Countywide : Soviet Politician to Visit, Promote Book

Georgi Arbatov, a member of Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin’s brain trust and a prominent player in Russia’s post-Communist political scene, will arrive in Orange County today to promote his new book, which documents the fall of the Communist Party.

In “The System: An Insider’s Life in Soviet Politics,” Arbatov analyzes some of the most turbulent years in Soviet history. He will be in Newport Beach today and Friday for a book signing.

A political insider and close adviser to leaders Yeltsin, Mikhail S. Gorbachev, Leonid I. Brezhnev and Yuri V. Andropov, Arbatov has helped shape and explain Soviet foreign policy. He attempts to record in his book, he said, some of what has never been documented before.

In a telephone interview from his Los Angeles hotel, Arbatov, 69, said Gorbachev had more than enough warning of the August, 1991, coup.

A member of the Parliament until Jan. 1, when the Soviet Union crumbled, Arbatov said he had sensed that there was trouble brewing.

“I thought we had to move quick to reform in order to save perestroika, but we were too slow, and, therefore, the union fell apart,” he said.

Arbatov said he wrote Gorbachev an 18-page letter in April, 1991, urging him to “return to the policy of reforms and to reunite with the allies.”

“I think it’s possible that a conspiracy (is forming) against you. . . . It is extremely dangerous to continue with the right wing (because) I am deeply convinced that would be the end of perestroika, “ Arbatov said he wrote in his letter.

Later, he said, the former Soviet leader told him that he was right. That was 90 days before the coup, Arbatov said.

Arbatov is a member of the Conservative Board of the President of Russia and director of the Institute for the Study of the U.S.A. and Canada, which has long been a major Soviet window on the Western world.

Currently, Arbatov said, his biggest concern is Russia’s economic woes. “If the problems aren’t corrected very quickly, it can have very bad political consequences,” he said.

He believes that the past year’s deterioration in the standard of living is frustrating the Russian people and makes them “easy prey for the demagogue from the far right or the far left.”

When the Cold War ended, both the United States and the Soviet Union neglected domestic problems such as the economy, Arbatov said.

“If both countries focused on the problems that affect the people, that would be good for us and the world,” he said.

Arbatov will be signing books at the Pacific Club at 6 tonight. He will speak at a 7 a.m. breakfast Friday at the Pacific Club and will sign books afterward.