Eminentoes / The K.G.B. Hetman

...He has written on Soviet and East European topics for the New Republic, National Review, Inquiry, the New Leader, and The American Spectator...

...Aside from Victorian .cheesecake and weeping knights, one can revel in the elaborately carved woodwork behind the bar, an ink portrait of Lin.coin, the original ceiling fans, the Tiffany vases that light the upper back bar, and, most stunning of all, the century-old, 40-foot bar...

...The number of KGB men and undercover agents increased sharply...

...It is a grim tribute to Fedorchuk's thoroughness that today Ukrainian political prisoners account for over 40 percent of the Soviet Union's known political prisoners...

...nearly two-and-a-half times the proportion of Ukrainians in the Soviet population...

...Fedorchuk, 63, is a man untainted by such embellishments...

...Strongjawed and fair-haired, Betz is a Teutonic figure possessing a thick German accent, chartreuse eyes, and the posture of a California redwood...

...Escaping this miasma of desultory humanity and entering into Hoffman's is akin to departing from a dark and fetid tunnel into daylight with a rainbowed heaven above...

...Meanwhile, Fedorchuk's p r e d e c e s s o r as Ukrainian KGB chief had been known on occasion to invite leading Ukrainian dissidents for what the Kremlin feared were amicable chats...

...He did so with particular flourish in 1972 and 1977 when mass arrests were linked to cases involving young Belgian and British tourists of Ukrainian extraction...

...The latter enables male and female patrons to view one another without appearing to do so...

...In particular, he has recently exhibited a penchant for discrediting political dissenters by framing them on charges of sexual deviation...

...Fedorchuk's machinations eventually bore fruit...

...I wish to read, to think, to write--to re-create m y s e l f . . . " The speaker is a handsome, youthful SPD diplomat, brought to our final gathering by one of our traveling feminists who for all her credentials sits at his side clearly enchanted by the soothing music of his continental English...

...And many do, for few good taverns in the Bay Area can hold a Jack Daniels to Hoffman's when it comes to ease of drinking, A sense of camaraderie prevails...

...He demonstrated this not long ago by refusing to let his dreams be felled by the everencroaching chainsaw of progress...

...26 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR AUGUST 1982 Without question from the point of view of the Kremlin leadership, Fedorchuk has the makings of an ideal KGB chief...

...lilt am fi)r changement only in the long run...

...According to a 1974 issue of the clandestine dissident journal the Ukrainian Herald: "The KGB comp l e t e l y slipped out from under the control of the Ukrainian Party leadership...

...HETMAN While Leonid Brezhnev's monthlong disappearing act has again fueled speculation about his eventual successor, one succession of no small importance to Soviet citizens has already occurred within the hierarchy of the t o t a l i t a r i a n state...

...The effect is, guaranteed to fix the male drinker's headlights at a constant 45 degrees...

...I t is difficult to predict what a Fedorchuk-led KGB will be like...

...He is sufficiently far-removed from the departing KGB chief's inner circle to deny Andropov any head start in the geriatric marathon that will determine Brezhney's successor...

...The effect is alluring...

...It serves cosmetically to emphasize that Ukrainians are full partners of the Russian ruling elite...

...is openly proud of the humanitarian aid his country is providing...

...Apparently Fedorchuk's competent handling of the post resuited in a promotion to head the KGB's Third Directorate, whose function is to ensure the subservience of the military to the Party leadership...

...But most important is Fedorchuk's proven competence in handling what promise to be the two most significant sources of opposition in the Soviet Union of the 1980s: national dissent and workers' opposition...

...When Poland experienced its l 7-month-long period of ferment, Fedorchuk passed his sternest test by effectively sanitizing the Ukraine, which borders on Poland, from the harmful effects of the Polish disease...

...And physician Mykola Plakhotniuk, who spent nearly a decade in a psychiatric prison, recently was rearrested on a charge of homosexuality--a crime under the Soviet criminal code...

...As the Herald unequivocally put it: "Fedorchuk fired off reports to Moscow charging that the leadership of the Ukrainian Party was not helping the KGB in carrying out its work effectively...

...According to one study cited to us, West Germany is responsible for 30 percent of the food Poles are eating...

...Moreover, the fact that someone of Ukrainian extraction is implementing repressions may evoke hostility against Ukrainians on the part of both Russians and non-Russians, and thus drive a wedge into the unity necessary for any democratic movement to succeed...

...THE K.G.B...

...The designation of the Ukrainian Fedorchuk to the post of KGB chief is likewise a political masterstroke...

...The mirror, in fact, tends to tell all, from the facial expressions of the buxom blonde at the far end to the petulant countenance of the solitary brunette two seats to my left (is the redhead looking...

...At that time the Party First Secretary in the Ukraine was one Petro Shelest, whom Adrian Karatnycky is Research Director of the A. Philip Randolph Institute and an editor o f Workers Under Communism, a new quarterly journal...

...Shelest was purged and with him thousands of party cadre deemed to be unreliable on the basis of " n a t i o n a l i s t d e v i a t i o n . " With Fedorchuk's crony and Shelest's replacement Volodymyr Shcherbitsky firmly entrenched as Ukrainian Party First Secretary, Fedorchuk had an even f r e e r hand in eliminating pockets of dissent both within the Ukrainian political establishment and outside...

...First and foremost is a Victorian oil high above the back bar...

...In Bonn someone had said, "The Germans are a Romantic people, they need something to cry a b o u t . " Thinking back on our five hours in a somber and empty East Berlin earlier in the day, I can only guess what they wouldn't all give to be sitting next to me...

...By all indications, however, Fedorchuk will pursue an even harder line than Andropov and so continue to prove that Brezhnev's isn't the only weak constitution in the USSR...

...During Fedorchuk's tenure, the breath was knocked out of both these national movements and their demonstrated potential for commanding mass support...

...Moreover, he moved decisively to undermine the authority of Ukrainian Party chief Shelest...

...Upon assuming the mantle of top Ukrainian Chekist, Fedorchuk moved with swiftness and brutality...

...Fedorchuk has displayed consummate skill in defusing this explosive source of discontent, and leading independent trade unionists now languish in the notorious "Special Psychiatric Hospital" in Dnepropetrovsk, victims of "paranoid schizophrenia" and "reformist delusions...

...The new hangman is now in a position to make his unique contribution to the Soviet variant of the "end of ideology' '--by imprisoning anyone who openly opposes the Party line...

...But Fedorchuk is not content to blame only Western subversion for the internal difficulties the USSR faces: He prefers to implicate political dissidents in non-political crimes...

...At half the saloons in San Francisco, this message could well be taken as a sign of something deeper, a sexual palimpsest, perhaps...

...The Special Departments are responsible for peacetime kidnappings, killings, and sabotage...

...He is known as well to have a predilection for falsely linking internal opponents to ~migrd cabals and Western inteUigence services...

...The SPD leaders speak of American aid to West Germany after World War II and how one good turn deserves another...

...Outside its swinging doors lurk all manner of street hawkers, flower vendors, occasional tourists, hookers seeking occasional tourists, sidewalk musicians, bums, assorted crazed souls, and lesser derelicts (the latest in West Coast bumology, I have learned firsthand, a distinction separating the professional bum from the mere derelict, is the line, "Got any Federal Reserve notes...

...They're sitting on tons of arms which they'll exploit externally . . . . Americans must see the interests of partner too . . . . I'm not sure of my plans...

...Thus, Ukrainian journalist and prison camp veteran Vyacheslav Chornovil was arrested on trumped-up charges of attempted rape...

...Of the more than two Douglas Bartholomew is The American Spectator's Chief Saloon Corre spondent...

...The Ukraine has long been a focal point of patriotic and separatist sentiments...

...Every mirror, painting, ceiling fan, waiter, bar28 THE AMERtCAN SPECTATOR AUGUST 1982...

...Significantly, he has had experience in monitoring the loyalty of the armed forces to the Party...

...Hoffman's is owned and operated by a man named Joe Betz...

...And in an article which appeared in October 1981 in the Ukrainian-language journal Under the Banner of Leninism, Fedorchuk expressed what even by Soviet standards is extreme hostility toward the West: "The forces of international reaction," he argued, "are actively exploiting their ideology of inculcating their citizens in a spirit of militarism, anti-Communism, and anti-Sovietism in order to create an atmosphere of mass psychosis, in this way destroying any possibility for domestic social protest...

...In the immediate postwar period, Fedorchuk is said to have served as head of the KGB's Directorate of Special Departments in East Germany...

...Hoffman's makes itself all the more comforting by its intricate blue-and-white Italian ceramic-tiled floor and its lavish mirroring over the back bar...

...Rather, he has made a reputation for himself as a tough and reliable hangman in his 43 years as a security apparatchik...

...The Ukraine, particularly the industrial and coalmining Donbas region, has also been the sire of frequent industrial unrest...

...About Solidarity: When there is no food, the government can only react Stalinistically...

...In 1972 he orchestrated the most severe wave of political arrests and repressions to have occurred anywhere in the USSR in the post-Stalin era...

...In the wake of the Army's eclipse of the Party in martial law Poland, such experience is a highly regarded commodity in the eyes of Kremlin leaders concerned about politically ambitious generals...

...Viewing developments in Poland as " a tragedy of Greek dimensions," Schmidt insisted that "a rebellion would serve nobody's interest...

...The pub is a hideout, a refuge, a place where, midst the pandering and the sleaze and the meat markets (in a city where an uncontrollable urge for Twinkles is said to have murdered the Mayor, once a Hoffman's regular), a man can retreat for an hour or two of relative solace, sensible conversation, and good drink...

...Hoffman's, no doubt, ranks as an oddity in this pulchritudinous, slitskirted city by the bay...

...Located at Montgomery and Market Streets, the busiest intersection in San Francisco, Hoffman's is both oasis and retreat...

...But not at the Hoffman Grill...

...dozen paintings hung about the walls here, most date from the last century, and two are from the 1500s...

...The scale of repression will, of course, depend as much on the extent of opposition as on the inclinations of the new KGB chief...

...The second attractive piece of canvas, adorning the opposite wall (Hoffman's ceilings are high enough to punt a football), is Domenic Tojetti's "Lily Maid of Astrolat," a reclining maiden on a floating bier, poled before a turreted castle as knights weep along the shore...

...With its substantial Jewish population, moreover, the Ukraine has been a center of the movement for free emigration...

...Hoffman's sports numerous testimonials to its longevity as Baghdadby-the-Bay's oldest continuously operating saloon...

...We are at an outdoor r e s t a u r a n t , high above West Berlin's Havel lake, dining on venison and watching the sun disappear into the mist and trees far away...

...Nearly large as life, a full-breasted beauty reclines languorously amidst an aquamarine setting...

...Also present is that most elusive of all good drinking characteristics, a sense of genuine place...

...In this regard he is a wild card in the post-Brezhnev, high-stakes struggle for succession...

...It seems a developer who sought to replace the bar with a high-rise-"skyrise," Betz calls it--office tower had to agree to rebuild the bar in all its post-earthquake glory within the modern office building The deal, per Joe's meticulous requirements, has been set...

...Then--in direct contradiction of a statement issued jointly with President Reagan last January--Schmidt volunteered: "Jaruzelski is not acting on orders from Moscow, he believes to be acting in the i n t e r e s t s of the P o l i s h nation...

...His publicistic efforts have been part of a general propaganda campaign by the KGB to improve its image and to persuade Soviet citizens THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR AUGUST 1982 27 of the dangers posed by "Western imperialism...

...Housecleanings were conducted in the u n i v e r s i t i e s , in academic institutes, and in the top levels of the Ukrainian Party...

...Fedorchuk thus succeeds Yuri Andropov, a ruthless functionary who has returned to the Party Secretariat and who inexplicably is being hailed as a liberal by some Western commentators, apparently because he speaks English and collects modern art...

...Like many others ("Every day is a Solidarity Day h e r e , " Brandt declared), Schmidt...

...In 1970, a f t e r Fedorchuk had proved himself sufficiently loyal to the Moscow a u t h o r i t i e s , he was named to the sensitive post of chairman of the Ukrainian KGB...

...People suffer . . . . An arms race to bring down the Soviet system I'm against...

...More recently, Fedorchuk has written quite widely within the Party press...

...While he is not one to be pushed about, there is more than an ounce of 80-proof Helmut Schmidt diplomacy in his veins...

...The only pleasures of the flesh you're likely to encounter here are those that arrive on a platter: turkey, veal, corned beef hash, chicken livers sautes, stuffed filet of pork, and a superb London broil...

...This masterwork was brought 'round Cape Horn in the days when vessels were vessels and travel still held forth true delights...

...HOFFMAN'S OF SAN FRANCISCO by Douglas Bartholomew l C Whit e ~ , v [ meat only 25 cents e x t r a , " the menu admonishes...

...When asked why the West German government has not accompanied humanitarian aid with greater pressure on Jaruzelski, Helmut Schmidt replied by defending the general: "Jaruzelski is certainly not loved by the Kremlin...

...by Adrian Karamycky the Kremlin was coming to regard as not tough enough on Ukrainian national dissent...

...He has been extremely competent in stamping out dissent in his bailiwick and has demonstrated his loyalty to the imperial interests of the Kremlin...

...Schmidt have been sending parcels to their many Polish friends--' 'some of them Comm u n i s t s . " Concluded Schmidt: " I realize what I have said will not be popular in America, particularly among Americans of Polish origin"-nor among Poles of Polish origin, I should imagine...

...Comrade Fedorchuk emerges as well as a new factor within the highest ranks of the Soviet leadership...

...For one thing, Fedorchuk has an appetite for conducting large-scale repressions which seek to mop up all democratic opposition and eliminate entire infrastructures of dissident activity, as opposed to the more piece-meal approach favored by others in the secret police...

...In the next year or so, Hoffman's will be torn down and later reconstructed on the same piece of ground it now occupies...

...Fedorchuk's record does not augur well for Soviet human rights advocates, for activists in the national movements, and for independent trade unionists...

...Efforts to establish independent trade unions were made by Ukrainian workers even before the emergence of Solidarity...

...I have deep compassion for the Polish n a t i o n , " Schmidt continued, and added that he and Mrs...

...In a typical essay, Fedorchuk suggested that "ruling circles [in the West] have adopted a course of confrontation with the Soviet Union," whose aim "is to restore capitalism in the socialist countries or to weaken them so much that they would be unable to resist the aggression of imperialism...

...Colonel General Vitaly Fedorchuk, who for twelve years headed the ukrainian KGB, has been appointed the chairman of the USSR's Committee for State Security...