CHAPTER 4: BORN IN BLOOD
-I can stand death-lots of it—but you can’t. Halberstam, War in a Time of Peace, 420.
-I can’t help it. It is my character. From the film Confidential Report, aka Mr. Arkadin (1955), written and directed by Orson Welles. Later written as Welles’s only novel.
-we’ll wipe them out in their shithouses. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s press conference in Astana, Kazakhstan, September 24, 1999.
Russians believed the security forces were involved in the apartment bombings. An April 2002 Levada opinion poll revealed that 43 percent of Russians thought this, while 38 percent excluded the possibility; http://www.levada.ru/press/2002041600.html.
-liabilities that are too heavy to overcome. Garry Kasparov, “Russia’s Best Election Yet,” Wall StreetJournal, December 21, 1999.
-the most destroyed city on Earth. BBC News, “Scars remain amid Chechen revival,” March 3, 2007, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/64l46o3.stm.
-has fallen in the second Chechen war. Anna Politkovskaya, A Small Corner of Helclass="underline" Dispatches from Chechnya (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), 29.
CHAPTER 5: PRESIDENT FOR LIFE
-the empire it served and protected: the USSR. Masha Gessen, The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin (New York: Penguin, 2012), 132.
-the ultimate international political performance artist. Fiona Hill and Clifford Gaddy, Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2015), Kindle edition, locations 322-27.
-resign early and thrust him into the presidency early. Recounted by Tatyana Yumasheva, Yeltin’s daughter and close advisor, on her website; also as reported in the Telegraph on January 23, 2010, http://www.tele-graph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/7063201/Boris-Yeltsins-daughter-attacks-Vladimir-Putin.html.
-final historical triumph of the first president of Russia. Garry Kasparov, “Yeltsin Offers New Hope for the New Year,” Wall Street Journal, January 3, 2000.
-followed the principles of free society. George Soros, “Bitter Thoughts with Faith in Russia,” Moskovsky Novosti, February 2000.
-very much alive and politically kicking. Andrei Piontkovsky, “For Whom Putin Tolls?” Russia Journal, February 21-27, 2000.
-Soviet music was both obvious and shocking. Critics of American excep-tionalism like Putin should keep in mind the new Russian anthem lyrics also include “You are unique in the world, one of a kind”!
CHAPTER 6: THE SEARCH FOR PUTIN’S SOUL
-worried him most about Putin in the early days. Through all of our arguments over the years, Steve’s insight and experience make him one of my favorite “sherpas” on how the American foreign policy establishment views Russia, and why. I recommend his articles and books highly, even the ones I disagree with.
-how are we ever going to get this right? Personal email from Steve Sestanovich to author, April 19, 2015.
-infamous phrase of British prime minister Tony Blair. Ian Traynor and Michael White, “Blair courts outrage with Putin visit,” Guardian, March 11, 2000, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2000/mar/ll/russia.ethicalforeignpolicy.
-never done anything like that. It’s illegal! Interview with President Bill Clinton on Echo of Moscow radio, June 4, 2000. Cited in Michael Wines, “Clinton in Moscow: The State of Democracy,” New York Times, June 4, 2000.
-beatings, torture and, on occasion, rape. Malcolm Hawkes, Human Rights Watch statement, March 11, 2000. Cited in the Guardian, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2000/mar/n/russia.ethicalforeignpolicy.
-the Cold War really is over. Condoleezza Rice, No Higher Honor: A Memoir of My Years in Washington (New York: Crown, 2011), Kindle edition, locations 1450-54.
-we will stand together. George W. Bush, Decision Points (New York: Crown, 2010). Kindle edition, locations 3589-91.
-developing under conditions of intolerable isolation. Andrei Sakharov, “A Letter to the Congress of the United States, August 21, 1973,” published in Sakharov Speaks (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1974), 211. Alexei Navalny and I borrowed this technique when we called the Magnitsky Act an “anti-Putin and therefore very pro-Russian piece of American legislation.”
-it was taken as a rank insult! Anatoly Dobrynin, In Confidence (New York: Times Books, 1995), 163.
-without which there can be no mutual trust. Sakharov, “A Letter to the Congress of the United States, August 21, 1973.”
-anti-Soviet deed, but a Trotskyist deed. Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB (New York: Basic Books, 2000), 317.
-the Soviets had to be confronted, not appeased. Natan Sharansky and Ron Dermer, The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror (New York: PublicAffairs, 2004), 3.
-at greater risk than ourselves, who dare to resist. For some reason this remarkable historical document is difficult to find even in our era of total information. The first Google result for this quote is my own Twitter account! The speech can be found in full for download on the Jackson Foundation’s website, http://www.hmjackson.org/publications.
-no INTERNAL AFFAIRS left on our crowded Earth! Out of respect I preserve the capital letters Solzhenitsyn used for “internal affairs” in his Nobel lecture manuscript.
-especially if your hands are tied. Another infamous Rice statement was referring to strongman Alexander Lukashenko’s Belarus as “the last remaining true dictatorship in the heart of Europe” in 2005. This has been remembered and repeated endlessly only as Lukashenko being “the last dictator in Europe.” Worst of all, she said it while in Moscow! Even if few were ready to call Putin a dictator in 2005, why flatter him so? In 2014, Lukashenko had some revenge by saying that since Putin invaded Ukraine nobody was calling him the last dictator of Europe anymore. He was right.
-here with the specific purpose to end the war. Quotes are from various Russian news reports; several are in English at this BBC report: “Hostage-takers ‘ready to die,’” October 25, 2002, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2Zhi/europe/2360735.stm.