<\/p>\n
By Stephen F. Cohen
\nThe Nation<\/p>\n
Stephen F. Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at NYU and Princeton, and John Batchelor continue their (usually) weekly\u00a0discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. (Previous installments, now in their fifth year, are at\u00a0TheNation.com<\/a>.)<\/p>\n Ever since Dwight Eisenhower in the 1950s, every American president has held one or more summit meetings with the Kremlin leader, first and foremost in order to prevent miscalculations that could result in war between the two nuclear superpowers. Generally, they received bipartisan support for doing so. In July, President Trump continued that tradition by meeting with Russian President Putin in Helsinki, for which, unlike previous presidents, he was scathingly criticized by much of the US political-media establishment. John Brennan, CIA\u00a0director\u00a0under President Obama, however, went much further, characterizing Trump\u2019s press conference with Putin as \u201cnothing short of treasonous.\u201d Presumably in reaction, Trump revoked Brennan\u2019s security clearance, the continuing access to classified information usually accorded to former security officials. In the political-media furor that followed, Brennan was mostly heroized as an avatar of civil liberties and free speech, and Trump traduced as their enemy.<\/p>\n Leaving aside the missed occasion to discuss the \u201crevolving door\u201d involving former US security officials using their permanent clearances to enhance their lucrative positions outside government, Cohen thinks the subsequent political-media furor obscures what is truly important and perhaps ominous:<\/p>\n Brennan\u2019s allegation was unprecedented. No such high-level intelligence official had ever before accused a sitting president of treason, still more in collusion with the Kremlin. (Impeachment discussions of Presidents Nixon and Clinton, to take recent examples, did not include allegations involving Russia.)\u00a0Brennan clarified his charge<\/a>: \u201cTreasonous, which is to betray one\u2019s trust and to aid and abet the enemy.\u201d Coming from Brennan, a man presumed to be in possession of related dark secrets,\u00a0as he strongly hinted<\/a>, the charge was fraught with alarming implications. Brennan made clear he hoped for Trump\u2019s impeachment, but in another time, and in many other countries, his charge would suggest that Trump should be removed from the presidency urgently by any means, even a coup. No one, it seems, has even noted this extraordinary implication with its tacit threat to American democracy. (Perhaps because the disloyalty allegation against Trump has been customary ever since mid-2016, even before he became president, when an array of influential\u00a0publications and writers\u2014among them a former acting CIA director\u2014began branding him Putin\u2019s \u201cpuppet,\u201d \u201cagent,\u201d \u201cclient,\u201d and \u201cManchurian candidate.\u201d\u00a0The\u00a0Los Angeles Times<\/a><\/em>\u00a0even saw fit to print an article suggesting that the military\u00a0<\/strong>might have to remove\u00a0Trump if he were to be elected, thereby having the very dubious distinction of predating Brennan.)<\/p>\n Why did Brennan, a calculating man, risk leveling such a charge, which might reasonably be characterized as sedition? The most plausible explanation is that he sought to deflect growing attention to his role as the \u201cGodfather\u201d of the entire Russiagate narrative, as Cohen argued back in\u00a0February. If so, we need to know Brennan\u2019s unvarnished views on Russia.<\/p>\n They are set out with astonishing (perhaps unknowing) candor in\u00a0a\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0op-ed<\/a>\u00a0of August 17. They are those of Joseph McCarthy and J. Edgar Hoover in their prime. Western \u201cpoliticians, political parties, media outlets, think tanks and influencers are readily manipulated, wittingly and unwittingly, or even bought outright, by Russian operatives\u2026not only to collect sensitive information but also to distribute propaganda and disinformation.\u2026 I was well aware of Russia\u2019s ability to work surreptitiously \u00a0within the United States, cultivating relationships with individuals who wield actual or potential power.\u2026 These Russian agents are well trained in the art of deception. They troll political, business and cultural waters in search of gullible or unprincipled individuals who become\u00a0pliant in the hands of their Russian puppet masters. Too often, those puppets are found.\u201d All this, Brennan assures readers, is based on his \u201cdeep insight.\u201d All the rest of us, it seems, are constantly susceptible to \u201cRussian puppet masters\u201d under our beds, at work, on our computers. Clearly, there must be no \u201ccooperation\u201d with the Kremlin\u2019s grand \u201cPuppet Master,\u201d as Trump said he wanted early on. (People who wonder what and when Obama knew about the unfolding Russiagate saga need to ask why he would keep such a person so close for so long.)<\/p>\n And yet, scores of former intelligence and military officials rallied around this unvarnished John Brennan, even though, they said, they did not entirely share his opinions. This too is revealing. They did so, it seems clear enough, out of their professional corporate identity, which Brennan represented and Trump was degrading by challenging the intelligences agencies\u2019 (implicitly including his own) Russiagate allegations against him. It\u2019s a misnomer to term these people representatives of a hidden \u201cdeep state.\u201d In recent years, they have been amply visible on television and newspaper op-ed pages. Instead, they see and present themselves as members of a fully empowered and essential fourth branch of government. This too has gone largely undiscussed while nightingales of the fourth branch\u2014such as\u00a0David Ignatius\u00a0<\/a>and\u00a0Joe Scarborough<\/a>\u00a0in the pages of the\u00a0The Washington Post<\/em>\u2014have been in full voice.<\/p>\n The result is, of course\u2014and no less ominous\u2014to criminalize any advocacy of \u201ccooperating with Russia,\u201d or d\u00e9tente, as Trump sought to do in Helsinki with Putin. Still more, a full-fledged Russophobic hysteria is sweeping through the American political-media establishment, from Brennan and\u2014pending actual evidence against her\u2014those who engineered the arrest of Maria Butina (imagine how this endangers young Americans networking in Russia) to the senators now preparing new \u201ccrippling sanctions\u201d against Moscow and the editors and producers at the\u00a0Times<\/em>,\u00a0Post<\/em>, CNN, and MSNBC. (However powerful, how representative are these elites when surveys indicate that a majority of the American people still prefer good relations with Moscow?) As the dangers grow of actual war with Russia\u2014again, from Ukraine and the Baltic region to Syria\u2014the capacity of US policy-makers, above all the president, are increasingly diminished. To be fair, Brennan may only be a symptom of this profound American crisis, some say the worst since the Civil War.<\/p>\n Finally, there was a time when many Democrats, certainly liberal Democrats, could be counted on to resist this kind of hysteria and, yes, spreading neo-McCarthyism. (Brennan\u2019s defenders accuse Trump of McCarthyism, but Brennan\u2019s charge of treason without presenting any actual evidence was quintessential McCarthy.) After all, civil liberties, including freedom of speech, are directly involved\u2014and\u00a0not only\u00a0Brennan\u2019s and Trump\u2019s. But Democratic members of Congress and pro-Democratic media outlets are in the forefront of the new anti-Russian hysteria, with only a few exceptions. Thus a generally liberal historian\u00a0tells CNN viewers<\/a>\u00a0that \u201cBrennan is an American hero. His tenure at the CIA was impeccable. We owe him so much.\u201d Elsewhere the same historian\u00a0assures readers<\/a>, \u201cThere has always been a bipartisan spirit of support since the CIA was created in the Cold War.\u201d In the same vein, two\u00a0Post<\/em>\u00a0reporters write of the FBI\u2019s \u201conce venerated reputation<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n Is this liberal historical amnesia? Is it professional incompetence? A quick Google search would reveal Brennan\u2019s less-than-\u201cimpeccable\u201d record, FBI misdeeds under and after Hoover, as well as the Senate\u2019s 1975 Church Committee\u2019s investigation of the CIA and other intelligence agencies\u2019 very serious abuses of their power. Or have liberals\u2019 hatred of Trump nullified their own principles? The critical-minded Russian adage would say, \u201cAll three explanations are worst.\u201d<\/p>\n