Jacoby

Jacoby, Susan. Moscow Conversations. New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1972. 


"Moscow is one of the easiest places in the world for a journalist to become dishonest with himself and his readers."  15


"Dishonesty becomes a part of journalism in Moscow when correspondents fail to tell their readers about these inhibitions and the profound effect they have on a reporter's perceptions of Russian life. The reluctance of the Moscow press corps to write about its working conditions is less a conspiracy of silence than a product of frustrated resignations; an abnormal situation begins to seem quite normal after only a few months of life in Russia."  15


"Foreign correspondents do not travel as much as they would like to, partly because editors at home demand a steady flow of political news from the capital and partly because each trip involves endless bureacratic snags. A correspondent must obtain special permission from the press departmente of the Soveit Foreign Ministry if he wishes to travel outside a twenty-five mile radius of Moscow and even for some points inside the circle" 19


"THe dissenters are a small, diverse collection of people who disagree strongly on long-range goals for Russia; their main area of agreement is their determination to make the Soviet authorities observe their own laws. Their chief activity is publicizing official actions against other dissenters; they view the publicity as an important guarantee that no one will quietly  disappear into prison or exile, as in the Stalin years. The dissenters naturally need foreign journalists to transmit the news of their activities to the outside world. Stories about Soviet political dissent published in foreign newspapers ensure that many Russians also hear the news." 22-23


"Some journalists are happy to consider dissidents friends as well as news sources; relationships with dissenters involve somewhat less strain and prestense than relationships with ther Russians. The skepticism about absolute truth that is characteristic of most truly educated minds in the west is completely foreign to the majority of Russians; only with a few of the dissidents did I find a common approach to intellectual questions that had nothing to do with politics."  23


"Khrushchev abolished formal censorship of correspondents outgoing news dispatches in 1961. Foreign journalists are now free to transmit their articles by telephone, Telex or cable without prior approval of a Soviet official. The authorities now attempt to censor news dispatches indirectly, through post-publication earnings, KGB harassment and the ultimate sanction of expulsion from the country. Officials in the press deparment in Soviet embassies throughout the world read articles that appear in newspapers and magazines with Moscow correspondents. If an article is both highly important and abrasive, a correspondent may receive an officialwarning from the press department in Moscow within two or three days of publication." 23


"Soviet officials are clearly furious about being unable to prevent contacts between foreign correspondents and political dissidents. The press department has established a pattern of harrassing and trying to get rid of correspondents who see dissidents frequently." 23


"Four foreign journalists were expelled from the Soviet Union during 1970; three of them had been particularly active in gathering news about political dissent and relaying it to other correspondents. Because it is difficult to arrange meetings and also because only the most urgent news is relayed over tapped phone lines, it is impractical for every correspondent to track down rach piece of dissident news himself. One or two correspondents usually meet with a dissenter and pass the news on to the rest of the Moscow press corps. Unfortunately, many spineless Moscow correspondents are only too happy to acquire the news of political dissent from their colleagues but are unwilling to incur official displeasure by meeting dissidents themselves." 23-24


26-most of the sources are intellectuals 


"The reluctance to talk about Stalin today is deep and wide-spread, even amonf people who recognize the dimensions of spread, even among people who recognize the dimensions of the tragedy that befell their country under his dictatorship. Admissions of Stalin's evil, which meant the death and imprisonment of millions of Russians are not forthcoming from most Soviet citizens who grew up during that period. To acknowledge the full extent of the tragedy would be to admit complicity in horrors too great for most people even to think about: The refusal of many middle-aged Germans to admit they knew about the Nazi concentration camps is a similar reaction." 42


"Stalin was never fully toppled from his pedestal, even when Khrushchev's de-Stalinization campaign was at its height. Too many officials still in power had been the executors of Stalin's policies; indeed, many Western analysts believe Khrushchev's seriousness about de-Stalinization was the major gavtor that led to his loss of support within the Party Central Committee. After Khrushchev's partial cleansing operation, the new Brezhnev-Kosygin leadership said in effect, 'Enough is enough,' and clamped hte lid back on the sewer. " 42


"I never met a student in any part of the Societ Union who did not listen to the VOA. Although reception is hampered by jamming, Russians patiently persevere. For obvious reasons, English language broadcasts are interfered with less than Russian language runs. Many students also listened to the BBC, saying they preferred its news broadcasts because the reports were less slanted by American government propaganda. (I prefereed the BBC for the same reason in Moscow.) The student consensus, however, was that the VOA offered better music than the BBC." 94

"The girls said they did not believe everything in Soviet newspapers 'any more than you believe everything in yours.' Tanya's favorite paper was Komsomolskaya pravda, the organ of the Komsomol Central Committee.

Oskar Rabin- Unofficial painter

on Hope against Hope: "He felt that one of its greatest strengths was its recognition that what happened under Stalin was not a passing aberration--the product of one man's insanity--but a national sickness that permitted the Stalinist terrror to develop and may appear in mutant forms for generations to come." 171

"Realism is a word that loses its meaning in such an ideological context. If a painter chooses to depict a shabby apartment or a drunk, he is being a "critical realist" rather a Socialist realist, and the authorities frown on critical realism. In the Soviet Union, realism refers to reality as Soviet ideologues think it should be--not to a reality that an individual artist might perceive." 173

"Soviet papers--like books, magazines, canned food labels and every other form of printed material--are subject to official censorship. The existence of censorship does not, however, mean that every statement in every newspaper represent the official policy of the Soviet government. Pravda, the organ of the Party Central Committee, and to a slightly lesser extent Ivestia, the government newspaper, are forums for top-level statements on foreign and domestic policy. To use a favorite phrase of Stalin's, 'it is not by accident' that articles appear in Pravda and Ivestia. Columns by important political commentators sometimes reflect the official government position on important matters."  213

"Ideas for articles are initiated by party authorities, editors, reporters, outside specialists and sometimes by readers. Letters-to-the-editor columns are extremely important in Soviet newspapers; they provide what is essentially the only public forum for complaints about the way various institutions are run." 216

"Government offices often take percautions to prevent their typewriters from being stolen or used for nefarious purposes. At Vera's newspaper, every typewriter had to be locked away before the staff went home at night."234

Dmitri-college student
"At the same time all of this was rumbling around in my head, One Day came out. I thought things might have changed enough so there was actually a possibility of publishing honest writing." 237

"Dmitri's attitude toward the official writers is, quite simply that they are prostitutes. It is an attitude shared by all committted samizdatchiki and political dissidents." 242

Mikkonen, "Stealing the Monopoly of Knowledge: Soviet Reactions to U.S. Cold War Broadcasting"

Mikkonen, Simo. "Stealing the Monopoly of Knowledge: Soviet Reactions to U.S. Cold War Broadcasting." Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 11, no. 4 (2010): 771-805.

Immediately after World War II, U.S. authorities found themselves with very little information about conditions in the USSR. The United States, therefore, tried to reach across the Iron Curtain to increase its knowledge while avoiding direct military conflict and making an effort to cultivate indirect methods of getting at its adversary. Men like Allen Dulles, George Kennan, and General Lucius Clay were prone to believe that the communist system was vulnerable to aggressive forms of psychological warfare. It was in this context that Radio Free Europe in 1950 and Radio Liberation in 1953 (later known as Radio Liberty [RL]) came into existence.2 RL not only broadcast to the Soviet Union in Russian, but by 1954 it was using an arsenal of 17 Soviet languages in an attempt to appeal to non-Russian minorities. From the beginning, the ultimate objective of RL was to promote the collapse of the Soviet totalitarian government. It was an integral part of the U.S. Cold War strategy. (772)

The activities of RL, in contrast, were built around the specific use of Soviet émigrés; it spoke only to the Soviet people, using the Soviet experiences of the émigrés, and it dealt with Soviet internal affairs. Although it was an instrument of psychological warfare, RL likened itself to an alternative domestic service rather than a foreign broadcaster, attempting thus to insinuate voices from the West into the midst of the Soviet people. (773)

My first claims are, then, that foreign broadcasters had a significant audience and that there were people who considered it important to listen to foreign broadcasts. This article concentrates on the early days of RL, when foreign broadcasts in general were still a relatively new phenomenon, both for the Soviet authorities and for the intended audiences. Although the size and composition of RL’s audience from the 1970s onward have been studied, the first two decades of Cold War broadcasting to the Soviet Union have remained poorly covered by research so far.6 Yet these very decades are crucial for grasping the development of Soviet reactions as foreign broadcasts continued to increase and strengthen. (774-775)

The big picture, however, can be filled in by supplementing the available Soviet material with the rich offerings of the RFE/RL collection in the Hoover Institution Archives (HIA), which provide many details about radio listening in the Soviet Union.  Beyond this, RL focused much effort on the efficient gathering of current information for two primary purposes: first, to provide Soviet citizens with accurate and substantive facts about internal Soviet affairs absent in the Soviet media;11 and second, to determine what kind of audience listened to foreign broadcasts in the USSR.12 The scheme was conceived primarily by Max Ralis, a Moscow-born, multilingual son of a Menshevik émigré who had lived in Berlin and Paris and had fought with the French army before escaping from the Nazis over the Pyrenees to join the U.S. army as a volunteer. (776-777)

 the directorship of RL’s Audience Research Department (ARD), essentially his own creation. (777)

Material was obtained by ARD agents primarily from Soviet travelers to the West, using sophisticated interviewing techniques. The interviews were conducted informally and orally without recording equipment or note taking. Quite often the interviews were based on casual, although hardly accidental, conversations in restaurants, coffee shops, and even bars. ARD agents actively sought contact with travelers when they were alone. The reports were usually written up from memory immediately after the interviews; no systematic questionnaires were ever used. Ralis tried to maintain a high level of source criticism by carefully selecting his interviewers and estimating source credibility from the contexts in which interviews were carried out and from the reports themselves. Whenever Ralis had doubts about the credibility of a report, he would note this in the report. The informal conduct of the interviews was also necessary to get Soviet travelers to speak without arousing their suspicions. To offset the limitations created by the forced informality interviewers would develop their skills in memorizing essential facts. Ralis personally trained and selected interviewers from Soviet émigrés. These were former Soviet citizens, who in most cases had left the Soviet Union recently and knew the behavior and manners of speech of Soviet people.16 (777-778)

Thus, instead of representing the views of average Soviet citizens, the material can provide only some isolated examples and views of some people toward Western broadcasters and RL in particular. But it is enough to indicate that quite a few privileged members of Soviet society did listen to foreign broadcasts. Reports were produced only in cases where someone provided information that was thought useful for RL. Therefore, the true number of interviews conducted can only be guessed. The annual number of reports, however, is easier to estimate: it ranged from 150– 200 reports per year in the early 1960s to 300–500 reports by the end of the 1960s.19 When interviewees felt confident enough, they often revealed facts about their radio listening habits, thus giving valuable information about how foreign radio broadcasts were perceived by Soviet citizens. (778)

As the Cold War quickly intensified, Soviet monitors found themselves in serious trouble: according to one estimate presented to the Central Committee in 1960, as many as 50–60 different radio stations were transmitting short-wave broadcasts to the Soviet Union.26 Even more worrying for the authorities was the fact that instead of short-wave receivers being located in the peripheral areas, 85 percent of them were situated in the European part of the USSR, where often foreign broadcasts, rather than Soviet ones, occurred by short-wave.27 Many Soviet citizens thus had the technical facilities for listening to foreign broadcasts if they so desired. (781)

With the number of foreign broadcasts rapidly growing, the authori- 

ties first chose to limit the languages to be jammed. Obviously, they con- 

centrated on jamming the most hostile broadcasts that used official Soviet 

languages; this was most persistently applied to RL and to a lesser extent 

to VOA, the BBC, Deutsche Welle (DW), Kol Israel, Radio Peking, and 

others. Thus Radio Madrid, Radio Paris, the BBC’s English Service, or DW 

in German would come through without interference. As early as 1958, the 

KGB had suggested ceasing the jamming of languages that were not generally 

spoken in the Soviet Union, referring to Spanish, English, Finnish, and other 

languages.35 Although these were important for a small minority of repatri- 

ates from abroad, or those who had otherwise mastered some foreign lan- 

guage, the authorities felt more threatened by broadcasts in Soviet languages.  (783) 

Music, popularity: The popularity of Western jazz and later pop music in the Soviet Union 

is well known. This development was largely thanks to Western broadcast- 

ers. Western governments did not, however, spend billions of dollars just to 

introduce Soviet citizens to the Beatles. Music was used to attract people to 

listen to more serious and ideological fare.39 Western broadcasters were able 

to use music much more flexibly than their Soviet counterparts. Besides its 

appeal, Western pop culture was important in that it undermined efforts to 

nurture Soviet culture, which the authorities considered to be healthier and 

more morally uplifting. Although an interest in foreign culture as such was 

not a harmful phenomenon, Soviet culture constituted an integral part of the 

socialist fabric, and a loss of interest in it was considered potentially danger- 

ous. Faced with a lack of resources, however, officials had to make qualitative 

choices, so they jammed mainly programs with a downright political con- 

tent. With regard to cultural programs, it is possible that they felt that the 

Soviet culture was superior to that of the West and believed that the people would feel the same. Nonetheless, jamming everything was no longer a viable solution.  (784-785) 

While the reception of RL, the most heavily jammed station, was re- 

portedly sometimes good, on the eve of ideologically or politically important 

occasions jamming rose to unprecedented levels, especially in bigger cities, 

as interviews with people from Leningrad, Gor´kii, or Iaroslavl´ seem to tes- 

tify.41 In all these places, audibility might have been good prior to such an 

event, but during it listening became impossible. Similarly, during and after 

the Cuban Missile Crisis in late 1962, jamming was intensified, making pre- 

viously clear signals inaudible.42 The Cuban crisis, however, was followed by 

a five-year period when the jamming of most foreign broadcasters ceased, 

only to intensify again with the Prague Spring in 1968. 

The reactions recorded by ARD suggest that jamming had little support 

among the people. Even those who in ARD reports seemed otherwise favor- 

able to Soviet policies were opposed on this particular matter. The appar- 

ent contradiction can be explained in part by the annoyance actually caused 

by jamming. Some party sympathizers reasoned that ordinary people could 

easily see through Western propaganda, and that jamming only made them 

more interested. Yet, despite temporary halts to jamming, Soviet citizens con- 

stantly had to live with it. Perhaps thus Soviet travelers were surprised to hear 

that the Americans were free to listen to Radio Moscow without jamming.49 (787)

How to avoid jamming: People also quickly learned to follow jamming patterns. RL, for exam- 

ple, constantly changed its broadcasting frequencies, forcing Soviet jamming 

staffs to make strenuous tuning efforts. Neighboring frequencies were also 

used with the goal of forcing the Soviets either to jam their own broadcasts 

or to give up jamming altogether.54 Sometimes the jammers were accidentally 

directed to the wrong stations, even to Radio Moscow. One interviewee told 

about an official who had been punished for making such a grave mistake.55 

Even if this particular case was untrue, it points out that he was aware that 

RL used frequencies neighboring those used by Radio Moscow. This was 

a major headache for Soviet authorities. It was mentioned in the Central 

Committee that this practice of RL caused “extreme difficulties for our own 

broadcasting.”56 (788)

Radio hams often spotted deficiencies in the jamming and discovered 

other limits to it, but they were not the only ones. According to several ARD 

reports, jamming concentrated on big cities, and people had learned to go 

to the countryside to listen to foreign broadcasts. Just some 40 miles outside 

Moscow, the audibility of RL was very good.57 Dachas also provided peaceful 

surroundings for radio listening, with no prying neighbors or building super- 

intendents. One wounded World War II veteran and active party member, 

according to his own account, drove 35 miles to his dacha every other day just 

to listen to foreign newscasts.58 The existence of such gaps was listed in reports 

to the Central Committee as well. The KGB reported that in the summer of 

1958 it had tested the audibility of several foreign broadcasts in numerous 

locations in the Soviet Union. Even in the outskirts of Moscow, as close as 

Izmailovo and Khovrino, which are just 6 and 11 miles respectively from the 

Kremlin, both VOA and RL could be picked up at least during certain times 

of the day. Farther away, audibility was naturally better.59  (788)

Circumventing jamming seems to have become almost a kind of hobby 

for some people; indeed it should be noted that listening to foreign broadcasts 

might not necessarily represent a political act but simply reflect a tempta- 

tion to “taste forbidden fruit.” Foreign radio listening was widespread among 

Soviet youth, especially high-school students, and it is easy to imagine that 

for them the thrill of thwarting the authorities and the opportunity to listen 

to Western music were more important than politics. With expensive radio 

sets often outside their reach, they set up “radio circles.” These legal recre- 

ational clubs became highly popular during the 1960s, but when the authori- 

ties found out that in them people learned not only how to build their own 

sets but also how to circumvent jamming, they secretly tried to prevent their 

further growth.62 There were cases, however, where even elementary-school 

children started to build their own sets to listen to Western broadcasts.63 (789)

Khurshchev: The problem for the authorities 

was not only that listeners were affected but that they spread the information 

they had heard. One obvious explanation for this might be the cessation of 

the jamming of most stations in 1963, which suggested to people that foreign 

broadcasts were now officially more acceptable. It is important, therefore, 

to keep in mind that Soviet policies concerning foreign broadcasts were not 

invariable but fluctuated over time. A more persistent specter haunting Soviet 

officials was the fear of an alternative worldview from abroad and the loss of 

their monopoly of information channels. 

By '65-it was a big deal. This was indeed an area where foreign broadcasts had 

a major impact: they both answered and added to the Soviet citizens’ tre- 

mendous thirst for knowledge. At RL, people had the impression that by the 

1960s people in the Soviet Union had become bolder with regard to foreign 

broadcasts, and the information obtained from them was effectively passed 

on by word of mouth. In Ralis’s opinion, people had initially dismissed for- 

eign broadcasts as “nonsense” (chepukha), even when agreeing with them, but 

by 1965 they were openly comparing what they had heard and venting their 

opinions about it, and they did not hide the fact that their source was foreign 

broadcasts when they passed on information. RL believed that most people 

were no longer ready to accept seriously what was offered to them by obliga- 

tory ideological education and party meetings, which were the traditional 

sources of information. Foreign broadcasts had increased people’s need to 

know and had helped produce more people who asked questions and were 

less afraid.66 Radio Liberty felt that, along with other foreign broadcasters, 

it had contributed to the change, although at the time it could hardly point 

to any tremendous changes. One case in which RL regarded itself as having 

played a big role was the dissemination of Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago (1958) 

in the Soviet Union.67 At first, this novel was surrounded by official silence, 

and it was not published in the Soviet Union until 1988, but it became well 

known in the bigger cities and among students through the version of it 

read on RL and through samizdat versions, also distributed by RL. This was 

part of RL’s objective: to insinuate Western ideas among the Soviet populace. 

Although RL naturally exaggerated its role in the overall process, it is quite 

evident that foreign broadcasts had played a part in the change of attitudes 

in the Soviet Union. 

Soviet radio is bad- In the late 1950s, the Central Committee had slowly been waking up to 

the dreadful situation concerning the audibility of Soviet broadcasts around 

the vast country. The first signs accidentally emerged in the context of other 

problems: for example, in a report of struggle against foreign propaganda in 

Ukraine. Reading between the lines of this 1958 report revealed that in south- 

ern and western Ukraine dozens of foreign broadcasts were audible, whereas 

the reception of broadcasts from Kiev was at times very poor. Furthermore, 

signals from Moscow were certainly not dependable everywhere, as Soviet 

jammers themselves impeded reception.78 Similar hints about problems in 

audibility due to lack of resources in local broadcasting poured in from other 

republics, too. This, however, was a mere prelude to coming revelations. (794)

Foreign broadcasts, especially newscasts, were thus closely followed by 

many people in the USSR, regular citizens and officials alike. News was al- 

legedly gathered from American sources, but not everything was repeated in 

Soviet newscasts because of censorship and other factors. The result was that 

the Soviet media constantly lagged behind in the up-to-date coverage of what 

was happening. An illustrative case was the Sino-Soviet split in the 1960s. 

For years, Soviet media pretended that nothing was wrong, while RL kept 

broadcasting news about the corrosion of relations. Many actually considered 

news of the Sino-Soviet split to be Western propaganda until the reality be- 

came clear to everyone. In the long run, cases like this, which indicated that 

the foreign broadcasters had been right, further eroded trust in the Soviet 

media and drove people to seek accurate news from foreign broadcasts. It is 

hardly surprising, then, that party officials were among the keenest listeners 

of foreign broadcasts.104 Foreign broadcasts had become a source that helped 

people fill in gaps in their knowledge. The situation was so dire that the au- 

thorities could no longer turn a blind eye but were forced to change their own 

programming in an attempt to hang on to their crumbling media monopoly. (801)

 why western was better: Apart from their greater willingness to answer to local 

needs, foreign broadcasters could also count on one permanent advantage: 

almost unlimited access to both Soviet and Western media, whereas Soviet 

newscasters could never make full use of Western sources. Indeed, before 

the late 1980s, Soviet journalists and news personnel had very limited scope 

to report even on Soviet affairs. They needed permits from their superiors, 

and there were censors who ensured that no unauthorized material went on 

the air. (802)

A 

bigger problem was the superior quality of American programs, acknowl- 

edged by ordinary Soviet citizens and the authorities alike. American exam- 

ples were adopted in improving newscasts, more music was introduced, and 

concessions were even made in offering pure entertainment programs with- 

out a direct educational or political purpose. Despite some genuine successes, 

however, foreign broadcasts maintained their popularity, and the only lasting 

policy Soviet authorities could come up with was jamming, which continued 

on and off throughout the Soviet era. (804)

why it was radical: 

he free flow of information seems to have been the biggest fear for the 

Soviet authorities in regard to foreign broadcasts. Even more alarming for the 

Soviet authorities than the dissemination of information about how to listen 

to foreign broadcasts was the fact that news people had heard from foreign 

broadcasts was passed on by word of mouth. Although there were hardly 

any clear indications of unrest being caused by foreign broadcasts within the 

Soviet Union, the authorities were still afraid of the possible consequences. 

However, many party members themselves ardently followed the same news- 

casts in pursuit of information. Although Soviet news services were slow and 

often concealed information, many journalists were assigned to follow for- 

eign broadcasts, not only to help the authorities rebut their arguments but 

simply to keep up with world affairs. Thus the foreign newscasts became an 

important source for average Soviet people and officials alike to keep abreast 

of events, both domestic and foreign. Following the title of its campaign in 

the late 1950s, RL, along with VOA and BBC, became the “guest in the liv- 

ing room,” thus making real the fears of the Soviet authorities.  (805)

Hopkins, Vol. 7 "Unknown, Unsung"

Bukovsky on the typewriter- he would erect a monument to it  (137)

"First recall that all printing presses, duplicating machines, and photocopiers in the Soviet Union are state-owned and -controlled. That is, the KGB oversees their use. There are known cases of dissident groups establishing illegal underground presses, but these have been rare. Moreover, officially printed material in the Soviet Union is censored by the government agency Glavit. There is, in short, no conceivable, practical way for a Soviet citizens' group to mass-produce thousands or tens of thousands of copies of a newspaper, periodical or newsletter without state permission."

"The Chronicle's typists, however, never graduated to international celebrity rank. There are reliable reports of several women sentenced to labor camps for typing the Chronicle and of others interrogated. For the most part, the names of those who did produce the Chronicle-and most of them have been women-have disappeared in the anonymous mass that forms the private Soviet world." (H, 139)

"THe first problem a staffer faced in producing an issue was obtaining a typewrite. In the early 1960s, typewriters for private purchase were scarce in the Soviet Union, as were many consumer good. Even as production of Soviet models and foreign imports later increased, however, type-writers could leave a trail for the KGB to follow. Some times a purchaser of a new or used machine would be required to give a name and address. Moreover, it was believed among Soviet dissidents that the KGB routinely took samples of type imprints from each machine. Typed samizdat would be matched against these samples to incriminate the writer."

Ludmilla- find in THaw generation, inherited them to friends, give when emigree

"There is an unmistakable attachment of Chronicle workers to the typewriters. It is borne out by the fact that they can still recall in interviews precisely the manufacture of their typewrites, the price, and where the machines were purchased.' (H,140)

"THe constant noise of the machine carried through thin walls of Soviet apartments, possibly spurring a hostile or suspicious neighbor to inform the KGB. KBG-implanted listening devices in apartments could pick up continuous typewriter sounds. THe prudent choice, then was, to type the Chronicle in apartments not readily identified by the KGB as those of dissidents or their friends. Using such apartments meant, however, carrying a 20-pound typewriter hidden in a satchel from one's home to another address, pushing onto crowded buses or the subway, and then trudging blocks with heavy load to the final destination." (H, 140)

Galina Salova-worker:

"'I would lookt at people after they had put out an issue of the Chronicle,' she remembers. 'Their eyes were red. They obviously had had now sleep

-work at "fever pitch

-single spaced
6 or 12 carbon copies with original

"It was physically hard work. Typists would pound keys of old manual typewriters, trying to give clarity to carbon copies. THere was a premium on accuracy, for mistakes usually were not erased, but simply 'x-ed' out. So typing for the Chronicle meant tense, exhausting hours closeted in a safe apartment, feeling anxiety rise as fatigue set in and wondering if the KGB was preparing a search. " (H, 140-141)

Salova interview:

"It was difficult to find thin paper and carbons. You had to buy it at special stores. And people who worked there watched who bought the paper. A woman friend of mine found a professional typist to buy the paper, since she had reason to do so because of her work. How did we find the paper? Someone would call and tell me that there is carbon paper at such and such a store. I'd tell friend go buy what they could. You could only buy a limited amount-say 50 or 100 pieces.

...I was always worried when the Chronicle was being retyped.

For one thing there was the problem of getting a Chronicle copy for retyping..We would not talk out loud about it-apartments were monitored. We'd write notes to each other if we had to exchange information.

If we arranged to meet, say, in the subway to pass the Chronicle, the person might give me a book. Inside would be a copy of the Chronicle. " (H, 143)

hired prof typers sometimes

"A representative issue, done by a profession typist at 20 kopeks a page (100 kopecks to the ruble) would total about 20 rubles. Even that price was half the rate for professional work. But 20 rubles amounts to 10 to 15 percent of a monthly wage. Many of those reproducing the Chronicle have had no other money to live on aside from their pay. They could not always accept the extra financial burden of the Chronicle. The logical choice for some, then, was to sell it. Prices  per copy varied. Figures of 2 to 5 rubles a Chronicle copy are mentioned. Some people sold other samizdat-reproduction of Solzhenitsyn's novels, for example--to help subsidize production of the Chronicle. Others accepted contributions from friends and sympathizers. Still others simply paid from their own pockets for reproduction of Chronicle issues, necessarily giving up something for themselves."

145: photo copying

"The Chronicle has national circulation in the Soviet Union since its inception. Once distributed only in Moscow, then in LEningrad and Kiev, the Chronicle now reaches most major cities. It is believed the Chronicle routinely has been distributed to these Soviet cities in large numbers: Leningrad, Vilnius, Riga, and perhaps Tallin in the Baltic states region; Kiev, Odessa, Kishinev, Kharkov, and Everan in the souther and southwestern regions; and Novosbirsk, Sverdlovsk, Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk, Volograd, Tomsk, and Tashkent in the Soviet Siberian and central Asian areas. The Chronicle has found its way elsewhere, to remote Siberian villages to political prisoners in exile, for example. But given the reproduction and distribution system, there is no reliable method to document where each issue of the Chronicle moves or how many copies. (H,148)

The total circulation of the Chronicle generally is estimated in the thousands, not many in a country of 270 million people. In successive reproductions by typerwriter of photocopying, a single Chronicle number might total between 1,000 and 10,000 individual copies. Each number might, in fact, vary in total copies, depending, for example on the extent of KGB harassment at the rime or availability of paper. Multiply by ten for the number of readers per issue and the total reading audience in the Soviet Union of a Chronicle issue might be 10,000 to 100,000. These are only approximations. The truth is no one really knows wither the readership or the circulation of the Chronicle." (H, 148)

"The Chronicle's audience has been magnified, however, by foreign radiobroadcasts. Especially in the earlier years, when the Chronicle was almost the sole source of uncensored and reliable news of political affairs in the Soviet Union, the foreign press corps routinely extracted from the Chronicle. In turn, Radio Liberty, Voice of America, BBC, Deutsche Welle, and other foreign radio broadcast the information back to the Soviet Union in Russian-language programs. Radio Liberty, the American-financed radio station transmitting in Russian and other languages of the Soviet Union, eventually broadcast whole issues of the Chronicle. The programs have been recorded in the Soviet Union for transcription and samizdat circulation. Thus, the entire state Glavit censorshop system has veen circumvented and Chronicle reports have reached millions of Soviet listeners." (H, 149)

Several conditional facts must be kept in mind in assessing the Chronicle's network. First, Soviet authorities reinstituted jamming of foreign radiobroadcasts in August 1968, coincident with the invasion of Czechoslavakia. The jamming was not halted until 1973, the year Brezhnev leadership searched for a conciliatory gesture to spur the Helinski agreement negotiations." (H, 149)

"An essential element in the Chronicle's network has been the foreign press corps in Moscow, first and foremost the American correspondents. Soviet dissidents interviewed about the Chronicle often mention individual reporters who took special interest in the struggle between Soviet authorities and dissidents. To mention some is to risk slighting other correspondents who were equally involved, but these names come up: George Krimsky and Roger Leddington of the Associated Press; Ray Anderson, Hendrick Smith and Robert Kaiser of the Washington Post; James Yuenger and Frank Starr of the Chicago Tribune; Robert Toth of the Los Angeles Times; and Jay Alexbank and Alfred Friend, Jr. of Newsweek.... (H,149)

"Soviet authorities recognized the importance of foreign correspondents in the Chronicle and other samizdat information network. Some of the best informed Western reporters were routinely harassed and some were expelled. David Bonovia and George Krimsky, for example, were ordered out of the Soviet Union in the mid-1970s. The KGB interrogated Robert Toth for three days before he was permitted to leave Moscow in 1978. THere was not doubt that their contacts among Soviet dissidents, and their reporting of what Soviet authorities considered highly objectionable information, led to their expulsion." (H, 150)

Hopkins- Vol. 2 "The Spark"

21: Baptist newspaper since '64

"From the start, then, the Chronicle was set apart from other and plentiful samizdat literature, political tracrs, petitions, statements and reports...Soviet and foreign journalists could get this type of information in Moscow in the late 1960s only on a sporadic basis and only if they were involved in samizdat and dissident circles. Even then, sometimes incomplete. If one were outside established dissident circles, the most one knew about official actions besides rumors was contained in cryptic Soviet reports. They told virtually nothing except that something had happened. (H, 22)"

-alternative to official information

"The style of the Chronicle was heavy on facts--names, ages, dates, places, specific events. It was light on both judgements and speculation or opinion (H,22)"

NG: "Basically there was an attempt in all the letters to be very exact, to lay out the facts, to describe the violations of rights, to quote articles of law. Nothing was exaggerated. The love for objectivity was in the air. (H, 23)"

"The first issue drew heavily on actions against the Chronicle group and its friends and acquaintances. Besides the Galanskov-Ginzburg proceeding with  which some of the Chronicle people were closely connected, protest statements reproduced in that first issue revealed a pattern of signatures. Many of those who encouraged founding of the Chronicle turned up as co-authors of grievances...This is to sat that Gorbanevskaya used what was available, and most of that information came from or was collected by one relatively small Moscow group. (H,25)"

"Production of the Chronicle came from the very first was along the lines of a "chain letter." Gorbanevskaya typed the first seven copies. One went to a Western correspondent, another was saved in order to produce more copies, and the remaining five copies were given out. In the already established form for distributing samizdat, recipients were expected to reproduce further copies. Commonly these were typed, but homemade photocopying of samizdat was increasingly popular. How many copies of a particul samizdat item were made could not be said, the work being done privately and separately. (H, 26)

-expected it to be short

-28: -end of '68, assert legality
-how to submit info

29: ""The price for that system, however, was a secrecy and confidentiality that amounted to an underground publication (H,29). "

"If the Chronicle was legal, why be secret? If the Chronicle was secret could it be legal? (H,29)"

"Not only the now standard arrests and interrogations were reported; political documents and statements, internal disputes involving Soviet policy, and protests and grievances from among an increasingly broad spectrum of the Soviet population were reported as well. The information, moreover, was assembled in one readable source, in direct and unambiguous Russian. There was no need to read between the lines as Soviets routinely did when the official Soviet press reported some specially sensitive issue." (H, 30)

31:  samizdat news

"The information flow to and from the Chronicle developed in important ways under Gorbanevskaya. First the volume of facts increased as friends and readers caught on to what the Chronicle wanted and was willing to publish. Also, a sort of "beat" system of reporting emerged. It was not planned but developed simply because of personal interests and contacts. (H, 33)."

Ei: Tartars- Grigorkenko
Jews Takir
Ukraine-Alexeyeva

34: Amalrik, Litinov, Yakir

"Through this connection, the contents of the Chronicle moved through an already established information network of Moscow correspondents, Western news agencies and newspaper, radio, and television reports to editorial offices and media abroad. Abroad, foreign shortwave broadcasters picked up Chronicle information, and individual news reports based on Chronicle items or contents of whole issues found their way back to the Soviet Union in Russian-language broadcasts of the BBC, Deutsche Welle, and Voice of America. Radio Liberty broadcast readings of entire issues of the Chronicle. (H, 34)

"Although foreign radio signals were heavily hammed from the summer of 1968 to the fall of 1973, broadcasts could still be generally served the Chronicle well, as audiences numbering in the tens of millions in the Soviet Union heard the news from the Chronicle. (H, 34)"

36: implications of Red Square

"In the aftermath of the invasion, in the three years leading up to the twenty-fourth Communist party congress in 1971, at which General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev renewed a policy of coexistence and cooperation with the West, important debates were held over the implications of this policy. On the one side, the benefits of detente in terms of Western trade and financial assistance for the lagging Soviet economy were attractive to a number of groups in the Soviet Union. But there also was the argument, frequently made in the Soviet press, that in times of closer relations with the West, greater vigilance was required within the country. This was an old problem for Soviet leaders-... Not great on the re-freeze"(H, 37)

41-42: Gorbanevskaya trial