Spreading the Word: The KGB's Image-Building Under Gorbachev

Abstract

It is this story that Jeff Trimble, assistant managing editor of U.S. News & World Report, tells so well in this paper. Trimble lived and worked in Russia during much of this time of essentially bloodless transformation. First as a graduate student at the Pushkin Russian Language Institute in Moscow during the 1979-80 academic year, later as Moscow correspondent for U.S. News & World Report from 1986 to 1991, Trimble observed the changes not just in the old KGB but in the old Soviet Union and, in this paper, based on his own research, he explains their significance. At a time in American life when we seem to be largely indifferent to the rest of the world, we are indebted to Trimble for his reminder that the past is not too far removed from the present. The question lurking between the lines is whether the changes in image are in fact changes in substance as well. Answers, tentative though they be, come from two quarters. The pessimists say that the leopard cannot change its spots; the optimists say that the leopard, if not yet a lamb, has already changed, just as Russia has changed, and the days of dark totalitarianism cannot be reconstructed, even if a communist were to be elected after a free and open campaign. Journalists at this point retreat behind the reliable cliché that only time will tell. So do other sensible observers of the kaleidoscopic events in Russia.