TRAC
Interview Transcript

Paul Pozner     (cont)

Question:  Tell us about the role of the your institute through the entire transition.

Pozner:  So, now you went to the academic world?

Question:  Yes.

Pozner:  In the academic world, there's a very special part in Russia had always a lot of impact.  Not so evident, but still.  And there were institutes who were part of them working on the same, in the same frame of the KGB, as you say.  Not because there were KGB, but, in KGB Institute.  Of course there were a lot of former military working in these institutes, or former intelligence people working in institutes, but still because they were making research on the country's potential enemies, or potential friends, and they had access to the real documents, and to the real information, and to the controversial people, and they were very sophisticated and they got information from there.  They prepare the information who went to people who had to put all the information together.  It was the Institute of United States, I mean, of America and Canada, it's called, of the Academy of Sciences, sometimes called after his then director, academician Arbatov.  And they, or course, prepared a lot of materials in parallel and were working on culture and economics and history of these countries.  They work on very, very natural problems.  And maybe the scientists who work on these problems, will now that this result of his work would be used in this way.  Or he may guess, but he, himself, had never had access to it.  But some publications were open.  Everybody could read them.  There were books published, articles published, but some publications were possible, what it was called, and then exist until now.  Just, just for internal use.  Even theses were done like that.  And still, it exists.  And I think it exists in all the countries of the world because if there is a thesis where you study a problem of, say, nuclear physics, which could be very important, or the defense problems.  I believe in the States, in France, in Germany, it's not public.  It's the same.

Question:  Changing subjects, tell us about the history of these criminal gangs, different mafias.  How far back does it go?  What is it's role now?  Perhaps, tell us about some comparisons to the United States, in this regard.

Pozner:  Yeh, really you changed subject.  

Pozner:  Let me go back to Primakov, he's an academician--a real academician.  And he really knows very well the academic world.  He speaks English; he speaks French.  He's a good specialist--of the economics of Arab countries.  On the same time, you know, who is Primakov?  But you know it now.  You didn't know it before.

Question:  From the intelligence services.

Pozner:  Exactly.  Now he's the head of the Russian CIA.  And he used to be, and now he's the minister of foreign affairs.  Yes, the state secretary, exactly the same.  So, you never know that he used to be the, who he, who he is before the country decided to say that he is what he is, and that way he is in a position where everybody will know what it means.  Or, he got caught.  And that's a lot of people in diplomatic worlds in all the countries; a lot of journals; a lot of people who have a lot of contacts, social contacts, who will never know who is who until.  That's why, that's also about the Arbatov Institute or any other institute related to international, and very often inside problems.  Okay, now everything's changed, everything is different.  Still, this institutes work as they work.  But, there is in the West a lot of talk about all the crime in Russia, about Russian mafia.  There is no mafia.  I'm convinced.  Mafia is a very concrete notion.  And, it appeared in Sicilia and Italy, and by the Italians, it went up, grew up in the States.  It's a very special thing with kind of Godfather and all that stuff, and mafia is dealing with only illegal, illegal stuff.  I don''t know if they deal with drugs, they deal with alcohol, they deal with drugs.  But, only illegal stuff.  It's mafia, crime, organized crime, that's different.  And, of course we have organized crime, dealing with narcotics, dealing with underground trade of arms, or arms, dealing with a lot of stuff, underground.  This organized crime has, I would believe, has very serious international relations, because for them the border does not exist.  But it's not the Russian organized crime expanding to the West.  I would say it's the Western organized crime expanding to the East and the Eastern to the West.  It's a mutual work.  But this crime doesn't touch me.  It doesn't touch anybody in the country because those people who do this kind of business, they have their inside problems, and if they shoot somebody down, they do it because the guy is not in the rules of their game, inside their game.  It doesn't touch any business, legal business.  It doesn't touch the life, life of the common people, by no means.  On the other hand, now it goes down, that still it exists, but goes down.

Question:  There's less of this now than there was three years ago?

Pozner:  No, this kind of organized crime, it is more .  .  .