July 4, 1987: Donald Trump visits Russia for the 1st time. In hindsight, the idea that he would spend the 4th of July in Russia seems typical. But, at the time, Trump was mainly a localized annoyance. Few people knew how truly evil he already was. And how, at the same time, he could be a bully to those he perceived as weaker, and totally submissive to those he saw as stronger.
It has been alleged by Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer, in what became known as "The Steele Dossier," that the Kremlin had been cultivating Trump for "at least five years" before he was "elected" in 2016. This would mean 2011.
As it turns out, the top level of the Soviet diplomatic service arranged his 1987 visit to Moscow, with assistance from their intelligence service, the KGB (Komitet gosudarstvennoy bezopasnosti, or Committee for State Security). General Vladimir Kryuchkov was head of the First Chief Directorate, and was seeking to improve the KGB's operational techniques in one particular and sensitive area: The spy chief wanted KGB staff abroad to recruit more Americans.
Previously they had relied on identifying candidates who showed ideological sympathy toward the USSR: leftists, trade unionists and so on. By the mid-1980s, these were not so many. So KGB officers should drop their hatred of capitalism, and "make bolder use of material incentives": Money. And use flattery, an important tool.
Typically, a case officer would invite a target to lunch. If the target appeared responsive, he (it was rarely she) would be promoted to a "subject of deep study." In April 1985, this was updated for "prominent figures in the West." There were other questions, too, such as, "What was the likelihood that the subject could come to power (occupy the post of president or prime minister)?" And an assessment of personality. For example: "Are pride, arrogance, egoism, ambition or vanity among subject’s natural characteristics?"
The most revealing section concerned kompromat. The document asked for "Compromising information about subject, including illegal acts in financial and commercial affairs, intrigues, speculation, bribes, graft... and exploitation of his position to enrich himself." Plus "any other information" that would compromise the subject before "the country's authorities and the general public." Naturally the KGB could exploit this by threatening "disclosure." Finally, "His attitude towards women is also of interest." The document wanted to know: "Is he in the habit of having affairs with women on the side?"
When did the KGB open a file on Donald Trump? Eastern Bloc security service records suggest this may have been as early as 1977. That was the year when Trump, then 31 years old, married Ivana Zelnickova, then 28 and a model from Czechoslovakia. She was a citizen of what was then a Communist country. She was therefore of interest both to the Czech intelligence service, the StB, and to the FBI and the CIA.
During the Cold War, Czech spies were known for their professionalism. Czech and Hungarian officers were typically used in espionage actions abroad, especially in the United States and Latin America. They were less obvious than Soviet operatives sent by Moscow. According to files in Prague, declassified in 2016, Czech spies kept a close eye on the couple in Manhattan.
According to the Czech files, Ivana mentioned her husband’s growing interest in politics. Might Trump at some stage consider a political career? The KGB wouldn’t invite someone to Moscow out of altruism. Dignitaries flown to the USSR on expenses-paid trips were typically left-leaning writers or cultural figures. The state would expend hard currency; the visitor would say some nice things about Soviet life; the press would report these remarks, seeing in them a stamp of approval.
At this point it is unclear how the KGB regarded Trump. To become a full KGB agent, a foreigner had to agree to two things. (An “agent” in a Russian or British context was a secret intelligence source.) One was “conspiratorial collaboration.” The other was willingness to take KGB instruction.
As Trump tells it, the idea for his first trip to Moscow came after he found himself seated next to the Soviet ambassador Yuri Dubinin. This was in Autumn 1986, and the event was a luncheon held by Leonard Lauder, the businessman son of Estée Lauder. Dubinin's daughter Natalia "had read about Trump Tower and knew all about it," Trump said in his 1987 bestseller, The Art of the Deal. "One thing led to another, and now I’m talking about building a large luxury hotel, across the street from the Kremlin, in partnership with the Soviet government."
According to Natalia Dubinina, the actual story involved a more determined effort by the Soviet government to seek out Trump. Dubinin wouldn’t have answered to the KGB, and his role wasn’t formally an intelligence one. But he would have had close contacts with the power apparatus in Moscow. He enjoyed greater trust than other, lesser ambassadors.
Dubinina said she picked up her father at the airport. It was his first time in New York City. She took him on a tour. The first building they saw was Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue, she told Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper. Dubinin was so excited he decided to go inside to meet the building’s owner. They got into the elevator. At the top, Dubinina said, they met Trump. The ambassador, "fluent in English and a brilliant master of negotiations," laid it on thick, telling Trump, "The first thing I saw in the city is your tower!" Dubinina said: "Trump melted at once. He is an emotional person, somewhat impulsive. He needs recognition. And, of course, when he gets it he likes it. My father's visit worked on him like honey to a bee." This encounter happened six months before the Estée Lauder lunch.
In The Art of the Deal, Trump wrote, "In January 1987, I got a letter from Yuri Dubinin, the Soviet ambassador to the United States, that began: 'It is a pleasure for me to relay some good news from Moscow.' It went on to say that the leading Soviet state agency for international tourism, Goscomintourist, had expressed interest in pursuing a joint venture to construct and manage a hotel in Moscow."
There were many ambitious real estate developers in the United States, so why had Moscow picked Trump? According to Viktor Suvorov, a former military spy for the GRU (the Russian Federation's successor to the KGB), and others, the KGB ran Intourist, the agency to which Trump referred. It functioned as a subsidiary KGB branch. Its job was to vet and monitor all foreigners coming into the Soviet Union. Once in Moscow, those approved would receive lavish hospitality: "Everything is free. There are good parties with nice girls. It could be a sauna and girls and who knows what else." The hotel rooms or villa were under "24-hour control," with "security cameras and so on," Suvorov said. "The interest is only one. To collect some information and keep that information about him for the future."
These dirty-tricks operations were all about the long term, Suvorov said. The KGB would expend effort on visiting students from the developing world, not least Africa. After 10 or 20 years, some of them would be "nobody," but others would have risen to positions of influence in their own countries. Suvorov explained: "It's at this point you say: 'Knock, knock! Do you remember the marvelous time in Moscow? It was a wonderful evening. You were so drunk. You don't remember? We just show you something for your good memory.'"
Over in the Communist German Democratic Republic, a.k.a. East Germany, one of Kryuchkov officers, 34-year-old Vladimir Putin, was busy trying to recruit students from Latin America. Putin arrived in Dresden in August 1985, together with his pregnant wife, Lyudmila, and one-year-old daughter, Maria. They lived in a KGB apartment block.
According to the writer Masha Gessen, one of Putin's tasks was to try to befriend foreigners studying at the Dresden University of Technology. The hope was that, if recruited, the Latin Americans might work in the United States as undercover agents, reporting back to the Center. Putin set about this together with two KGB colleagues and a retired Dresden policeman.
By January 1987, Trump was closer to the "prominent person" status of Kryuchkov's note. Dubinin deemed Trump interesting enough to arrange his trip to Moscow. Another thirtysomething U.S.-based Soviet diplomat, Vitaly Churkin, the future U.N. ambassador, helped put it together. On July 4, 1987, Trump flew to Moscow for the first time, together with Ivana and Lisa Calandra, Ivana's Italian-American assistant.
The Trumps stayed in Vladimir Lenin's suite at the National Hotel, near Red Square. Seventy years earlier, in October 1917, Lenin and his wife, Nadezhda Krupskaya, had spent a week in room 107. The hotel was linked to the glass-and-concrete Intourist complex next door and was, in effect, under KGB control. The Lenin suite would have been bugged.
In The Art of the Deal, Trump wrote, "I was impressed with the ambition of Soviet officials to make a deal." He also visited Leningrad, later St. Petersburg, the 2nd-largest city in Russia, and Putin's hometown. A photo shows Donald and Ivana standing in Palace Square: He in a suit, she in a red polka dot blouse with a string of pearls. Behind them are the Winter Palace and the state Hermitage museum.
Typical of Trump, he failed on the trip: Nothing happened in terms of business opportunities inside Russia. This pattern of failure would be repeated in Trump's subsequent trips to Moscow. But Trump flew back to New York with a new sense of strategic direction. For the first time, he gave serious indications that he was considering a career in politics. Not as Mayor of the City of New York, or for Governor of the State of New York, or for U.S. Senator from the State of New York. No, Trump was thinking about running for President of the United States.
The rest is history -- ugly, pro-Russia, anti-America history.
Yuri Dubinin -- who, by coincidence, shared Putin's birthday of October 7, in his case bornin 1930 -- served 4 years as Ambassador to the U.S., and subsequently as Ambassador to France, and a Deputy Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation, before retiring from diplomatic service in 1996. He died in 2013, at age 73, so he did not live to see his labor bear their ultimate fruit.
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July 4, 1987 was a Saturday. These Major League Baseball games were played on the holiday:
* The New York Yankees beat the Texas Rangers, 4-3 at Yankee Stadium. Dennis Rasmussen was the winning pitcher. Dave Winfield went 0-for-2 with a walk, and had an RBI on a sacrifice fly. Don Mattingly went 2-for-5. Rickey Henderson went 1-for-4 with a walk.
* The New York Mets lost to the Cincinnati Reds, 7-3 at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati. Bill Gullickson pitched a complete game, outpitching John Mitchell. Eric Davis and Kal Daniels home runs for the Reds. Howard Johnson hit a home run for the Mets.
* The Montreal Expos beat the San Diego Padres, 4-3 at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal. Hubie Brooks hit a home run in the bottom of the 9th to win it. Tony Gwynn went 1-for-4 with an RBI.
* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Houston Astros, 9-3 at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. Von Hayes went 3-for-5 with 2 home runs and 4 RBIs. Juan Samuel also homered for the Phils. Mike Schmidt went 2-for-3 with 2 walks and an RBI.
* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Atlanta Braves, 3-0 at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium. Danny Cox allowed 6 hits over 7 innings, and Ricky Horton and Todd Worrell completed a 9-hit shutout.
* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 4-2 at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh.
* The Chicago White Sox beat the Cleveland Indians, 3-2 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium.
* The Minnesota Twins beat the Baltimore Orioles, 4-1 at the Metrodome in Minneapolis. Kent Hrbek hit a home run. Eddie Murray went 1-for-4. Cal Ripken went 0-for-4.
* The Chicago Cubs beat the San Francisco Giants, 5-3 at Wrigley Field in Chicago.
* The Kansas City Royals beat the Toronto Blue Jays, 9-1 at Royals Stadium (now Kauffman Stadium) in Kansas City. Bud Black outpitched David Wells. George Brett went 3-for-5 with 3 RBIs. Bo Jackson and Danny Tartabull hit home runs.
* The Milwaukee Brewers beat the California Angels, 2-1 at Anaheim Stadium (now Angel Stadium of Anaheim). Robin Yount went 2-for-4 with a solo home run. Paul Molitor was injured and did not play.
* The Oakland Athletics beat the Boston Red Sox, 9-5 at the Oakland Coliseum.
* And the Detroit Tigers beat the Seattle Mariners, 7-3 at the Kingdome in Seattle.
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