![]() The same happened to diplomats and spies as well throughout the half century-long Cold War.Ĭertainly, we are in a different era today, with different weapons and somewhat different expectations. When the Soviet ally, Czechoslovakia expelled me in 1979 for writing stories the Kremlin didn’t like in The New York Times, the Carter administration expelled the Washington bureau chief of Rude Pravo, the government-controlled Czech daily. These are the very kinds of action that marked the depths of the Cold War. Putin spokesman Dmitri Peskov promised, “There is no doubt that Russia's adequate and mirror response will make Washington officials feel very uncomfortable as well.” ![]() Russia can be expected to expel 35 of ours. The United States is expelling 35 Russian spies (let’s call them for what they are). POLICING THE USA: A look at race, justice, media ![]() Well, okay, purloined e-mails - the 21st century equivalent of stealing and steaming open a letter and microfilming the contents. There were targets of opportunity, disinformation, electronic eavesdropping, purloined letters. But it had so many of the attributes of that era. This was not the 1948-1949 Berlin airlift that painted the Soviet Union into a corner, the Cuban missile crisis that forced Nikita Khrushchev to back down and lose face, or the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Putin is the ultimate Cold War-era specialist in all forms of espionage, but neither of his foes-Obama or Trump-has had any real experience in the machinations of the face downs that so marked the Cold War. ![]() But international protocol doesn’t allow one civilized nation to attack the head of state of another - even if it’s a former Soviet and Russian spymaster named Vladimir Putin. It was the man who gave the orders, even if others pulled the trigger. There was little question who was the ultimate target of the expulsions, the sanctions, the FBI wanted posters of several hapless geeks, targeted as the trigger-men who hacked American politicos’ computers. But this time with 21st century overtones. The tweet from the Russian Embassy in London put it concisely: “President Obama expels 35 Russian diplomats in Cold Ward déjà vu,” followed by an image of a “lame duck” waddling across the page. And truly the American actions by the unquestionably lame duck Obama administration - those announced on Thursday and those deep cover cyber operations that may never be disclosed - had the smell, taste and feel of a Cold War era spy caper. ![]()
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