Janine Wedel - Collision and Collusion - The Strange Case of Western Aid to Eastern Europe

165. Interviews with U.S. officials in the Departments of Treasury and State. Treasury official Mark Medish said, for example, that Åslund was “not an infrequent visitor to both Dick [Morningstar] and Tom [Dine]” (Interview with Mark C. Medish, deputy assistant secretary for Eurasia and the Middle East, U.S. Department of Treasury, November 26, 1997).

166. For example, Åslund has long been linked to Brunswick, which began as a Moscow-based brokerage firm and evolved into an investment bank, the Brunswick Group. While Åslund claims that he only gives “lectures and briefings” (“Tainted Transactions: An Exchange,” The National Interest, no. 60, Summer 2000, p. 101), he attended an April 1997 banking conference in New York sponsored by Brunswick Securities Ltd. as a representative of Brunswick. He promoted the Russian stock market to institutional investors and money managers, according to Michael Hudson, who also participated in the conference. (Anne Williamson communication with Michael Hudson May 16, 1999; and Wedel interview with Hudson, September 8, 1999.) Hudson adds (April 3, 2000) that the minimum acceptable investment was between $400,000 and $500,000.

With regard to the founding of Brunswick, Åslund introduced two of his Swedish associates to Chubais, and they then worked for Chubais at the GKI, where they helped to design and implement voucher privatization (Anne Williamson interview with Martin Andersson, February 1995). Later, “with still good relations to Chubais,” they started Brunswick Brokerage to participate in voucher privatization and to help sell these and other assets to Western investors (Sven-Ivan Sundqvist, “Svenska Rad Biter Pa Ryssen: Svenska Finansman i Ledningen for Brunswick Group, Foretaget Som Ska Hjalpa Ryska Staten Att Privatisera Industrin,” Dagens Nyheter, June 15, 1997). Åslund’s current wife, Anna Viktorevna Åslund, Gaidar’s former press secretary, has listed an affiliation with Brunswick-Warburg. (Brunswick entered into an association with Warburg, effective in November 1997.) Additional sources for Åslund’s business activities in Russian and Ukraine include those specified in the previous endnotes, as well as a number of additional reports and sources in Russia, Ukraine, Sweden, and Washington. For further details, see Anne Williamson, Contagion: The Betrayal of Liberty, chapter 13.

167. Interview with Vyacheslav Razinkin by author Anne Williamson, February 23, 1995, cited in Ibid.

168. Åslund denies that his role in Ukraine included public relations (“Tainted Transactions: An Exchange,” The National Interest, no. 60, Summer 2000, p. 101). The author’s sources include (but are not limited to) Marek Dąbrowski, conversations of May 9, 1995 and November 27, 1997. Dąbrowski stated (November 27, 1997) that Åslund’s “kind of advertising” and “campaigning” creates a “conflict of interest.” Contrary to what Dąbrowski now alleges (“Tainted Transactions: An Exchange,” The National Interest, no. 60, Summer 2000, p. 102), the author’s conversations with him were friendly and, indeed, on the record. The author has cited Dąbrowski as a source before in print on this subject, and he has never previously disputed its accuracy. It is unclear why he has responded so belatedly, but it is a fact that Dąbrowski’s center has received substantial funding from USAID, some of which has been channeled through HIID. Both Sachs and Åslund are also listed as members of the advisory council of Dąbrowski’s center.

169. Åslund claims that, in writing articles, he “always mentioned” his work for the Russian or Ukrainian governments (“Tainted Transactions: An Exchange,” The National Interest, no. 60, Summer 2000, p. 101). That is simply not the case. For example, in his article “Russian’s Success Story” in Foreign Affairs (September-October 1994), Åslund presents himself as a senior scholar at the Carnegie Endowment and makes no mention of any relationship he has had with the Russian government.

170. One feature of transactorship is that the transactors on each side lobby for and promote the transactors on the other side. Each side’s transactors become the mechanisms and funnels through which the sides gain access to the other as a whole. In fact, a key source of legitimacy and clout of each side’s transactors is their supposed access to transactors on the other side, whose reputations they help promote on their side. Each side’s representatives must wield influence to ensure that their partners on the other side continue to have clout and standing on both sides. Otherwise, the opportunities and advantages that the transactor group enjoys could be greatly compromised.

171. Interviews with William B. Taylor, then deputy coordinator (now coordinator) of NIS assistance August 9, 1996; and Thomas A. Dine, August 16, 1996.

172. Interview with Thomas A. Dine, August 16, 1996.

173. Interview with Andrei Shleifer, September 5, 1996.

174. Lawrence H. Summers, “Russia’s Stake in Capital Market Development,” speech at the Kennedy School of Government, Treasury News, Washington, D.C., Department of the Treasury, Office of Public Affairs, January 9, 1997, p. 30.

175. Lawrence H. Summers, “The Global Stake in Russian Economic Reform,” speech before the U.S.-Russia Business Council, Treasury News, Washington, D.C., Department of the Treasury, Office of Public Affairs, April 1, 1997, p. 4.

176. Interview with a U.S. Treasury spokesman by Bill Mesler of Nation, summer 1997.

177. Janine R. Wedel, “Clique-Run Organizations and U.S. Economic Aid: An Institutional Analysis,” Demokratizatsiya: The Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization, vol. 4, no. 4, Fall 1996, pp. 571-602.

178. Maxim Boycko, “Chubays Has Chosen Reforms,” Obshchaya Gazeta, no. 10, March 13-19, 1997 (signed to press March 12, 1997), translated and circulated in Johnson’s Russia List.

179. In August and September 1999, newspapers reported that billions of dollars had been laundered through the Bank of New York. (See Raymond Bonner with Timothy L. O’Brien, “Activity at Bank Raises Suspicions of Russia Mob Tie: Billions Thought to Be Laundered Through Bank of New York,” New York Times, August 19, 1999, p.A1.) Anatoly Chubais and other members of Yeltsin’s government are alleged to have been involved in money laundering. (See Jack Kelly, “Russia Fraud Case at $15 B,” USA Today, August 26, 1999, p.1.)

180. Reported in Peter Reddaway, “Questions about Russia’s ‘Dream Team,’” Post-Soviet Prospects, vol. 5, no. 5, Washington, D.C.: Center for Strategic and International Studies, September 1997.

181. Russian Public Television, June 20, 1996, reported in ibid.

182. Jonas Bernstein, “Loans for the Sharks?” Moscow Times, December 19, 1995, p. 1.

183.  Frontline “Return of the Czar” interview with Boris Fyodorov, former Russian Finance Minister, PBS web site www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/_shows\yeltsin\interviews\fyodorov.html.

184. See Williamson, Contagion: The Betrayal of Liberty, especially chapters 11 and 13.

185. Ibid.

186. George Soros, “Remarks by George Soros,” U.S.-Russia Investment Symposium, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, January 9, 1998, p. 2-3.

187. Soros, “International Economic Turmoil,” U.S. House of Representatives, Hearings Before the Committee on Banking and Financial Services, Washington, D.C., U.S. House of Representatives, September 14, 15, 16, 1998, p. 9798.

188. Interview with Jack Meyer by Nation reporter Bill Mesler, August 1997.

189. Interview with Jay Light, December 5, 1997.