Documents / Official release
This Clinton Presidential Library folder holds NSC cables from January 1999 to December 2000, filed under the heading "Flying Saucer or UFO". A withdrawal sheet lists eleven cables that were withheld in full or in part under Presidential Records Act and FOIA restrictions. The released cables include an FBIS summary of a Bogota TV newscast, which notes that a UFO photograph printed by El Espectador was a hoax. They also include a US Embassy Beijing report on Quanzhou, Fujian, and a Vladivostok cable on Governor Yevgeniy Nazdratenko.
“Norfolk”4 pages
Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.
READS MUCH LIKE THE BIOGRAPHIES OF MANY POST-SOVIET LEADERS OF OUR TIME, INCLUDING FORMER SERBIAN PRESIDENT MILOSEVIC, CURRENT BELARUSIAN PRESIDENT LUKASHENKO, AND, SOME WOULD NOW SAY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT LEONID KUCHMA. DURING HIS YEARS IN OFFICE, NAZDRATENKO HAS GATHERED AROUND HIM A POWERFUL GROUP OF MEN DEDICATED TO TWO OBJECTIVES: FIRST, RETAIN AND EXPAND THE GOVERNORQS POLITICAL POWER; AND SECOND, USE THAT POWER TO ACQUIRE CONTROL OF EVERY VIABLE ECONOMIC ASSET IN THE REGION. 3. NAZDRATENKO HAS BUILT HIS POLITICAL POWER THROUGH THE SYSTEMATIC DESTRUCTION OF HIS RIVALS, THE COWING OF THE FREE PRESS, AND THE TRANSFER OF ALL BLAME FOR HIS ECONOMIC FAILURES TO OTHERS. AS PART OF THIS OVERALL STRATEGY, HE HAS ALSO SOUGHT TO DISTRACT THE PEOPLE FROM THEIR DAY-TO-DAY WORRIES BY RAISING THE SPECTER OF EXTERNAL ENEMIES, DRAWING ON POST-SOVIET RESENTMENT AT THE OUTCOME OF THE COLD WAR, AS WELL AS POPULAR FEARS OF CHINA, THE CENTER, AND THE WEST. NAZDRATENKOQS STRATEGY HAS WORKED SO FAR, BUT IN THE LONG RUN HE IS PLAYING A LOSER'S GAME. THE GROUND IS ALREADY BEGINNING TO SHIFT BENEATH NAZDRATENKO'S FEET, AND HIS POLITICAL FIEFDOM IS NO LONGER THE SECURE HAVEN IT ONCE WAS, AS RUSSIA HAS MOVED FROM THE YELQTSIN TO THE PUTIN ERA. ## VLADIVOSTOK, THEN AND NOW 4. LIKE SO MANY OTHER CITIES IN THE FORMER SOVIET UNION, VLADIVOSTOK HAS UNDERGONE SOMETHING OF A METAMORPHOSIS OVER THE PAST DECADE. TEN YEARS AGO, VLADIVOSTOK WAS A MILITARILY CLOSED CITY, A STAID NAVAL TOWN, HOME TO THE SOVIET PACIFIC FLEET, AND A GROWING CENTER OF COMMERCIAL AND BUSINESS ACTIVITY. ITS POLITICS WERE REPRESSIVE, ITS ECONOMY UNREMARKABLE, AND ITS CITIZENRY WARY OF FOREIGNERS; BUT THE SYSTEM WORKED AFTER A FASHION. IN THE DECADE SINCE, VLADIVOSTOK HAS BEEN TRANSFORMED INTO A WIDE- OPEN PORT TOWN WHOSE PRIMARY BUSINESSES - FISHING AND TRANSSHIPMENT ARE UNDER PRESSURE FROM MORE EFFICIENT FOREIGN COMPETITORS IN JAPAN, KOREA AND CHINA. VLADIVOSTOK'S ERSTWHILE PRIDE - THE RUSSIAN PACIFIC FLEET SITS RUSTING AT ITS MOORINGS, OR SUNK IN THE BAY. THE PROMISE OF WESTERN INVESTMENT TO REVIVE UNCLAS SECTION 02 OF 07 VLADIVOSTOK 0678 ## UNCLASSIFIED E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV, PREL, RS, BO, UP SUBJECT: TO LIVE AND DIE IN PRIMORYE: THE STRANGE WORLD OF YEVGENIY NAZDRATENKO VLADIVOSTOKQS KEY ECONOMIC SECTORS HAS LARGELY BEEN
Not linked to a story yet.
Official release, from the nara collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. The text was read from the page images by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word. 64 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.