Presswatch/Heroes and Objects

...But there's a real question in there...

...In every room sat agents who worked with an object on a corresponding assignment for which they gave out narcotics, alcohol, allowed meetings with and packages from relatives and even visits with prostitutes—all of which was illegal in the special rooms and offices—they promised freedom, etc...

...I made him confess, as I had made Doloyan and Botadze, to the Minister of Internal Affairs of the Georgian SSR...

...The rooms were not communal, they were for only 5-7 people...

...To Tom Wicker, for his confession of error in the New York Times, entitled "Getting It Straight," in which he listed some of the egregious mistakes he had made in recent months in his Times column...

...Well, you get the idea...

...Why so very many weapons and shells and mortars...

...The Mystery of the Soviet Stockpiles Shirley Christian broke the story in the New York Times several days earlier, but it remained to Joanne Omang of the Washington Post to put the matter into political context on October 22 (there's a lesson there: if you want information, read the Times, if you want to know what Washingtonians are likely to try to make of it, read the Post...

...In general, it was a slaughterhouse...

...It's almost impossible to describe the confession, so I will provide lengthy excerpts...

...I don't know the answer, but it's a great question that deserves serious consideration...

...You might have thought our journalists would learn from their shortcomings during the Andropov affair, when they waxed rhapsodic about the "moderation" of the former KGB chief, crediting him with a taste for White Horse Scotch and American jazz, fluency in English, and closet liberalism...

...I processed the object Enukidze, I put all my energy into it...

...in order to get decent details, it's necessary to lay your hands on samizdat publications...

...He was in a group . . . of the Bureau of Land for Gardening . . . Lezhava, Svimonishvili and others promised me that if I handled this case they would free me, since Shevardnadze himself had given his word...

...It was an honest, good-humored admission of fallibility from which many of our overstuffed columnists could learn, and we salute Mr...

...As Yardley recognizes, this is part and parcel of the growing intolerance of many of our leading universities to conservative ideas and their advocates...

...Intelligence analysts wondered why, and several answers were provided: •Maybe it's a sign of status in the Middle East to have lots of weapons (a sort of military potlatch), so the PLO built up a treasure-trove...

...Miss Omang pronounced that while it is clear from these discoveries that the Soviet Union and Cuba are working hard to destabilize Chile, they have now "undermined some of Pinochet's critics and strengthened his 13-year-old government, at least temporarily . . ." This is the sort of remark that passes for wisdom at the Post, which is always more interested in the "who's winning, who's losing" side of things than in the significance of events...

...The new batch of Soviet leaders is getting a good press in these parts, but one by Michael Ledeen could hope for a bit more information about them...

...I have found a particularly interesting one, consisting of the signed confession of Yuri Tsirekidze, who was convicted in April 1973 of "extensive bodily injury leading to fatal consequences" and "refusing help to a suffering person...

...In 24 hours I was transferred to the SIZO #1...

...Maybe the PLO were offered lots and lots of weapons, and couldn't say no (unlikely, to be sure, since they seem to have paid for their weapons...

...The same questions can be raised about the Chilean case...

...The old section was re-equipped and 10 rooms were opened with all kinds of equipment for broadcasts and recordings...

...quality, becoming more and more obsessed with money, and defaulting on the moral education of our students...

...Shevardnadze...

...Wicker for his candor and his humanity...

...At the same time, American higher education is quite clearly dropping in Michael Ledeen is senior fellow in international affairs at the Georgetown Center for Strategic and International Studies...

...The agents Gurami Gogua and Tedo Dolidze were beating the object in room #38, including Kobakhidze, who had his legs strung up until they wrung a confession out of him...

...Overlooked in the general rush to praise the new dictator was his background as butcher of Budapest...

...As the samizdat editor concluded, "the widespread use of torture . . . coincides with theterm of Shevardnadze as Minister of the Department of the Interior and First Secretary of the Central Committee...

...They were often given the assignments to beat objects such as for the purpose of ex-tracting a confession, but also due to the personal interest of the administrators...

...As for the unfortunate Tsirekidze, he was of course the fall guy for the KGB and MVD officials who ordered him to carry out his acts of brutality and torture...

...No one else was placed in this building .. . In room #45 Agdgomelashvili (an agent) beat Mikhelashvili (a Jew) on assignment from Panfilov (chief of operations), in room #44 agents . . . beat and cut with a razor the object Datusani, in room #37 agent Usupyan on assignment from Panfilov and Svimonishvili beat the object Valeri Kukhianidze, whose internal organs got so peat up that he spit blood, after which he died in the Central Prison Hospital and was "written off...

...You will not read much about Shevardnadze's anti-corruption campaign in Georgia if you stick to the American press...

...Special Building #2, which is isolated from all other sections of the prison, was established in 1966 and was designated solely for undercover work...

...On orders of the procurator Lezhava and his brother (head of SIZO #1) and on assignment from E. Shevardnadze, I was told, the object Roman Enukidze was sent to me...

...It was Shevardnadze who created the Special Building #2, where torture went on almost uninterruptedly, under cover of an anti-corruption campaign...

...For whom were they intended...

...In both capacities he was in charge of "anti-corruption" campaigns, the sort of thing that Gorbachev is waging nowadays, and for which he is receiving near-universal praise...

...Who is the Mysterious Mr...

...He had been under observation before...

...And one of those officials was eventually promoted to stand alongside the moderate and progressive Gorbachev as a representative of the new peace policy of the Soviet Union...

...Similar oversights are with us today, most notably in the case of the new Soviet foreign minister, Eduard Shevardnadze...

...Insofar as Bennett is one of the few national figures regularly to lambaste the universities for their shortcomings, he is one of the most hated men on campus...

...Better yet, write to your local paper and ask that one of their ace investigative journalists be put on this story...

...If you refuse to work for them, they will expose you as an agent so you have to work for them, or danger threatens...

...Comrade Shevardnadze was Minister of the Department of the Interior from 1965-1972, and then sent to become First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party in Georgia...

...Maybe it's part of a Soviet plan of advance stockpiling of weapons in various theatres around the world, in the event they or their surrogates have to fight a major engagement...

...I put him in touch with his home and convinced him of everything...

...The translation was done by Soviet emigres living in New York City...

...Bennett, like Reagan, is a buzzword: If Reagan does it, it must be wrong, and if Bennett says it, it must be wrong...

...Bennett is the best friend higher education now has in public life, because he cares so deeply about educational standards and is in a position to do something about them," Yardley writes, and then adds: but because he works for Ronald Reagan he is not given a chance...

...I am grateful to Yuri Yarim-Agaev, executive director of the Center for Democracy in New York, for his help in ob28 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JANUARY 1987 taming this rare insight into the biography of the Soviet foreign minister: I was sick of the agents, they made all sorts of demands and conditions and forced me to work as an agent...

...In a word, beating went on in all the rooms, and the groaning and howling of the objects was heard all over the building...

...If you want more of the real biography of the Soviet -foreign minister, talk to the Georgian community in exile in Queens, New York City...

...I was placed in Special Building #2, room #43...

...These weapons and ammunition were hidden away in northern Chile, and were valued at more than $10 million...

...Tsirekidze's actions were part of a vast purge carried out under.the supervision of Shevardnadze: in the two years preceding the trial of Tsirekidze, some 25,000 persons were arrested in Georgia, of whom 9,500 were Party members, and 7,000 were members of the youth organization, the Komsomol...

...You may recall that when Israel invaded Lebanon four long years ago, the Israelis found an enormous stockpile of weapons, far more than the PLO could possibly have used in a war against Israel...

...The story was the discovery of "ten tons of arms" in Chile...

...In this building only agents or objects who had been processed with the help of agents were placed...

...I worked in prison and in labor colonies and helped them in undercover work . . . After being arrested on July 20, 1970, I was transferred to the KPZ (preliminary findings room...

...These criminal acts were carried out in the Investigatory Detention Center in Tbilisi, Georgia...

...Full marks to Jonathan Yardley for spelling it out...