The face of the Cold War says he’s never been so scared
RUSSIA: At 84, Vladimir Pozner has seen a lot of history unfolding in Moscow. Yet in all the time he spent working as one of the chief propagandists of the Soviet Union he never felt as anxious about the prospect of conflict as he does today
‘‘I’m very concerned,’’ he told The Sunday Times last week. ‘‘I’m worried about my grandchildren. I was never this worried throughout the whole of the Soviet period.’’
For foreigners, the urbane Pozner was the instantly recognisable face and voice of the Soviet Union, going on television with his fluent English – he was raised in New York by a French mother and Russian father – to justify Kremlin misdeeds from crushing the Prague Spring in 1968 to invading Afghanistan in 1979.
‘‘I did a hell of a job,’’ he said. ‘‘The idea was to create positive information about the Soviet Union. I never lied. Just gave the positive side.’’
By contrast, today’s chief Kremlin propagandists, he said, were ‘‘well-paid television commentators with no ideology’’ and ‘‘no conscience. They lie. Look at the stuff they spew out on Russia Today (Sunday) [the Russian television channel]. It’s fake news.’’
Soviet propaganda, he said, ‘‘was anti-capitalist, anti-Wall Street and anti-White House’’. Today, Russia has turned against the American people. ‘‘AntiAmerican sentiment is much higher now than in Soviet days. People were weeping when [President John] Kennedy died. There’s no way you’d get that now.’’
Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet leader, had averted disaster in the Cuban missile crisis. ‘‘They had the wisdom to pull back.’’ But today ‘‘there’s a total lack of statesmanship, there’s no-one with the balls to stand up and say ‘this has gone too far’. The level of trust is lower than in the Cold War and a false alarm now is more likely to trigger a nuclear launch than it was. Once the missiles are gone, you can’t shoot them down. That’s it. World War III. The end of all of us.’’
He was scathing about Donald Trump. ‘‘The White House is illequipped to deal with any conflict,’’ he said. ‘‘It’s occupant wants only to prove that his dick – excuse my English – is bigger than anyone else’s.’’
Pozner is also hard on himself for his record as a Soviet propagandist. At first he had believed in the Soviet dream but he gradually lost faith. Prague ‘‘was the first crack. It was hard to swallow’’. But he kept on. Now he feels ashamed. ‘‘I’m not religious. But I think I committed a serious sin.’’
Pozner, who is married to a showbusiness impresario, broke with communism in the 1980s. He is a popular media figure with his own television show.
He finds it hard to believe that Putin could have ordered the Salisbury nerve agent attack. ‘‘What would be the logic of it just as Russia was having an election and about to host the World Cup?’’ he said. – Sunday Times