Garry Kasparov - Winter Is Coming

I very much hope that the book itself recognizes the many individuals who have educated and inspired me during my past ten years as a human rights activist, so I will use this space for those who turned that education and inspiration into a book.

Chris Parris-Lamb, my agent at The Gernert Company, impressed us from the first day we met with his preparation and energy. Chris and our editor at PublicAffairs, Benjamin Adams, were essential in quickly figuring out how to turn a tangle of ideas, history, memoir, analysis, current events, and opinion into a coherent story with a vital message. PublicAffairs founder Peter Osnos has a great nose for news and his enthusiastic support for the book was a tremendous boost.

Special thanks to George R. R. Martin for his marvelous book series, A Song of Ice and Fire, and its derived HBO television series Game of Thrones, which inspired this book’s title. Putin may be a lot like Tywin Lannister but I’m justifiably afraid to compare myself to any of the characters considering how often they meet gruesome fates!

-bring the normal life to my people. The daylight. A metaphor I adapted from the mirror-smashing scene in a movie that had only just become quite popular in the USSR, Bruce Lee’s Enter the Dragon !

-shaking its political structure to the roots. George H. W. Bush and Brent Scowcroft, A World Transformed (New York: Knopf Doubleday, 1998), Kindle edition, locations 10106-07.

-the republics will have their independence. Fred Waitzkin, Mortal Games: The Turbulent Genius of Garry Kasparov (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1993), Kindle edition, locations 594-95.

-trying to save everything he can. Ibid.

-a $2.5 billion aid package that had been delayed. Curt Tarnoff, U.S. Assistance to the Former Soviet Union 1991-2001: A History of Administration and Congressional Action, CRS Report for Congress, updated January 15, 2002.

-against its enemies, both internal and external. Robert O. Paxton, The Anatomy of Fascism (New York: Knopf Doubleday, 2004), Kindle edition, locations 4284-85.

-crisis since the end of World War II. The US and the USSR both agreed on the creation of Israel in 1948 and were the first two countries to recognize it.

-consensus for the American role in the world. Bush and Scowcroft, A World Transformed , Kindle edition, locations 11416-20.

-much bloodier than we thought . David Halberstam, War in a Time of Peace: Bush, Clinton, and the Generals (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2001), 29.

-yesterday America elected the leader of the world. Garry Kasparov, “Moral Principles Must Underpin U.S. Leadership,” Wall Street Journal, November 4, 1992, A14.

-and advancing the cause of peace. President Bill Clinton statement to the American people on Kosovo from the White House, March 24, 1999. Full text and video at http://millercenter.org/president/speeches/speech-3932.

-though most are blessedly peaceful today. The Wikipedia page “Disputed territories in Europe” is fascinating reading and excellent trivia.

-what you would have to say to him about that? President Bill Clinton’s news conference with President Boris Yeltsin of Russia in Moscow, May 10, 1995, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=5l336.

-without even telling Yeltsin. Kommersant newspaper, May 18, 1995. Referenced in John W. Parker, Persian Dreams: Moscow and Tehran Since the Fall of the Shah (Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2008), 116.

-who promoted close political and economic ties with Iran. Ibid. 117-188.

-a more cooperative relationship in the future. Tarnoff, “U.S. Assistance to the Former Soviet Union 1991-2001: A History of Administration and Congressional Action,” CRS report for Congress, updated January 15, 2002.

-manage the conflicts they themselves had provoked. Steven Erlanger, “Five Years Later: Eastern Europe, Post-Communism—A Special Report; East Europe Watches the Bear, Warily,” New York Times, October 21, 1994.

-territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine. Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances, 1994, http://www.cfr.org/nonproliferation-arms-control-and-disarmament/budapest-memorandums-security-assurances-1994/p32484.

-I can stand death-lots of it—but you can’t. Halberstam, War in a Time of Peace , 420.

-I can’t help it. It is my character. From the film Confidential Report, aka Mr. Arkadin (1955), written and directed by Orson Welles. Later written as Welles’s only novel.

-we’ll wipe them out in their shithouses. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s press conference in Astana, Kazakhstan, September 24, 1999.

Russians believed the security forces were involved in the apartment bombings. An April 2002 Levada opinion poll revealed that 43 percent of Russians thought this, while 38 percent excluded the possibility; http://www.levada.ru/press/2002041600.html.

-liabilities that are too heavy to overcome. Garry Kasparov, “Russia’s Best Election Yet,” Wall StreetJournal, December 21, 1999.

-the most destroyed city on Earth. BBC News, “Scars remain amid Chechen revival,” March 3, 2007, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/64l46o3.stm.

-has fallen in the second Chechen war. Anna Politkovskaya, A Small Corner of Hell: Dispatches from Chechnya (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), 29.

-the empire it served and protected: the USSR . Masha Gessen, The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin (New York: Penguin, 2012), 132.

-the ultimate international political performance artist . Fiona Hill and Clifford Gaddy, Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2015), Kindle edition, locations 322-27.

-resign early and thrust him into the presidency early. Recounted by Tatyana Yumasheva, Yeltin’s daughter and close advisor, on her website; also as reported in the Telegraph on January 23, 2010, http://www.tele-graph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/7063201/Boris-Yeltsins-daughter-attacks-Vladimir-Putin.html.

-final historical triumph of the first president of Russia. Garry Kasparov, “Yeltsin Offers New Hope for the New Year,” Wall Street Journal, January 3, 2000.

-followed the principles of free society. George Soros, “Bitter Thoughts with Faith in Russia,” Moskovsky Novosti, February 2000.

-very much alive and politically kicking. Andrei Piontkovsky, “For Whom Putin Tolls?” Russia Journal, February 21-27, 2000.

-Soviet music was both obvious and shocking. Critics of American excep-tionalism like Putin should keep in mind the new Russian anthem lyrics also include “You are unique in the world, one of a kind”!

-worried him most about Putin in the early days . Through all of our arguments over the years, Steve’s insight and experience make him one of my favorite “sherpas” on how the American foreign policy establishment views Russia, and why. I recommend his articles and books highly, even the ones I disagree with.