193. Telegram From the Embassy in the Federal Republic of Germany to the Department of State1
4638. For the President and the Secretary From Ambassador Burt. Subject: Shcharanskiy.
1. (C—Entire text.)
2. I want to report to you my impressions of this magnificent day, when Anatoliy Shcharanskiy crossed the Glienicker Bridge in West Berlin into the free world.2 Shcharanskiy is all that he was cracked up to be. He is a smart, tough, but very human individual who is thrilled to be free, excited at seeing his wife after some nine years, and deeply appreciative of your and the Secretary’s direct efforts to gain his release. He has an incredible story to tell. His vitality and strength of spirit in the face of the brutality and pettiness of his former Soviet jailers are remarkable.
3. He came over into the West with no baggage at all. The KGB had stripped him of all of his possessions, with the exception of a tiny Hebrew prayer book. He told me that he had taken this prayer book, [Page 828] a present from his wife, Avital, into prison concealed on his person. When it was discovered sometime later by his prison guards, it was taken away from him, and he was thrown into a punishment cell for 130 days. Three weeks ago, when he was being taken out of his prison for the trip to Moscow, he threw himself into the snow and refused to move until the KGB promised to return the prayer book to him. It was handed back to him only yesterday, after he had been stripped of his Soviet citizenship, and after his plane had crossed the Soviet border for East Berlin.
4. Six weeks ago, Shcharanskiy weighed only some 110 pounds. While the KGB then began fattening him up, he did not learn that he was to be released until Ambassador Meehan spoke with him in East Berlin yesterday and explained to him what was going to happen.
5. As he talked to me about his experiences in prison and in labor camps over the last nine years, his true physical and moral strength became apparent. He told me that he had never lost hope in prison. He always felt connected to his wife, to Israel and to people of goodwill in the West. Three years ago, he went on a prolonged hunger strike to protest the refusal of the KGB to give him letters written to him by family and friends. By the end of his hunger strike, he was on the verge of death. But as he put it to me, though he was ready to die, he was not ready to give up. I think it is no wonder that the Soviets were so worried about the threat this man posed to the Soviet system.
6. Shcharanskiy also struck me as a man of considerable strength and independence of intellect. He preserved his remarkable fluency in English, for example, by reading Soviet English-language newspapers in prison. He even began studying Arabic, so that he could communicate with Palestinians as well as Israelis when he eventually went to Israel. Throughout his prison experience, Shcharanskiy maintained a lively interest in world affairs. He mentioned to me, for example, the shooting down of the Korean airliner, and he expressed his shock over the recent tragedy of the Challenger space shuttle.3
7. You should know that Shcharanskiy is a great admirer of your policies. He told me that, in discussions with other prisoners, there was agreement that your firmness in dealing with the Soviet Union [Page 829] (as contrasted with the policies of some of your predecessors) could produce a real detente, and not the phony detente of the early 1970’s.
8. Shcharanskiy also told me he learned that you had written a letter to Avital in 1982 only when he came across a reproduction of your letter in a book of anti-Zionist propaganda in his prison library.
9. Shcharanskiy is elated and happy at his release, and he also has a good sense of humor. He told me that, over the past nine years, he had become accustomed to living under constant pressure and to being prepared at a moments’s notice to deal with “provocations.” He said it was a strange and altogether unaccustomed feeling for him to be able now to relax. He also said that, although the name of the city of Berlin understandably evoked mixed feelings in a Jew, Berlin was today a synonym for him of freedom.
10. Many people deserve a share of the credit for today’s achievement: Chancellor Kohl and his people; Ambassador Frank Meehan in East Berlin, Bill Woessner, Mark Palmer and Olaf Grobel of the State Department; the U.S. Minister and his staff in Berlin, and our Consul General and his staff in Frankfurt; John Martin of the Justice Department, the U.S. Marshal Service, and finally the dedicated men and women of the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Army.
11. Incidentally, as a memento of this important day in his life, I gave Shcharanskiy my own pair of Presidential cuff links, presented to me when I became Ambassador. I hope you don’t mind.4
- Source: Department of State, Central Foreign Policy File, Electronic Telegrams, D860370–0978. Confidential; Immediate; Exdis. Also sent for information to the White House.↩
- Reagan wrote in his diary on February 11: “1st news of the day ‘Scharansky freed by the Soviets.’ After years of imprisonment he was made part of a spy swap & allowed to rejoin his wife. We flew him to our base at Frankfurt & an Israeli plane flew to Tel Aviv. Later in day I received a call from P.M. Peres & Scharansky thanking us. I told them Kohl of W. Germany played a big part in putting this together.” (Brinkley, ed., The Reagan Diaries, vol. II: November 1985–January 1989, pp. 571–572) Shultz also recalled Shcharansky’s release in his memoir: “Reports on our negotiations for the swap for Shcharansky were coming in fairly frequently now. Shcharansky was to be released across the Glienicke Bridge into West Berlin on February 11. On Monday, February 3, a leak about the coming release appeared on the front page of the New York Times. When I said, ‘No comment,’ that was taken by the TV analysts as confirmation. As usual, a mob of people had been present in the Oval Office the previous week when the Shcharansky release was mentioned, so the leak may have come from there. But there were other possibilities. The Soviets had also leaked the story to the German press, probably deliberately, to get press credit. That was a good sign; a leak from their side usually meant that the release had approval at the top. Our people in the European bureau were now in contact with the intermediary who was arranging the release. A disturbing message came in asking us to get Avital Shcharansky to write a letter to Anatoly urging him to ‘cooperate’ with the arrangements. I feared that this might be used to induce Shcharansky to sign something unwise or otherwise to give in to Soviet authorities. I said no to the request. ‘You don’t need to worry,’ said Avital. ‘If Anatoly is asked to compromise, he just won’t do it.’ Given all the leaks and the increasing certainty that the release would take place, I had decided that Avital should know the scenario for the release so she could plan to be in Europe at the time. She should consult with Prime Minister Peres right away, we advised. Avital said she would walk over to his house (it being Shabbat) that evening, Friday, February 7.” (Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph, p. 706)↩
- On January 28, the Challenger space shuttle exploded not long after lift off. “A day we’ll remember for the rest of our lives,” Reagan wrote in his diary. “I was getting a briefing for a meeting I was to have with network anchors—an advance on the St. of the Union address scheduled for tonight. In came Poindexter & the V.P with the news the shuttle Challenger had blown up on takeoff. We all then headed for a T.V. & saw the explosion re-played. From then on there was only one subject—the death of the 6 crew & 1 passenger—Mrs. McAuliffe the teacher who had won the right to make the flight. There is no way to describe our shock & horror.” (Brinkley, ed., The Reagan Diaries, vol. II: November 1985–January 1989, p. 566)↩
- Shultz continued in his memoir: “On Tuesday, February 11, 1986, Anatoly Shcharansky crossed the Glienicke Bridge to West Berlin. The spies being held on each side were not released until he was met by our new ambassador, Rick Burt, who was so moved that he took off the special cuff links, bearing the emblem of the Great Seal of the Republic, that I presented to each American ambassador. He pressed them into Shcharansky’s hands. Rick cabled me later in the day to request a new set. (Shcharansky told me later when I met him in Washington, that he was not wearing the cuff links, that he had never worn cuff links—or a necktie—in his life, and though pleased with the gift, he hoped I wouldn’t be offended if he didn’t wear them in the future.) Within a few hours after his release, Anatoly and his wife were in Shimon Peres’s office and chatting with me on the phone. ‘It’s a great moment in the history of our people,’ Peres told me.” (Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph, p. 707)↩