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PBS -TV drops racist bomb on emigres

On June 13 and for the first time in New York, the Public Broadcasting Service showed, on “Frontline” with Jessica Savitch, an alleged “documentary” breezily entitled “The Russians Are Here.” The title, a stale joke repeated before in a similar context, indicates that the film is about recent arrivals from Russia in the United States.

Most of these 100,000 “Russians” are Jews, and those who are not are usually heroic fighters against the Soviet regime. Tb associate them with the “Russians” in the sense of Soviet invaders is not only a stale joke, but a bad one.

But is the title of the PBS “documentary” just a joke? Not at all.

The ‘enemy’

“We think of them as an enemy,” Jessica Savitch begins her narration. And flashed on the screen are the “Russians” — in the totalitarian regime of Russia. The recurrent theme is that the “Russians” who are “here” — that is, Jews who fled from anti-Semitic tyranny or heroic fighters against it — are mentally and psychologically the same as the Soviet KGB and the military.

Scenes of the goose-stepping Soviet military are flashed on the screen — and the narrator says about the “Russians” who are “here” that they are “children of another [that is, the goose-stepping Soviet KGB-military] system ... which made them what they are.”

Naturally, the “children” of this “system” are not fit for the West and turn into drunks, public charges, derelicts and embittered cranks.

This does not mean that the producer of the “documentary” regards the Soviet regime as evil.

Quite the contrary, its many advantages — like “free medicine”—are extolled even in the narrator’s text.

Thue, at the beginning, the narrator says: “We know very little about them [the Russians in the regime and outside].” So one may ask. “Ladies and gentlemen of PBS, if you know very little about them, how the hell do you presume to know about their free medicine in Russia?”But such questions are impertinent. Those in charge “know very little” about the “Russians” and yet know everything. Here, then, is the omniscient message of the "documentary" ;

Both the American and Soviet “system” have their good and evil aspects. “Children" of the Soviet “system” value its good aspects and are used to the evil ones, while in the West they feel lost and miserable because they resent the evil aspects of America and fail to understand its good ones, such as freedom. So the emigration of “Russians" from their “system” was'a mistake, as is any attempt to deprive them of their “system” or try to change it.

From the message of the film, it follows, incidentally, that America shouldn't worry about Soviet global expansionism. The “Russians” have created their Russian “system” in which they are happy, but this “system” cannot be imposed on the Americans, for the “Russians” are, mentally and psychologically, an entirely different race. Thus, the Bantu tribe cannot impose its tribal system on England.

As soon as the showing of the “documentary” was over, I received telephone calls from several involuntary “stars” of the “documentary,” as well as from other victims of its racist hatred, such as Vladimir Bukovsky who had seen the program in California. The “stars” believed they had been taken advantage of. The indignation raged from coast to coast. The consensus was that the “documentary” was a crude racist concoction.

“If such a vicious slander were released about American blacks or those American Jews who came here from Russia before 1917, it would be branded, sued and removed as racist and anti-Semitic,” one of the callers, a Russian emigre artist, said. “But we are a tiny minority. So we can be stereotyped, caricatured and slandered with impunity as much as the Nazis stereotyped, caricatured and slandered Jews — or more, if some PBS hack wishes so. We are like blacks in America a half a century ago.”

Not quite. When blacks were denigraded as a group a half a century ago, they were not linked to any aggressive totalitarian superpower. The sinister racist overtone of the “documentary," on the other hand, is that these Jews and fighters against the Soviet regime who are in the United States, Europe or Israel do not differ mentally and psychologically from the “Russian” KGB and military in Poland, Cuba, Nicaragua, South Yemen or Afghanistan.

During WWII, President Roosevelt deported over 100,000 Americans of Japanese extraction. The racist propaganda of the PBS “documentary” is conducive not only to the loss of jobs by victims of this propaganda and the deterioration of their sociocultural status, but also to a possible future deportation of all Americans of Russian extraction. ІУие, Jessica Savitch herself may even be deported, for her parents came, reportedly, from an “enemy country.” But as the saying goes, those who sow a wind will reap a storm, and those who spread racist or class hatred may turn out to be its victims.

About the producer

As it turns out, I had a first-hand opportunity to meet with the producer of this “documentary,” Ofra Bikel, since I was one of those emigres she interviewed and filmed for the program:

• Ofra Bikel, I found, is not an American and speaks English worse than many recent emigres from Russia. Nor does she speak any Russian.

• Her knowledge of Russia, the Soviet regime, its inmates or fugitives from it residing in America seems to be nil, and not just “very little,” as the announcer’s text says.

• She struck me as a person whose mental scope and educational background are below the average in the emigration from Russia.

• According to professional television producers among emigres from Russia, her “documentary” is inept, amateurish, poorly written and poorly filmed.

So why did PBS choose her, a totally irrelevant and poorly qualified amateur, to produce a documentary about emigres from Russia in America? Why didn’t PBS choose a gifted, well-educated, competent emigre who is an American citizen, knows America and Russia, and speaks English and Russian?

Because the numerous Ofra Bikels have become a part of the media establishment. And they want to keep their jobs, lb them emigres are a threat — more gifted, more intelligent and better qualified rivals. They want to represent these rivals as savages and derelicts, misfits of a racially different and inferior wild tribe, who are only able to drink, sing, dance and miss their beloved.Soviet regime, including the KGB. Yes, this is what one “star” in the “documentary” proclaims: “I actually miss the KGB.”

How can PBS (or any other institution or individual) employ such wild tribesmen who can only drink, sing, dance and miss the KGB? Never do that. Instead, always employ Ofra Bikel, a 100-percent American — gifted, intelligent, sophisticated.

Ofra Bikel struck the Russian emigres as being leftist, while she regards them as rightists. So what? Some people are more to the left, while others more to the right. However, Ofra Bikel regards her political views as standards of absolute truth, while those even a jot to the right of hers are wild aberrations of Russian savages. Here is a snippet from the “documentary”:

Emigre: Tbo much freedom [in America] for criminals, too much freedom for young people. Interviewer: Why have you come here?

To produce the show, why did PBS choose Ofra Bikel

— a poorly qualified amateur

— and not a gifted, well-educated competent emigre?

From 60 to 80 percent of Americans believe that there is too much freedom in America for criminals and — in a different sense — for young people. For Ofra Bikel this is a wild aberration of a Russian savage: "Why have you come here?”

The emigre, who is by now an American citizen, could have asked Ofra Bikel: ‘‘Why have you come here?”

The fact that emigres from post-1917 Russia tend to support American views more to the right than those that Ofra Bikel supports accounts for another source of her hatred for the group.

Primitive rustics only

The emigres from post-1917 Russia have been providing a powerful cultural stimulus which we can clearly see in retrospect. If I were to choose the opening musical background for a documentary on the emigration from Russia, I would choose Rachmaninov’s Fourth Piano Concerto (which he wrote in America), played by a recent Russian emigre to an American audience.

What did Ofra Bikel choose? A 1905 tune played on a village harmonica. Now, what do recent emigres from Russia, most of whom are urban Jews, have in common with village harmonicas playing 1905 tunes?

The 1905 tune on a village harmonica is followed by a 19th-century folk song which an emigre plays on the street on a kind of xylophone, reminiscent of American street-corner musicians. Jessica Savitch says to its tune: “... they (the “Russians”] have their own music ....”

Indeed, Rachmaninov’s Fourth Piano Concerto would be absurd: the “Russians" composing or playing serious music! On the other hand, the “Russians" who have “their own” primitive street music reinforce the impression of an alien primitive Eastern tribe, with “their” music, in contrast to the music of Ofra Bikel’s Western and American sophisticated civilization.

Next comes a kind of singing and dancing clown who is “known to every Russian,” the announcer proclaims. No “Russian” of my emigre milieu has ever heard of him. But what the “documentary” purports to show is that just as all Americans know world-famous musicians or writers, ail “Russians” know their clown whom no outsider knows. The “Russians” live within their closed, self-contained tribe, alien, incomprehensible and unpleasant to outsiders.

Incidentally, this dance the clown dances is Jewish, which Ofra Bikel ought to know. But in her desire to represent Jews from Russia as aliens, savages and “Russians,” Ofra Bikel even shows an international Jewish dance as “Russian.”

Ofra Bikel stresses again and again that the “Russians” are primitive, rustic, corny. The “documentary” does not feature a single concert pianist or another serious musician, a single ballet dancer, a single scientist in any field, a single inventor or a single chessplayer. It does not show a single “Russian” doing any prestigious work or employed by a single university, a single government agency, a single hospital, a single engineering firm, or any other prestigious American institution.

Residing in the United States is a phalanx of fighters for freedom in Russia. The names of some of them are world-known. But none of them is as much as alluded to in the "documentary.”

Intense religious life, both Judaic and Russian Orthodox, exists in certain segments of immigration. It is not as much as hinted at.

The “documentary” does not show that the emigres — served by their own thriving emigre businesses, some of which are better than competitive American businesses — have brought life, order and prosperity to several areas which had been urban wastelands haunted by criminals.

The median income of emigres is, already, higher than the average for America as a whole, while the average scholastic rating of their children is far higher than America’s average. Is this surprising? No. After all, some of the most gifted, intelligent, enterprising inhabitants of Russia have been emigrating to America since 1917. They are far above the average in Russia and America. Ofra Bikel wants to see this elite as a bunch of primitive rustics, drunks, derelicts or social misfits — and this is what she shows.

Ofra Bikel’s “Russians” have the following “Russian” traits:

(1) Materialism. Though her “Russians” are paupers (not a single Russian is shown to own an expensive home, office, plant, laboratory or any other substantial property), they avidly try on mink coats, overeat, wallow in cheap vulgar “luxuries” and see X-rated movies dubbed in Russian.

(2) Rustic innocence. They don’t understand there are burglars, and the purpose of safety chains on doors has to be explained to them. In rustic Russia, evidently, no burglars exist.

(3) Inclination to crime. They are afraid of the police, forge documents and seek illegal ways in everything.

(4) Mental underdevelopment. They are primitive, speak atrocious English (all worse than even Ofra Bikel), cannot think or speak coherently on any subject, and when asked to explain how they understand freedom, they just mumble and stammer.

(5) Unfitness for freedom. In the West they are “frightened and lost.”

(6) Prudishness. “At 17 my daughter knows all there is to know about sex,” they complain.

(7) Aversion to enterprise. They are not fit for business:

“I like [business] risks as much as I like the KGB,” they groan. They are “not adventurous.”

(8) Aversion to independence. They cannot stand independence: “It is their dependence on the [Communist] Party that they now miss.”

(9) Primitive sentimentality. They are corny and maudlin, never intelligent or refined.

(10) Intolerance.

Ofra Bikel shows 10 types of “Russians”:

1. Emigre-hating emigres. Just as every social group has its own haters (i.e., there are anti-Semitic Jews), there are emigre-hating emigres. They explain daily how hateful all emigres are as a group except them, emigre-hating emigres. Those emigre-hating emigres were a godsend for Ofra Bikel.

2. Russian-language journalists who explain that in Russia they knew “what to think” and “that was very comfortable,” and here “no one tells me what to think," and "it’s ... not very comfortable.”

3. Comic businessmen trying to do some business for the Russians. Two examples are given: a garrulous young woman who is a one-woman tourist agency showing New York to the "Russians” and saying first by mistake "Washington Bridge” instead of "Manhattan Bridge,” and then "Manhattan Beach.” The other is a kind of broker who is now allegedly being sought by the police.

Both comical "businessmen” cater to "Russians.” No "Russian” businessmen catering to Americans or constituting part of American business can even be imagined, according to Ofra Bikel. She considers as non-existent the thousands of "Russian” businesses which are now American businesses, often giving jobs to Americans and serving Americans.

4. Unemployed engineers (or medical nurses). I know many former Soviet engineers who have turned down lucrative engineering jobs because they have gone into business, and one of them is a science editor at Radio Liberty. Ofra Bikel dug up an unemployed engineer and a medical nurse, neither of whom is shown on the screen, but their woeful tales of unemployment are spun at length by relatives.

5. “Intellectual people,” who are represented by someone who says he was a “boss” in Russia and who is not one here.

6. Vulgarians who recite atrocious poetry by radio.

7. Nostalgic maniacs who spend their lives watching “old Russian movies” [that is, old corny Soviet movies] "over and over.”

8. Philosophers on welfare who complain of “the emotional coldness of Americans.”

9. Writers on welfare who miss the KGB.

10. Poets who guzzle vodka even when lying down in bed.

It is the last two types who are worth special attention, to show how Ofra Bikel turned specific individuals into the puppets of her propaganda puppet show.

Missing the KGB

The "star” whom Ofra Bikel 'dug up for this role is author Lev Khalif. He cannot publish his books in English. So? Thousands of Americans who consider themselves professional writers cannot publish or sell their books either. Why? The reasons are many and varied, but whatever they are, what is so "Russian” or "Russian-emigre” about this?

Given at least some sense of humor, Ofra Bikel could have introduced Lev Khalif in this way: “Mr. Khalif loves paradoxes, just as Bernard Shaw or Oscar Wilde did. Whether his paradoxes are as witty as Shaw’s or Wilde’s is for you to judge. For example, here is one: ‘In Russia the writer is destroyed by the KGB, in the West by indifference.’ ”

Instead — when Khalif said that in Russia at least the KGB avidly read his every word, and, "I sound as though I am nostalgic about the KGB” — Ofra Bikel’s translator rendered it in an even monotone: “I actually miss the KGB.”

Next, to personify the Russian-language poets in emigration, Ofra Bikel chose Konstantin Kuzmin-sky. The choice was her racist masterpiece. No one produced more hatred among TV viewers for the “Russians” than that “image” into which Ofra Bikel converted the highly gifted, selfless and kind Kuzminsky.

Curiously enough, about two years ago The New York Times carried a long, extensive article on Russian literature, in which the Russian emigre poet Joseph Brodsky was extolled at the expense of all other Russian writers. I attacked the article. I was especially incensed that not a word was said about the poet Konstantin Kuzminsky, who had helped Brodsky to publish his poetry abroad. On the crest of The New York Times article, Brodsky became one of the richest poets in America.

But now the tables are turned. Whereas The New York Times was interested only in Brodsky and ignored Kuzminsky, Ofra Bikel ignores Brodsky, because she ignores all successful, rich or influential emigres, and is interested only in Kuzminsky, because she can exploit Kuzminsky’s povery, lack of success and “punk” eccentricities.

In his sense and knowledge of Russian literature and his ability to write about it, Kuzminsky has few rivals in Russia or outside of it. But like every mortal, he also has his weaknesses. One of them is trying to show off how bohemian, and eccentric or “punk" he is. Ironically, he picked up this “punk” attitude from the American left, or at least nothing is more banal in the West than to grow a picturesque beard or guzzle vodka in front of a TV camera.

Of course, Ofra Bikel was not interested in the Russian genius of Kuzminsky —' she was interested in his "punk” that could be found 10 or 20 years ago among sophomores of every American college. She converted that “punk” into her propaganda message: The "Russians” are a bearded vodkaguzzling race of Boris Godunovs and Grigory Rasputins, so totally different from Jessica Savitch and Ofra Bikel.

With the help of poor Kuzminsky’s “punk,” Ofra Bikel managed to bring the TV viewers’ hatred for the “Russians” to the highest pitch. Ofra Bikel ought to^- know that sexual associations originate in American minds quite readily under the influence of sex-charged mass culture. Therefore many viewers interpreted Kuzminsky’s “punk” sexually and mistook his home for a brothel run on welfare: “The Russians have come here to run brothels on welfare!”

At the close of the “documentary,” it is stated that the “Russians” would not have left Russia had they known they would not fit America and America would not fit them. They would go back to Russia if they could, but it is a "one-way ticket,” there is “no going back,” and so the “Russians” are trapped in an alien land and are destined to miss the KGB and all.

Throughout this film, not one “Russian” is shown to have a single spark of talent, intelligence or even humor. There is hardly any youth or beauty in those “Russians,” and not a single emigre expresses his gratitude for what he has achieved, or his hope to achieve more in the future.

All the “Russians” handpicked by Ofra Bikel grumble and grouse, demand they know not what, blabber arrant nonsense in atrocious English, miss the KGB, eat, drink and dance. Selected and transformed by the producer, they create the impression of pale ugly plants grown without light or warmth, poisonous mushrooms, or deep-water fishes thrown out of their native ocean — the Soviet regime — and burst by their own vanity and stupidity.

Just how carefully Ofra Bikel handpicked her “Russians” for her propaganda message is obvious from this fact: She spent hours upon hours filming the art scholar Ifeteryatnikov, the sculptor Neizvestny and yours truly — but all this film was thrown out — down to the last inch, for even one such inch could have relieved the gloom and doom of the “documentary.”

As a sermon in racist or class hatred, “The Russians Are Here” can indeed be ranked with “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” or Pravda’s discourses on “class aliens" after Lenin’s coup. I have to admit that I cannot imagine a more effective piece of propaganda which the KGB could create to halt and reverse the growth of the emigration’s influence, its success and social significance. Tbday, the emigration has been terminated by the Soviet regime. Now the goal is to neutralize those who have emigrated. What could be more effective than this “documentary”?

At this writing, the PBS program has been shown in more than 400 cities of America. In New' York it has been aired at least twice, and it is said to be scheduled to be shown 10 times in all.

And, those in charge of Soviet propaganda can readily show' it in Russia as well. As several emigres noted, “Ihke away some of the food and the mink coats, and Moscow television will never concoct more effective propaganda to reassure its own population: ‘Here is America! And here you are in America. You see how it is? To think that some of you resent our Soviet regime! If you go to America, you’ll miss even the KGB, but it’ll be too late for regrets.’ ”

¥ Center for the Survival

of Western Democracies

Lev Navrozov

PBS-TV airs Big Lie on Russian immigrants

Dear Editor!

On Monday, June 13, my wife and I watched a Channel 13 TV program about 100,000 Russian-JewiSh immigrants, a group to which we belong. Since coming to this country, we have never been more insulted.

One after the otner, we saw several different kinds of people portrayed: two or three successful small businessmen bewildered by competition; a taxi driver, and a relatively young stock market speculator. He made a few bucks and could afford totheorize; “To me, the communism in the United States.is exactly as Karl Marx predicted. lb me, communism is the abundance of food and entertainment.”

Perhaps the worst scene showed a company of drunkards who lay on the floor with dishes of smoked lox on their bellies. They were drinking vodka by the cup, patting their dogs and pretending they were famous writers. Their conversation, sometimes under apparent intoxication, is carefully commented on by the “honest” voice of the newswoman:

“These people do not know what freedom is; they certainly miss the slavery which was good for them, and they miss their Russian friendships which were manifested through vodka, by vodka and for vodka. They are not accustomed to living the honest life.” The final scene of the show was of a Russian restaurant, filled with merry gypsy songs. They were eating, dancing and drinking vodka.

By such a portrayal, we were destroyed.

Where are the people we really came here with? The thousands and thousands of skilled workmen, engineers, doctors, businessmen and writers, people who care about the future? This is our country, too, and we arrived here not by birth/ but by challenging the most terrible terror machine.

Now the United States struggles with the most acute international problem of socio-economic relationships, and the two countries playing that game are the United States and the Soviet Union. And the Russian experience is negative. The class struggle initiated by Marx and Lenin has hit a dead end. On the other hand, adequate education, cooperation of people of good will and congeniality has brought quality control as well as success to the West.

We who were not shown on Channel 13 would like to witness to the fact that the ideas of class struggle should be dumped for good. Will the whole nation of America benefit from such an act?