Letters to the Editor: A CIA official’s advice on Ukraine
“By Staff”
Dear Editor:
On June 28, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) wrote an opinion article in The Washington Post in which he comments on his and two other senators’ recent return trip to Ukraine. Sen. McCain argues that “the ceasefire with Russia is fiction, and U.S. assistance is vital to deterring further Russian aggression.” He goes on to state: ”President Obama has wrongly argued that providing Ukraine with the assistance and equipment it needs to defend itself would provoke Russia. Putin needed no provocation to invade Ukraine and annex Crimea.” The senator stresses that “it is the weakness of the collective U.S. and European response that provokes the very aggression we seek to avoid.”
On June 30 the newspaper printed a response by Ray McGovern of Arlington, Va., who claims that Sen. McCain was wrong to say that Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea without provocation. Mr. McGovern describes the events on the Maidan as “the coup in Kiev” [sic], which was “provocation enough.” This nonsense could be dismissed as another pro-Russian troll parroting the Russian line, were it not for the newspaper identifying the writer as “former chief of the Soviet Foreign Policy Branch of the CIA.” On his webpage, Mr. McGovern says that he “served as CIA analyst for 27 years, from the administration of John F. Kennedy to that of George H.W. Bush” and his “duties included chairing National Intelligence Estimates and preparing the President’s Daily Brief.”
On March 3, 2014, Mr. McGovern and Prof. Timothy Snyder of Yale University were interviewed by journalist Amy Goodman on the independent news program “Democracy Now!” in a debate on the topic of “Who is provoking unrest in Ukraine?” Throughout the whole discussion, Mr. McGovern constantly referred to “the Ukraine” and warned the U.S. government that “you go a bridge too far when you threaten a strategic interest the Russians consider so sensitive as the [sic] Ukraine.” When Prof. Snyder reminded him that ”Ukraine is a sovereign country” and that Ukrainians on the Maidan “complained that we [Americans and Europeans] were far too close to the Russians, that in effect we were helping the Russians hurt them,” Mr. McGovern responded: “Russian interests exist, and they have since the ninth century, OK? That’s where Russia began, you know, Kievan Rus’, in Kiev.”
On April 22 of this year, the online English-language version of Moscow’s Pravda printed an article headlined “Ex-CIA officer Ray McGovern: V-E Day celebration spoiled by Washington’s support for Ukrainian revolution.” The headline speaks for itself. In the article, Mr. McGovern writes about “the U.S.-arranged coup d’état of Feb. 22, 2014 in Kiev.”
One can only shudder at the thought of what kind of advice this high-ranking CIA official provided to various presidential administrations concerning Ukraine.
Leo Iwaskiw
Philadelphia
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Here’s Ray’s letter to which Mr. Iwaskiw took offense:
Letters to the Editor, Washington Post, July 1, 2015
McCain, Ukraine and Mr. Putin
In his June 28 Sunday Opinion essay, “The Ukraine cease-fire fiction,” Sen. John McCain was wrong to write that Russian President Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea without provocation.
What about the coup in Kiev on Feb. 22, 2014, that replaced President Viktor Yanukovych with pro-Western leaders favoring membership in NATO? Was that not provocation enough?
This glaring omission is common in The Post. The March 10 World Digest item “Putin had early plan to annex Crimea” described a “secret meeting” Mr. Putin held on Feb. 23, 2014, during which “Russia decided it would take the Crimean Peninsula.” No mention was made of the coup the previous day.
I have searched in vain for credible evidence that, before the coup, Mr. Putin had any intention to annex Crimea. George Friedman, the widely respected president of the think tank Stratfor, has described the putsch on Feb. 22, 2014, as “the most blatant coup in history.”
Ray McGovern, Arlington
The writer is former chief of the Soviet Foreign Policy Branch of the CIA.