communism, who ignored ample warnings of a coup, whose convoluted, long-winded oratory became a kind of national joke."

 

Bottom Line

The National Republican Senatorial Committee should immediately rescind its speaking invitation to the once and would-be future communist leader of the Soviet Union. If it does not, right-thinking Republican donors to the Committee should insist on getting their money back if that is the only way to prevent their funds from winding up in American or Russian hands advancing agendas antithetical to those of the contributors.