Balcony with a view of the Kremlin: How Donald Trump visited the USSR
Donald Trump with his wife Ivana in Peterhof, July 1, 1987
By Vladimir Abarinov
July 18, 2018
A few days before the summit, New York Magazine published an article that heated up suspicions. Its author Jonathan Chait does not reveal any secrets. He simply arranges the information available to him in chronological order and asks a provocative question: "Will Trump meet his colleague or his curator?" According to his assumption, the KGB could have paid attention to Trump back in July 1987, when he first came to the Soviet Union:
Jonathan Chait: Everything he says to the Western allies now, opposes us to them, sends us somewhere far away - he didn't always think so. He started thinking like that in 1987. He never thought so before, at least he didn't say it. And in 87 he went to Moscow, the Russians took a closer look at him, he came back - and for the first time he talked about the fact that he might be elected president, and that our allies are a fack of gluttoons who need to be brought to their senses.
It should be noted that the topic of Donald Trump's trips to Moscow pops up in the American press quite regularly. During the presidential campaign, a sensational "Steele dossier" was published, containing a compromise on Donald Trump, allegedly collected in Moscow. Trump and his men called the "dossier" "misinformation" and an example of "witch hunting". And later it turned out that Hillary Clinton's election headquarters partially paid for the collection of this "dossier".
At a press conference in Helsinki, Vladimir Putin was asked if he had a compromise on Donald Trump. The President of Russia replied:
When Mr. Trump came to Moscow, I didn't even know he was there... More than 500 American businessmen came to the St. Petersburg Economic Forum, and of the highest rank, I don't even remember their names. And what do you think, we organize operational work on each of them and collect some kind of compromise? It's just hard to imagine more nonsense. Please get this husk out of your head.
In an interview with Fox News columnist Chris Wallace, he repeated his denial and added:
He's a rich man, but there are a lot of rich people in the United States. He was engaged in the construction business, he held beauty contests. It could have occurred to anyone that he would ever be the president of the United States. He never talked about his political ambitions. So it's just nonsense...
First of all, we don't do this, unlike you. You must be judging by yourself. Secondly, we don't have that much money, no strength, no means to keep an eye on everyone. This is not just not part of our plans, it is impossible, and we certainly did nothing like this in relation to Trump.
In 1987, Vladimir Putin served in Dresden with the rank of KGB major and could not know about the actions of the central office against the "noble foreigner", if such actions were there. But American businessmen then did not come to the USSR in crowds. And almost every visitor was monitored for possible recruitment.
At one time, we published extracts from the textbook of the Red Banner Institute of the KGB of the USSR "Political Intelligence from the Territory of the USSR" and even applied them to individual figures of "Rashgate".
Vladimir Putin took a 6-month retraining course at the KA (then called the KGB Higher School) in 1979, the textbook is dated 1989, but it is unlikely that the principles and methods of work have changed dramatically since 1987. These were years of publicity and perestroika, but for the KGB it was a time when "unbiative prerequisites were created for solving intelligence tasks from the territory of the USSR". Among the "recruitment contingent" of particular interest were "businessmen, specialists in the field of economics and finance" visiting the Soviet Union, especially those who "can take the positions necessary for intelligence in the future". "The operational development of such persons from the territory of the Soviet Union," the manual says, "is facilitated to some extent by the fact that, being interested in the development of commercial relations with Soviet departments and organizations, they regularly visit our country."
Donald Trump fully met these characteristics. He wanted to do business with the Soviet Union and could take a prominent position in the future. It is quite possible that the KGB looked at him with these eyes. But they looked at everyone who came with exactly the same eyes. Of course, in the case of Trump, it was not about a place in Congress or the government. Trump is a personality of a other stade. He is a celebrity, and a celebrity can only be a president. He was first asked if he was going to be president in 1980, when he was not yet 35 years old (according to the Constitution, this is the minimum age of the president). It was Rona Barrett, an NBC "secular" columnist, and Trump firmly replied that never:
Rona Barrett: For some, the ultimate goal in life is to become the president of the United States. Would you like to become president?
Donald Trump: And I don't think about it, Ron. But I would like to see someone who is able to do this work as president, and there are very capable people in this country.
Rona Barrett: Why don't people like you make a political career? You have already earned all the money you may need. We have achieved a lot, although you are only 34. Why not devote yourself to serving society?
Donald Trump: Because I think it's a very mediocre way of life.
In 1984, in an interview with the New York Times Magazine, he said that he did not go into politics because he did not like "false smiles and clerical".
Two years later, Donald Trump met the Soviet ambassador to the United States Yuri Dubinin at a dinner party. In the book "The Art of the Deal" he talks about it like this:
This idea was born after a business lunch given by the great businessman Leonard Lauder, son of the brilliant Esti Lauder. My neighbor at the table was the USSR ambassador to America Yuri Dubinin. It turned out that his daughter read and knows a lot about Trump Tower. Word for word the idea of business cooperation arose.
It is not clear from this story which of the interlocutors initiated a trip to the Soviet Union. Ambassador's daughter Natalia reports the details of the conversation she attended:
Yuri Vladimirovich said: "The first thing I saw in the city was your tower." Trump melted right away. He is an emotional person, sometimes impulsive. He needs recognition, and of course, he likes it when he gets it.
In January 1987, Trump received a message from Dubinin: the ambassador reported that "the leading Soviet international tourism agency "Goskomtourist" is interested in creating a joint project for the construction and management of a large hotel in Moscow".
"And now," Trump writes, "I am negotiating the construction of a huge luxury hotel in the center of Moscow, right opposite the Kremlin, with the support of the Soviet government. They invite me to come to Moscow in July."
It is quite obvious that the invitation was authorized at least at the level of the international department of the CPSU Central Committee.
Donald Trump was accompanied on the trip by his then wife Ivana, his assistant Norma Ferderer, later vice president of the Trump Organization, and Ivana's assistant Liza Calandra. Before joining Trump's company, Ferderer served in the U.S. State Department, worked as a secretary to the ambassador to Tunisia, then to Uganda, and visited the Soviet Union. She could not get into the field of view of Soviet intelligence. But Ivana Trump, née Zelnichkova, is a native of Czechoslovakia. She was probably watched by the intelligence of the Czechoslovak SSR, which shared information with colleagues from the KGB.
In Moscow, the Trumps were accommodated in the National Hotel in a "Lenin room" with a view of the Kremlin - this alone indicates the exclusivity of the reception provided to him. In this issue, it was visited by the head of the Moscow bureau of the Newsweek weekly Joyce Barnafan. She writes that Trump stayed in the best hotel room, and yet this room was "slightly shabby". During the interview, Trump pointed his finger at the cracked brown paint of the door and said, "I don't understand this." Then he turned to the window and made a gesture towards the balcony: "But it's amazing."
Jonathan Chait believes that the "Leninist number" of "National" could not fail to listen. Given the instruction on operational and technical control of a foreigner, it can be almost certain that it was so.
"I was very impressed by the enthusiasm of Soviet representatives and their desire to make a deal with me," Trump writes in his book. But nothing came of their aspiration.
Just in 1987, the first timid decisions on the legal framework of joint ventures with foreign participation were made in the USSR. The share of a foreign partner in such an enterprise could not exceed 49 percent. This proportion did not suit Trump. In an interview with the Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper, he said: "I like, to put it mildly, to control everything myself."
Trump and the ladies accompanying him have already gone to Leningrad as tourists.
Jonathan Chait doesn't have any exclusive information. He simply assumes that Trump could have been recruited, and he estimates such a probability as low. Nevertheless, the trip to the USSR encouraged Trump so much that he had presidential ambitions. In September 1987, he bought a whole page for advertising in the three largest newspapers - the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Boston Globe, paying a total of about 100 thousand dollars. On September 7, all three newspapers published his "open letter to the American people". This message had everything that he unpleasantly surprises the allies with today. Donald Trump explained "why America should stop paying for the defense of countries that can pay for their own defense".
It was his first step towards the 1988 presidential race, which he, however, did not dare to join.
And in March 1990, Playboy magazine came out with a photo of Trump on the cover and his interview inside. In this text, he talks about his negotiations in the Soviet Union:
I told them: "Guys, that's the root of the problem. We are talking about real estate. How can you become the owner of land if it all belongs to the state? What funding do you expect to attract if the owner of the land is this very motherland?" They say, "No problem, Mr. Trump. We will sign a lease agreement." I say, "I want the land to be owned, not leased." Then they decided this way: "Mr. Trump, we will establish a committee of 10 people, seven Russians, three of your representatives, and thus resolve all disputes." I thought to myself: dashingly, seven against three. Are we breaking the comedy here or what?
He presented his impressions of the Soviet Union in gloomy tones:
It didn't impress me at all. Their system is a disaster. Soon you will see a revolution there. All signs are evident, including demonstrations and picketing. Russia got out of control, and the leadership knows it. That's Gorbachev's problem. He is not able to rule with a firm hand. I predict: he will be overthrown because he showed his exceptional weakness.
For 30 years, Donald Trump's views have hardly changed.