Anatoly Antonov, the Russian ambassador to the U.S., delivered two messages to American policymakers and the public in an interview which Newsweek published yesterday with the above title: First, that the structure of communication between Moscow and Washington has been “demolished,” and second, that a return to the status quo ante before Feb. 24 would no longer be sufficient to resolve this enormous crisis, pointing to the Biden Administration’s National Security Strategy, released on Oct. 13, as proof. As Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche has also long insisted, Antonov argued that the only solution is a new security architecture based on mutual respect among all nations.
On his first point: Antonov lamented the reality that the lines of communications that existed between Washington and Moscow that were crucial to resolving the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis no longer exist. “The undeniable advantage of that time was a continuously operating confidential channel between Anatoly Dobrynin [then Soviet ambassador to the U.S.] and Robert Kennedy [the U.S. Attorney General and the president’s brother and adviser]. It allowed the Kremlin and the White House to relay information to each other in a timely manner, do appropriate analysis and clarify positions of the two states.”
But today, “the infrastructure of our communication with the Americans has been demolished. The attempts of Russian diplomats in Washington to re-establish such contacts have been futile,” he said. “The administration is unwilling to talk with us as equals.”
