Cultivating Trump

The dossier by the former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele asserts that the Kremlin had been cultivating Trump for “at least five years” before his stunning victory in the 2016 US presidential election. This would take us back to around 2011 or 2012.

In fact, the Soviet Union was interested in him too, three decades earlier.

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In January 1984 [General Vladimir Alexandrovich] Kryuchkov addressed [Russia's spy network] during a biannual review held in Moscow, and at a special conference six months later. The urgent subject: how to improve agent recruitment. The general urged his officers to be more “creative.” Previously they had relied on identifying candidates who showed ideological sympathy toward the USSR: leftists, trade unionists and so on. By the mid-1980s these were not so many. So KGB officers should “make bolder use of material incentives”: money. And use flattery, an important tool.

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There were other questions, too: what was the likelihood that the “subject could come to power (occupy the post of president or prime minister)”? And an assessment of personality. For example: “Are pride, arrogance, egoism, ambition or vanity among subject’s natural characteristics?”

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“Compromising information about subject, including illegal acts in financial and commercial affairs, intrigues, speculation, bribes, graft … and exploitation of his position to enrich himself.” Plus “any other information” that would compromise the subject before “the country’s authorities and the general public.” Naturally the KGB could exploit this by threatening “disclosure.”

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[T]he Political Intelligence Department stationed in KGB residencies abroad—was given explicit instructions to find “U.S. targets to cultivate or, at the very least, official contacts.” “The main effort must be concentrated on acquiring valuable agents,” Kryuchkov said.

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These should be acquired chiefly among prominent figures in politics and society, and important representatives of business and science.”

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The directorate’s aim was to draw the target “into some form of collaboration with us.” This could be “as an agent, or confidential or special or unofficial contact.”

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Eastern Bloc security service records suggest [the opening of a file on Donald Trump] may have been as early as 1977. That was the year when Trump married Ivana Zelnickova, a twenty-eight-year-old model from Czechoslovakia. Zelnickova was a citizen of a communist country. She was therefore of interest both to the Czech intelligence service, the StB, and to the FBI and CIA.

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According to files in Prague, declassified in 2016, Czech spies kept a close eye on the couple in Manhattan [information they would have shared with the KGB].

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According to the Czech files, Ivana mentioned her husband’s growing interest in politics.

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As Trump tells it, the idea for his first trip to Moscow came after he found himself seated next to the Soviet ambassador Yuri Dubinin [at] a luncheon held by Leonard Lauder, the businessman son of Estée Lauder.

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Trump’s chatty version of events is incomplete. According to [Dubinin's daughter] Natalia Dubinina, the actual story involved a more determined effort by the Soviet government to seek out Trump.

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Dubinin’s invitation to Trump [in January 1987] to visit Moscow looks like a classic cultivation exercise, which would have had the KGB’s full support and approval.

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[Six months prior to the Lauder lunch,] Dubinina said she picked up her father at the airport. It was his first time in New York City. She took him on a tour. The first building they saw was Trump Tower [where they met Trump].

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The ambassador—“fluent in English and a brilliant master of negotiations”—charmed the busy Trump, telling him: “The first thing I saw in the city is your tower!”

Dubinina said: “Trump melted at once. He is an emotional person, somewhat impulsive. He needs recognition. And, of course, when he gets it he likes it. My father’s visit worked on him like honey to a bee.”

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In Dubinina’s account she admits her father was trying to hook Trump. The man from Moscow wasn’t a wide-eyed rube but a veteran diplomat who served in France and Spain, and translated for Nikita Khrushchev when he met with Charles de Gaulle at the Elysée Palace in Paris. He had seen plenty of impressive buildings. Weeks after his first Trump meeting, Dubinin was named Soviet ambassador to Washington.

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Dubinin deemed Trump interesting enough to arrange his trip to Moscow. [...] On July 4, 1987, Trump flew to Moscow for the first time.

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Once in Moscow, [invited "guests"] would receive lavish hospitality. “Everything is free. There are good parties with nice girls. It could be a sauna and girls and who knows what else.” The hotel rooms or villa were under “24-hour control,” with “security cameras and so on,” [Viktor Suvorov—a former GRU military spy] said. “The interest is only one. To collect some information and keep that information about him for the future.”

  Politico

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.