TV Reports on Lebed `Phenomenon' in U.S.
Moscow NTV
November 22, 1996
[translation for personal use only]

Report on visit to the United States by Aleksandr Lebed, former Russian Federation Security Council secretary; Lebed's remarks recorded; from the "Segodnya" newscast

Aleksandr Lebed, former Russian Federation Security Council secretary, is in the United States on a private visit. He is actively meeting with journalists. Some are calling it the presentation of Lebed to the West.

[Correspondent] The schedule of the week-long tour by the former Security Council secretary is irreproachable in a military fashion and is filled down to the last minute. The U.S. political establishment is greeting the general a bit cautiously but warmly. The Americans remember how a little-known Boris Yeltsin visited America a few years ago. Later, he became president of Russia. It is with roughly the same feelings that the Americans are meeting with Lebed now, all the more so since he is not hiding his claims to the supreme post in Russia. He himself says that he has come to the United States on funds provided by sympathizers in order to learn about democracy.

[Lebed, speaking at news conference] I've seen enough of our ersatz democracy. I decided to come straight to the source. It's better to see something for yourself once than to hear about it from someone else a hundred times. [Correspondent] The Americans, who are used to seeing Lebed as a terrible general bringing one sensation after the other, expected something out of the ordinary this time, too. However, Lebed spoke in restrained terms and his words that he might return to the political heights after Yeltsin has recovered can hardly be called a sensation. What was unusual were the general's sharp attacks on the Russian Orthodox church. The KOMMERSANT-DAILY newspaper reported that during a visit to the office of the expatriate Russian Church in New York, Lebed said that he sought morality everywhere, including in the Russian Orthodox Church, but he saw there that people who should be devout were greater sinners than he. Lebed said this did not concern the expatriate church but that in Russia. Incidentally, the general has to deal with resolving more global problems.

[Lebed] I do not intend to interfere in anyone else's affairs. I should get to grips with Russia.

[Correspondent] Lebed is giving Boris Yeltsin this opportunity.

[Lebed] I wish Yeltsin a speedy recovery and hope that he takes the situation in hand. Otherwise the danger of great sedition, unrest, disturbances, a social explosion hangs over him.

[Correspondent] Lebed's visit to the United States is a private one. Lebed is discovering America, while the Americans, pragmatically, are trying to understand the Aleksandr Lebed phenomenon.

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David Johnson
Research Director
Center for Defense Information
1500 Massachusetts Ave. NW
Washington DC 20005