Putin

Richard Lourie PUTIN HIS DOWNFALL AND RUSSIA’S COMING CRASH

To Katya,

May we discuss all this someday

I cannot forecast to you the actions of Russia. It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest.

—WINSTON CHURCHILL

The politics of Russia flow not from her true interests, but from the individual inclinations of specific persons.

—AUSTRIAN CHANCELLOR VON KAUNITZ TO MARIA THERESA, IN 1745

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I want to thank George Soros for a valuable idea.

There are quite a few Russians I would like to thank for their insights and hospitality, but see no good reason to do so here when the current situation in their country does not reward association with books of this sort.

There was another American who was indispensible to this book, its editor, Marcia Markland. In all my years working as a writer, I have always taken pride in making the deadline whether it involved a restaurant review or a long tome. But this book thwarted me at every turn. Day after day my mind was as blank as the paper I stared at. The few pages I did manage to produce did not, when held between thumb and forefinger, provide the satisfying heft that indicates the coming of a book. Months passed, years.

In all that time Marcia and I would meet fairly frequently for lunch. The pleasures of conversation never faltered, though there was, of course, one subject that could prove awkward if broached. But Marcia never once mentioned the overdue manuscript. And when I could no longer stand it and said something on the subject, she would invariably reply—“Just make it good.” She was, if such an expression can be used, “a perfect gentleman.”

PREFACE: PUTIN TRUMPS AMERICA

Until quite recently Russia was an exotic country, distant, huge, both more brutal and cultured—Stalin at the Bolshoi—but then suddenly it was right here with us in the intimacy of the voting booth.

By the time the House Intelligence Committee convened in open session on March 21, 2017, the nature of that intrusion was fairly clear; the Russian state used hackers to break into the computers of the DNC and of Democratic Chairman John Podesta and then revealed their contents via WikiLeaks in an effort to tilt the election in Donald Trump’s favor. The fact that there was no such parallel hack and leak of Republican computers is itself compelling circumstantial evidence of intent. And that in turn indicates that the Russian intelligence services were in no particular hurry to conceal either their favored candidate or their involvement. Had they wanted to remain invisible, they would have. But sometimes they prefer to send a message as in Soviet times when, after a surreptitious search of an apartment, a KGB agent would leave a cigarette butt floating in the toilet, as if to say: We were here.

It will never be known with quantitative certainty how significant the Russian meddling in the 2016 elections was. In time the Russians themselves might come to rue their choice, finding Hilary Clinton, for all her animus toward Moscow, a more seasoned and competent professional, more reliable and predictable than Trump.

But the most important question of all is one that probably can and certainly must be answered. As Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee phrased it: “…if the Trump campaign or anyone associated with it aided or abetted the Russians, it would not only be a serious crime, it would also represent one of the most shocking betrayals of democracy in history.”

Those are the terms, the stakes.

What’s less clear is how much solid evidence there is of collusion. But there would appear to be enough for the question of collusion to be an integral part of the investigation the FBI is conducting. As FBI director James Comey said at those hearings: “I have been authorized by the Department of Justice to confirm that the FBI, as part of our counterintelligence mission, is investigating the Russian government’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election and that includes investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia’s efforts. As with any counterintelligence investigation, this will also include an assessment of whether any crimes were committed.”