Posted on September 19th 1986
Daniloff: Political Pawn
By Alex Linder
[ The following is from a forum thread posting. ]
[opinion published in Pomona College's The Student Life, Friday, September 19, 1986]
Daniloff: Political Pawn
By Alex Linder
By the time you read this, an innocent American citizen will have spent nearly three weeks as a hostage inside the Soviet Union, an unwitting victim of a brazen power play conceived and carried out by the KGB under the probably leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev. Seized in apparent reaction to the recent American apprehension of U.N.-based alleged spy Gennady Zakharov, U.S. News & World Report's Moscow Bureau Chief Nicholas Daniloff has been indicted on three counts of espionage. What has the U.S. done in response to this peculiar turn of events; what should it do in the future to with regard to preventing a similar occurrence; and, most importantly, what is the U.S. currently doing to obtain Mr. Daniloff's release?
Before getting to these vital questions, let us lay some of the groundwork. To begin with, let there be not doubt that Zakharov is a spy and Daniloff is a hostage. Arkady Shevchenko, the highest ranking Soviet defector ever, has estimated that roughly one-third of all Soviet bloc personnel at the U.N. are engaged in intelligence gathering activities. Zakharov is simply one among the many, his alleged crime being the purchase of jet engine blueprints. Daniloff, on the other hand, was clearly entrapped by KGB operatives aided by one of his own Soviet friends.
A three-fold explanation of Soviet motivations would seem most plausible. First, in Daniloff, the Soviets saw a chance to kill two birds with one stone. By striking a deal with the US. they could not only get back a valuable agent, but rid themselves of a man who, according to USN&WR's Mortimer Zuckerman, was responsible for several articles detailing the grimmer side of life behind the Iron Curtain. Secondly, the expulsion or sentencing of Daniloff would hopefully have what liberals are wont to call "chilling effects" on what the Soviets deem injudicious reporting on the part of the fourth estate. Finally, Gorbachev, through his lack of response to Reagan's personal letter vouching for Daniloff's innocence, may be testing the strength of those internal forces that would have the Administration schedule a summit regardless of the treatment of Daniloff.
But the reaction of the Reagan Administration has been, unfortunately, mixed. At the outset of the crisis, spokesmen in Santa Barbara, authorized, one would assume, by the President, issued statements to the effect that there would be business as usual between the superpowers. Secretary of State Schultz, however, took the position that only if Daniloff were freed would he discuss summitry in his upcoming meeting with Shevardnadze. Over the course of the succeeding two weeks the Administration has presented a more united front, with a sort of crystallization taking place around Schultz's initial position, happily.
At this point the course the Reagan Administration should take is relatively clear. First, Reagan and Schultz should adamantly refuse to exchange Zakharov for Daniloff in a one-for-one deal. Gorbachev is well aware that Zakharov is a spy and that Daniloff was framed. Any deal-making would only lessen the dictator's respect for our President. Reagan would appear to be backing down, and this in turn would weaken his hand at future bargaining tables.
Second, the Administration should refuse to even make preparations for a summit unless Daniloff is released.
Lastly, the President should capitalize on the recent attention paid to the problem with Soviet spy infiltration through the U.N. by deepending and expediting his cutback of the Soviet Union's entourage. Estimating we could easily pick up 500 spies, Senator Daniel Moynihan recently remarked, "We're paying for their KGB agents in the Secretariat." The American public needs to be made aware, and Ronald Reagan is in an excellent position to do so, that the U.N. is essentially an ulcer in the belly of the beast, a tax-subsidized, rabidly anti-American propaganda and intelligence headquarters for the Soviets and their Third World lackeys.
What, then, can we reasonably expect if the Reagan Administration continues to follow, as it has in part, the previously outlined course? One suspects that the Soviets, once they realize that the U.S. will not back down, will devise some face-saving way of releasing Daniloff. Most observers, including the aforementioned Shevchenko, believe that the Soviet Union has a greater need for a summit than the U.S. If one accepts this view then it seems likely that the Soviets will either acquit Daniloff or find him guilty of but a peccadillo. Either way, Daniloff will be released and summit preparations gotten on with. All in all, Reagan can stand firm in the knowledge that both houses of Congress along with the domestic press (Daniloff is, after all, one of their own) are solidly behind him. If Reagan does indeed stick fast to his stated positions, the Soviets will conclude not only that future "deals" will not work, but that purssuant to their goals of an earlier summit and the preservation of a certain measure of goodwill on the part of Western liberals, their interests are best served by releasing Daniloff. //