Nord Stream: Did Scholz know?

Ray McGovern spoke at the international Schiller Institute Internet conference "Investigating the Nord Stream Revelations: Stop Nuclear World War III!" McGovern was the CIA's top Russia expert for many years and is a prominent founding member of the Veterans Intelligence Service (VIPS). In the Schiller Institute online seminar on the Nord Stream sabotage revelations on February 23, 2023, he said the following:

Thank you for the invitation and I am particularly pleased to be speaking after my good friend Graham Fuller, with whom I joined the Central Intelligence Agency in the spring of 1963. We were both called to Washington because [President] John Kennedy asked that people with special training, special interests, and special abilities come to Washington [and do something for our country], rather than asking what our country should do for us can. We were both specialists in Russian studies. And I just want to say that Graham and I have been through the worst, but also the best because we have been able to tell the truth to those in power, especially in relation to Russia.

I was going to make a few other comments, but this eternal, endless tension between what historians call the "Slavophiles" and the "Westerners" is nothing new. It is very important to note that a great new wall, a new Iron Curtain, if you will, has risen between the “collective West”, as the Russians like to say, and the East – the East with its big plans for economic development, the East with the vast majority of the world's population, China, India, Brazil, Indonesia, Southeast Asia, Iraq. Hello! Please, dear Americans, don't think that the United States has successfully isolated Russia!

The window is slammed

Russia has come out of isolation time and time again throughout history and you have to understand why my friend Graham mentioned Genghis Khan. In fact, the Russians spent more than two centuries, from the 13th to the 15th centuries, under what they call the Tatarskoye igo, the Tatar yoke. And it really was a yoke! So suffice it to say that the Russians were breaking out of two centuries and more under the Tatar yoke, while Western Europe was emerging from the Dark Ages into the Renaissance. Suffice it to say that Russians have always considered themselves two centuries behind the West, and rightly so.

Then Peter the Great was to become the next tsar and he had the presence of mind to travel west by the late 16th century. He worked in the Rotterdam shipyards for two years, got to know the West, returned to St. Petersburg, and when he became Tsar he said: "Our future lies in the West." Pushkin wrote a poem about Peter the Great looking out at the Baltic Sea, looking west and saying [recited in Russian]: "From here we will threaten these Swedes." By that he meant the Swedes, the Poles, the Lithuanians, all in that part of Europe who had succeeded the Tatars in the oppression and invasion of what was then Russia. [Continues to recite in Russian] "A city will be built here - to the detriment of our hated neighbors." "It is predetermined by nature itself." Yevropa is Europe.

And now: Rrrrumms! Not just a little cut away, but sledgehammered: Friends, this window is now closed! The curtains are drawn, it's over! I am optimistic that after a decade or two, Europeans will come to their senses and realize that they have been misled by the likes of Senator McCain and President Obama and that Russia is not "just a gas station masquerading as a country." . Russia is a country without which the rest of Europe would be impoverished. And Graham mentioned some aspects of how it's already impoverished.

I think that's a decade or more away, but right now we're talking about a multipolar world. That's true, it has become a multipolar world. But I would rather say bipolar [laughs], you could also say “bipolar” in the psychiatric sense, that would also apply. But it's bipolar in the sense that it has one pole - and note the choice of words - the "flowery West" versus the rest of the world, where the vast majority are people of color. How can you say the US has isolated Russia when 1,4 billion Chinese and 1,4 billion Indians and Indonesians and Brazilians and South Africans and Iranians are rebelling against what is happening in the pristine West? This is all very unfortunate. It has huge implications, but that's how I see it. The curtain has been drawn. There's a new Great Wall of China, Great Wall, Berlin Wall, Iron Curtain - I think Graham is absolutely right.

What did he say about Russia and Germany? So far, and to a certain extent still today, these are the main players. What are the Russians supposed to think of Olaf Scholz when he stands next to President Biden on February 7 last year and President Biden says: “We will end this pipeline. We can do it. Trust me, we can do it." And what does Olaf Scholz do? He's sitting next to the podium, right? And they ask him: "Well, what do you think of that, Chancellor Scholz?" And he says [English with a German accent]: «We do everything together. We approach these things together, we don't do anything without being together."

Wow! Someone should ask Chancellor Scholz: "Does this mean you knew about the plans to destroy the Nord Stream pipelines? Did Biden tell you when you were in Washington that this was being prepared? Was this something you did 'together'?" I don't know the answer to that. But the German people certainly deserve an answer to this very important question.

Are they sane?"

Finally, I would like to point out something that I have already emphasized long before it was, so to speak, a bang in Ukraine. When the Russians built up their forces on the Ukrainian border in response to what the Ukrainians were doing, there was a huge outcry. And sure enough, President Biden, a new President Biden, didn't quite know what to do. We're talking early 2021. So he called Mr. Putin and he said, "We don't like all these Russian troops on the border, what are you doing?" And Putin said: «Well, Zelenskyy says that he might get a nuclear weapon. Zelenskyy says he will destroy Crimea. Can you put a damper on him?'

And Biden said OK and did it. And Putin said: "You also have two guided missile destroyers on their way to the Dardanelles, to the Black Sea - can you recall them?" And Biden said OK and did it. Then Biden said, “I like personal diplomacy. let's talk Let's talk! Let's have a summit." As most of you know, a summit meeting was then set for June 16, 2021. We don't know much about this summit other than what President Biden told us. Immediately after the meeting, as he boarded his plane to fly home, he told us: «It's not entirely certain yet: you know, it's not my place to reveal what I said to President Putin, but he has a very long, long, thousands of miles long border with China. He knows that China is striving to become not only the most important economic power but also the most important military power. Mr. Putin has a lot to worry about!"

And then he continued before boarding the plane. His supervisors said: "Joe, let's..." - "No, I would like to say one more word! Don't underestimate the fact that Putin is being pressured by China." June 16, 2021. So he's getting on the plane. I would have liked to have been a fly on the wall when Putin consulted his advisers and said, 'Huh? Excuse me!?!” [laughs] I guess Sullivan, Blinken and these guys are still reading from the textbooks that Graham Fuller and Ray McGovern wrote four decades ago! When Russia and China were still at loggerheads! Well, I don't mean to disparage these people, they are very well educated, they are the "best and brightest" and it's people like that who got us Vietnam - and we all know how that ended. I liked what Professor Boyle had to say about, say, the law firm "Biden, Blinken, Sullivan, Nuland and Austin" - I made a little note here [laughs]. It's like, you know, "Dewey Cheatham and Howe" [a parody of a law firm in comedy], or whatever that was. These people are really a risk.

What I'm trying to say is this, you should read what's happening here: President Putin gave a major speech to the Valdai Discussion Club on October 27 last year. He spoke for 45 minutes and then answered questions for three hours - okay? For three hours! The Western journalists didn't wait for the questions, perhaps they deliberately left out the discussion. But the questions were the real sticking point! He was asked and I wrote this down: «President Putin, a question about China, about the growing tensions between China and the United States. Why would the United States spoil its relationship with China while at the same time instigating a dispute with Russia in Ukraine?" Listen to Putin's response: «Honestly, I don't know why you're doing this... Are you sane? It all seems like it totally defies common sense and logic... It's just insane. It may appear that there is some subtle, profound plan behind it. But I believe there is nothing, not a subtle thought. It's just nonsense and arrogance, nothing more... Such irrational acts are rooted in arrogance and a sense of impunity."

Now, I don't agree with everything Vladimir Putin says, but I think he's absolutely right on that point. But it doesn't matter what McGovern, Graham Fuller or anyone else thinks! What matters is what Putin thinks.

Analogy to the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis

Are we in more danger now than we were in 1962? That was a year before Graham and I joined the CIA. I happened to be in Georgia at Fort Benning [a US Army base] during the Cuban Missile Crisis in September, October and November 1962. There were no guns there. No fancy [then] state-of-the-art grenade launchers that we were looking forward to training on. There was nothing! Where was it? It was all down in Key West, Florida, ready for Cuba. There it was! Why am I saying this? I say that because in my view, and in the view of some other people, the Cuban Missile Crisis is very analogous to what Putin sees on Russia's periphery.

I mentioned this before the UN Security Council two days ago. Let me briefly allude to that again: we know it and Mr Putin actually said it – look at his speech on December 21, 2021 when he said it: “What worries me is the fact that these positions in Romania and in Poland are suitable for cruise missiles and hypersonic missiles that could reach Moscow or our ICBM forces, if they are cruise missiles, in 7-10 minutes; if they are hypersonic missiles, in 5 minutes. I, Vladimir Putin, don't want to be put in a position of having to decide whether to blow up the rest of the world (he didn't use those words like that, they're my words - but it's true!); I don't want to be put in a position where I have to decide in 5 minutes whether to blow up the rest of the world! And not 7-10 minutes before!” This is the crux of the problem!

And I said in the Security Council, 'Don't believe McGovern. He reads everything Putin says, but you don't have to believe him. Listen to Putin." Before the coup in Kiev on February 22, 2014, there was absolutely no evidence that Putin or anyone else in the Russian leadership had any intention of conquering, or rather annexing, Crimea. When the coup happened, when it was clear that the coup plotters, the people who came to power, wanted Ukraine to be part of NATO and wanted to prevent the Russian-speaking population from speaking their official language and that they wanted to keep an eye on the Crimea, Russia's only year-round naval base, established there by Elizabeth the Great after several wars, at the same time as our revolution. What happened then? Putin came back from Sochi, he was at the Winter Olympics; he wasn't even in Moscow when the coup took place! He came back and said, "What are we going to do with Crimea now?" Long story short, they didn't want Crimea to become a NATO port or naval base.

You know the rest of the story: Crimea was annexed the next month. The following month, in April, Putin celebrated the annexation of Crimea and he said – and here it comes – he said: «We were motivated, in part, by the idea that Ukraine could become a member of NATO. But more importantly, we didn't want offensive strike missiles to be stationed on Russia's periphery." And in fact, that's exactly what they fear, of course. As I speak, there are missile silos or sites in Romania and Poland. They can be converted from alleged anti-Iran ABMs into attack missiles that can reach Russia within 5 minutes, or currently 7-10 minutes.

What does that mean? Well, think of Cuba! I asked people who knew the situation in Cuba at the time, the technicians: "How long would it have taken one of those Soviet missiles, those offensive attack missiles, to reach Washington or Omaha, where the SAC [Strategic Air Command] is located?" "Minutes," they said. "Minutes." - "How many minutes?" – «Only minutes!» OK, fine, 10 minutes, 5 minutes? Well, John Kennedy reacted, didn't he? Did he do something illegal? Well, blockades are illegal. You can call it quarantine if you want, you don't make it legal just by calling it "quarantine". As I said, all of our guns and many of my comrades were in Key West, and in no small part because of that, John Kennedy threatened nuclear war.

So here's the question, folks, think about it: did someone say back then, 'Come on, you're freaking out, John Kennedy! This is unprovoked! You do illegal things like a blockade and it's unprovoked?" Why didn't anyone say that back then? Hello? Because it was very well provoked! If Putin found it necessary to invade Ukraine, and not only for that reason but, but this was more important than other considerations, then it cannot be said that it was "unprovoked." Say it's illegal if you want - let the lawyers decide. But this charade of "unprovoked" is not true.

The American representative on the UN Security Council avoided using the word "unprovoked" two days ago. That was strange. He said "terrible, terrible" and all those things, but he didn't say what Russia did a year ago was "unprovoked". I do not know why. It's the first time I've seen these kinds of explanations that don't say that; maybe he was afraid I would throw myself at him. It was only two people...! [laughs]

The resolution of the drama is near

Suffice it to say that here we shall see the dénouement [the resolution of the drama]. And what really worries me is that the American people are unprepared for what is to come. In my opinion there will be a Russian offensive that can advance to the Dnieper in the next few weeks and then time will be tight, definitely! I don't think Putin wants to take over all of Ukraine. That would be stupid! That would be something Dick Cheney or Don Rumsfeld or one of those "chosen ones" would try. I think Putin would be ready to negotiate - the question is when? Then General Milley, the chairman of the chiefs of staff, says: "Maybe we should negotiate now," and then two weeks later he says: "No, no, Russia is losing, Russia has lost." You know, there's an atmosphere of illusion in Washington, of infatuation.

So what we need to do is take action and agitate! We need to educate our fellow citizens because the press doesn't. We need to get our butts off and say, 'Guys, look, these are the facts. Seymour Hersh exposed the fact that we committed this horrible act of terrorism, an act of war as Professor Boyle said." Enlighten our people. Say, "Do we really want to risk nuclear war for something like this? I don't think we want that." But we must ensure that our fellow citizens know this. Can we do it this week or next? Probably not, but we must keep trying.

I'll end with IF Stone, who faced this type of circumstance and he said: «You have to go into it with your eyes open and if you can, keep your sense of humor. 'Cause you're gonna lose And then you will lose again, and you will keep losing. But in the end someone who has the same instinct for justice and truth as you will win».

🟥 Ray McGovern - Nord Stream - Did Scholz know?