Ray McGovern on Russia and Ukraine
Apr 25, 2023 07:00 PM
Gist
Ray McGovern joins MAPA on April 25 at 7:00pm Eastern Time for a discussion about the war in Ukraine. Ray’s talk will not be a mere situation report. Rather, donning his old hat as presidential briefer, Ray will draw on old-school media analysis and the expertise of weapons experts to examine one key motive behind Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
After the US withdrew from the ABM Treaty, missile emplacements began to appear in NATO allies Romania and Poland. (They were said to be necessary to meet a threat from Iran!). THE PROBLEM: The Kremlin cannot be sure what kind of missiles now dwell – or could eventually dwell – there.
More important, Moscow cannot abide the possibility of similar emplacements in Ukraine — even closer to targets in Russia. Sixty years ago President Kennedy faced a similar situation in Cuba.
Read one of Ray’s recent articles: “The Banality of Biden’s ‘Exceptional’ Elite Advisers” here: https://original.antiwar.com/mcgovern/2023/03/26/the-banality-of-bidens-exceptional-elite-advisers/
Ray McGovern, earlier an Army infantry intelligence officer, was Chief of CIA’s Soviet Foreign Policy Branch during the 70s. Later, his duties included chairing National Intelligence Estimates and preparing The President’s Daily Brief, which he briefed one-on-one to President Reagan’s five most senior national security advisors (1981-1985).
At his retirement, the CIA awarded Ray The Intelligence Commendation Medallion for “especially meritorious service.” In 2006, Ray returned the medal explaining “I do not want to be associated, however remotely, with an agency engaged in torture.”
In January 2003, Ray helped create Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) to expose how intelligence was being falsified to “justify” war on Iraq. VIPS’s first Memorandum for the President was a same-day critique of Colin Powell’s lie-studded UN speech on February 5, 2003.
Ray is fluent in Russian, German, and Spanish.