It will be purely Russian Federation game, saving the USSR is happening in this thread
Crisis in the Kremlin - Our 1982 USSR
- Thread starter panpiotr
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- 1980's communism soviet union ussr
But the players choice of presidential candidate will have influence on how the USSR falls, and how will the post - soviet region look like after the break-up of USSR
So, there is a possibility of maintaining some SSR as part of the Russian Federation, or choosing to keep Crimea?
If more nationalist candidate is chosen then yes.
Ok, I will post the 1st chapter of Our Russian Federation today, and next chapter of OUR USSR on Thursday
I kinda hope for Russian federation game, but I'm quite open to maintaining some sort of union, certainly not political, or military, but definitely economic one as losing Soviet Market is bad for the business.
It would be nice but at this point we do need good relations with the west given Soviet collapse and everything. But if some plebiscite can be arranged... I believe that we could get away with getting Crimea if we act early on and have good arguments.
Generally main otl Russian failure was failing to achieve necessary economic growth and Standard of living. If we can achieve those we could offer viable alternative to the EU for Ukraine.
First chapter of Our 1992 Russian Federation is up!
A New Beginning - Our 1992 Russian Federation
After years of stagnation, the "new thinking" of younger Communist apparatchik began to emerge. Following the death of terminally ill Konstantin Chernenko, the Politburo elected Mikhail Gorbachev to the position of General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) in March...
www.alternatehistory.com
Chapter Fourteen: Soviet spies in the West (May - October 1985)
After Hoxha's death, Ramiz Alia maintained firm control of the country and its security apparatus, but Albania's desperate economic situation required Alia to seek help from abroad and to introduce some reforms. Continuing a policy set by Hoxha, Alia reestablished diplomatic relations with West Germany in return for development aid and also courted Italy and France. Furthermore, the Soviet willingness for rapprochement was more than welcomed by Alia, as, in the end, Albania and the USSR reestablished normal diplomatic relations and expanded trade and economic cooperation, which brought relief to struggling Albania. The flow of Soviet goods and capital helped Alia calm down the situation in the country and the embittered population of Albania. In the meantime, the Soviet government announced a halt to nuclear tests, which was welcomed by the international community, but the U.S. President called it an empty gesture. Following a series of Islamist terrorist attacks in Europe and the Middle East, the Soviet leadership decided to prevent a similar situation from happening in the USSR by implementing the following policies:
(KGB Alfa Unit officers were responsible for combating Islamist troops in Afghanistan)
Just as the Soviet government was busy with the prevention of terrorist attacks, new Soviet prime minister Nikolai Ryzhkov introduced the so-called Ryzhkov Programme, which was a series of technocratic laws and initiatives aimed at modernizing the Soviet state, society and the Communist Party. The Ryzhkov Programme included:
(Moscow Victory Parade)
The 1985 Moscow Victory Day Parade was held on 9 May 1985 on the Red Square in Moscow to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Victory in Europe. The parade marked the Soviet Union's victory in the Great Patriotic War. It was the first V-Day parade held since 1965, and the third of four Victory Day parades held during the Soviet Union's existence. Prior to 1965 Victory Day was not a major holiday and parades were not held, with the exception of the 1945 Victory Day Parade. The Victory Parade of 1985 was the third made after the 1945 Victory Day Parade. After this parade next would be held in 1990. The parade was observed by Soviet leaders from the Lenin Mausoleum. The parade was commanded by the Moscow Military District Commander General of the Army Pyotr Lushev, and was his last major national parade in this capacity. During this parade veterans marched in Red Square for the first time, the next time being in 1990.
The Bitburg controversy concerned a ceremonial visit by Ronald Reagan, the incumbent President of the United States, to a German military cemetery in Bitburg, West Germany in May 1985. The visit was intended to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe but aroused considerable criticism from Jewish communities within the United States and around the world when it became known that 49 of the 2,000 German soldiers buried at the site had been members of the Waffen-SS, the military arm of Nazi Germany's Schutzstaffel (SS). The entire SS had been judged to be a criminal organisation at the Nuremberg trials. Although not part of the original itinerary, as part of their own reconciliatory gesture, Reagan and West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl made an impromptu visit to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp before visiting Bitburg, thus reducing the time Reagan had to spend at Kolmeshöhe Military Cemetery to only eight minutes. Reagan was scheduled to attend the G7 economic summit in Bonn the week of the 40th anniversary of V-E Day. Chancellor Kohl saw an opportunity to demonstrate the strength of the friendship that existed between West Germany and its former foe. During a November 1984 visit to the White House, Kohl appealed to Reagan to join him in symbolising the reconciliation of their two countries at a German military cemetery. It was suggested that the Kolmeshöhe Cemetery, near Bitburg, was both suitably close and relevant, as 11,000 Americans attached to a nearby airbase lived in harmony with the same number of Germans.
Reagan agreed, and later told an aide he felt he owed Kohl, who despite considerable public and political opposition had stood steadfast with Reagan on the deployment of Pershing II missiles in West Germany. In February 1985, then White House Deputy Chief of Staff Michael Deaver made a planning visit to Bitburg. At Kolmeshöhe Cemetery, the 32 rows of headstones were covered with snow. Deaver and his team failed to notice that among them were 49 members of the Waffen-SS. A decision was made by the Reagan team not to include a visit to a concentration camp, as had been previously suggested by Kohl. The President said he didn't want to risk "reawakening the passions of the time" or offend his hosts by visiting a concentration camp. On April 11, 1985, then White House Press Secretary Larry Speakes informed the media of the planned visit to Bitburg. When asked who was buried at Kolmeshöhe, Speakes said he thought both American and German soldiers were there.
(President Reagan visiting Bitburg Cementery in West Germany)
Reporters soon discovered that no American servicemen were in the cemetery (in fact, the remains of all U.S. soldiers had long since been removed from German soil) and that Waffen-SS graves were located close to the proposed ceremony. When questioned, Bitburg Mayor Theo Hallet stated that all German military cemeteries were likely to contain some SS graves. Decorations and memorials on the Waffen-SS graves were removed just prior to Reagan's visit. This planned visit caused a great deal of anger within the United States. Many prominent government officials, U.S. Army officers and celebrities, each with ties, or friends with ties to their respective Jewish communities, all protested the planned visit. 53 senators (including 11 Republicans), signed a letter asking the president to cancel and 257 representatives (including 84 Republicans) signed a letter urging Chancellor Kohl to withdraw the invitation. Chancellor Kohl responded in an interview with The New York Times: "I will not give up the idea. If we don't go to Bitburg, if we don't do what we jointly planned, we will deeply offend the feelings of [my] people." A poll revealed that 72% of West Germans thought the visit should go forward as planned. Kohl admitted that rarely had German-American relations been so strained, and in the days leading up to the visit, the White House and the Chancellery were each blaming the other. The White House claimed that the Germans had given assurances that nothing in the Bitburg visit would be an "embarrassment" for the President: "As clumsily as we handled it, Kohl and his Co. have surpassed us in spades." A German official said: "The Americans also have a responsibility toward the president. They must also check on the history that is beneath their ground. It was not very intelligent." Reagan defended himself by saying:
These [SS troops] were the villains, as we know, that conducted the persecutions and all. But there are 2,000 graves there, and most of those, the average age is about 18. I think that there's nothing wrong with visiting that cemetery where those young men are victims of Nazism also, even though they were fighting in the German uniform, drafted into service to carry out the hateful wishes of the Nazis. They were victims, just as surely as the victims in the concentration camps.
(Reaction to Reagan's visit in West Germany)
Reagan was criticised for this statement by opponents of the visit. Equating Nazi soldiers with Holocaust victims, responded Rabbi Alexander M. Schindler, president of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, was "a callous offence for the Jewish people". Some believed Communications Director Pat Buchanan had written the statement, which he denied in 1999. Kohl confirmed an earlier press comment that in the last days of the war he was able to avoid service in the SS because he was only 15, "but they hanged a boy from a tree who was perhaps only two years older with a sign saying 'traitor' because he had tried to run away rather than serve." Kohl made a call to the White House days before Reagan's visit to make sure the President was not wavering in the face of criticism, not to mention pressure from Reagan's wife, Nancy. The Chancellor's aide, Horst Teltschik, later said: "Once we knew about the SS dead at Bitburg – knowing that these SS people were seventeen to eighteen years of age, and knowing that some Germans were forced to become members of the SS, having no alternative – the question was, Should this be a reason to cancel?" Reagan aide Robert McFarlane later said: "Once Reagan learned that Kohl would really be badly damaged by a withdrawal, he said 'We can't do that; I owe him.'" Prior to sending Deaver back to West Germany for the third time, just two days before the scheduled visit, Reagan told his deputy chief of staff: "I know you and Nancy don't want me to go through with this, but I don't want you to change anything when you get over there, because history will prove I'm right. If we can't reconcile after forty years, we are never going to be able to do it".
On Sunday 5 May, Reagan and Kohl appeared at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. The U.S. President's speech there, according to Time, was a "skilful exercise in both the art of eulogy and political damage control". Reagan said:
All these children of God, under bleak and lifeless mounds, the plainness of which does not even hint at the unspeakable acts that created them. Here they lie, never to hope, never to pray, never to live, never to heal, never to laugh, never to cry... And then, rising above all this cruelty, out of this tragic and nightmarish time, beyond the anguish, the pain and suffering, and for all time, we can and must pledge: never again.
Reagan spent only eight minutes at the Kolmeshöhe Cemetery along with Kohl, 90-year-old General Matthew Ridgway, who had commanded the 82nd Airborne in World War II and Luftwaffe ace and former head of NATO, General Johannes Steinhoff. After Reagan placed a wreath at the cemetery memorial, they all stood to attention while a short trumpet salute was played. At the end, Steinhoff turned and, in an unscripted act, shook hands with Ridgway. A surprised Kohl later thanked Steinhoff, who said that it seemed to be the right thing to do. Security was heavy for the three-mile route from the NATO airbase at Kolmeshöhe, lined with 2,000 policemen – one posted every twelve feet: few protesters showed up. When Reagan arrived at the cemetery, Michael Moore and a Jewish friend of his whose parents were at Auschwitz were there with a banner that read "We came from Michigan, USA to remind you: They killed my family". They were shown live on TV networks across the country. Reagan made one last appearance with Kohl at the airbase, before 7,500 spectators waving American and West German flags. Kohl thanked the President for staying the course: "This walk... over the graves of soldiers was not an easy walk. I thank you personally as a friend that you undertook this walk with me". Reagan responded: "This visit has stirred many emotions in the American and German people too. Some old wounds have been reopened, and this I regret very much, because this should be a time of healing".
John Anthony Walker Jr. was a United States Navy chief warrant officer and communications specialist convicted of spying for the Soviet Union from 1967 to 1985 and sentenced to life in prison. In late 1985, Walker made a plea bargain with federal prosecutors, which required him to provide full details of his espionage activities and testify against his co-conspirator, former senior chief petty officer Jerry Whitworth. In exchange, prosecutors agreed to a lesser sentence for Walker's son, former Seaman Michael Walker, who was also involved in the spy ring. During his time as a Soviet spy, Walker helped the Soviets decipher more than one million encrypted naval messages, organizing a spy operation that The New York Times reported in 1987 "is sometimes described as the most damaging Soviet spy ring in history." After Walker's arrest, Caspar Weinberger, President Ronald Reagan's Secretary of Defense, concluded that the Soviet Union made significant gains in naval warfare attributable to Walker's spying. Weinberger stated that the information Walker gave Moscow allowed the Soviets "access to weapons and sensor data and naval tactics, terrorist threats, and surface, submarine, and airborne training, readiness and tactics."
John Walker was promoted to warrant officer in March 1967 and in April was assigned as a communications watch officer at the headquarters of COMSUBLANT in Norfolk, Virginia, where his responsibilities included "running the entire communications center for the submarine force...."Walker began spying for the Soviets in late 1967, when, distraught over his financial difficulties, he walked into the old Soviet embassy in Washington, D.C., sold a top-secret document (a radio cipher card) for several thousand dollars, and negotiated an ongoing salary of US$500 (equivalent to $4,388 in 2022) to US$1,000 (equivalent to $8,776 in 2022) a week. Soviet KGB general Boris Aleksandrovich Solomatin "played a key role in the handling of John Walker". Walker justified his treachery by claiming that the first classified Navy communications data he sold to the Soviets had already been completely compromised when the North Koreans had captured the U.S. Navy communications surveillance ship, USS Pueblo. Yet the Koreans captured Pueblo in late January 1968 – many weeks after Walker had betrayed the information. Furthermore, a 2001 thesis presented at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College using information obtained from Soviet archives and from Oleg Kalugin, indicated that the Pueblo incident may have taken place because the Soviets wanted to study equipment described in documents supplied to them by Walker. It has emerged in recent years that North Korea acted alone and the incident actually harmed North Korea's relations with most of the Eastern Bloc.
In the spring of 1968 John Walker's wife discovered items in his desk at home causing her to suspect he was acting as a spy. Walker continued spying, receiving an income of several thousand dollars per month for supplying classified information. Walker used most of the money to pay off his delinquent debts and to move his family into better neighborhoods, but he also set aside some for future investment, such as turning around the fortunes of his money-losing bar by hiring a skilled bartender. While Walker occasionally used the services of his wife, Barbara Walker, he anticipated the possibility of losing access due to reassignment. Walker's chance to seek further assistance came in September 1969 when he became the deputy director of the radioman A and B schools at the Naval Training Center San Diego. There, Walker befriended student Jerry Whitworth. Walker was transferred from San Diego in December 1971 to become the communications officer aboard the supply ship USS Niagara Falls. Whitworth, who would become a Navy senior chief petty officer/senior chief radioman, agreed to help Walker gain access to highly classified communications data in 1973; and served aboard Niagara Falls after Walker retired from the Navy. Transfer to the staff of commander of the Amphibious Force, Atlantic Fleet had stopped Walker's access to the data the Soviets wanted; but he recruited Whitworth to keep the data flowing – softening the idea of espionage by telling him the data would go to Israel, an ally of the United States. Later, when Whitworth realized the data was going to the Soviets instead of Israel, he nonetheless continued supplying Walker with information, until Whitworth's retirement from the Navy in 1983.
In 1976, Walker retired from the Navy in order to give up his security clearance, as he believed certain superior officers of his were too keen on investigating lapses in his records. Walker and Barbara had also divorced. However, Walker did not end his espionage, and began looking more aggressively among his children and family members for assistance (Walker was a private investigator during this time). By 1984, he had recruited his older brother Arthur James Walker, a retired lieutenant commander who served from 1953 until 1973 and then went to work at a military contractor, and his son Michael Lance Walker (born November 2, 1962), an active duty seaman since 1982. Walker had also attempted to recruit his youngest daughter, who had enlisted in the United States Army, but she cut her military career short when she became pregnant and refused her father's offer to pay for an abortion, instead deciding to devote herself to full-time motherhood. Walker then turned his attention to his son, who had drifted during much of his teenage years and dropped out of high school. Walker gained custody of his son, put him to work as an apprentice at his detective agency in order to prepare him for espionage and encouraged him to re-enroll in high school to earn a diploma, then to enlist in the Navy. When Walker began spying, he worked as a key supervisor in the communications center for the U.S. Atlantic Fleet's submarine force, and he would have had knowledge of top-secret technologies, such as the SOSUS underwater surveillance system, which tracks underwater acoustics via a network of submerged hydrophones. It was through Walker that the Soviets became aware that the U.S. Navy was able to track the location of Soviet submarines by the cavitation produced by their propellers. After this, the propellers on the Soviet submarines were improved to reduce cavitation. The Toshiba-Kongsberg scandal was disclosed in this activity in 1987. It is also alleged that Walker's actions precipitated the seizure of USS Pueblo. CIA historian H. Keith Melton states on the show Top Secrets of the CIA, which aired on the Military Channel, among other occasions, at 0400CST, February 5, 2013:
[The Soviets] had intercepted our coded messages, but they had never been able to read them. And with Walker providing the code cards, this was one-half of what they needed to read the messages. The other half they needed were the machines themselves. Though Walker could give them repair manuals, he couldn't give them machines. So, within a month of John Walker volunteering his services, the Soviets arranged, through the North Koreans, to hijack a United States Navy ship with its cipher machines, and that was the USS Pueblo. And in early 1968 they captured the Pueblo, they took it into Wonsan Harbor, they quickly took the machines off ... flew 'em to Moscow. Now Moscow had both parts of the puzzle. They had the machine and they had an American spy, in place, in Norfolk, with the code cards and with access to them.
In 1990, The New York Times journalist John J. O'Connor reported, "It's been estimated by some intelligence experts that Mr. Walker provided enough code-data information to alter significantly the balance of power between Russia and the United States". Asked later how he had managed to access so much classified information, Walker said, "KMart has better security than the Navy". According to a report presented to the Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive in 2002, Walker is one of a handful of spies believed to have earned more than a million dollars in espionage compensation, although The New York Times estimated his income at only $350,000. Theodore Shackley, the CIA station chief in Saigon, asserted that Walker's espionage may have contributed to diminished B-52 bombing strikes, that the forewarning gleaned from Walker's espionage directly affected the United States' effectiveness in Vietnam. Independent analysis of Walker's methods by an American Naval officer in Cold War London, Lieutenant Commander David Winters, led to operational introduction of technologies – such as over-the-air rekeying – that finally closed security gaps previously exploited by the Walker spy ring.
(Signatories of the Plaza Accord)
The Plaza Accord was a joint–agreement signed on September 22, 1985, at the Plaza Hotel in New York City, between France, West Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States, to depreciate the U.S. dollar in relation to the French franc, the German Deutsche Mark, the Japanese yen and the British pound sterling by intervening in currency markets. The U.S. dollar depreciated significantly from the time of the agreement until it was replaced by the Louvre Accord in 1987. Some commentators believe the Plaza Accord contributed to the Japanese asset price bubble of the late 1980s. From 1980 to 1985, the dollar had appreciated by about 50% against the Japanese yen, Deutsche Mark, French franc, and British pound, the currencies of the next four biggest economies at the time. In March 1985, just before the G7, the dollar reached its highest valuation ever against the British pound, a valuation which would remain untopped for over 30 years. This caused considerable difficulties for American industry but at first their lobbying was largely ignored by the government. The financial sector was able to profit from the rising dollar, and a depreciation would have run counter to the Reagan administration's plans for bringing down inflation. A broad alliance of manufacturers, service providers, and farmers responded by running an increasingly high-profile campaign asking for protection against foreign competition. Major players included grain exporters, the U.S. automotive industry, heavy American manufacturers like Caterpillar Inc., as well as high-tech companies including IBM and Motorola. By 1985, their campaign had acquired sufficient traction for Congress to begin considering passing protectionist laws. The negative prospect of trade restrictions spurred the White House to begin the negotiations that led to the Plaza Accord.
The devaluation was justified to reduce the U.S. current account deficit, which had reached 3.5% of the GDP, and to help the U.S. economy to emerge from a serious recession that began in the early 1980s. The U.S. Federal Reserve System under Paul Volcker had halted the stagflation crisis of the 1970s by raising interest rates. The increased interest rate sufficiently controlled domestic monetary policy and staved off inflation. By the mid-1970s, Nixon successfully convinced several OPEC countries to trade oil only in USD, and the US would in return, give them regional military support. This sudden infusion of international demand for dollars gave the USD the infusion it needed in the 1970s. However, a strong dollar is a double edged sword, inducing the Triffin dilemma, which on the one hand, gave more spending power to domestic consumers, companies, and to the US government, and on the other hand, hampered US exports until the value of the dollar re-equilibrated. The U.S. automobile industry was unable to recover. While for the first two years the US deficit only worsened, it then began to turn around as the elasticities had risen enough that the quantity effects began to outweigh the valuation effect. The devaluation made U.S. exports cheaper to purchase for its trading partners, which in turn allegedly meant that other countries would buy more American-made goods and services. The Plaza Accord failed to help reduce the U.S.–Japan trade deficit, but it did reduce the U.S. deficit with other countries by making U.S. exports more competitive. And thus, the US Congress refrained from enacting protectionist trade barriers.
Joseph E. Gagnon describes the Plaza's result being more due to the message that was sent to the financial markets about policy intentions and the implied threat of further dollar sales than actual policies. Intervention was far more pronounced in the opposite direction following the 1987 Louvre Accord when the dollar's depreciation was decided to be halted. The Plaza Accord was successful in reducing the U.S. trade deficit with Western European nations, but largely failed to fulfill its primary objective of alleviating the trade deficit with Japan. This deficit was due to structural conditions that were insensitive to monetary policy, specifically trade conditions. The manufactured goods of the United States became more competitive in the exports market, though were still largely unable to succeed in the Japanese domestic market due to Japan's structural restrictions on imports. The Louvre Accord was signed in 1987 to halt the continuing decline of the U.S. dollar.
Following the subsequent 1987 Louvre Accord, there were few other interventions in the dollar's exchange rate such as by the first Clinton Administration in 1992-95. However, since then currency interventions have been few among the G7. The European Central Bank supported in 2000 then over-depreciated euro. The Bank of Japan intervened for the last time in 2011, with the cooperation of the US and others to dampen strong appreciation of the yen after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. In 2013 the G7 members agreed to refrain from foreign exchange intervention. Since then the US administration has demanded stronger international policies against currency manipulation (to be differentiated from monetary stimulus). The signing of the Plaza Accord was significant in that it reflected Japan's emergence as a real player in managing the international monetary system. However, the rising yen may also have contributed to recessionary pressures for Japan's economy, to which the Japanese government reacted with massive expansionary monetary and fiscal policies. That stimulus in combination with other policies led to the Japanese asset price bubble of the late 1980s. Because of this some commentators blame the Plaza Accord for the bubble, which when burst led into a protracted period of deflation and low growth in Japan known as the Lost Decade, which has effects still heavily felt in modern Japan. Jeffrey Frankel disagrees on the timing, pointing out that between the 1985-86 years of appreciation of the yen and the 1990s recession, came the bubble years of 1987-89 when the exchange rate no longer pushed the yen up. The rising Deutsche Mark also didn't lead to an economic bubble or a recession in Germany. Economist Richard Werner says that external pressures such as the accord and the policy of Ministry of Finance to reduce the official discount rate are insufficient in explaining the actions taken by the Bank of Japan that led to the bubble.
(Israeli attact on PLO headquarters in Tunisia)
Operation "Wooden Leg" was an attack by Israel on the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) headquarters in Hammam Chott, near Tunis, Tunisia, on October 1, 1985. With a target 1,280 miles (2,060 km) from the operation's starting point, this was the most distant publicly known action undertaken by the Israel Defense Forces since Operation Entebbe in 1976. It has been condemned by the United Nations Security Council. The strike was carried out by ten F-15 Eagles, six from 106 "Edge of Spear" Squadron and four from 133 "Knights of the Twin Tail" Squadron. Eight of the jets would attack the target with two remaining as backup. The attack was led by Lieutenant Colonel Avner Naveh. At 07:00 on October 1, the aircraft took off from Tel Nof Airbase. Two Boeing 707 tankers accompanied the fighters to refuel them mid-flight over the Mediterranean Sea en route to the target and again while returning from the mission while another Boeing served as an airborne command, control, and communications center. Two E-2 Hawkeye spy planes were deployed to jam Tunisian, Libyan, and Algerian radars. The Israeli Navy stationed a helicopter-carrying vessel near Malta to recover downed pilots, but this was never needed. The route was designed to avoid detection by Egyptian and Libyan radars and United States Navy vessels patrolling the Mediterranean. Israeli Air Force commander Amos Lapidot saw little chance of resistance from the Tunisian Air Force or Tunisian air defenses, but believed that on such a long flight, technical problems could arise.
The F-15s flew low over the shore, and fired GBU-15 precision-guided munitions on the PLO headquarters, a cluster of sand-colored buildings along the seaside. The planes attacked the southern location first, so that the northern wind would not pull smoke over the northern targets. The attack lasted for six minutes, after which the strike force returned to Israel. The PLO headquarters were completely destroyed, although Yasser Arafat, the head of the organization, was not there at the time and escaped unharmed. Israel claimed that some 60 PLO members were killed, including several leaders of Force 17, and several of Arafat's bodyguards. In addition, the operation resulted in casualties among civilian bystanders. According to other sources, 56 Palestinians and 15 Tunisians were killed and about 100 wounded. Hospital sources put the final count at 47 dead and 65 wounded. Amnon Kapeliouk, who was a close friend of Yasser Arafat and a founder of the Israeli advocacy group B’tselem, was the only Israeli reporter allowed to report from the scene. Because the attack was conducted so far from Israel, Tunisian President Habib Bourguiba said in a 1990 article that he believed that attack plan must have been known of by the United States, if not actually involving American collaboration.
The attack provoked a strong outcry, even in the United States, Israel's strongest ally. Though initially labeling the strike a "legitimate response to terror", the Reagan administration later said the attack "cannot be condoned". The attack also harmed relations between the US administration and the Tunisian president, Habib Bourguiba. Believing the US knew about the attack, and was possibly involved, Tunisia considered breaking diplomatic ties with the US. Egypt suspended negotiations with Israel over the disputed border town of Taba. Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres was quoted as saying "It was an act of self-defense. Period." In the United Nations Security Council Resolution 573 (1985), the Security Council voted (with the United States abstaining) to condemn the attack on Tunisian territory as a flagrant violation of the United Nations Charter and considered that Tunisia had the right to appropriate reparations. Following the arrest of Jonathan Pollard in November 1985, it was reported that Israeli reprisal was assisted thanks to satellite images that Pollard transmitted to Israel.
In Pollard's court defense memorandum he stated that his Israeli handlers "stressed the fact that the mission could not have been undertaken without the information I made available." Within Tunisia, there was public outrage. For a week after the attack, the country's small Jewish community found itself the target of individual acts of antisemitism, such as insults and stone-throwing against Jewish shops. On October 8, 1985, on the island of Djerba, a Tunisian police officer whose brother had been killed at the PLO headquarters fired into the El Ghriba synagogue during Simchat Torah services, killing 5-year-old Yoav Hadad, 14-year-old Yehudit Bucharis and 56-year-old Haim Cohen. It is possible that Israel attempted a similar attack in Algeria in 1988. Following Operation Wooden Leg, the PLO searched for an alternative location to hold its next congress, as it was assumed that Israel would launch a similar attack against it. The PLO's congress was ultimately held at the Club des Pins Hotel near Algiers. As it was assumed that Israel would launch a similar raid, the Algerian military established a twenty-kilometer no-fly zone around the Club Des Pins, stationed an anti-aircraft missile battery nearby, and kept four fighter jets flying a combat air patrol over the area and additional fighter jets on standing alert at their bases every time PLO representatives were meeting. On 10 November 1988, Algerian early warning radars detected a formation of suspicious radar contacts approaching from the east at a medium level. Two more fighter jets were scrambled to reinforce the combat air patrol over the Club des Pins, which was ordered to turn and take a position in front of the incoming aircraft. Additional Algerian radars began tracking the incoming aircraft, as did Tunisian radars. The contacts were identified as two formations of aircraft coming in at high speed. The incoming aircraft eventually turned back. While the two incoming formations were never spotted or identified by other means, it was presumed that they were Israeli aircraft en route to bomb the Club des Pins. According to a Tunisian Air Force officer who had been serving at the time, the Israelis likely turned back because they detected the electromagnetic activity of the Algerian and Tunisian radars and wanted to complete the mission without suffering any losses.
- establishment of an intelligence branch dedicated to combating the Islamist threat
- collaboration with friendly governments in the Middle East
- preventive destruction of terrorist organizations and their infrastructure
- relaxation of anti-Islamist laws in the Soviet Caucasus and Central Asia
- establishment of friendly to the USSR Islamist organizations in the Soviet Union
- propagation of Islamic socialism among the Muslim population in the USSR.
(KGB Alfa Unit officers were responsible for combating Islamist troops in Afghanistan)
Just as the Soviet government was busy with the prevention of terrorist attacks, new Soviet prime minister Nikolai Ryzhkov introduced the so-called Ryzhkov Programme, which was a series of technocratic laws and initiatives aimed at modernizing the Soviet state, society and the Communist Party. The Ryzhkov Programme included:
- review of labor laws
- propagation of female employment
- promotion of tourism
- closer economic relations with Western Europe
- computerization of the Soviet apparatus
- Computerization of Soviet businesses and companies
- investments in the automation of the economy
- further decrease in bureaucracy.
(Moscow Victory Parade)
The 1985 Moscow Victory Day Parade was held on 9 May 1985 on the Red Square in Moscow to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Victory in Europe. The parade marked the Soviet Union's victory in the Great Patriotic War. It was the first V-Day parade held since 1965, and the third of four Victory Day parades held during the Soviet Union's existence. Prior to 1965 Victory Day was not a major holiday and parades were not held, with the exception of the 1945 Victory Day Parade. The Victory Parade of 1985 was the third made after the 1945 Victory Day Parade. After this parade next would be held in 1990. The parade was observed by Soviet leaders from the Lenin Mausoleum. The parade was commanded by the Moscow Military District Commander General of the Army Pyotr Lushev, and was his last major national parade in this capacity. During this parade veterans marched in Red Square for the first time, the next time being in 1990.
The Bitburg controversy concerned a ceremonial visit by Ronald Reagan, the incumbent President of the United States, to a German military cemetery in Bitburg, West Germany in May 1985. The visit was intended to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe but aroused considerable criticism from Jewish communities within the United States and around the world when it became known that 49 of the 2,000 German soldiers buried at the site had been members of the Waffen-SS, the military arm of Nazi Germany's Schutzstaffel (SS). The entire SS had been judged to be a criminal organisation at the Nuremberg trials. Although not part of the original itinerary, as part of their own reconciliatory gesture, Reagan and West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl made an impromptu visit to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp before visiting Bitburg, thus reducing the time Reagan had to spend at Kolmeshöhe Military Cemetery to only eight minutes. Reagan was scheduled to attend the G7 economic summit in Bonn the week of the 40th anniversary of V-E Day. Chancellor Kohl saw an opportunity to demonstrate the strength of the friendship that existed between West Germany and its former foe. During a November 1984 visit to the White House, Kohl appealed to Reagan to join him in symbolising the reconciliation of their two countries at a German military cemetery. It was suggested that the Kolmeshöhe Cemetery, near Bitburg, was both suitably close and relevant, as 11,000 Americans attached to a nearby airbase lived in harmony with the same number of Germans.
Reagan agreed, and later told an aide he felt he owed Kohl, who despite considerable public and political opposition had stood steadfast with Reagan on the deployment of Pershing II missiles in West Germany. In February 1985, then White House Deputy Chief of Staff Michael Deaver made a planning visit to Bitburg. At Kolmeshöhe Cemetery, the 32 rows of headstones were covered with snow. Deaver and his team failed to notice that among them were 49 members of the Waffen-SS. A decision was made by the Reagan team not to include a visit to a concentration camp, as had been previously suggested by Kohl. The President said he didn't want to risk "reawakening the passions of the time" or offend his hosts by visiting a concentration camp. On April 11, 1985, then White House Press Secretary Larry Speakes informed the media of the planned visit to Bitburg. When asked who was buried at Kolmeshöhe, Speakes said he thought both American and German soldiers were there.
(President Reagan visiting Bitburg Cementery in West Germany)
Reporters soon discovered that no American servicemen were in the cemetery (in fact, the remains of all U.S. soldiers had long since been removed from German soil) and that Waffen-SS graves were located close to the proposed ceremony. When questioned, Bitburg Mayor Theo Hallet stated that all German military cemeteries were likely to contain some SS graves. Decorations and memorials on the Waffen-SS graves were removed just prior to Reagan's visit. This planned visit caused a great deal of anger within the United States. Many prominent government officials, U.S. Army officers and celebrities, each with ties, or friends with ties to their respective Jewish communities, all protested the planned visit. 53 senators (including 11 Republicans), signed a letter asking the president to cancel and 257 representatives (including 84 Republicans) signed a letter urging Chancellor Kohl to withdraw the invitation. Chancellor Kohl responded in an interview with The New York Times: "I will not give up the idea. If we don't go to Bitburg, if we don't do what we jointly planned, we will deeply offend the feelings of [my] people." A poll revealed that 72% of West Germans thought the visit should go forward as planned. Kohl admitted that rarely had German-American relations been so strained, and in the days leading up to the visit, the White House and the Chancellery were each blaming the other. The White House claimed that the Germans had given assurances that nothing in the Bitburg visit would be an "embarrassment" for the President: "As clumsily as we handled it, Kohl and his Co. have surpassed us in spades." A German official said: "The Americans also have a responsibility toward the president. They must also check on the history that is beneath their ground. It was not very intelligent." Reagan defended himself by saying:
These [SS troops] were the villains, as we know, that conducted the persecutions and all. But there are 2,000 graves there, and most of those, the average age is about 18. I think that there's nothing wrong with visiting that cemetery where those young men are victims of Nazism also, even though they were fighting in the German uniform, drafted into service to carry out the hateful wishes of the Nazis. They were victims, just as surely as the victims in the concentration camps.
(Reaction to Reagan's visit in West Germany)
Reagan was criticised for this statement by opponents of the visit. Equating Nazi soldiers with Holocaust victims, responded Rabbi Alexander M. Schindler, president of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, was "a callous offence for the Jewish people". Some believed Communications Director Pat Buchanan had written the statement, which he denied in 1999. Kohl confirmed an earlier press comment that in the last days of the war he was able to avoid service in the SS because he was only 15, "but they hanged a boy from a tree who was perhaps only two years older with a sign saying 'traitor' because he had tried to run away rather than serve." Kohl made a call to the White House days before Reagan's visit to make sure the President was not wavering in the face of criticism, not to mention pressure from Reagan's wife, Nancy. The Chancellor's aide, Horst Teltschik, later said: "Once we knew about the SS dead at Bitburg – knowing that these SS people were seventeen to eighteen years of age, and knowing that some Germans were forced to become members of the SS, having no alternative – the question was, Should this be a reason to cancel?" Reagan aide Robert McFarlane later said: "Once Reagan learned that Kohl would really be badly damaged by a withdrawal, he said 'We can't do that; I owe him.'" Prior to sending Deaver back to West Germany for the third time, just two days before the scheduled visit, Reagan told his deputy chief of staff: "I know you and Nancy don't want me to go through with this, but I don't want you to change anything when you get over there, because history will prove I'm right. If we can't reconcile after forty years, we are never going to be able to do it".
On Sunday 5 May, Reagan and Kohl appeared at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. The U.S. President's speech there, according to Time, was a "skilful exercise in both the art of eulogy and political damage control". Reagan said:
All these children of God, under bleak and lifeless mounds, the plainness of which does not even hint at the unspeakable acts that created them. Here they lie, never to hope, never to pray, never to live, never to heal, never to laugh, never to cry... And then, rising above all this cruelty, out of this tragic and nightmarish time, beyond the anguish, the pain and suffering, and for all time, we can and must pledge: never again.
Reagan spent only eight minutes at the Kolmeshöhe Cemetery along with Kohl, 90-year-old General Matthew Ridgway, who had commanded the 82nd Airborne in World War II and Luftwaffe ace and former head of NATO, General Johannes Steinhoff. After Reagan placed a wreath at the cemetery memorial, they all stood to attention while a short trumpet salute was played. At the end, Steinhoff turned and, in an unscripted act, shook hands with Ridgway. A surprised Kohl later thanked Steinhoff, who said that it seemed to be the right thing to do. Security was heavy for the three-mile route from the NATO airbase at Kolmeshöhe, lined with 2,000 policemen – one posted every twelve feet: few protesters showed up. When Reagan arrived at the cemetery, Michael Moore and a Jewish friend of his whose parents were at Auschwitz were there with a banner that read "We came from Michigan, USA to remind you: They killed my family". They were shown live on TV networks across the country. Reagan made one last appearance with Kohl at the airbase, before 7,500 spectators waving American and West German flags. Kohl thanked the President for staying the course: "This walk... over the graves of soldiers was not an easy walk. I thank you personally as a friend that you undertook this walk with me". Reagan responded: "This visit has stirred many emotions in the American and German people too. Some old wounds have been reopened, and this I regret very much, because this should be a time of healing".
John Anthony Walker Jr. was a United States Navy chief warrant officer and communications specialist convicted of spying for the Soviet Union from 1967 to 1985 and sentenced to life in prison. In late 1985, Walker made a plea bargain with federal prosecutors, which required him to provide full details of his espionage activities and testify against his co-conspirator, former senior chief petty officer Jerry Whitworth. In exchange, prosecutors agreed to a lesser sentence for Walker's son, former Seaman Michael Walker, who was also involved in the spy ring. During his time as a Soviet spy, Walker helped the Soviets decipher more than one million encrypted naval messages, organizing a spy operation that The New York Times reported in 1987 "is sometimes described as the most damaging Soviet spy ring in history." After Walker's arrest, Caspar Weinberger, President Ronald Reagan's Secretary of Defense, concluded that the Soviet Union made significant gains in naval warfare attributable to Walker's spying. Weinberger stated that the information Walker gave Moscow allowed the Soviets "access to weapons and sensor data and naval tactics, terrorist threats, and surface, submarine, and airborne training, readiness and tactics."
John Walker was promoted to warrant officer in March 1967 and in April was assigned as a communications watch officer at the headquarters of COMSUBLANT in Norfolk, Virginia, where his responsibilities included "running the entire communications center for the submarine force...."Walker began spying for the Soviets in late 1967, when, distraught over his financial difficulties, he walked into the old Soviet embassy in Washington, D.C., sold a top-secret document (a radio cipher card) for several thousand dollars, and negotiated an ongoing salary of US$500 (equivalent to $4,388 in 2022) to US$1,000 (equivalent to $8,776 in 2022) a week. Soviet KGB general Boris Aleksandrovich Solomatin "played a key role in the handling of John Walker". Walker justified his treachery by claiming that the first classified Navy communications data he sold to the Soviets had already been completely compromised when the North Koreans had captured the U.S. Navy communications surveillance ship, USS Pueblo. Yet the Koreans captured Pueblo in late January 1968 – many weeks after Walker had betrayed the information. Furthermore, a 2001 thesis presented at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College using information obtained from Soviet archives and from Oleg Kalugin, indicated that the Pueblo incident may have taken place because the Soviets wanted to study equipment described in documents supplied to them by Walker. It has emerged in recent years that North Korea acted alone and the incident actually harmed North Korea's relations with most of the Eastern Bloc.
In the spring of 1968 John Walker's wife discovered items in his desk at home causing her to suspect he was acting as a spy. Walker continued spying, receiving an income of several thousand dollars per month for supplying classified information. Walker used most of the money to pay off his delinquent debts and to move his family into better neighborhoods, but he also set aside some for future investment, such as turning around the fortunes of his money-losing bar by hiring a skilled bartender. While Walker occasionally used the services of his wife, Barbara Walker, he anticipated the possibility of losing access due to reassignment. Walker's chance to seek further assistance came in September 1969 when he became the deputy director of the radioman A and B schools at the Naval Training Center San Diego. There, Walker befriended student Jerry Whitworth. Walker was transferred from San Diego in December 1971 to become the communications officer aboard the supply ship USS Niagara Falls. Whitworth, who would become a Navy senior chief petty officer/senior chief radioman, agreed to help Walker gain access to highly classified communications data in 1973; and served aboard Niagara Falls after Walker retired from the Navy. Transfer to the staff of commander of the Amphibious Force, Atlantic Fleet had stopped Walker's access to the data the Soviets wanted; but he recruited Whitworth to keep the data flowing – softening the idea of espionage by telling him the data would go to Israel, an ally of the United States. Later, when Whitworth realized the data was going to the Soviets instead of Israel, he nonetheless continued supplying Walker with information, until Whitworth's retirement from the Navy in 1983.
In 1976, Walker retired from the Navy in order to give up his security clearance, as he believed certain superior officers of his were too keen on investigating lapses in his records. Walker and Barbara had also divorced. However, Walker did not end his espionage, and began looking more aggressively among his children and family members for assistance (Walker was a private investigator during this time). By 1984, he had recruited his older brother Arthur James Walker, a retired lieutenant commander who served from 1953 until 1973 and then went to work at a military contractor, and his son Michael Lance Walker (born November 2, 1962), an active duty seaman since 1982. Walker had also attempted to recruit his youngest daughter, who had enlisted in the United States Army, but she cut her military career short when she became pregnant and refused her father's offer to pay for an abortion, instead deciding to devote herself to full-time motherhood. Walker then turned his attention to his son, who had drifted during much of his teenage years and dropped out of high school. Walker gained custody of his son, put him to work as an apprentice at his detective agency in order to prepare him for espionage and encouraged him to re-enroll in high school to earn a diploma, then to enlist in the Navy. When Walker began spying, he worked as a key supervisor in the communications center for the U.S. Atlantic Fleet's submarine force, and he would have had knowledge of top-secret technologies, such as the SOSUS underwater surveillance system, which tracks underwater acoustics via a network of submerged hydrophones. It was through Walker that the Soviets became aware that the U.S. Navy was able to track the location of Soviet submarines by the cavitation produced by their propellers. After this, the propellers on the Soviet submarines were improved to reduce cavitation. The Toshiba-Kongsberg scandal was disclosed in this activity in 1987. It is also alleged that Walker's actions precipitated the seizure of USS Pueblo. CIA historian H. Keith Melton states on the show Top Secrets of the CIA, which aired on the Military Channel, among other occasions, at 0400CST, February 5, 2013:
[The Soviets] had intercepted our coded messages, but they had never been able to read them. And with Walker providing the code cards, this was one-half of what they needed to read the messages. The other half they needed were the machines themselves. Though Walker could give them repair manuals, he couldn't give them machines. So, within a month of John Walker volunteering his services, the Soviets arranged, through the North Koreans, to hijack a United States Navy ship with its cipher machines, and that was the USS Pueblo. And in early 1968 they captured the Pueblo, they took it into Wonsan Harbor, they quickly took the machines off ... flew 'em to Moscow. Now Moscow had both parts of the puzzle. They had the machine and they had an American spy, in place, in Norfolk, with the code cards and with access to them.
In 1990, The New York Times journalist John J. O'Connor reported, "It's been estimated by some intelligence experts that Mr. Walker provided enough code-data information to alter significantly the balance of power between Russia and the United States". Asked later how he had managed to access so much classified information, Walker said, "KMart has better security than the Navy". According to a report presented to the Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive in 2002, Walker is one of a handful of spies believed to have earned more than a million dollars in espionage compensation, although The New York Times estimated his income at only $350,000. Theodore Shackley, the CIA station chief in Saigon, asserted that Walker's espionage may have contributed to diminished B-52 bombing strikes, that the forewarning gleaned from Walker's espionage directly affected the United States' effectiveness in Vietnam. Independent analysis of Walker's methods by an American Naval officer in Cold War London, Lieutenant Commander David Winters, led to operational introduction of technologies – such as over-the-air rekeying – that finally closed security gaps previously exploited by the Walker spy ring.
(Signatories of the Plaza Accord)
The Plaza Accord was a joint–agreement signed on September 22, 1985, at the Plaza Hotel in New York City, between France, West Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States, to depreciate the U.S. dollar in relation to the French franc, the German Deutsche Mark, the Japanese yen and the British pound sterling by intervening in currency markets. The U.S. dollar depreciated significantly from the time of the agreement until it was replaced by the Louvre Accord in 1987. Some commentators believe the Plaza Accord contributed to the Japanese asset price bubble of the late 1980s. From 1980 to 1985, the dollar had appreciated by about 50% against the Japanese yen, Deutsche Mark, French franc, and British pound, the currencies of the next four biggest economies at the time. In March 1985, just before the G7, the dollar reached its highest valuation ever against the British pound, a valuation which would remain untopped for over 30 years. This caused considerable difficulties for American industry but at first their lobbying was largely ignored by the government. The financial sector was able to profit from the rising dollar, and a depreciation would have run counter to the Reagan administration's plans for bringing down inflation. A broad alliance of manufacturers, service providers, and farmers responded by running an increasingly high-profile campaign asking for protection against foreign competition. Major players included grain exporters, the U.S. automotive industry, heavy American manufacturers like Caterpillar Inc., as well as high-tech companies including IBM and Motorola. By 1985, their campaign had acquired sufficient traction for Congress to begin considering passing protectionist laws. The negative prospect of trade restrictions spurred the White House to begin the negotiations that led to the Plaza Accord.
The devaluation was justified to reduce the U.S. current account deficit, which had reached 3.5% of the GDP, and to help the U.S. economy to emerge from a serious recession that began in the early 1980s. The U.S. Federal Reserve System under Paul Volcker had halted the stagflation crisis of the 1970s by raising interest rates. The increased interest rate sufficiently controlled domestic monetary policy and staved off inflation. By the mid-1970s, Nixon successfully convinced several OPEC countries to trade oil only in USD, and the US would in return, give them regional military support. This sudden infusion of international demand for dollars gave the USD the infusion it needed in the 1970s. However, a strong dollar is a double edged sword, inducing the Triffin dilemma, which on the one hand, gave more spending power to domestic consumers, companies, and to the US government, and on the other hand, hampered US exports until the value of the dollar re-equilibrated. The U.S. automobile industry was unable to recover. While for the first two years the US deficit only worsened, it then began to turn around as the elasticities had risen enough that the quantity effects began to outweigh the valuation effect. The devaluation made U.S. exports cheaper to purchase for its trading partners, which in turn allegedly meant that other countries would buy more American-made goods and services. The Plaza Accord failed to help reduce the U.S.–Japan trade deficit, but it did reduce the U.S. deficit with other countries by making U.S. exports more competitive. And thus, the US Congress refrained from enacting protectionist trade barriers.
Joseph E. Gagnon describes the Plaza's result being more due to the message that was sent to the financial markets about policy intentions and the implied threat of further dollar sales than actual policies. Intervention was far more pronounced in the opposite direction following the 1987 Louvre Accord when the dollar's depreciation was decided to be halted. The Plaza Accord was successful in reducing the U.S. trade deficit with Western European nations, but largely failed to fulfill its primary objective of alleviating the trade deficit with Japan. This deficit was due to structural conditions that were insensitive to monetary policy, specifically trade conditions. The manufactured goods of the United States became more competitive in the exports market, though were still largely unable to succeed in the Japanese domestic market due to Japan's structural restrictions on imports. The Louvre Accord was signed in 1987 to halt the continuing decline of the U.S. dollar.
Following the subsequent 1987 Louvre Accord, there were few other interventions in the dollar's exchange rate such as by the first Clinton Administration in 1992-95. However, since then currency interventions have been few among the G7. The European Central Bank supported in 2000 then over-depreciated euro. The Bank of Japan intervened for the last time in 2011, with the cooperation of the US and others to dampen strong appreciation of the yen after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. In 2013 the G7 members agreed to refrain from foreign exchange intervention. Since then the US administration has demanded stronger international policies against currency manipulation (to be differentiated from monetary stimulus). The signing of the Plaza Accord was significant in that it reflected Japan's emergence as a real player in managing the international monetary system. However, the rising yen may also have contributed to recessionary pressures for Japan's economy, to which the Japanese government reacted with massive expansionary monetary and fiscal policies. That stimulus in combination with other policies led to the Japanese asset price bubble of the late 1980s. Because of this some commentators blame the Plaza Accord for the bubble, which when burst led into a protracted period of deflation and low growth in Japan known as the Lost Decade, which has effects still heavily felt in modern Japan. Jeffrey Frankel disagrees on the timing, pointing out that between the 1985-86 years of appreciation of the yen and the 1990s recession, came the bubble years of 1987-89 when the exchange rate no longer pushed the yen up. The rising Deutsche Mark also didn't lead to an economic bubble or a recession in Germany. Economist Richard Werner says that external pressures such as the accord and the policy of Ministry of Finance to reduce the official discount rate are insufficient in explaining the actions taken by the Bank of Japan that led to the bubble.
(Israeli attact on PLO headquarters in Tunisia)
Operation "Wooden Leg" was an attack by Israel on the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) headquarters in Hammam Chott, near Tunis, Tunisia, on October 1, 1985. With a target 1,280 miles (2,060 km) from the operation's starting point, this was the most distant publicly known action undertaken by the Israel Defense Forces since Operation Entebbe in 1976. It has been condemned by the United Nations Security Council. The strike was carried out by ten F-15 Eagles, six from 106 "Edge of Spear" Squadron and four from 133 "Knights of the Twin Tail" Squadron. Eight of the jets would attack the target with two remaining as backup. The attack was led by Lieutenant Colonel Avner Naveh. At 07:00 on October 1, the aircraft took off from Tel Nof Airbase. Two Boeing 707 tankers accompanied the fighters to refuel them mid-flight over the Mediterranean Sea en route to the target and again while returning from the mission while another Boeing served as an airborne command, control, and communications center. Two E-2 Hawkeye spy planes were deployed to jam Tunisian, Libyan, and Algerian radars. The Israeli Navy stationed a helicopter-carrying vessel near Malta to recover downed pilots, but this was never needed. The route was designed to avoid detection by Egyptian and Libyan radars and United States Navy vessels patrolling the Mediterranean. Israeli Air Force commander Amos Lapidot saw little chance of resistance from the Tunisian Air Force or Tunisian air defenses, but believed that on such a long flight, technical problems could arise.
The F-15s flew low over the shore, and fired GBU-15 precision-guided munitions on the PLO headquarters, a cluster of sand-colored buildings along the seaside. The planes attacked the southern location first, so that the northern wind would not pull smoke over the northern targets. The attack lasted for six minutes, after which the strike force returned to Israel. The PLO headquarters were completely destroyed, although Yasser Arafat, the head of the organization, was not there at the time and escaped unharmed. Israel claimed that some 60 PLO members were killed, including several leaders of Force 17, and several of Arafat's bodyguards. In addition, the operation resulted in casualties among civilian bystanders. According to other sources, 56 Palestinians and 15 Tunisians were killed and about 100 wounded. Hospital sources put the final count at 47 dead and 65 wounded. Amnon Kapeliouk, who was a close friend of Yasser Arafat and a founder of the Israeli advocacy group B’tselem, was the only Israeli reporter allowed to report from the scene. Because the attack was conducted so far from Israel, Tunisian President Habib Bourguiba said in a 1990 article that he believed that attack plan must have been known of by the United States, if not actually involving American collaboration.
The attack provoked a strong outcry, even in the United States, Israel's strongest ally. Though initially labeling the strike a "legitimate response to terror", the Reagan administration later said the attack "cannot be condoned". The attack also harmed relations between the US administration and the Tunisian president, Habib Bourguiba. Believing the US knew about the attack, and was possibly involved, Tunisia considered breaking diplomatic ties with the US. Egypt suspended negotiations with Israel over the disputed border town of Taba. Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres was quoted as saying "It was an act of self-defense. Period." In the United Nations Security Council Resolution 573 (1985), the Security Council voted (with the United States abstaining) to condemn the attack on Tunisian territory as a flagrant violation of the United Nations Charter and considered that Tunisia had the right to appropriate reparations. Following the arrest of Jonathan Pollard in November 1985, it was reported that Israeli reprisal was assisted thanks to satellite images that Pollard transmitted to Israel.
In Pollard's court defense memorandum he stated that his Israeli handlers "stressed the fact that the mission could not have been undertaken without the information I made available." Within Tunisia, there was public outrage. For a week after the attack, the country's small Jewish community found itself the target of individual acts of antisemitism, such as insults and stone-throwing against Jewish shops. On October 8, 1985, on the island of Djerba, a Tunisian police officer whose brother had been killed at the PLO headquarters fired into the El Ghriba synagogue during Simchat Torah services, killing 5-year-old Yoav Hadad, 14-year-old Yehudit Bucharis and 56-year-old Haim Cohen. It is possible that Israel attempted a similar attack in Algeria in 1988. Following Operation Wooden Leg, the PLO searched for an alternative location to hold its next congress, as it was assumed that Israel would launch a similar attack against it. The PLO's congress was ultimately held at the Club des Pins Hotel near Algiers. As it was assumed that Israel would launch a similar raid, the Algerian military established a twenty-kilometer no-fly zone around the Club Des Pins, stationed an anti-aircraft missile battery nearby, and kept four fighter jets flying a combat air patrol over the area and additional fighter jets on standing alert at their bases every time PLO representatives were meeting. On 10 November 1988, Algerian early warning radars detected a formation of suspicious radar contacts approaching from the east at a medium level. Two more fighter jets were scrambled to reinforce the combat air patrol over the Club des Pins, which was ordered to turn and take a position in front of the incoming aircraft. Additional Algerian radars began tracking the incoming aircraft, as did Tunisian radars. The contacts were identified as two formations of aircraft coming in at high speed. The incoming aircraft eventually turned back. While the two incoming formations were never spotted or identified by other means, it was presumed that they were Israeli aircraft en route to bomb the Club des Pins. According to a Tunisian Air Force officer who had been serving at the time, the Israelis likely turned back because they detected the electromagnetic activity of the Algerian and Tunisian radars and wanted to complete the mission without suffering any losses.
1. General Secretary Romanov intends to restore the perception of Joseph Stalin as a great Soviet leader and statesman and to reverse the process of de-Stalinization established by Nikita Khrushchev. Please write down how this topic should be approached by the Soviet leadership.
(Basically, please write down what you think about restoring the cult of Stalin - should it be fully or only partially restored, or should the USSR follow the Chinese approach as they did with Mao Zedong? Maybe creating modern Neo-Stalinist movement could be done instead?)
2. Should Lazar Kaganovich and Vyacheslav Molotov be restored as full members of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union?
A) Yes
B) No
(Basically, please write down what you think about restoring the cult of Stalin - should it be fully or only partially restored, or should the USSR follow the Chinese approach as they did with Mao Zedong? Maybe creating modern Neo-Stalinist movement could be done instead?)
2. Should Lazar Kaganovich and Vyacheslav Molotov be restored as full members of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union?
A) Yes
B) No
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1.
We can praise Stalin as the great Soviet leader during the Great Patriotic War, but we should make him more a personification of the unbroken will of the Soviet people than an unparallelled genius and almost half-god. Bringing back his cult is too dangerous, it can cause future leaders to try something similar and nobody wants the return of the rule of a single person, terror and paranoia; right, comrade Romanov?
Besides, many Soviet ethnic minorities are still bitter about him and he is not exactly popular abroad, even (or especially) in WP countries. Why disturb them even more? Why borrow trouble? Our citizens and socialist brothers should boldly look into the future, not reminiscence the past.
And if we need a hero as an example for us all, we have the founder of our beloved Union, Vladimir Lenin himself.
2.
B) No. There is no need. Few people remember them today and let it stay that way. We may discreetly reinstate Kaganovich as the party member, but the Central Comitee? No.
We can praise Stalin as the great Soviet leader during the Great Patriotic War, but we should make him more a personification of the unbroken will of the Soviet people than an unparallelled genius and almost half-god. Bringing back his cult is too dangerous, it can cause future leaders to try something similar and nobody wants the return of the rule of a single person, terror and paranoia; right, comrade Romanov?
Besides, many Soviet ethnic minorities are still bitter about him and he is not exactly popular abroad, even (or especially) in WP countries. Why disturb them even more? Why borrow trouble? Our citizens and socialist brothers should boldly look into the future, not reminiscence the past.
And if we need a hero as an example for us all, we have the founder of our beloved Union, Vladimir Lenin himself.
2.
B) No. There is no need. Few people remember them today and let it stay that way. We may discreetly reinstate Kaganovich as the party member, but the Central Comitee? No.
1. General Secretary Romanov intends to restore the perception of Joseph Stalin as a great Soviet leader and statesman and to reverse the process of de-Stalinization established by Nikita Khrushchev. Please write down how this topic should be approached by the Soviet leadership.
Undoubtably Comrade Stalin had raised this union into an industrial superpower strong enough to kill the fascist menance, but we must also realize that Stalin was not without fault. Fully restoring the cult would only invite criticism and controversy and harm our international efforts. I agree with @seraphim74's recommendation to frame Stalin as a symbol of the workers' will and not as some deified figure.
2. Should Lazar Kaganovich and Vyacheslav Molotov be restored as full members of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union?
B) No - One of the figures of the Great Terror and the deiplomat who signed the damned Pact with Hitler? No, we will not have them in our party.
Undoubtably Comrade Stalin had raised this union into an industrial superpower strong enough to kill the fascist menance, but we must also realize that Stalin was not without fault. Fully restoring the cult would only invite criticism and controversy and harm our international efforts. I agree with @seraphim74's recommendation to frame Stalin as a symbol of the workers' will and not as some deified figure.
2. Should Lazar Kaganovich and Vyacheslav Molotov be restored as full members of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union?
B) No - One of the figures of the Great Terror and the deiplomat who signed the damned Pact with Hitler? No, we will not have them in our party.
1.
We can praise Stalin as the great Soviet leader during the Great Patriotic War, but we should make him more a personification of the unbroken will of the Soviet people than an unparallelled genius and almost half-god. Bringing back his cult is too dangerous, it can cause future leaders to try something similar and nobody wants the return of the rule of a single person, terror and paranoia; right, comrade Romanov?
Besides, many Soviet ethnic minorities are still bitter about him and he is not exactly popular abroad, even (or especially) in WP countries. Why disturb them even more? Why borrow trouble? Our citizens and socialist brothers should boldly look into the future, not reminiscence the past.
And if we need a hero as an example for us all, we have the founder of our beloved Union, Vladimir Lenin himself.
2.
B) No. There is no need. Few people remember them today and let it stay that way. We may discreetly reinstate Kaganovich as the party member, but the Central Comitee? No.
We can praise Stalin as the great Soviet leader during the Great Patriotic War, but we should make him more a personification of the unbroken will of the Soviet people than an unparallelled genius and almost half-god. Bringing back his cult is too dangerous, it can cause future leaders to try something similar and nobody wants the return of the rule of a single person, terror and paranoia; right, comrade Romanov?
Besides, many Soviet ethnic minorities are still bitter about him and he is not exactly popular abroad, even (or especially) in WP countries. Why disturb them even more? Why borrow trouble? Our citizens and socialist brothers should boldly look into the future, not reminiscence the past.
And if we need a hero as an example for us all, we have the founder of our beloved Union, Vladimir Lenin himself.
2.
B) No. There is no need. Few people remember them today and let it stay that way. We may discreetly reinstate Kaganovich as the party member, but the Central Comitee? No.
I believe we will need to address birth rates as well, better to do it now than later.
For the current vote I'll go with
1.
We can praise Stalin as the great Soviet leader during the Great Patriotic War, but we should make him more a personification of the unbroken will of the Soviet people than an unparallelled genius and almost half-god. Bringing back his cult is too dangerous, it can cause future leaders to try something similar and nobody wants the return of the rule of a single person, terror and paranoia; right, comrade Romanov?
Besides, many Soviet ethnic minorities are still bitter about him and he is not exactly popular abroad, even (or especially) in WP countries. Why disturb them even more? Why borrow trouble? Our citizens and socialist brothers should boldly look into the future, not reminiscence the past.
And if we need a hero as an example for us all, we have the founder of our beloved Union, Vladimir Lenin himself.
So yea Stalin should be partially rehabilitated for his role in industrialization of the country and WW2, but his flaws shouldn't be excused as unrestricted military purges didn't help. Not to mention industrialization wasn't without its flaws and had come at great costs.
But yea just like Mao that founded China Lenin, our beloved founder should be our true hero. Stalin can be Lincon to Lenins Washington.
Regarding Molotov and Kaganovich, honestly at this point i don't think there's a place for them, maybe rehabilitate them and give them acknowledgement for good work, not to mention their role in Russian revolution, but honestly i don't think that we particularly need them given the direction we are going to. Union needs young people with vision and belief in communism, there's no place for old guard anymore besides ceremonial roles.
For the current vote I'll go with
1.
We can praise Stalin as the great Soviet leader during the Great Patriotic War, but we should make him more a personification of the unbroken will of the Soviet people than an unparallelled genius and almost half-god. Bringing back his cult is too dangerous, it can cause future leaders to try something similar and nobody wants the return of the rule of a single person, terror and paranoia; right, comrade Romanov?
Besides, many Soviet ethnic minorities are still bitter about him and he is not exactly popular abroad, even (or especially) in WP countries. Why disturb them even more? Why borrow trouble? Our citizens and socialist brothers should boldly look into the future, not reminiscence the past.
And if we need a hero as an example for us all, we have the founder of our beloved Union, Vladimir Lenin himself.
So yea Stalin should be partially rehabilitated for his role in industrialization of the country and WW2, but his flaws shouldn't be excused as unrestricted military purges didn't help. Not to mention industrialization wasn't without its flaws and had come at great costs.
But yea just like Mao that founded China Lenin, our beloved founder should be our true hero. Stalin can be Lincon to Lenins Washington.
Regarding Molotov and Kaganovich, honestly at this point i don't think there's a place for them, maybe rehabilitate them and give them acknowledgement for good work, not to mention their role in Russian revolution, but honestly i don't think that we particularly need them given the direction we are going to. Union needs young people with vision and belief in communism, there's no place for old guard anymore besides ceremonial roles.
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