Randy Credico Interviews Ray McGovern (09/13/2016)

Supplemental document for: "Theory that Roger Stone's back channel to Wikileaks was Randy Credico", link: https://wakelet.com/wake/2d352ae9-febe-44a1-a7bb-51674a2e4bf5

Ray McGovern on "Live on the Fly" hosted by Randy Credico. Broadcast September 13, 2016.

Transcript runs from 3:36 to 22:53 in file.

Link: https://www.mediafire.com/?m1631l3ng92amg8

Audio is very, very choppy in the file, jumping around from point to point,  with chunks missing, like a needle on an old fashioned record player. Also, McGovern sounds very hazy when talking, as if he's half asleep or not completely sober, so his sentences often verge into incoherence or go hanging.

File link:

RANDY CREDICO
He doesn't need an intro because he's been on this hour many times with Robert Knight, he was with us- about the Sam Adams award and Sam Adams Association for Integrity [in Intelligence] and we got midway through what we were going to talk about, and we had to cut off, and we were right at the Ukraine, or Ukraine, not the Ukraine, Ukraine, and the crisis in Ukraine. Thank you for joining us, Ray McGovern. Ray McGovern, by the way, is a, I think, thirty seven years with the CIA?

RAY MCGOVERN
Twenty seven.

CREDICO
Twenty seven. He got- He left in 1990, and he got this huge award in 2000- Got a huge award, right, at the end there, and he gave it back in 2006. And he established a couple of very progressive whistleblower organizations. And we appreciate you coming back, Ray.

MCGOVERN
Thanks Randy.

CREDICO
How're you doing today?

MCGOVERN
Doing well.

CREDICO
So, let's pick up where we left off, because we have a big show today. So, Ray, tell us about the situation in the Ukraine, how dangerous, how dire, what's going on there?

MCGOVERN
Well, ten thousand people have been killed, unnecessarily. Most- Vladimir Putin got up one day, and said, "You know- maybe, yeah, annex Crimea, and invade Eastern Ukraine-" -ago, June, when I wrote a letter to the Washington Post, because Senator John McCain, was stoking up trouble, for the newly elected government in Ukraine, in the previous years, had written an article which said, "Putin Annexed Crimea Without Provocation" [laughs].

CREDICO
Well, you hear a lot of that.

MCGOVERN
Yeah, well, I said, "How about the coup? How about the Western arranged coup, in Kiev?" The capital of Ukraine. On the 22nd of February, 2014. Wasn't that provocation enough? President Viktor Yanukovych was thrown out, and in came a bunch of people...actually, spearheaded by proto-fascists, this government, saying "Let's join NATO. Let's ban Russian." As an official language. So there was _ample_ provocation. And I pointed out, and wonder of wonders, the Post printed- I said, "You know- planned to annex Crimea, February 2014, but you never- [inaudible]." Now, if U.S. policymakers thought- Russia's only all water- history, Russian history, Russian national interests. So, that's what started it. Most people don't realize it. There was no Russian invasion. There were already 20,000 troops in Crimea, under a [inaudible] agreement with Ukraine, and so- people that showed up at the Ukrainian ministry doors, we don't want any trouble, we have orders from Moscow to take over, please let's not have any trouble. You don't have any instructions from Kiev, and that's how this whole "invasion" or this occupation of Crimea- misunderstood thing, and it has consequences. Because now, Russia and Ukraine, not Ukraine, but the people that are trying to fight the proto-fascists, you know, they're called pro-Russian separatists. Well, a better description would be "anti-coup federalists." All they want, is to have a degree of autonomy out there, in eastern Ukraine, and they don't wanna be ruled by the proto-fascists, who have the upper hand in Kiev. Why do we support proto-fascists? Why are we- like to stir up trouble in that area. So- running our pol- maybe there's something in the water here, in Washington. But everybody thinks Putin bad, Putin bad, Putin very bad, Putin very very bad. Putin messing around in our election, Putin had no shirt on- It's sophomoric.

CREDICO
Well, Ray...isn't it dangerous for us, or NATO, to be inflaming, you know, anger in Russia? I mean, after all, they are nuclear armed.

MCGOVERN
Well, it is. And what bothers me most, is the naivete, the blissful uh, go-ahead anyway attitude towards- policymakers under Obama, under Bush, and now- [inaudible] other candidates, there comes a time when Putin will not feel he has to react in a very restrained way, and I daresay that time will come very soon, if something like a no-fly zone is instituted in Syria- Russian airplanes. Yeah, it's very dangerous.

CREDICO
Can I ask you this? First, NATO, basically, surrounds Russia. With the exception of Norway, and Sweden. Or Finland and Sweden. Who won't join, because they know that would be provocative. But they set- didn't they?

MCGOVERN
Well, Finland- NATO, but they realize, that they are the quintessential neutral country. Anger Russia, and they can feel that it's got- is flirting with joining NATO. WHY? Imploded, alright. Back twenty six years ago. What sort of threat is Moscow making, toward the West? If you knock down these red herrings, you know, these red herrings. They talk about a Russian invasion, stuff like that. And Russia...now why would...tell me why Russia would want to invade any of those Baltic states? It doesn't make any sense. -for, the supreme, the supreme irony here, is that, Russia is blamed for things like Hillary Clinton's stealing the Sanders, that just takes a minute to- received a leak. Not hack. But a leak.

CREDICO
A leak.

MCGOVERN
I got my colleagues, who work for NSA, they believe there's another Edward Snowden there, and who was just appalled, reading all the national- Democratic National Committee emails, and Hillary's own emails showing that Bernie was gypped. It was- So, yeah. What happened? Well, Julian Assange packaged this very neatly, and he keeps it pristine pure, in other words, he doesn't redact, or do anything to these documents. And lets them go. Three weeks before the Democratic National Committee [sic, they were released two days before] I mean, convention.

CREDICO
-wish I had known. I had spent months working on the- Not that I think Bernie Sanders is such a great guy, but better than Hillary. And I really felt burnt, and I'm glad I got that information. That...Julian provided.

MCGOVERN
Well, the thing is, you got it, but you ask most Americans about this, and when they're told about these- Julian Assange, what they've been led to believe, by a mainstream media- nobody pays any attention to the election, they stole the nomination from Bernie. It's the Russians that did it. It wasn't the Russians, it was Julian Assange...

CREDICO
Hello?

MCGOVERN
It was Julian Assange, he must be a Russian stooge. Nothing could be, you know-

CREDICO
Why do they say that? Why do they continue this...very naked form of McCarthyism? Neo-McCarthyism. Not just with-

MCGOVERN
Because it worked. They knew it would work. They have the mainstream media in their employ. Okay? What they said was, Putin did it, and nobody paid any attention to the contents of these things, and the people are all too ready to believe Putin did something and it's no stretch, Putin called up Assange, and said, "Please do that," and he did it. So, it's a, you know, it's really pretty crazy when you come to realize that people are so malnourished on real information, that unless they listen to programs like yours, Randy, and Amy Goodman, and others, they don't have a clue as to what's going on here. And that's dangerous, as you've already pointed out.

CREDICO
Well, I'll tell you what's dangerous, is that Julian Assange, now, I just read, in Sweden, he now has to go before Ecuadian prosecutors, to be grilled in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, so the Swedish Supreme Court just upheld that...ruling. And, I'm wondering, you know, at one point in time, Sweden was a pretty cool country. I was in Nicaragua in the eighties, they had the Olaf Palme uh, museum down there, they gave a lot of money. Sweden gave a lot of money to Nicaragua. Much to the anxiety of Washington, D.C., which I'm sure you knew about, because you were working with the agency back then. What has happened to Sweden?

MCGOVERN
Well, that's why they murdered Olaf Palme. Sweden was turned into a very conservative, rightist society, they don't care much about what goes on abroad, unlike under Olaf Palme, and they're very servient to what the U.S. and what NATO wants, to a degree that they're just a step away from joining NATO- understand how Sweden sees that that's in its interests, but that's the fact. And it's not only Sweden, of course, I mentioned Finland. Ukraine should be in the status of Finland. Not a threat to anyone. A neutral place, where there's no troop strength, or anything like that. It's a natural solution to this problem, and nobody recognizes it as an easy way out of this fix.

CREDICO
Right, right. Long- kind of a- haven't they?

MCGOVERN
They sure have, yeah. And with the Nazis, you know.

CREDICO
They allowed, out of Finland, they allowed these two, basically, circle Leningrad, during the siege of Leningrad, operating out of Finland, weren't they?

MCGOVERN
Well...the Nazis came up from the- the [inaudible] came up from the south, and besieged Leningrad for nine hundred days...

CREDICO
Right.

MCGOVERN
During which over a million people died. So, yup. A lot of people in Europe who are blissfully unaware of the history- Putin is not. Because his big brother, his big brother died. During the siege. Of Leningrad.

CREDICO
Of Leningrad.

MCGOVERN
One of those many people, yeah, so [inaudible, because CREDICO talks over it]

CREDICO
It's an amazing story. The siege of Leningrad is an amazing story. I've read a couple of books on the siege of Leningrad, when they played Shostakovich's 7th Symphony, I think- [inaudible] into the band members...and, do you remember this...story?

MCGOVERN
Yeah. They were eating cats and dogs.

CREDICO
And they piped that music out to the German troops outside the walls. To let them know that they would continue to fight. Uh...Russia has a very interesting history that you know a lot about. You've studied Russia. And...what else can you tell us about the situation in the Ukraine, in the sense- hundred years.

MCGOVERN
Well, you know, it was Catherine the Great, during the time of our revolution, that Moscow, Russia proper, extended rule down to and including Ukraine and Crimea. And the Black Sea. And immediately, the Russian fleet achieved its base down there, and it's a strategic stronghold, that they had to fight the Nazis for, and it's not only a main naval base, their airbase is there. The Crimea is essential to Russian security, as seen from Moscow. Now the fact that it became part of Ukraine, back in 1954, after Stalin died, was sortof a simple thing. There was a fellow named Khrushchev, and he took over from Stalin, and he was from the Ukraine, right? And he wasn't nearly as powerful as Stalin, [inaudible] so he said, "I know what I'll do! Crimea...that belongs to Russia, Russian Federation now. What I'll do, I'll give it to the Republic of Ukraine, they're all part of the Soviet Union, mind you, and make people happy, it'll give me a bit more [inaudible] under Moscow, from the Ukraine, so he did it. How'd he do it? Ukase. A declaration. He said, from now on, Crimea's part of Ukraine. Plebiscite? Uh, no. Nothing like that. So- that was- that was 1954. It didn't matter then. Because they're all part of the Soviet Union. But now it matters. And so.

CREDICO
Yeah.

MCGOVERN
-the Russians saw what was happening, namely the danger of Ukraine going into NATO, they did what any national country would do with the power, they seized the port that used to be part of Russia proper, and told the NATO folks, "Nyet means nyet, don't even think about incorporating Ukraine or Georgia in NATO." That's where it stands right now, and, you know, when you have 31,000 troops assembled on the Polish border, with Russia, in the same place where, not only Hitler, but Napoleon, and many other countries invaded Russia. We're talking about Lithuania, we're talking about Poland, the Hanseatic League. Russia's history is full of invasions in this area. And NATO, in its wisdom, decided to put 31,000 troops there, this past summer, and exercised them and- why'd they do that for? So: the provocations are coming from us, the reaction has been remarkably restrained in my view, but if people start pushing farther, and particularly if these anti-ballistic missile systems go in, and the Russians fear, that our generals think, they can strike Russian strategic weapons without any counterstrike, that's when we're on a hair trigger- [inaudible, because CREDICO talks over it]

CREDICO
We're in trouble. This is like '62. Right?

MCGOVERN
That's right. That's when we launch on warning, and that was all prevented by the anti-ballistic missile treaty that was signed in 1972 in Moscow, I was there for the signing, working on that, we told President Nixon, we could verify if he trusted, and that lasted until George W. Bush came into office. One of the first things he did, was opt out of that anti-ballistic missile treaty, and the Russians are very worried about that. Because it doesn't matter whether this ABM system really works, it matters whether U.S. military _think_ it works. And then, if they do think it works, the Russians would fear that the U.S. would feel free to mount a first strike. And that would be the end of all of us.

CREDICO
Wow. Hey Ray, that's- nobody knows this better than you do. I gotta play something for you here...when you were still, or right when you got out of the agency, our fellow, our comrade, Robert Knight, a few years later, we did a program right here on WBAI, it was called "Sixty Mimics", and it was fake news, it was a parody on the news, and this is '94, I believe. Robert Knight, interviewing a CIA- head of the CIA- this is of course, a parody, the head of the CIA is played by Professor Irwin Corey, can you- Alright, this is Robert Knight Six-

[clip from "Sixty Mimics" plays]

CREDICO
That's Robert Knight from..."Sixty Mimics". You still there with us, Ray?

MCGOVERN
I am, Randy. But I have to confess, I heard very little of that.

CREDICO
Well...I don't...sorry about that- the sound was very loud in the studio. I got to go here, maybe we can fix that up. Thank you for holding on- every three or four weeks- knowledge, and I really appreciate all that you have done, and all that you will continue to do.

MCGOVERN
You're most welcome, and I look forward to being with you again.

CREDICO
Thank you. Ray McGovern.