The Magazine

Georgia on His Mind

George Soros's Potemkin revolution.

May 24, 2004, Vol. 9, No. 35 • By RICHARD W. CARLSON
Single Page Print Larger Text Smaller Text Alerts

AT THE VOICE OF AMERICA during the Cold War some of the most troublesome employees were those who broadcast daily to the Soviet Union and its satellite states, in Russian, Azeri, Georgian, Ukrainian, Serbo-Croatian, and so on. These staffers were often émigrés--well-educated, sometimes understandably bitter men and women whose attitudes had been formed by a Communist political system in which errors in judgment or action brought disproportional punishment, while rewards could derive from deep, back-channel manipulation of appearances and an avoidance of responsibility. ("Deny everything, make counter-allegations" seemed the guideline in discussions with senior managers. "I didn't do it. He did!" the standard retort.)

Of the more than 50 VOA language services at that time, the most blustering and contentious, emanating a continuing, colorful, and aggressive hostility to management (accompanied by an ironic, bizarre willingness to grovel to tough, uncompromising leadership) was that which broadcast to the Soviet Republic of Georgia.

I was in Georgia last month, and it is still colorful and still difficult, a poor country, poorer even than Haiti, with a new president but the same culture--one that cultivates a swaggering, prideful masculinity in its leaders who, since the fall of the Soviet Union, have been lionized by the U.S. foreign policy establishment and the Western press but who just as quickly seem to morph from lion to demon.

To read more, you must be a Weekly Standard Subscriber

We're Sorry,

the rest of this article is available only to subscribers.

You have two options:

Subscribing today will provide you with immediate, complete access to the current issue, as well as to all back issues on the site. Each week you will be able to read articles from the newest issue even before print copies are mailed!

Privacy Policy