The Real Story of the SDI
Soviets demanded LaRouche's jailing, wrecking
chance to avoid world war
{The following chronology shows how the Soviets
demanded, and the United States agreed to the
imprisonment of Lyndon LaRouche as the author of the
Strategic Defense Initiative.}
{{August 1979.}} Lyndon LaRouche and
representatives engage in first discussions with Ronald
Reagan campaign personnel concerning ``relativistic beam
weapons'' systems of antiballistic-missile defense, which
LaRouche had advanced politically since 1976-77.
{{January-February 1981.}} LaRouche and his
representatives discuss the policy to end the doctrine of
Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) with ``new scientific
principles,'' in Reagan transition period meetings with
Energy Secretary Donald Hodel, Interior Secretary James
Watt, Science Adviser Dr. George Keyworth, and State
Department official Richard Morris. Later that year Lyndon
and Helga Zepp-LaRouche meet with CIA Deputy Director
Robert Inman.
{{April 1981.}} Soviet representatives at the
U.N. approach representatives of LaRouche several times, seeking
discussion of his assessment of the incoming Reagan
administration, and on strategic questions.
{{Fall 1981.}} LaRouche and representatives regularly
meet with U.S. intelligence representatives to discuss
LaRouche's ``beam weapons'' military strategy and five
other policy areas, according to later court testimony by
one of those officials.
{{December 1981.}} The Reagan administration through
intelligence agencies, requests that LaRouche attempt
``back-channel'' discussions with Soviet representatives,
about the science/military strategy policy represented by
LaRouche, and how the Soviets would react if this policy
were adopted.
{{February 1982.}} Public {EIR} conference on
anti-missile defense policy attended by 300 in Washington,
D.C., including Soviet and East bloc representatives;
LaRouche gives keynote on ``relativistic beam weapons.''
{{February 1982.}} In private meetings around this
public conference, LaRouche opens the desired back-channel
discussions through Soviet Washington embassy official
Yevgeny Shershnev. The subject: possible adoption by
Reagan administration of LaRouche's proposed new ``beam
weapons'' military doctrine. Over the ensuing months,
continuing back-channel meetings take place in the Soviet
embassy in Washington.
{{October-November 1982.}} Henry Kissinger and others
in his circle, on the President's Foreign Intelligence
Advisory Board (PFIAB), send letters and memos to FBI Director
William Webster asking for investigation and prosecution
of LaRouche. The PFIAB and other intelligence
agencies adopt a secret intelligence assessment
(declassified in February 1993) which acknowledges Soviet
buildup of nuclear war capabilities, but does not
acknowledge any possibility that the United States
might abandon the MAD doctrine.
{{Dec. 22, 1982.}} {EIR} publishes LaRouche's ``Reply
to Soviet Critics,'' a detailed warning to the Soviet
leadership not to reject the new doctrine and not to
refuse cooperative development of new energy and particle
beam military technologies.
{{Jan. 1, 1983.}} Following months of LaRouche
back-channel meetings with the Soviet designate and U.S.
officials, LaRouche tells a national political conference
in New York City, that the Reagan administration {must}
scrap MAD doctrine ``within 90 days'' or the world is on a
course toward war.
{{January-February 1983.}} LaRouche meets with
European military officials and scientists about
``relativistic beam weapons'' and possible new U.S. military
doctrine.
{{February 1983.}} Shershnev details to LaRouche the
Soviet objection to his doctrine: It would work, but would
be to the advantage of the West's superior
scientific-productivity capabilities; therefore, the
Soviets would reject such a new doctrine by Reagan.
{{February 1983.}} LaRouche, just returned from
Europe, shuttles between U.S. officials and Soviet
representative in intensive phase of back-channel
negotiations. He warns the Soviets that a military buildup
will destroy their economy and break up their empire within
five years (i.e., by 1988), unless they accept the new
``science driver'' represented by relativistic beam
technologies.
{{February 1983.}} Soviet representative tells
LaRouche the Soviet leadership has been assured and is
confident, that the Democratic Party leadership and
co-thinking ``moderate'' Republican forces will block any
intention by Reagan, to adopt a new military doctrine
abandoning MAD and developing beam-weapons defenses.
{{March 1983.}} LaRouche scientific representative
Uwe Parpart meets with National Security Council scientists and consultants on
possible Reagan announcement of new military doctrine.
{{March 16, 1983.}} LaRouche representatives meet
with representatives of Air Force and Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency; they are told the Pentagon is
unaware of any prospect of a new strategic policy.
{{March 23, 1983.}} Ronald Reagan concludes a
nationally televised address on the Soviet military
buildup, by announcing the new doctrine known as the
Strategic Defense Initiative. The form of anti-missile
defense doctrine Reagan announces is uniquely that of
LaRouche, calling for fundamentally new beam technologies
rather than the old interceptor missiles. He offers to
share these technologies with the Soviets, in a
cooperative effort to end MAD and make the new defensive
technologies available to all countries: distinctly
LaRouche's policy of anti-missile defense. Yuri Andropov's
Soviet leadership is shocked and attributes vastly greater
influence to LaRouche; the American Joint Chiefs of Staff
are ``floored'' (according to public admission 10 years
later by former Secretary of State George Shultz).
{{April 8, 1983.}} LaRouche keynotes a Fusion Energy
Foundation conference in Washington, D.C. on the Strategic
Defense Initiative, attended by 800 representatives of
administration, Congress, business, and the diplomatic
community, including 16 East bloc representatives.
Representatives from the Soviet embassy and press attend,
but then stage a walkout. (Soviet representatives in Japan
repeat this tactic in April 1986, at a
Fusion Energy Foundation conference in Tokyo to stimulate
U.S.-Japan cooperation on the SDI.)
{{April 1983.}} Soviet designate Shershnev informs
LaRouche that he has been ordered from the highest level
to terminate the discussions with him. Shershnev had
reacted to the Reagan announcement by seeking to have
senior Soviet KGB ``America expert'' Georgi Arbatov meet
with LaRouche; this was rejected and Shershnev was ordered
back to Russia.
{{April 1983.}} Soviet leader Yuri Andropov, in an
interview with {Der Spiegel} magazine, rejects Reagan's
offer and instead suggests that the U.S. and U.S.S.R agree to
divide the world into spheres of influence, and that
each allow the other free rein with the countries in its sphere.
{{May 24-28, 1983.}} A high-powered KGB delegation of
25, including some Russian Orthodox Church prelates since
acknowledged to be KGB agents, comes to Minneapolis,
Minnesota to hold a ``peace conference'' with leading
Democratic associates of Walter Mondale. The purpose of
this ``U.S.-U.S.S.R. Bilateral Exchange Conference'' is to
declare war on the SDI. Soviet delegation is sponsored by
Georgi Arbatov, head of the U.S.A. and Canada Institute of
the U.S.S.R., and is headed by KGB publisher and
journalist Fyodor Burlatsky, a confidant of future
President Mikhail Gorbachov.
{{Aug. 10, 1983.}} Burlatsky, in the weekly
{Literaturnaya Gazeta,} attacks the SDI, and by
implication LaRouche, as a {casus belli}: ``In other
words, space weapons are provocative weapons; they are,
absolutely, a {casus belli} for nuclear war.''
{{August 1983.}} Democratic Party National Chairman
Charles Manatt publicly declares war on Reagan's SDI
policy, and says ``all'' Democratic candidates for President
in 1984 will totally oppose SDI, despite its broad popular
support.
{{September 1983.}} LaRouche announces his candidacy
for the Democratic nomination for President, to back the
SDI and rally Democratic voter support for it.
{{Oct. 26, 1983.}} Burlatsky, in {Literaturnaya
Gazeta}, reiterates his {casus belli} statement on the SDI
and attacks ``the American LaRouche'' in this connection.
{{Nov. 14, 1983.}} Soviet government newspaper
{Izvestia} attacks LaRouche for his speeches in Europe,
``by which Ronald Reagan is trying to tie Europe tightly to
his criminal doctrine.''
{{March 1984.}} NBC's prime-time half-hour program
``First Camera'' attacks ``the LaRouche factor in the
Reagan administration.'' Later the {New Republic} magazine
repeats the same attack in a cover story.
{{March 8, 1984.}} Democratic Party Chairman Manatt holds a
Chicago press conference to demand that Reagan immediately
break all administration contact with LaRouche or his
associates.
{{March 12, 1984.}} {Izvestia} demands that Reagan
break all administration contact with LaRouche, which
{Izvestia} calls ``a scandal'' which ``the White House does
not even try to deny.'' Implies that this is the condition
for Soviet leadership talks with the Reagan administration.
{{April 2, 1984.}} Soviet Communist Party newspaper
{Pravda} attacks a Paris meeting of LaRouche associates on
the SDI, as ``a colloquium of murderers.''
{{April 1984.}} The author of one of the printed
Soviet attacks on LaRouche (in {Literaturnaya Gazeta})
meets with LaRouche representatives in Paris, demanding to
know whether LaRouche intends to continue his presidential
campaign after the Democratic primaries, and what
LaRouche's chances in the election are.
{{September 1984.}} LaRouche, in a national TV broadcast,
denounces Walter Mondale as ``an agent of KGB influence''
for his campaign against the SDI.
{{October 1984.}} The Department of Justice begins its first
attempt to prosecute LaRouche and his associates, just
before the presidential election.
{{November 1984.}} Mondale is overwhelmingly defeated
by Reagan.
{{July 1985.}} {EIR} publishes {Global Showdown,} a
Special Report on the Soviet military buildup, by which
Moscow is trying to defeat the SDI policy. LaRouche's 1983
warning to the Soviet leadership is repeated in much
greater detail: East bloc economies will break down under
this military buildup {by 1988}, unless the Soviets accept
the new scientific and technological ``driver'' offered by
development of SDI against MAD.
{{February 1986.}} The Department of Justice launches
a new campaign to suppress LaRouche's movement, holding a
nationwide meeting of law enforcement officials in Boston
to solicit prosecutions. Circulation of anti-LaRouche
slanders becomes a ``Project Democracy'' policy of elements
of the U.S. government and private intelligence networks
under Executive Order 12333.
{{March 1986.}} After a relative interlude during the
``caretaker'' regime of Soviet figurehead Konstantin
Chernenko has ended, and Gorbachov has taken over, attacks
resume on LaRouche. The KGB conducts an international
``dirty trick,'' attempting to blame LaRouche for the Feb.
28, 1986 assassination of Swedish Prime Minister Olof
Palme. The campaign features two Soviet TV broadcasts in 1986,
and an international KGB disinformation campaign about
LaRouche and the murder of Palme, as is later admitted in a 1992 book
by two former top East German communist intelligence
officials. The U.S. Department of Justice, the
Anti-Defamation League, and NBC all collaborate in this
slander campaign.
{{March 1986:}} LaRouche candidates win second and
third positions in the Illinois Democratic Party primary
on March 18. The {Washington Post} and NBC conduit Soviet KGB lies
against LaRouche on Palme case.
{{May 1986.}} Ronald Reagan repeats in writing to Mikhail
Gorbachov the original SDI offer that the new technologies
essential to anti-missile defenses can be shared with the
Soviets and offered to other countries; Reagan reiterates
this in a speech at the United Nations.
{{July-October 1986.}} Soviet press repeatedly calls
for investigation and prosecution of LaRouche.
{{Fall 1986.}} Gorbachov and Soviet military leadership plan
and debate how to use upcoming Reykjavik summit with
Reagan to force abandonment of the SDI (as detailed in
admissions by former Soviet officials at a conference
at Princeton University in February 1993).
{{Sept. 24, 1986.}} Georgi Arbatov, in a pre-summit
press briefing in Reykjavik, according to the Danish
press, ``maintained his friendly facade only until Mr.
Rasmussen of {EIR} asked a question.'' Arbatov then
denounces {EIR} as ``LaRouche fascists,'' and closes down
his ``friendly'' press conference.
{{Sept. 30, 1986.}} {Sovetskaya Kultura} magazine
denounces LaRouche's policy inputs to the Reagan
administration, accuses him of tax fraud, and demands,
``Why isn't the Internal Revenue Service interested'' in
prosecuting LaRouche?
{{Oct. 3, 1986.}} Gorbachov, speaking in East Berlin,
denounces ``hidden Nazis without swastikas,'' the phrase
used by Soviet publications to describe LaRouche, and ``the
hidden viruses of militarist, aggressive fascism.''
{{Oct. 6, 1986.}} A massive raid on LaRouche
publications' headquarters is conducted by 400 armed
agents of the FBI, IRS, Virginia State Police, and other
agencies. LaRouche's residence is completely surrounded by
armed agents, armored cars, personnel carriers,
and helicopters; a shootout and killing of LaRouche remains
possible throughout the day. Leaders of LaRouche's
movement are indicted, and U.S. Attorney in Boston William
Weld attempts to get indictments of LaRouche himself.
{{Oct. 8, 1986.}} Secretary of State Shultz emerges
from all-day summit sessions in Reykjavik, Iceland, to say
that broad arms control agreements could be had, but are
being blocked only by Soviet insistence that the United
States give up the SDI. Until that moment, all
international press except {EIR} had insisted that SDI was
{not} an issue at this summit.
{{Oct. 7, 1986.}} In Reykjavik, Georgi Arbatov again
shouts ``fascists, LaRouche fascists'' at {EIR}
correspondents in front of hundreds of international
journalists. Soviet Academy of Sciences official Yevgeni Velikhov
tells the press that the Soviets cannot accept the
American SDI. Soviet press spokesman Aleksandr Bovin calls
{EIR} ``a dirty, dirty magazine.''
{{Oct. 7, 1986.}} While 1,000 journalists wait
outside the summit meetings in Reykjavik, Cable News
Network entertains them by replaying films of the massive
anti-LaRouche raids in Leesburg, Virginia the previous
day.
`Lost second chance' to avoid
war: LaRouche's proposals of 1988-89
{{Oct. 12, 1988.}} LaRouche, in a Berlin press
conference, forecasts the breakup of Soviet control of
eastern Europe and the reunification of Germany. For the
third time, he details that the Soviet bloc cannot go
beyond 1988 in its military buildup; a deepening food
crisis and strikes would bring down the Iron Curtain.
LaRouche says this is the West's opportunity to rebuild
the East starting with ``Food for Peace'' in Poland.
{{Oct. 14, 1988.}} LaRouche is indicted for the
second time.
{{Oct. 31, 1988.}} LaRouche's Berlin proposal is
broadcast in the United States as part of a national
prime-time campaign broadcast; LaRouche adds that if the
West lets the Soviet empire collapse and tries to loot it
economically, the result will be general war spreading
from the cockpit of the Balkans.
{{Jan. 27, 1989.}} LaRouche is imprisoned with a
15-year sentence.
{{October-November 1989.}} Massive demonstrations in
Poland, East Germany, and Czechoslovakia lead to the
opening of the Berlin Wall and eventually the unification
of Germany, as LaRouche had forecast.
{{November 1989.}} Soviet General Staff documents
(made public in 1992) show that active attempts to train
for a first strike and nuclear blitzkrieg against Europe
are still continuing as Soviet military doctrine.
{{November 1989.}} LaRouche from prison begins to
elaborate his Paris-Vienna-Berlin ``Productive Triangle''
proposal for rapid, high-technology rebuilding of economic
infrastructure across Europe.
{{1990-91.}} LaRouche's Productive Triangle proposal
is discussed at conferences across Europe, with scores of
parliamentarians, hundreds of economists, labor leaders,
and former East German resistance fighters. But because of U.S. and
British campaigns against any German leadership role in
Europe, governments do not adopt the ``Productive Triangle''
or any large-scale, high-technology infrastructure program
for the East.
{{December 1990-January 1991.}} U.S. President George Bush
and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher pull Europe
and Japan into support and extensive payment for Operation
Desert Storm attack on Iraq.
{{1991}}International Monetary Fund austerity
programs are imposed on the Eastern European countries,
demanding and causing production shutdowns the opposite
of the "Productive Triangle" reconstruction idea.
{{April 1991.}} Serbian attacks on Slovenia and
Croatia start a spreading Balkan war, after public
encouragement of Serbian aims by Secretary of State James
Baker in a visit to Belgrade.
