Editing 79-09-B2 (section)

= Bukovsky =

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=== Transcript ===
Vladimir Bukovsky is a 27 year old refugee from the Soviet Union who spent half
his adult life in prison camps and infamous Soviet mental hospitals (call them torture
chambers) before finding sanctuary in this country. In 1976 he was exiled from Russia
in exchange for the Chilean Communist leader Luis Corvalan.

He has written a book, "To Build a Castle -- My life as a Dissenter". In this book
he tells of his years in prison and of the attempts to destroy his mind when his
persecutors would move him from the Gulag into Russia's so-called mental hospitals.

Far more important however is what his book tells us about the change that is
taking place in the Soviet Union. He writes of what was in his mind as the K.G.B .
drove him to the airport in Geneva, Switzerland where the official exchange for
Corvalan took place. "I couldn't rid myself of a strange sensation -- as if, thanks
to a blunder by the K.G.B., I had carried out something very precious, something
that should never have been let out of the country." He was referring to his insight
into what was happening within the minds and souls of the Soviet people.

All of us in America -- that is all of us who view the Soviet Union as a potential
threat to the free world, have some awareness of the Soviet military buildup and the
Soviet lust for world power. Bukovsky tells us of a Soviet Union where dissidents
are not skulking in alleys and basements trying to create an underground movement. They
are speaking out openly, citing their rights under the Soviet Constitution (yes there
is such a thing). True, they are sentenced to prison or sent to the mental hospitals
as insane but they are also proving that the six decades of unceasing propaganda has
not made the people a docile mass of willing slaves.

Jews are insisting on their right to emigrate to Israel; industrial workers are
forming genuine Unions; Ukranians, Tartars and Baltic peoples talk of national
independence. "From top to bottom", says Bukovsky, "no one believes in Marxist dogma anymore."
He says everyone, including the hierarchy, knows that the idea that they are building
a Communist stats is a fairy tale.

But here is where his book is important to us. In the 40's when Stalin was burying
millions and millions of Soviet citizens in the torture camps of Siberia, there was no
word in our press about this. The victims lived in total hopelessness because there
seemed to be no awareness of their plight. He makes it plain that it was in the 1960's
when the western nations began to realize their future was somehow tied to what was
going on in Soviet prisons. The prisoners lived with hope and determination to
continue dissenting and resisting. Guards would tell them that Radio Liberty and the
BBC had carried stories of their hunger strikes and protests and thus they were
encouraged to carry on.

Let our State department take heed--a little less detente with the Politburo and
more encouragement to the dissenters might be worth a lot of armored divisions. 

This is Ronald Reagan.

Thanks for listening.
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=== Details ===
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<TR><TD WIDTH="150">Batch Number</TD><TD WIDTH="150">{{PAGENAME}}</TD></TR>
<TD>Production Date</TD><TD>06/29/[[Radio1979|1979]]</TD></TR>
<TD>Book/Page</TD><TD>[[Radio_Commentary_Books#Reagan:_In_His_Own_Hand|RihoH-149]]</TD></TR>
<TD>Audio</TD><TD></TD></TR>
<TD>Youtube?</TD><TD>No</TD></TR>
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===Added Notes===
* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Bukovsky Vladimir Bukovsky] (''Wikipedia'')
** [https://www.amazon.com/dp/0670716405 To Build a Castle: My Life as a Dissenter]
* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_Corval%C3%A1n Luis Corvalán] (''Wikipedia'')
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