Distinguished investigate testify journalists in russia, cofounders of authors of the red web previously a history of russia razz internet and governance of the internet and then also the excellent book the new noblity which is looking at Russian Security services. So, this i guess is the third part of the trilogy. And were so excited that youre here with us today. I think just a couple of issues. One is we are filming this, so just a note to the audience, as you engage and ask questions, well ask you to identify yourself, and everything here is on the record in terms of the discussion. And then, two, just in terms of formality, well start off with some general questions ill ask or coauthors and then segment into more of a q a format and there are copies of the book available here which irina and andrei will happily sign for you. So welcome back. Welcome to new york. I feel like this is the scene for so much of what is going on, irina can talk but what motivated you to write this book at this particular point in time. Thank you very much alex for having us here and i halve to say that you contributed a lot for research for the book because you to participate in a conference on exiles and use this time for research for our book, so the maybe main lost a part of our research here in new york, so thank you very much. It was very surprising decision for us to write the book, new book on immigration embrace because be all heals e have been as far from the issue as only could be, because from our family emigrated, including aunties, uncles and dozen of cousin is. Nobody. But alex told you that the wrote two books, one of the Russian Security forces and another one on the kremlin, on the internet. And when we finished we didnt know what to do next because most of our journalistic career we have been covering politics, Security Services, and also reported from the conflict zones. But we have nothing to do with emigration, we consider this a more issue that left behind, the issue you left in the past because i dont know because people borders got opened and people could travel in could freely come into the country and also they can live in country easily. But every year of course introduce the political emigration even 20 years ago when took power, and he started exiling people tremendous the doesnt tricker his political opponents mostly. It was russian oligarchs in charge of russian independent media, tv channel, newspapers, magazines, and the first group was expelled from the country but at the same time we didnt see the issue as defining for the russian politics and for the Russian Security services, but it get worse and worse, worse and worse, and two years ago, we felt we need to Say Something but this because the russian because political exiles are independent politics, journalist us, and other people who could putting for dissent the kremlin, became so important issue and kremlin started develop so brutal message to them and i dont know. It became every it became very important for the russian psychology, for understanding the country and aftermath of the kremlin its political opponents abroads, including spying, intimidation and even poisoning, and after that, it became a political factor and it became transform the Security Services, so maybe force them to remember old tradition and transformed political conscience in russian because people are so frightened so so scared of all these matters including poise poison and Security Forces are sodo this is quite very brutal and i dont know. So, poison of services to get back to the kgb so we decided to stop working on the book of on emigration. Its so interesting because the book itself is this absolutely intriguing mix of detailing the develops in post revolutionary russia with contemporary events and, andrei, can you reflect a little bit, take us through what you discovered, what are maybe some of the similarities and differences in the two different eras of dealing with the exiled emigre issue. Because we started finding out some surprising things. For instance, have some strange contradiction here. On the one hand the kremlin has been pushing people out of the country, saying they pose no political threat, they are completely unimportant, and once these people in establish themselves in the west the kremlin gets obsessed with them and we deafblind get it. Didnt under why these people, all who by no means most popular politicians in the country and we talking out oligarchs or politics or journalists but the most opposition lives in the country. But nevertheless the kremlin and visibly gets obsessed with these people irina described and we tried to understand the roots of this obsession, and what we found out is that right from the beginning, from the revolution, as the kremlin was obsessed with the idea and theres a memory that in 1917, small bunch of people actually emigres, political exiles, completely unimportant back then, supported by foreign funding, got back and took over this mighty russian empire. The most powerful back then Political Security service, and nobody could guarantee that this kind of thing couldnt happen again. Of course we understand its very historical, and many factors contributed to the revolution, and probably some people still believe and people we spoke to in the Security Services really believe that lenin was an agent of the german general staff. We understand its not an explanation but its a perception. So people in the kremlin. But once upon a time a small group of people, exiles could actually chang the political regime the country, and the problem here is that right from the beginning, theres methods used by and adopted by the Russian Security services, where influenced by this perception, bit the idea that nothing but emigres pose the biggest political threat to political stability in the soviet union and later in russia. For instance, of course, stalin was obsessed with trotsky and obsessed with hem even after he was killed. For instance, in january 1941, and back then the Second World War was started, and france was invaded and it was only five months before the soviet union is attack can by the germans. In january the soviet intelligence station here bees intensified the struggle against to the guys. So in the middle of the war, still believed that those guys, small group of people here in new york, could pose a substantial and fundamental challenge for political regime. And unfortunately very few things changed, even after stalins death, and they describe it in the book, that the methods and the ideas and perceptions of the Security Services are still there, still believe that political exiles could actually pose a threat. Its spieses because if you look at the history of the russian emigration, political emigration, you can see that its actually could be seen as an exposition of what could be done and not could be done from outside. A political regime in the country like russia, and now in 2019 we sort of assess the effectiveness of these matters, and we can see that the russian emigration tried almost everything. They sent agents to kill bowl very vices in the country. One bolshevik traveled to the west they got killed, too, in europe. They engaged in propaganda. When the soviet army got involved in some military conflicts, for instance in spain think sent soldiers there. When the war started, Second World War, some of them took the side of the enemy and participated in the war, fighting the soave jet army. Once the cold war started they engaged in all kinds of activities from propaganda to espionage, and they trying to change the Public Opinion here in the west. Manifestations, and to be honest, nothing actually worked. It was the history of failures. The russian emigration became famous for being completely incapable of building up any Political Organization. Effective Political Organizations. Much of this believed George Cannon and had the story in the book, they aspired with that one day the russian emigration could produce something in term of Political Organization which could produce some results, and that to be honest, right until the end of the soviet rule, nothing came out of it. Such aing and i still is such a big figure for the russian dissent movement, once he started building his own organization, it was complete disaster. But one thing actually worked. When the russian smuggled their books to the west, these books had a tremendous affect on the Public Opinion here. Probably one thing which actually work was books and we have set e soles it in sis, stalins daughter and a few examples , and thats actually the challenge. What happens now is of course we found that completely different situation because we have the borders 0 opened and people could move freely out of the country and in the country, and only now they have this new phenomenon, the russians here in washington and london and european capitals, and aspiring to have a say the politics of these countries towards russia. It makes a lot of americans very uncomfortable because it looks like an interfere in a way, of course it actually is produces a completely his hysterical reacts from reaction from the kremlin. The method of the rocks Security Services russian suiter services very much inspired by the previous examples and previous experiences of stalin and soviet intelligence. So interesting. So, one over the fascinating things about the book is that a lot of the actions and networks and the intrigue takes place in our very city, new york, and so irina you mentioned you undertook some research while you were here last time. Id be curious, both of you, tell us about new york as a setting. Why has it had this appeal for russian exiles in the past . What have been the networks and different activities here and what does new york mean to the russian exile scene if we can use that word. New york is quite surprising place. Talking about the russian emigration back in the 20 and because Everybody Knows that after the revolution and the civil war, russian emigrated to paris to istanbul, to europe, but not to new york because it was not to the United States because it was still i enclave from russia, and but when the started to handing down on russian emigration it was the primary goal for the soviet Security Services at that time. They started operating extensively in this area and europe and istanbul but at the same time in the late 20s, when stalin expelled trotsky from the country, trot can i emigrated to europe and then in the 30s he got to mexico. But a lot of his supporters are was in new york, and in the United States, because they also russian emgrants emigrated because it wasnt the white imgracious because of revolution. People emigrated because of the policy to jews in russia and they came to new york and they were sympathizers of the Russian Revolution and some of them, some of them were stalinists but a lot of them were trotskyites and when trotsky came to mexico, i a lot of trotskyites was here in new york. It was located in a beautiful old skyscraper downtown, and this beautiful building, and the communest party of the country bought the building, and there was a very intensive activity inside the building and also across the country because this people the communist party was the part of communist communist international, an organization which that unite all communist parties across the world, and they have a lot of opportunities to recruit people from every country in europe and from the literally every big city in the United States, and they did this. But after trotsky when stalin split with trotsky, some people splitted from the communist party, some people inside the communist took the side of trotsky and they became toes skiites so it trotskyites and the secret police recruited had a lot of agents inside the we can say that our brother who was a chairman of the communist party of the United States, was this bill bad grandfather. Grandfather. Not father so old. His grandfather. And he sometimes the growing influence and over the put him in a position of the agent. He never been real agent, but he was i dont know operated he was operating like real agent; so that was a place. And not that was place for the soviet secret Police Activity and another place was also located not far from there where trotskyites had their gatherings and wait for conference and sometimes because everybody has agents in the enemys camp. They were moving between the places very fast. So, what kind of aactually very close to the book store and this is the location you can see all this buildings and actually the headquarters of Trotsky Party was just across the street from the communist party of the United States. So these people literally lived very close to each other. And maybe the question is, why new york and not washington, because of course in russia, everything is very hierarchical and if you have the capital, everything should be directed from the capital. The reason is the american presence was not extremely heavy with the bolshevik resolution and dent want to the Russian Embassy in washington but want together have a compromise and the idea was to open some office here in new york to represent the soviet interests in the United States, and almost medley the first office was in 1919, and it was closed down almost immediately because the office was used to print propaganda and some police was not extremely happen with them and they were kicked out. That actually sets the narrative for the soviet and russian intelligence agencies, because the main station, intelligence station in the United States, was always here in new york. Not in washington north in san francisco. You have some stations where, too, but this was the center of the activities, and of course when the u. N. Had the headquarters in new york, its also elevated the status of Intelligence Officers stationed here in new york. Thats why its so important. And everybody the Second World War, many of the Political Organizations of the russian emigration, the first wave, they moved to new york, fearing what might happen to them after the war. For instance, the Russian Church bolsheviks and what happened to them, they moved their headquarters to new york. Many white organizations also moved to new york. So finally after the war you got a mix of the first wave, second wave and third wave of emigration here in new york, trying to build some Political Organizations. As i said it was not always a big success. Mostly a big disaster. But nevertheless that was to a place for this kind of activity. Great. Just one more question. What i find really fascinating about some of your analysis is, yes, theres a lot of detail here about opposition activities and ultimately the barriers and challenges. Also stories here about individuals who become wealthy or successful, oligarchs, who also maintained loyalty or at least trying to maintain the contacts. So the picture at emerges here is much more complex than just, exiles from dictatorial or authoritarian systems. Theres difference people playing different roles. Im wondering in account of controlling the media as one of these sort of critical things that the kremlin is concerned about. What this relationship between sort of these kind of new media wars the media becoming privatize nets the 90s and 2001s 2000s and concern but those living in exile and what they might do and how does that issue evolve. To be honest, very big part of the book, and it was a big question for us to be honest. Wanted to find an answer to that. Is that for many years here in the United States, the american officials, like and politics like George Cannon. They thought that finally in end of the day when the soviet union would collapse, they need to go and see maybe to help to get political exiles back to russia to have a say about the political future of the country, and when the soviet Union Collapse thread was a kind of hope inside of russia i remember that when i was really young that some people could get back from abroads and we can all build something . And that was an aspiration and you had a special statement about that. Unfortunately it never happened. Some people getting back but the russian dissents decided not to get back dissidents decided not to get back it and was a disaster. But some people, some descend accidents know first wave of emigration, most less financier. They considered that now because the country is open so theres some new opportunities, and they sort of used both countries. They speak language, understand so they can contribute from their knowledge of both worlds. They can open the gate between russian and the west in terms of money and its quite an interesting this and its in the book the field of opening russia for the Foreign Investments and in the getting money out of the west through russia and then the second field of engaging russian money to the west. Russian emigres played extremely important role. They actually opened up the gates. Also new money into the country in the 1990s it helped held by emigres because the story in the book of is the story of bancroft, new york, big scandal back then. This story demonstrated how two different generation of emigrants walked together because the stories are one of them is a and descend dens of the first wave, emigrated grandmothers emigrate after the Russian Revolution and now theyre hearing of the story is natasha, representative of jewish emigration and you the this different generation of russian emigration have never left. Investments to russia and one of his guys was very young, undescended of that generation. He was so permanent and usable that when they got them in the kremlin, putin understood this guy actually could be helpful, not only in terms of money but also to provide good publicity for questionable things. It got interesting from there. He was killed a few years ago and he was a big opponent of the crime and. Back then, he believed that if the kremlin could actually invite him to be head of his division company, that could be a good thing, that could sustain independence of this channel, precisely because the russian neighbor. Actually with these arguments, the journalists of the channel, he said look, these guys are russianamerican. Theres no way the government could put pressure on him so that would be a guarantee. Of course, unfortunately, he went out of his way and few years they were from therapy because of the coverage. Independent coverage, they were back in moscow and actually produced good coverage, critical coverage. He got angry and said we need to get rid of this guy whos not actually, hes got the hold of russian possible. Its interesting, hes still a very big supporter of putin but thats how his story ended. A Television Channel and the media but his days were numbered and he was expelled two years and a half after he took over. His story was a good story to explain how putin saw the role of his people. Fascinating. Lets open up for questions. Please wait for the microphone to come to your. I ask you to identify yourself when you ask your question. Lets keep one question each person to include everyone. In the back, coming toward you right now. I am chris, im a big fan of your previous books as well. You start out Chapter Three talking about how putin is interested in controlling the organizations and creation of things funded by the state or supported by the state. I was wondering if you could comment on how the administration is using these organizations now. The thing is, youre absolutely right. It was an interesting topic because as we all know, the claimant invested that. The thing is that the competitors had a special meaning. They have mcgrath and its a bad thing. From soviet union time, the terminology was used for immigrants who showed their loyalty to the soviet union. They still have an official russian language. Of course we know a lot of them come to build up the positions, putting the United States. We know these are positions that are sometimes visible. For instance, when we have the month of may in new york or some other cities of the United States, these organizations organize big crimes and they tried to be visible on the streets. We tried to understand how the organization could be used and how they are used by the Security Services because in the past, we knew things like houses, the oldest, we wanted to know how the organization could be used now. The best study could be 2016 and the russian interference. To our big surprise, we didnt find it looks like they were already there. To play an active role in the elections. Its quite interesting wife. They have propaganda, almost everybody but not competitors. One of the things is probably because of Economic Activity was in june, putin was absolutely sure it would be absolutely possible that they are so good, they couldnt be and thats exactly what happened. Some people got scared. They could compromise everybody here very easily. Questionable results. This is the answer why they are not related. You can use these for two things. You can use them for public or espionage. If you have no investigation, you dont have information about how it could be used for activities. You can check easily this method of organization. Its a huge array of organizations and for recruitment for the kremlin and intelligence, russian intelligence. It hasnt been activated so far because all that they have, the russians and activity here in the United States, people who are caught, they are professionals. There representative cemented up of russian spies, as they are. At the same time, this recruitment, they will never be used in the future. Okay. Another question. I am susan, undergraduate of the harassment when it was the russian. Im a historian. There are a lot of people in your book that i knew but theres one name that was missing. I go back to the 1960s, a man named how amen named. [inaudible] i know this piece is not in your book. He was a friend of mine in unit. I knew a lot of people, i dont know why but he was working at Radio Liberty and i met him when he was very young and i was very young. He had just come out of the navy and he stayed in unit from 1966 1986 when he went back to the soviet union. You know about him . Yes. He had the choice because we had two guys, almost similar careers. Both navy, pretended to be the factors and Russian Institute and yet. Both of them were involved in the training of American People for some jobs here. In the soviet union. It would be completely impossible to put everybody in the books. If we just chose one guy but also back to the soviet union, they thought that the monastery was an interesting story but it was not, he was not a sales guy. It doesnt seem one more story is interesting than the other. His leader was very active at the time. A lot of information about whats going on and what its happening and how. I dont know, decided not to use the story because the book was already big. Another question. [inaudible] you mentioned this huge penetration of russia, can you make an estimate how much they spent a year . I think its impossible. Its impossible. Its impossible to be sure how much money they spent because the whole Security Services according to the russian law, an estimate how much money they spent inside russia [inaudible] maybe rather than the amount of money, what other kind of activities that the kinds of spendings cover, we talked about supporting the russia american groups or heritage groups or organizations, media spending activities, the problem is that the soviet union was so much easier because you had the states in fact was it. Now you have a state in the government and you have the oligarchs might help sometimes get some money or some people or resources. You also have the situation completely changing because the white because it white. Moscow and we know last year, when you had a session here in new york, the facilities we use by programming to have some of that, these kind of things cannot be assessed because they had so many directions. There are so many lines that might be used in fact a big problem. It clear that its tens of millions of dollars. You need to have some data. This idea of intermediary is interesting. It also offers possibility, too. Okay. Next question. Dont be shy. I wrote a book on red orchestra so i was very interested in berlin stationed there because there was a big operation there under alexander who may be some of you know the name martha dodd who was the ambassadors daughter. She was the girlfriend of alexander. He was brought back to the trials and that was the end of that. I was interested what you found out and also, does david, who interviewed all of these people early on, does that book pulled up at all . Theres lots of archives in the public library. Original interviews. I was wondering if you looked at them and how well that was. We wanted to make the book in the way its a family story. We chose to russian spies who were active and became extremely important in the u. S. And actually, they experienced the thing for the russian intelligence. He was the chief of the intelligence station. Its a fascinating story because youve got the plaintiffs because the wife finally became a second wife and they became a kind of big family of russian spies and its still fairly relevant because he has a portray of his office. If you wanted to focus on these two people because to us, it was an embodiment of the choices used by the russian intelligence. You have a conventional spy, a russian guy after the civil war, recruitment by the russian intelligence, by his superiors and he was sent to new york to take over the network of american communists. It is because they were loyal, she ruined the whole thing. That triggered a reaction of api and Many Networks built by people like jacob who was a very famous american communists. He was a completely different figure. Had the civil war, he still was smart and it was of intelligence, heres part of many kidnappings and assassinations. He was finally touched by soviet intelligence because i was after the war because of antisemitism. In our book we try to explain the choices soviet intelligence had back then. You had conventional methods and even if you not very smart but disciplined and obey your orders, finally you are still praised by your superiors and even if you die, they were at his funeral. Hes a big hero. He killed everybody and he helped kill yeah, he doesnt charge liberation. He spent many years in prison and lost his job and that was an interesting thing. Has another reason we put that story in the book because the grant of the two people, one was his father and another was his real grandfather. So a descendent of the two people, started to have the idea of human rights for all prisoners in russia. He immigrated to germany and now hes traveling between germany and russia. An example, its an example how a descendent of a distinctive representative became different, it was very interesting. They were prominent and provided a great, i dont know, a great way for the family and many generations after them that also connected to the security russians. They represented them because of his family and he was loyal to the regime and to the crime of. She was a prosperous businessman. Explain it concentrated on this story. He tried to find some human behind every method in russian intelligence. Given his immigration. To make it more understandable from a human point of fear. You have some guys in gray, you try to make them understandable. What happened after the activity from how they pursued that. What happened, how they saw these people. What kind of Russian Society they got because of that activity. That was the idea. Lets take a couple more here. In the front. We need you to be in the microphone for the recording. Im not an academic, im a retired new york city schoolteacher. My name is susan. We have read in the newspapers about former russian citizens being poisoned. I dont understand why they are being poisoned. So could you please explain that background . Thank you. And one in the back. The bundle the final questions here. Hold up, andrei. I have a question about maybe you have this in the book, i havent had a chance to read it. You have an estimate of how many people have been graded over the last five, ten years from russia . To which countries . One the last one. I immigrated here with my parents 30 years ago. My question is to go back to the Russian Church. My understanding is for a while, the Orthodox Church and secret services were well integrated. I wonder if you could talk about that more, to what extent do priests see themselves as secret services, to what extent do they see their mission, especially those serving here or in other Foreign Countries . With their ideology and what do they see as their mission . We have about five minutes and we need to cover poisoning, estimated immigration and Orthodox Church relationship with Security Services and any final thoughts you might have. I will try to combine the first and last one. These are related. We got several people poisoned. Many in the uk, they have also people who live between two countries. In moscow, he was poisoned twice. The interesting thing is that when you have these people poisoned but they are still alive, you have this picture in your mind that the secret services are so incompetent and stupid but not really competent. So why they do this . I also have this question, too. When i spoke to people about the oligarchs and priests, they played a big role. The red and the whitesburg it was quite interesting that everybody. The very last question, the guy who was poisoned in the uk. The problem here is that you might think it was all incompetent but actually, it was sending a very strong message. People living in other countries but yes, they were so stupid and brittle that they would stop at nothing, they would try to kill you. It has a very big effort and many people probably some people didnt get the signal they got this message. I was surprised, i had this interview in moscow. A guy whos high up and now in moscow. He played a really big role. His final question, andrei, what do you think about people . Why they did that. The question was, what would happen to me . He was really careful with his remarks. You see this connection. Sometimes it was very bureaucratic. But sometimes it might be more subtle. People just get the message. You need to follow the line. We decided not to put russian immigrants into the book because they are all quite different, its impossible to ensure that there are. You cant be sure how many people immigrated from russia from crimea because they have another citizenship, a special register. This register is maintained by the immigration. I cant remember, i dont know the exact number of people immigrated. Its about 200,000 people and most of them immigrated there. Many of them pay money for the system, a second citizenship. Then from moscow, sometimes like the russian illusion or Something Like that. In the footnotes, united natio nations, 11 russian immigrants in the role. But the estimate in a number of mediums of russians representative of russian world but he means people who can connect those who are russian speaking and connected by them. They are not real immigrants. I think it was provided by the use of the number of obligations were in the United States. They superseded the Record Number which was 1994 again, its about two or 3000 people. Its not about millions. The problem is, you cannot judge it because a lot of people who would still have russian citizenship, they just take some jobs here in new york and other places. You cannot actually count them. Its impossible because theyre not professionals, they have not just left the country like after the resolution. Youve covered tremendous amount in this talk. We wish you all the best with the book. Its called the compatriots. A reminder, they will sign copies. I want to thank everyone for sharing your lunch hour with us and we wish you the best on your book to her. [applause] heres a look at some of the event book tv will be covering this week. On tuesday at quail ridge books in north carolina, the prizewinning journalist david talk about the wilmington riot in 1898. On wednesday, we will be in new york city at the museum of jewish heritage talk by holocaust survivor, max. Also on wednesday, look for us at politics and prose bookstore in washington d. C. For sarah wegners report on the continued search for the bodies of nearly 1600 american soldiers were killed in action during the vietnam war. All of these events are open to the public. If you are in attendance, take a picture take us booktv on twitter, facebook or instagram. This Martin Luther king junior holiday weekend, its three days of book tv. Tonight and tomorrow, book tv presents portions of programs from our archives of many of the candidates running for the democratic president ial nomination. On afterwards, Financial Times columnist and cnn analyst argues that Large Tech Companies are failing to keep consumer data secure. On monday, two in four programs from our archives in the life of Martin Luther king jr. Also columnist jackie shares her thoughts on how to move the country from Political Polarization to common ground. National political reporters talk about the 2020 election. Find a full schedule on your Program Guides or online booktv. Org. For the first time in history, a president is on trial in the u. S. Senate. Watch live tuesday at 1 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan2. As the Senate Begins the trial with a vote on prose. Live unfiltered coverage on cspan2 on demand at cspan. Or cspan. Org impeachment. Listen with the greek cspan radio app. Its nice to see you all tonight. I see some familiar faces, new faces and we are happy to have all of you here. I dont really need to do much of an introduction because you know our friend alan. I would tell you a secret. He was going to name the book 50 shades of allen. [laughter] but decided against it