Word: kgb
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There's a firm hand on Moscow's tiller now, but nobody knows quite where the ship is headed. President Vladimir Putin was inaugurated Sunday at a low-key ceremony in which he promised to be "guided only by the interests of the state," but while the former KGB officer speaks of democracy, he also talks in the same breath about strengthening the state; and although he says he will move decisively to get Russian capitalism up and running, he also looks set to expand state involvement in the economy. And while Boris Yeltsin's designated heir hailed his ascent...
...KGB general in the Kremlin as President of "democratic Russia" is not an "unhappy accident." Putin's election crowns a shift in Russia's mass consciousness from romantic, yet real, pro-democratic expectations toward demand for a "strong hand...
...realize they have made a huge mistake. Upon arriving in Russia, in a scene reminiscent of Hitler's concentration camps, Alexei and Marie watch as soldiers separate family members and then shoot a boy that attempts to rejoin his father. Events take a turn for the worse when a KGB officer accuses Marie of being a spy, destroys her passport, and sends her, Alexei, and their son to live in a communal apartment in Kiev...
What does a man embrace from so varied a set of masters? In the KGB, says Stepashin, who also served a stint running its successor agency, you learn some useful presidential habits. Speak less, listen more. Don't form hasty conclusions. If you decide, decide. Calculate your responses. Don't betray your own. Putin, he says, "applies these principles to life in general." But a dedicated ex-agent admits that the system drills in some less positive unwritten rules. Don't say anything you don't need to say. Be underestimated. Putin, says this former spy, "will apply the same...
Those 15 years in the KGB did give Putin rare exposure to the outside world. "Compared to the boneheads in internal repression, he had to be relatively open minded," says a British diplomat. But many Russians still fear the way such a sinister organization twists minds. Putin rehung the plaque of Yuri Andropov at KGB headquarters, and always stoutly defends the organization and his service in it. "Their system of education is so strong that there is no such thing as a former KGB agent," says former army Colonel Viktor Baranets. Today, Putin has surrounded himself with many...