LaRouche’s Trip toMoscow: A StrategyFor War Avoidance

LaRouche in Russia Is Featured GuestAt Academy of Sciences 2

INCLUDES:

Interviews with LaRouche in Moscow

80th Birthday Celebration with Russian economistStanislav Menshikov

Russian American Team:World Needs Bering Strait Tunnel! 16

INCLUDES:

Speeches by LaRouche and Former Alaska Gov. Walter Hickelto an April 24 conference on ‘A TranscontinentalEurasia-America Transport Link via the Bering Strait’

An interview with Hal Cooper, PhD on the benefitsof developing the Bering Strait transport link

P.O. Box 6157 Leesburg, Virginia 20178

www.larouchepac.com

LaRoucheP �A �C �

ON THE COVER: .

© June 2007 LLPPA-2007-004

Paid for by the Lyndon LaRouche PAC, P.O. Box 6157, Leesburg, VA 20178.www.larouchepac.com and Not Authorized by Any Candidate or Candidate's Committee

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Russian-American relations—adversarial as theywere during the Cold War and collaborative as

they might become in the next 20 to 50 years if theoutlook and policies of Franklin Roosevelt wererevived in the United States—were the thread run-ning throughout the Russian Academy of Science’scelebration of the 80th birthday of StanislavMikhailovich Menshikov, the prominent Russianeconomist. Professor Menshikov introduced EIRfounder Lyndon LaRouche as his personal guest atthe events, held May 15 and 16 in Moscow.LaRouche’s own contributions, and responses tothem by Academicians, Russian economists, andspecialists in international affairs, shaped animpassioned discussion of the Earth’s next two tofive decades.

During his short visit to Moscow on this occasion,LaRouche was in demand for a series of newspaper,Internet, and television interviews. In all theseexchanges, LaRouche stressed the urgent need forsuch changes in the U.S. government, as would allowan American approach to Russia, China, and India with aproposal to immediately organize a new, development-ori-ented international monetary system. This “four-nation” pol-icy for cooperation on transforming the world economythrough the high-technology development of Eurasia, in par-ticular, was put forward by LaRouche as a path away fromthe looming danger of spreading “permanent war,” and intothe development of our planet, for which the next genera-tions thirst. LaRouche emphasized that Russia’s own scien-tific heritage, from the time of Peter the Great in the early18th Century, through scientists of the stature of Dmitri I.Mendeleyev and Academician Vladimir I. Vernadsky, will bean essential element of the success of this effort.

Looking to 2027At a special gathering, held in Menshikov’s honor on

May 15 at the the Presidium of the Russian Academy ofSciences, the retrospective on his long and varied careerwas also transformed into a very forward-looking deliber-ation, by the honoree himself. Menshikov keynoted thesession with a 20-year economic and strategic forecast,looking at the world as if from the standpoint of his100th birthday, in 2027.

Menshikov first introduced his foreign guests, starting

with LaRouche and Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder of theSchiller Institute. He then developed alternative scenariosfor Russia up to 2027, returning at the end of his lecture toLaRouche and Zepp-LaRouche’s Land-Bridge and NewBretton Woods proposals as crucial to a shift for the better.

More than 50% of Russia’s current economic growth,Menshikov said, is derived from burning up the skilledlabor and fixed capital, created during the Soviet period.Those are “one-time” factors, meaning that in order togrow, Russia cannot do without new productive invest-ment. President Putin took note of this in his recentspeeches, Menshikov said, by talking about the need foran industrial policy. So far, Russian oligarchical capital-ists do not want to make productive industrial invest-ments, despite exhortations from Putin, but Menshikovpointed to the prospects for investment in infrastructureopening the way to a better policy.

If one might expect the world’s largest economies in 2027to be those of China, the U.S.A., India, Japan, and Russia,Menshikov said, clearly cooperation among them is essen-tial. In particular, he said that the LaRouche Land-Bridgeprogram can restructure the economies of all Eurasia.

This involves long-term projects, and thus the questionof financing is a serious one, which can be solved through

Courtesy of km.RU

Lyndon LaRouche was an honored guest at the 80th birthdaycelebrations in Moscow of economist Stanislav Menshikov. Here,LaRouche is being interviewed by the popular Russian Internet sitekm.RU, on May 15.

FÊTE FOR PROFESSOR MENSHIKOV

LaRouche in Russia Is FeaturedGuest at Academy of Sciencesby Rachel Douglas

LaRouche’s New BrettonWoods idea, Menshikov said.If Russia can rely on theChina-India-Russia Eurasiantriangle, but not forget cooper-ation with the industrializednations, a “conflict-free situa-tion” for development may becreated, as against the stagna-tion and downturn that wouldotherwise occur.

Lyndon LaRouche ad-dressed the meeting immedi-ately after Menshikov. Heposed the question: What dowe give to the future? In a sit-uation where practically everycountry in Europe to the westof Belarus and Russia is closeto being ungovernable and a“failed state,” LaRouche said,the need is to change the world agenda. While politiciansmay be corrupt or incompetent, a quality of clearer think-ing is available, for example, in the U.S.A., from amongsenior professionals in and around the institutions ofgovernment.

What happens in the next 20 years can be changed,LaRouche said, but the question is, who will do it. Who willnot only forecast reality, but change it? LaRouche noted thatPresident Putin has repeatedly cited the legacy of FranklinRoosevelt, especially, recently, in the context of the com-memorations of World War II. Thus, the United States mustapproach Russia, India, and China with a Rooseveltianagenda for economic cooperation, subsequently bringing insmaller nations. Russia’s scientific culture will be of greatimportance, LaRouche concluded, in furthering a dialogueamong senior figures from those four countries, which willestablish a sense of the reality of the possibilities for large-scale economic recovery and development.

Academician Valeri Makarov, a well-known mathemat-ical economist, presided over the Academy of Sciencesspecial session for Menshikov’s jubilee. Among otherspeakers were Academician Ruslan Grinberg, andAcademician Alexander Granberg, who worked withMenshikov in Novosibirsk. Last month, Granberg chairedthe Moscow conference on “Megaprojects of Russia’sEast: A Eurasian-American Multimodal Transport LinkAcross the Bering Strait.” Representatives of the U.S.A.-Canada Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences andof the Higher School of Economics also spoke.

The well-known former Pravda journalist GeorgiMirsky described Menshikov as a “flying creature,” whoworked all over the world, and always shared his talent.“You could never catch up with Menshikov,” he said.

Professor Menshikov’s wife, the economist LarissaKlimenko-Menshikova, as well as his daughters and otherfamily members, were with him throughout the celebrations.

Prof. Karel van Wolferen of the University of Amsterdamread greetings from University of Texas at Austin Professor

James Galbraith, whose father,John Kenneth Galbraith, had along and unique collaborationwith Menshikov. Van Wolferenalso made remarks of his own.A message from another long-time friend and associate ofMenshikov, Prof. AngusMaddison of the University ofGroningen (the Netherlands)and the University of Brisbane(Australia), was also read.

Love of Country, and OptimismDr. Sergei Glazyev, an econo-mist who is a correspondingmember of the Academy ofSciences, arrived at the meet-ing directly from business atthe State Duma, of which he

is a member. Glazyev took up the difficulties of gettingpeople to think (the Russian word for the parliament,duma, comes from the word for thinking) the wayStanislav Menshikov always has gotten people to think.He congratulated Menshikov on the great accomplish-ments of his life to date, which he said Menshikov haddone, “with love for his country, and the confidence tolive according to his own mind.”

Unlike some younger people who today are stuck invirtual reality, Glazyev said, Menshikov has always beenreality-oriented, and, together with his willingness to lookreality in the eye, he has provided in Russia and else-where a tremendous charge of optimism.

The celebratory session at the Presidium of the Academyof Sciences concluded with the presentation of three just-published books, which were announced by Georgi Tsagolov,a former student of Menshikov and now his co-author.One of them is the English translation of Menshikov’s TheAnatomy of Russian Capitalism, which EIR News Servicebrought out in March. This author, who translated TheAnatomy of Russian Capitalism, reported to the meetingthat the book is currently being circulated to members ofthe U.S. Congress, who need to grasp what Menshikov cantell them about the complex economic processes in Russiaduring the last 15 years. The exchange of key publicationsbetween Russia and America brings to mind, that 2007also marks the 200th anniversary of Russian-Americandiplomatic relations, and of the publication in Russian ofAlexander Hamilton’s Report on Manufactures.

Menshikov’s memoirs, just published in Russian underthe title About Our Time and About Myself, were hailed bynumerous participants in the Academy session and the May16 celebratory banquet, for providing extraordinary insightsinto the history of the past 65 years. The third just-publishedvolume is a survey, by Menshikov and Tsagolov, of somecases of Russian businesses that have actually contributedto development of the Russian economy, unlike the carpet-bagging described in The Anatomy of Russian Capitalism.

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Stanislav Mikhailovich Menshikov, the prominentRussian economist, was honored at his 80th birthdayby two days of events at the Russian Academy ofSciences. Menshikov keynoted the celebration May 15with a 20-year strategic forcast, looking at the world asif from the standpoint of his 100th birthday.

On May 17 and 18, the popular Russian webportal KM.ru posted excerpts from an inter-view with Lyndon LaRouche, including avideo of the conversation. LaRouche wasinterviewed in Moscow May 15 by correspon-dent Tamara Miodushevskaya.

A first installment ran in print on May 17,under the headline “American Economic GuruForecasts Crisis in U.S.A.” The next day, the siteput the whole interview online as the lead itemat the center top of the KM.ru home page.

Our transcript, excerpted here, of the Englishoriginal is published by permission of KM.ru,while Miodushevskaya’s questions are shownas translated during the interview by RachelDouglas of EIR. (The complete interviewappeared in EIR May 25, 2007.)

KM.ru’s introduction: The major Americaneconomist and political figure LyndonLaRouche is in Moscow for a short visit. Hewas one of the first to launch a fight againstthe global financial oligarchy and its chief financial insti-tutions the World Bank, and the IMF. His forecastingtrack record is unparalleled. He gave us an exclusive inter-view about the future and present of the world economy.

KM.ru: Many people believe that there’s a very seriouseconomic-financial crisis in the United States. The U.S.has the largest debt in the world, and there’s some beliefthat this could lead to a collapse of the dollar, and thatthe dollar could even stop being traded on internationalexchanges. How do you see this?

LaRouche: That’s often said, but it’s an inaccuratepicture. The dollar has to be seen as the world’s reservecurrency, still. If the dollar were to collapse, the Russianassets abroad would collapse. China would collapse.India would go into a major crisis. The entire world econ-omy would go into a dark age.

The orchestrator of the problem is the British Empire.It’s the financial interests associated with Britain, which arethe main enemy of the world today. Also, Russia, China, andIndia are enemies of Britain. These financier interestsbelieve that they can sink the United States, and, by doingso, bring the rest of the world under British control.Actually, we’re on the edge of the threat of a new world war.

Therefore, just to give an indication, which may involveother questions: The only solution to keep the world fromdisintegrating now, is a very quick change in the composi-tion of the government of the United States: It must occurthis year. Beyond this year would be too late. And it must beon that basis, that the United States must make an offer toRussia (first), China, and India, to agree to set up a proposal for

an immediate new, world monetary-financial system. And tobring other nations into that. But without the United States,Russia, China, and India, it’s not possible. That’s our situation.

KM.ru: At what point of decline of the dollar, whatrate does the dollar have to hit, for it to be critically fatalfor the whole world system?

LaRouche: It’s already ready to fall. The conditionalready exists. All it would take—it’s like a big balloon readyto explode. You prick the balloon, it goes. The greatest dan-ger, is that the British interests will prick the balloon. Thecombination of financial interests which are controlledfrom London, and from the Cayman Islands, have the abili-ty to blow the bubble any time they want to. There are anumber of things, that could blow it: For example a waragainst Iran could blow it. It would start a chain reaction.Or, there are a number of other conditions that could blowit. The global warming policy of Gore could blow it. Forexample, if the United Nations group got through a resolu-tion in support of Gore’s policy, it would blow the system.

This is a moment, where an entirely voluntary elementin history is the crucial, deciding thing.

KM.ru: What are the prospects for the euro and theruble on the world financial market?

LaRouche: The euro should die. The sooner it dies thebetter. If the dollar goes down, the world goes down. If theeuro goes down, the world does not go down.

We have to be realistic: Every government in Europe,from the border of Russia and Belarus, is presently in anungovernable state. Poland, bankrupt; Bulgaria, bankrupt;Slovakia’s sick; Balkans, bankrupt; Germany, bankrupt.

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Courtesy of KM.ru

KM.ru’s interviewer Tamara Miodushevskaya speaks with LaRouche on May15 in Moscow. “The only solution to keep the world from disintegrating now,”he said, “is a very quick change in the composition of the government of theUnited States: It must occur this year. Beyond this year would be too late.”

Top Russian WebsiteInterviews LaRouche

Italy is bankrupt, but that doesn’t count.France: France is ready to blow. The newly elected

President is a fascist, but he is not going to have an easytime. Sarkozy is Vichy. It is a break with Gaullism; it is theend of France.

Internally, Britain is bankrupt. The government ofBritain is now unmanageable, since the last elections.Belgium is unmanageable.

So, Europe is, at this moment, as the nations of Europe,Western and Central Europe, now bankrupt. They’vealready been globalized: The power does not lie with thegovernments, it lies with a supranational financial interest.

KM.ru: In that kind of situation, you could see theeuro being destroyed?

LaRouche: The euro is adestruction. It was created byThatcher and Mitterrand to de-stroy Continental Europe. It hasdestroyed Germany. It’s now virtu-ally destroyed France. Every formerComecon nation, except Czechia,is bankrupt, and is ungovernable.And the governments are impo-tent. That’s why Europe is notstrategically significant.

It’s the international financialinterests: Russia, China, India, andthe United States. That’s it. The restof the world is not deciding any-thing. If they don’t work together,then the chain reaction of finan-cial collapse will finish off the world.And after that, nobody knows.

KM.ru: So, as far as I under-stand what you’re saying, ifthere’s not very rapidly a changein the U.S. government, then thewhole crash is going to just blowup. In your view, who couldbecome a candidate? Howwould it work?

LaRouche: It’s not important. You have a situation, inwhich a combination of forces in institutions inside thegovernment will decide what will happen. There are pow-erful institutions, political institutions, inside and associat-ed with the U.S. government. One part of it is fascist,already, including Al Gore and his friends. Another part isthe opposition, of which I’m a part. We are mobilizing totry to do something. Throw Cheney away, put thePresident under supervision, and do what has to be done.

The discussion is around my proposal for the UnitedStates to approach Russia, China, and India. Our approachis based on President Putin’s and others’ statements on thesubject of Franklin Roosevelt. That is the only way we’llmake it, by having the United States adopt the image ofFranklin Roosevelt in the last Depression for dealing withthe present crisis. We’re in a desperate crisis, where suchkinds of sudden changes can be made.

KM.ru: Your views are very much respected and fol-lowed in Russia amongst economists, as well as politi-

cians. Can you tell us the kind of discussions you are hav-ing, if it’s not a secret? Or at least, what you’re advising?

LaRouche: Well, the key thing, as I said, the solutionis to go back to the philosophical basis and approach ofFranklin Roosevelt. This was well known under the Stalingovernment. Because Roosevelt had a plan for the post-war world, to eliminate colonialism. When Rooseveltdied, financial circles in New York and London destroyedRoosevelt’s policy.

As a veteran of World War II, I considered HarryTruman a pig.

We had a chance to bring together nations which did notagree with each other, to eliminate colonialism, and to orga-nize an economic reconstruction of the world, and to use

the United Nations as a vehicle fororganizing sovereign nation-statesto cooperate, and to assist nationswhich would be freed from colo-nialism. The world has changed,but the principle remains the same.And I believe that Russia, in its pre-sent situation, would accept such apolicy. Therefore, that discussion iswhat I’m pushing. It’s the only solu-tion we have. Either that, or chaos.

KM.ru: Does there exist, or doyou have a specific strategy forthe development of Russian-American relations?

LaRouche: Yes, I do. Butalso, global.

There’s a very specific prob-lem—maybe I should explainthis: Globalization is a fraud.Since 1989, you’ve had thedestruction of the economy ofRussia, deliberately. The greatestlooting operation in history wasrun, up to the end of Yeltsin.Russia is, actually, organically,

traditionally, what it is: It has its own culture. Russia hasessentially an advanced European culture. It also is aEurasian nation, by its recent history of the past four cen-turies. The great problem is typified by the problem of rela-tions between Russia and the United States, on the oneside, and China and India, on the other. The developmentof the natural-resources potential of Siberia and CentralAsia is the key to the solution.

What’s happened, is the destruction of Russia, andWestern Europe, and the United States economies. Thedestruction of industry, the destruction of the standard ofliving of the lower 80% of family-income brackets. Thenyou have the fraud, which is typified by the case of Chinaand India: India and China are the two nations which aremost characteristic of the export of industrial productionand so forth, out of Europe and the United States. Butactually, China does not really benefit from this: Chinahas billionaires, Communist billionaires. But the condi-tion of the people is worse. The interior is collapsing. Thisis a colonial model! This is the British colonial model!

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Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill at the Tehranwartime conference in 1943. FranklinRoosevelt’s policy was to eliminate colonialismafter the war—a policy which both the Britishand Russian leaders understood quite well.Churchill hated it bitterly, and after FDR’s death,New York and London circles aborted the policy.

You drop the price of production, by moving productioninto poor countries. You create a relatively wealthy classin a poor country, but you condemn the majority of thecountry to poverty. This is the globalization model.

China has achievements of some kind, which are veryuseful. But, China by itself would die, for lack of internaldevelopment of its whole population. India has a differ-ent, but similar situation. All of South Asia has the sameproblem. Africa is a disaster.

We’ve taken the industries, we moved them out of theformerly advanced countries, to poor countries, and wecreated the colonial model of Britain.

What you need is a 50-year agreement for high-technol-ogy investment. Europe and the United States are coun-tries which have a high-technology culture, but they havebeen stripped of the ability to use it. Other countries havebeen given the technology to produce, but they haven’t theculture to sustain it. It will take 50 years to fix that.

We must have a protectionist policy, worldwide: afixed-exchange system, and a combination of 25- to 50-year, long-term agreements for high-technology develop-ment for the whole planet. It means that Russia, forexample, has to change its ways and go in a high-technol-ogy direction for the whole population. And the high sci-ence culture of Russia is most important, especially inraw-materials development. Then we can solve the prob-lem, if we get that agreement. Otherwise—pfft!

KM.ru: Can you say in a little more detail: Whatwould you identify as genuinely positive factors inRussia, that the West lacks?

LaRouche: Vernadsky. Mendeleyev and Vernadsky.Look at the area of what was formerly the Soviet Union inSiberia. Look at the Arctic, the sub-Arctic region of Siberia.Under the tundra, you have vast valuable resources. Youhave to have the knowledge that the Vernadsky Institute,for example, in Moscow, typifies, in its archives. In theAcademy of Science, you have buried talent and knowl-edge. Nobody, no other country but Russia knows how todevelop that area in a rational way. And with the mostpopulous areas of the world typified by China and India, 2-1/2 billion people, who are hungry for technology and forraw materials. Without a cultural revolution toward high-technology in China and India, the world can not survive.

You can not have this area looted; you have to have itdeveloped. You have nations like Russia, Kazakstan, and soforth, which have this territory. You have knowledge inRussia, that goes from Peter the Great, with the develop-ment of mineralogy, to the end of the Soviet period. Theother parts of the world would go into that territory and lootit, which would be a catastrophe for all Eurasia, if they didthat. You can’t go in the area to loot it, you must develop it.

So, we have a lot of work in that direction—we knowhow to do it....

KM.ru: There have been discussions in Asia about thecreation of the Asian currency unit, by analogy with theeuro. So, you think it’s fate will be the same as the euro?

LaRouche: That would be suicide. It’s a delusionwhich would kill the people who enter into it. The prob-lem is, people who think like this, are thinking in terms ofmonetary systems, not the human systems. They believe

in money, not in people! My money! My money! Mymoney! What about the people?

Money has no wealth! People are wealth! Their produc-tive powers, their education, their development. And youhave to build a system, where the currency is used by gov-ernments to assist these moral objectives. The most impor-tant thing, is the difference between the Asian model ofpoverty, and the European model, which is development.It’s the development of science and competence in sciencein the people. Technological competence, innovation com-petence. And to promote small entrepreneurs, who aretechnology-oriented small entrepreneurs: physicians, scien-tists, and so forth. This is the secret of society.

I know how to design laws to make monetary systemsovernight, eliminate all systems, make new ones—that’sno problem. You can not invent people. You must devel-op the people that you have. And control the monetarysystem, so that it serves the people.

See, the thing is, Europe had a great revolution whichwas made in the 15th Century, which resulted in the mod-ern nation-state. Up to that time, in all known history,society was dominated by the so-called oligarchicalmodel, in which the majority of the people were keptignorant and treated as slaves, like cattle. The advantageof European civilization, which is lacking in Asia, is free-dom. We have oligarchical models, but, our culture is notoligarchical, although we’ve had oligarchical systems in it.Asia is cursed by oligarchical culture. We must eliminatethe practice and tradition of oligarchical culture. We cannot have 80% of the human race treated as cattle....

KM.ru: If the Democratic Party wins, how willRussian-American relations move?

LaRouche: I don’t know if the Democratic Party isgoing to continue to exist. If they go with the early primaryelections, in February, this round, in that case theDemocratic Party will break up. After February, if theDemocratic Party goes with these primaries, the waythey’re doing, after February, by about March or April,you’ll find a lot of independent candidates running forPresident, that could take between 10 and 20% in a generalelection. The present party system would disintegrate.

But before then, before the end of the year, the major,present crisis will come to a head, this year. I’ll be 85 inSeptember. I expect a great crisis for my birthday. [laughs]I’m celebrating the birthday of a Russian of 80 years, today.I’m thinking of inviting him to come celebrate my birthdayin September: Professor Menshikov. By that time, we mayhave a new world, of one kind or another, to celebrate!

No major dates are necessarily inevitable in history. Butyou can pick a date to indicate the area in which a greatconfrontation could occur. The world strategic volcano isgoing to erupt some time earlier than September, or sometime later than September, either one. The present worldsystem, the present parameters, can not survive. The pre-sent system will never get better: It will get worse. There areno solutions within the framework of the present system.The party is over! Gone! My birthday will come; maybewe’ll have a world around still. But, to think about the year2008 as big events, that’s too late! It’s coming now.

KM.ru: Thank you for the interview.

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ARussian-American relationship centered on economicdevelopment can take the whole world off a track

towards war, and open up prospects for betterment of thelives of people in all nations. That strategic fact has beenimplicit in world affairs, ever since Russia headed theLeague of Armed Neutrality during America’sRevolutionary War against the British monarchy andLondon-centered finance. It was most efficient in TsarAlexander II’s defense of the Union during AbrahamLincoln’s Civil War Presidency, and in the U.S.-Sovietalliance in World War II.

At the death of Franklin Roosevelt in 1945, his succes-sor took FDR’s vision of a decolonized, economicallyprospering post-war world off the agenda, and, with it,the hope of continuing Soviet-American interaction foreconomic development in the mutual and general inter-est. Instead, came the Cold War, an era of constant bal-ancing on the brink of general warfare, and, increasingly,especially after the political upheavals of the 1960s inEurope and the U.S.A., of “bankers’ dictatorship” in eco-nomic affairs.

The people who gathered in Moscow May 15-16, tocelebrate the 80th birthday of the Russian economistStanislav Menshikov, are uniquely situated to appreciatethe possibility, and the necessity, of reviving Russian-American cooperation on the basis of Roosevelt’s concep-tion. Academicians, economists, former top Soviet jour-nalists, and Communist Party consultants—members ofthe older generation, some of them having been leadingfigures in the Soviet Union during the Cold War—have abetter appreciation than many younger people, of howindispensable the Russian-American relationship is.

Menshikov’s adult life spans the World War II alliance,the Cold War, and its aftermath, when the Soviet blocbroke up in 1989-91. The congratulations and reminis-cences offered at a special Russian Academy of Sciencesmeeting and a banquet in his honor, some of which wepublish here, testify to his status as a thinker and activist,who has defied fixed habits of thinking about East-Westrelations, not to mention economic policy, since the 1950s.

Fluent in English since his childhood in a diplomaticfamily in London (his father, Mikhail Menshikov, went onto serve as Soviet Ambassador to the United States in the1950s), Stanislav Menshikov repeatedly brought freshapproaches to understanding the U.S.A., into discussionsinside the Soviet Union. One after another speaker at theMay 15 jubilee session mentioned Menshikov’s 1966 book

Millionaires and Managers: The Structure of the FinancialOligarchy in the U.S.A. as an eye-opener that changedtheir view of the world. Two decades later, his publicationin Russian of works by former New Deal advisor JohnKenneth Galbraith shook the community of CommunistParty economists and strategists, as Prof. GrigoriVodolazov recalled in a narrative poem, composed for theoccasion, and read aloud by him at the May 16 banquet.

Being an intellectual maverick was not compatiblewith a smooth ride to the top in the U.S.S.R. More thanonce, Menshikov was yanked from one position oranother. In 1986, he was booted out of the CommunistParty Central Committee staff, as he relates in his just-published memoirs, for crossing the interests of otherofficials. He worked in Soviet foreign policy institutes, atthe Academy’s Novosibirsk outpost, on the UnitedNations economics staff, for the Central Committee, as aPravda writer, and he has taught at universities inEurope, as well as Russia.

Menshikov invited Lyndon LaRouche as a guest ofhonor at his jubilee celebration. He also dedicated one ofthe final sections of his memoirs to LaRouche, citingthere, as in the jubilee speech published below,

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Russian-U.S. Relations: AStrategy for War-Avoidanceby Rachel Douglas

EIRNS/Rachel Douglas

Here is Professor Menshikov speaking at the banquet, withLaRouche to his left. In his speech to the Academy ofSciences, Menshikov looked ahead to the year 2027, when hewould be 100 years old, to make a forecast about theeconomy of Russia and the world.

LaRouche’s policies of the Eurasian Land-Bridge and aNew Bretton Woods monetary system, as pathways to asafer and happier world.

LaRouche, for his part, took the occasion to tellRussian audiences about his own efforts, especially ininteraction with a layer of senior diplomats, militarymen, and other professionals in and around the U.S.institutions of government, to bring about a positive

American response to the Russian government’s own cur-rent campaign to revive the policies of FDR. HowLaRouche laid out a “four-power strategy for war-avoid-ance” (the four powers being the U.S.A., Russia, China,and India), and the response to it by Prof. Menshikov,Academician Alexander Granberg, and others, unfolds inthe package of documentation from Prof. Menshikov’sjubilee celebration, presented in the pages that follow.

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Prof. Stanislav Menshikov presented this forecast as thekeynote of a special session in honor of his 80th birthday,held May 15 at the Presidium of the Russian Academy ofSciences (RAS) in Moscow. He was introduced byAcademician Valeri Makarov, director of the CentralMathematical Economics Institute (CEMI) and head of theDepartment of Social Sciences of the RAS, who presidedover the meeting.

The free discussion following Professor Menshikov’s lec-ture combined congratulations, with an impassioned dis-cussion of the economic policies that will shape Russia’sfuture and that of the world during the next two to fivedecades. This dialogue carried over into many of the toastsat the next day’s banquet, which capped off the celebrationof Menshikov’s jubilee. The contributions to this dialoguefrom Lyndon LaRouche, Dr. Sergei Glazyev, andAcademician Alexander Granberg, as well as StanislavMenshikov’s own further remarks, are included here. Withthe exception of LaRouche’s remarks, they were translatedby EIR from the Russian audio. Subheads have beenadded.

Thank you, Valeri Leonidovich [Makarov]. I would firstlike to thank everybody who has come to this session

today. Thank you very much. Thank you for the warmfeelings that I sense, the warmth that prevails here today.

I would especially like to recognize the foreign guestswho are here today. They are the well-known Americaneconomist and political figure, leader of a mass move-ment, Lyndon LaRouche, who is here; he has come here.He is older than I am, though he walks better than I do,and I envy him that; this year he’ll be 85. As he and I weretalking today, he suggested that I come to his 85th birth-day celebration in September of this year. We’ll try tomake it!

With him is his wife, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, who isalso, among other things, the founder and scientificleader of the Schiller Institute, in Germany, as well asbeing a prominent political figure in that country.

I would also like to recognize the distinguished pro-

fessor from Amsterdam University, the prominent Dutchscholar Karel von Wolferen, who has come here with hiswife, Eithne. They are also here. He is well known as aspecialist on many questions, including those related toEurope as a whole, and his books on Japan, in particu-lar, are well known. Now he is a distinguished professorand a writer, the author of many books. Thank you forcoming.

Among those who were unable to come, I would liketo mention James Galbraith, the son of John KennethGalbraith, who is himself a professor at the University ofTexas, and a prominent scholar; he could not comebecause his mother, who is in her nineties, is not well, sohe had to remain in the United States.

Lastly, there is someone who bears a direct relation-ship to the lecture I am going to give, and who was alsounable to come. That is the well-known British econo-mist Angus Maddison, author of a great number of bookson how the world economy has developed, and a compil-er of statistics from the time of Jesus Christ, down to thepresent. He studies statistics on GDP. How he does this, Ican’t tell you precisely, because I think you understandthat it is a rather complex undertaking, but it is all laidout in his books. At the last minute, he couldn’t comebecause, as he told me, he succumbed to arthritis. I men-tion this both by way of expressing my regret at hisabsence, but, at the same time, he does bear a direct rela-tionship to my lecture today because last year, when hehad his 80th birthday, being still in relatively good healthat that time, he managed to organize two conferences onthe topic of the world economy in the year 2030. One ofthese conferences was in Groningen, The Netherlands,while the other was in Australia, where he also works,continuing to teach there until his recent illness.

These two conferences made a forecast for the worldeconomy in 2030. He invited me to one of these confer-ences, to give the forecast for Russia. And I gave a lectureat that conference, on the development of Russia till theyear 2030, in light of developments in the world econo-my. This is the same topic I am going to address today.

Prof. Stanislav Menshikov

Looking Ahead:Russia and the World in 2027

Long-Range ForecastingFor today, I’ve made a slight adjustment, in that I’ll

talk not about 2030, but about 2027, because in 2027, Ishall be 100 years old. Judging by my present condition,it is unlikely that I shall be present at that jubilee celebra-tion. And so, I would like to take a look ahead, as if I wereto be present at my own 100th birthday celebration, athow I see that the Russian economy is going to havedeveloped, along with the world economy, by 2027.

I have certain experience in long-range forecasting. Atthe UN, Wassily Leontieff and I worked on a forecast forthe world economy up to the year 2000. This was pub-lished in the well-known book The Future of the WorldEconomy, which was co-authored and edited byLeontieff. It came out in the late 1970s in a number oflanguages, including Russian, so you can take a look andsee that our forecast was vindicated, to some extent.

And so, returning to the topic of my presentation. Thedata regarding other countries are taken from the papersdelivered by scholars at the conferences in theNetherlands and Australia, which I mentioned. The fore-cast for Russia uses my own data.

In any forecast, the point of departure is important.For Russia, the starting point is, of course, not very favor-able. According to OECD and other quantitative worlddata, Russia’s share in global GDP is somewhere between1.5% and 2.5%. This is very small, far behind all of themajor countries. Russia ranks tenth in volume of GDP.This is not such an achievement as our President thinks(he even mentioned in his recent Message [to the FederalAssembly] that we were tenth, and this was greeted byapplause), if we consider that in 1990, Russia was inthird place behind the U.S.A. and Japan. And not longbefore that, it was in second place. And its share in theworld economy, according to that same OECD dataseries, was 9%. Together with the Comecon countries, itwas 12%.

This all relates to the Soviet Union as a whole, not justRussia. So the Soviet Union, at that time, was a signifi-cant economic power—not only a military, military-tech-nical, and, of course, political power on the world scene,but an economic one, as well. Now it has fallen tobetween 1.5 and 2.5%; and I have taken the more opti-mistic estimate, 2.5%, as my starting point.

Well, what is this? In part, of course, this was theresult of the break-up of the Soviet Union, wherebyRussia ended up as only a part of what that “empire” hadbeen. And then came the deep crisis the country experi-enced during the not exactly well-conceived transitionfrom socialism to capitalism.

In very recent years, from 1999 through this year,Russia has experienced steady growth, at a fairly highrate: 7% annually, or slightly more, on average, duringthose years. But throughout this period, it’s as if Russiawere racing to catch up with itself, because its GDP in1998 was still 42% less than in 1991. And so, taking theentire period of 16 years, we have to say that Russia hasonly stayed even. That is, in 2007 it has just about caughtup to its pre-reform level.

Of course, the structure of the economy changed dur-ing this period of time. That did happen.

Other countries, meanwhile, were not standing still; thisapplies not only to China, it applies to the United States,Western Europe, and the world as a whole. And the resultis this 2.5%, Russia’s share in world GDP. What will hap-pen next with Russia’s GDP? Can 7% annual growth besustained, and should it be? There are people who haveexpressed doubt about the necessity of doing so. And thosepeople are in the government, among those ministers whoare responsible for economic matters. One of them, AlexeiKudrin, recently said something along these lines: Whyshould we continue to grow at these rates?

If we think about this question, it becomes clear that itis an imperative; that without this, Russia will most likelybe unable not only to compete with other countries, notonly to withstand pressures from other countries, but willbe unlikely to survive as a unified nation-state, because aslower growth rate will most likely lead to an aggravationof the social and economic conflicts that are currentlyripening, and to an intensification of centrifugal tenden-cies within the [Russian] Federation. Thus, growth at this7% rate, at least, should be seen as an economic impera-tive for Russia.

Oil Bonanza, or an Industrial Policy?But, can Russia do it? Usually, when looking at this

period of steady 7% growth, our neo-liberal economistscite high oil prices as the basic cause. But this, of course,is not so. That is, the high oil prices represent only a par-tial explanation. Personally, I am more inclined to look atthe question of how Russia’s productive capacities devel-oped during this period. If we apply to this 7% growth,the method of disaggregation according to basic produc-tion factors, i.e., labor, capital, and the total productivityof such factors, or a summary productivity factor, it turnsout that most of the growth, more than half, is accountedfor by the utilization of reserve labor and power, andexcess capital, created during the crisis of the ’90s; theutilization of capacities that already existed in the Sovietperiod, and were idled or underutilized during the periodof economic crisis.

And only 10% of the total growth is accounted for bynew capital investment. It is absolutely clear that thesetwo basic factors are one-time factors, which cannot bethe basis for further growth in Russia, since they arealready exhausted. The only real source of growth has tobe capital investment in new technology and the growthof fixed capital and, of course, improvements in the qual-ity of labor.

This is the direction that essentially was indicated bywhat Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin stated in his mostrecent Message [to the Federal Assembly], where for thefirst time he presented something like an industrial policyfor Russia. He didn’t directly mention that term, whichhas been banned for a long time here. It was believed thatonly the market can properly structure the economy and,of course, create the forces that will bring about econom-ic growth.

9

But the structure of Russian oligarchical capitalism issuch, that it is not very eager to invest capital in sectorsthat it considers less profitable, and which involve long-term investment without a quick return. It prefers toinvest its capital primarily in sectors producing forexport, such as oil, aluminum, other non-ferrous metals,and steel. And there is no response to the President’sappeals to invest in our own manufacturing industries.

From this follows the need for more active interven-tion by the state, which some people call state capitalism.And some people think that this means practically areturn, or is a total return, or a planned total return toSoviet times, and that it would be a step backwards.Personally, I see it as simply the only possibility, with allits shortcomings, to channel capital investment in thedirection it needs to go, into the more dynamic manufac-turing industries and, of course, into economic infra-structure. Putin discussed all of this in quite some detailin his report, and I don’t want to say more about it here.

This is the direction that I think will provide for fairlyhigh growth rates. I see two scenarios: One scenario forsuccessful growth would involve maintaining approxi-mately 7% annual growth for the next ten years, and thena slight lowering of the rate to 5.5 or 6%, and somethinglike 6.5% for the next 20 years as a whole. This is an opti-mistic scenario, which depends on the program thatPutin outlined being implemented. We don’t know ifPutin’s successor will continue along these lines.

Then the question arises: Fine, but what will happen ifoil prices do fall? Where will we get money andresources? I don’t think it makes sense to anticipate anabrupt drop in oil prices. Why? Because the world econo-my on the whole is continuing to grow fairly briskly. Andthe nations of Asia, first and foremost, are growing rapid-ly: China, India. China—very rapidly, at 10 or 11% allthese years. India rose at 6%, and will be rising at 7 or8%. None of these countries has its own oil resources.Therefore the demand for oil remains enormous and hasgrown at extremely high rates, and this demand shouldnot be expected to drop off in the years immediatelyahead, at least during the next ten years.

The question of alternative sources of energy is a spec-ulative one. I do not think that alternative sources ofpower will appear in the near-term future. If they appear,fine, but demand for oil will be rising, and I don’t thinkwe should fear falling into some kind of financial hole.

Fine: Let us assume that the optimistic scenario willpredominate, and comes to pass. Where will Russia be,within the world economy, in 2027, at the time of mycentenary?

Preliminary calculations show that its world share, inthat case, will increase. But it will increase to approxi-mately 5 or 5.5% of the global GDP. Is that a lot, or a lit-tle? It depends on what you compare it with. By compari-son with China, it will be very small. We are currentlybehind China, according to some calculations, by 50%(by a factor of two or more). Of course, we are ahead inper capita GDP, but in absolute GDP there is already asignificant lag. By 2027, we shall be behind China by

approximately a factor of four [with Russia’s share ofglobal GDP being only 25% of China’s—ed.].

The United States, by that time, will be in second placein the world economy, according to this forecast. It will bebehind China, whose share of global GDP will be in thearea of 23%. This is all approximate. The United Stateswill have 17%, as against the 25% it represents today.

We, of course, will be far behind those countries. And,obviously, what Stalin posed, and then Khrushchov,about catching up to the United States, is not on ouragenda, nor will it be during these next decades.

But our 5.5% will be greater than the share of anyother European nation, such as Germany, France,Britain, or Italy. This will be a jump forward, and Russiawill turn out to be in fifth place. Not in tenth place, but infifth, with only China, the U.S.A., India, and Japan aheadof Russia by that time. Of course, if we take theEuropean Union as a whole, then its members willaccount for 20%, and by comparison with the EU, too,our place will be rather modest.

What follows from this? The first conclusion is thatRussia will not be one of the major partners, which deter-mine the rules of the game in the world economy in 2027. Itwill still be a second-rank partner, and will need to orienttowards alliances and cooperation with other major centersof the world economy, if it wants to remain at the forefront.

With whom should we ally, and to whom should weorient? This, of course, depends on your viewpoint. Mineis that Russia ought to be cautious. Russia will never, ofcourse, break with the current industrial countries, but atthe same time, should also orient towards the Eurasiantriangle, by which I mean China-India-Russia. Why?Because, while the EU and the U.S.A. already nowexpress some concern over what will happen if Russiamakes a comeback, and whether this won’t become anew threat, such as they consider the Soviet Union tohave been, China, India, and other Asian countries do notperceive such a threat. In general, they are not afraid ofRussia’s development, especially insofar as, realisticallyspeaking, it cannot not present any threat to them. Thus,we should orient to them, while not pushing away, butrather continuing to cooperate also with the industrial-ized countries.

Suffice it to picture a situation in which China, togeth-er with India and Russia, will be producing approximate-ly 35% of world GDP, while the U.S.A. is producing 17 or18%, and the EU another 17 or 18%. What is of concern,is that conflicts will arise. And, of course, the main con-flict here, as you can see, will be between China and theU.S.A. Really, this conflict already exists now, becausethe rapid growth of the Chinese economy, of Chineseindustry, and its exports have facilitated the widely recog-nized process of deindustrialization, both of the U.S.A.and of the EU. And if this process continues to develop inan uncontrolled way, with conflicts, then it is quite possi-ble that around the end of the decade of 2010, or thebeginning of the ’20s, it could lead to a great world eco-nomic crisis, on a scale such as occurred in the 1920s and1930s—to a new Kondratieff downturn, so to speak.

10

LaRouche’s Land-BridgeBut, of course, there is another possibility. And here I

shall again mention Lyndon LaRouche, who is presenttoday. He has put forward the conception of building theEurasian Bridge. The Eurasian Bridge is a program ofcooperation, with the participation of the U.S.A., WesternEurope, Russia, with its scientific potential and enor-mous mineral resources, China, India—cooperation, forthe purpose of building and reorganizing the economicinfrastructure over the next 50 years. This will stimulatethe progressive growth of the entire world economy.

But this plan can only be implemented, if there iscooperation among all of those countries; if their devel-opment proceeds in a conflict-free way. LyndonLaRouche believes that one of the areas of such coopera-tion needs to be a monetary and financial reform, whichhe calls a New Bretton Woods. This means to establish afundamentally new monetary system, which in some ofits features will recall the old Bretton Woods, the systemestablished at the end of the Second World War, whichwas subsequently destroyed.

Such a new world monetary and financial system,once more, will have to be based on cooperation amongall the countries I mentioned. Just think about theexchange implications of China’s and Japan’s reserves,and those of Russia. It is enough to think about the

U.S.A. being the biggest borrower, and the biggest debtorof China and Japan, to understand that simply goingahead into financial conflicts and trade conflicts, is apath that leads, of course, to a serious destabilization ofthe entire world economy.

Thus, 2027 may be a year by which the planet hasbeen turned upside down, in terms of its economy. At thepeak on top will be countries that were formerly consid-ered the Third World, while the traditionally industrial-ized countries will find that their place in the internation-al division of labor will be determined by certain highlydeveloped, specialized sectors producing goods and ser-vices. We shall not go more deeply into this forecast, andthese details.

My last pronouncement will be this: that Russia’s pathwill be a path that upholds these projects for world coop-eration. That is, while orienting towards the triangle, butwithout forgetting the industrialized countries, Russiashould take part in those programs that will lead to con-flict-free development that brings about a steady upswingof the world economy.

Thank you for your attention. I would just like also tosay, that a more elaborated text of the thoughts I have putforward today has been published in the weekly newspaperSlovo, of which we have a hundred copies available [at theliterature table], so please take them to read. Thank you.

11

Sofia

Skovorodino

Yakutsk

TokyoOsaka

Komsomol’skKhabarovsk

Belogorsk

Vladivostok

Seoul

Harbin

Beijing

Lianyungang

Zhengzhou

Chita

Lanzhou

Irkutsk

LiuzhouNanning

Jakarta

Kuala Lumpur

Singapore

Ho Chi Minh

Bangkok

Hanoi

Phnom Penh

KunmingMyitkyina

Yangon

Krasnoyarsk

NovosibirskOmsk

Aktogay

Yekaterinenburg

UrumqiAlmaty

Samarkand

Tashkent

Moscow

St.Petersburg

Minsk

WarsawKiev

Berlin

Paris

Ankara

ViennaBudapest

Teheran

Belgrade

Istanbul

Cairo

Tel AvivBeirut Mashhad

Baku

Tbilisi

ZahedanSukkur

LahoreDelhi

Varanasi

Rome

StockholmHelsinki

Rotterdam

WuhanChengdu

London

Madrid

Tunis

Lagos

Khartoum

AlgiersTangier

Archangelsk

Vorkuta

Urengoy

Sergino

Murmansk

Chelyabinsk

Nairobi

Bering Strait:proposed

tunnel connectionto North America

Only some rail lines in NorthernAfrica are shown here.

Eurasian Land-Bridge routes

Planned or proposed main routes

Existing other lines

Other planned or proposed lines

0 1,000

kilometers

2,000

Eurasia: main routes and selected secondary routes of the Eurasian Land-Bridge

Here are the remarks that Lyndon LaRouche made on May15, at the celebration in honor of Prof. StanislavMikhailovich Menshikov’s 80th birthday, at the RussianAcademy of Sciences. Mr. LaRouche spoke after the keynoteremarks by Professor Menshikov.

When you reach the age range of Professor Menshikovand I—I’m now about to become 85—and at this

age, if you’re intelligent, as you know, you do not thinkabout what the future is going to give you, you think aboutwhat you are going to give the future. And right now, on aworld scale, what we require is someone to change theagenda to that which Professor Menshikov referred....

We have, presently—the greatest crisis in all modernhistory is now occurring. There’s an attempt to cover upand deny it, but it’s happening. I see, most of WesternEurope, from the border of Russia and Belarus west-ward, as a group of failed states, that are no longer capa-ble of governing themselves, in even their domesticaffairs from the inside. The world has been taken over, toa large degree, by supranational financial interests, inwhich similar interests are doing that, to shape policy.

A Collection of Failed StatesWhen you look at the politicians—and I deal with

politicians, particularly in the United States—and look atthem in other countries, we have not only failed states,including most of those of Western Europe; the UnitedStates is also in the process of becoming a failed state. Ihave many friends and sometime collaborators amongmembers of the Congress of the United States, and otherpeople; but I find that today, the clear thinking is not com-ing from the politicians. The clear thinking required forpolitical policy is coming from a different layer, usuallysenior representatives of the professionals—military, intel-ligence, diplomatic and so forth—who step outside thesmall-time controversies that fascinate politicians, and dolook at the future of mankind, especially senior people.

And sticking to the topic of Professor Menshikov’sdelivery right now, I think some things that he forecast,can be changed. The question is, who is going to changethem? In practice, you take President Putin of Russiawho has spoken much, with others, in these recentevents, about World War II, the conclusion, and FranklinRoosevelt, and praised the Roosevelt tradition.

I think that when we make economic forecasts, andthey find that the forecast is not satisfactory, we say,“How can we change the forecast?” You have to change itin reality, not just as a forecast: And therefore, the timehas come, to change some of the axiomatic features ofcurrently ongoing world history.

Europe is a collection of failed states, west of theRussian and Belarus border. Therefore, the United Statesmust change its behavior, by approaching Russia, China,

and India, in order to create a new order of relations inthe world, bringing all the smaller nations in to cooperatewith them. I think we can do it: We can change history.

A Program for ActionBut we must rely upon younger generations coming

up, in the age-range of 18 to 35, the younger generationsthat fight wars, to fight this war for improvement. And wemust change the perspective. In that case, Russia’s role, asits culture more than its economy, especially the cultureof science, in dealing with the potential of the large areaof northern Asia, and northern Eurasia, in the vast miner-al resources that would be required to be developed, if theneeds of China, India, and other countries are to be met:This is not something that could be exported, because inRussia itself, there is a repository of knowledge of how todo this, on which the rest of the world depends.

So therefore, what I think is urgent at this time, is a pro-gram for action. First of all, intellectual action. There mustbe more discussion among these, particularly betweenleading layers of senior people in Russia and in the UnitedStates. We have it. We have to establish a sense of the reali-ty of this possibility. In that case, we can probably win overthe political process, under the heat of crisis, to recognizethat this is the only alternative to what is presently themost dangerous situation in all modern history.

Thank you.

12

EIRNS/Rachel Douglas

In brief remarks to the Academy of Sciences, LaRouche calledfor an alliance of the four great powers, the U.S., Russia,China, and India, to drag the world back from the abyss. He isshown here, in Moscow, with his wife, Helga Zepp-LaRouche.

Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr.

U.S.A. and Russia Can Change History

Lyndon LaRouche gave the interview, excerptedhere, in Moscow May 16 to the economist MikhailKhazin, host of the “A+ in Economics” weekly pro-gram on the Spas Channel, a satellite TV stationlinked with the Russian Orthodox Church. Theinterview aired May 18 and was repeated severaltimes during the following week.

Khazin: The first question has to do with the fol-lowing situation. Over the past approximately 35years, let’s say in particular since 1971, there hasbeen developing a crisis of the financial system,and monetary system, based on the dollar.

You were the first person in the U.S. establish-ment who began to discuss this topic in thoseterms. We won’t mention what was said in theSoviet Union, which was a lot on that theme, butit was not very convincing. For this reason, it isextremely interesting for us to hear your opinionabout how this crisis, specifically the world finan-cial-monetary crisis, will develop further.

LaRouche: The crisis is an existential crisis of theentire world system. It is not a financial crisis; it’s worse.You have a crisis of ungovernability in Western andCentral Europe. You have to look at the U.S. dollar, notas a U.S. problem, but as a systemic world problem. Forexample, a collapse of the dollar by 20 or 30% is possibleany time now. You can not exactly predict human behav-ior, but you can say this: that the present system, as itexists, is doomed.

To illustrate that, what happens to the Chinese assets,and economy, if the U.S. dollar collapses? Or take theRussian security investment [Stabilization Fund]. A suddencollapse of the dollar would mean a collapse in China. Itwould mean a crisis for the present government in Russia.

Because, the dollar is still the standard valuationworldwide, as a currency.

Khazin: It’s the measure of value.LaRouche: Yes, right. Because it’s a reserve currency.

And the world depends upon the maintenance of thevalue of the dollar, as a reserve currency, not as an inter-nal currency, but a reserve currency for the world.

Now the amount of dollar assets in the world, asfinancial assets, could never be repaid. So therefore, theworld as a whole is in a hyperinflationary crisis. Everypart of the world is tied up in that crisis. You’re in a situa-tion where only a replacement for the present monetarysystem, worldwide, would define a way to avoid a generalbreakdown crisis of the world system.

Khazin: I’d like to interject something here. Preciselybecause of what you’re saying is why I wanted to empha-size the role of the financial system, and indeed to replacethe system based on the dollar, with something else.

LaRouche: You can’t. You can’t! What you have to dois you have to reorganize the dollar system.

For example, what I propose is this. We can do it,technically we can do it.

Politically is the problem. I can illustrate that simply:We have heard from President Putin, and from other cir-cles in Russia, particularly in the recent celebration of theend of the war, we’ve heard much about Roosevelt andthe American System under Roosevelt. President Putinand his circles on this question are right.

Khazin: You mean his system of reforms in the1930s?

LaRouche: Yes, exactly. It was more than internalreforms. It was a world reform, which, by the end of thewar, Roosevelt had achieved a world reform.

Khazin: With the Bretton Woods agreements of 1944?LaRouche: Yes. President Putin is correct. You must

look at the change of Roosevelt to Truman. Truman andChurchill were the enemy of the United States. What youhad is a process in which the U.S. system, which was thedominant system in the world at that time, financial andso forth, went through a succession of changes in theworld system.

Now immediately, the policy of building a post-warworld, in cooperation with the Soviet Union and

13

EIRNS/Rachel Douglas

Economist Mikhail Khazin (left) interview of LaRouche on satelliteTV from Moscow aired May 18 and was repeated several times duringthe week. Khazin’s program is the only weekly show featuringeconomics analysis on Russian TV.

LaRouche, on Moscow TV,Outlines Four-Power StrategyFor War Avoidance

Roosevelt, collapsed at that point. Now you had then,something similar to now. You had an Anglo-Americanturn for conflict with the Soviet Union. Here’s where thething becomes tricky for the case of modern Russia.

The control of this was from the British Empire. Whathappened was that the enemies of Roosevelt, in alliancewith Churchill’s crowd in England, changed their policy,and the faction within the United States, the financierfaction in the United States, which had supported Hitlerearlier, took predominant control of U.S. policy. So whathappened then, was we went through a series of changesin the world monetary system, beginning with the assas-sination of President Kennedy....

Khazin: My view is that the history of the 1920s and’30s has been subject to the greatest degree of falsifica-tion of any other period in world history.

LaRouche: It’s probable—that’s fair. You could sayexceptions, but this crowd is trying to destroy the UnitedStates, now.

Look what happened in ancient Greece, for example.How was ancient Greece destroyed by itself? They defeat-ed the Persian Empire, but they were destroyed by cor-ruption, called Sophistry. And by a famous long war, thePeloponnesian War.

How was the United States destroyed from the inside?By a so-called Cold War, by the war in Indo-China, a longwar—a Peloponnesian war. Eh? And by successive wars,and by near wars.

Look at the Iraq War’s a perfect example: It’s a warstarted by lies, like the Vietnam War. Hence, the UnitedStates is being destroyed, the military of the UnitedStates is being destroyed by the Iraq War. And our so-called formal political class in the Senate and the Houseof Representatives, many of whom are my friends, arebehaving like asses. The only people that see the situationclearly in the United States, are people like me, and theold boys from the institutions of the military, the CIA, thediplomatic services, and similar people.

It’s like the politicians and government all overWestern Europe—they’re insane. They have no compre-hension of reality. And the only way we can get them,from inside the United States, to wake up, is with thework of the old boys.

Khazin: Maybe you could put it this way: That thesepoliticians have been dealing always with virtual reality,rather than with what’s actually happening....

LaRouche: It’s generational. The generation, thewhite-collar generation that was born in 1945 to 1958,this group is dominant in the political party institutions,by a financial group which is based in London and in theCayman Islands. Then you can understand the problem.Now you say, what happened in 1971-72?

Since 1945, the financial world has depended upon theU.S. dollar as a reserve currency. And since 1971-1972,the dollar reserve system has been controlled fromLondon. It doesn’t show in the British government assuch. It’s the British who mainly control the world sys-tem by a financier oligarchy, whose political headquar-ters is London.

The only significant opposition to this strategically isfrom Russia, China, and, to some degree, India. From thestandpoint of existing world nation-states, this situationcan not be solved, unless the United States approachesRussia, China, and India to make a new world reservesystem, based on a reorganized dollar....

Khazin: ...Today, the United States is clearly pushing torecreate Atlantic solidarity with Europe. And the U.S. isforging its alliance not around any forces that would beinterested in such reforms, but rather relying on thosesame financial circles that you’re talking about in London.

LaRouche: Europe does not function right now. AllEurope west of Russia/Belarus, is in a state of ungovern-ability. As an American, I can say this. I wouldn’t put myopinion on the Russians, but as an American, I can tell thetruth about this. I wouldn’t ask you to adopt this policypublicly. I take advantage of my freedom to tell the truth.

The British Empire, as I have described it, is deter-mined to have a war with Russia, China, and India. Sincethe agreements, the Maastricht agreements, and nowwith the French elections, all of continental Europe westof Russia/Belarus, is nonfunctional. What has been goingon in Southwest Asia is the lever for a conflict withRussia, China, and India.

You see, because if you take Russia, China, and India,combined with certain forces in South America, it’s theonly part of the world that’s not kissing the feet of global-ization. To establish the new kind of empire intended,they must therefore destroy the sense of sovereignty inRussia, China, and India. Together with my friends, whoare an important part of the United States system.

Therefore if Russia, under President Putin, can suc-ceed in finding a response, in connection with key institu-tions within the United States, it will become possible toturn the objective reality of the situation, into an under-standing of common policy.

You need a response from the United States for whatPresident Putin, and other people in Russia today, havesaid about the Roosevelt tradition. We have to go back tothe global philosophy which existed before the death ofFranklin Roosevelt. Conditions are different, but the policyshould be the same. It should be travelled on the sameroad, or to the same destination by a slightly different road.

Which comes back to my answer to your originalquestion: If you have an understanding of this, betweenU.S. circles and Russian circles, drawing in China andIndia into the discussion, and other nations.... But to takethe territory of the former Soviet Union, the territory ofRussia today, China and India, what percentage of theworld territory and population is that? What are the vastmineral resources existing in Siberia, which Russian sci-entists have in their archives, knowledge of how toapproach this? You would have a fundamental change inthe world system, based on a science-driven policy.

The British know this. They are determined to preventthis from ever happening. They’re prepared to destroy theworld....

Khazin: Let me ask a rather immediate question: Whoof the current candidates for the U.S. Presidency, let’s not

14

say, would be prepared to implement all of this, butwould be prepared at least to understand that it’sright, and necessary?

LaRouche: The candidate system, the party sys-tem, in the United States, is in a crisis of self-destruc-tion. I, in a very strange way, am a friend of BillClinton, who is, fortunately, distant from Al Gore,and whose wife [Sen. Hillary Clinton] is very ambi-tious. As of now, there’s not a single candidate for thePresidency I know of, who’s competent to becomePresident. The only competence in the United Statescomes from certain institutions, chiefly associatedwith the Presidency. Now this group understands thatCheney, who’s a British asset, not an American asset;Cheney is a thug—he’s not even an important personintellectually. Cheney’s wife is the evil one, who con-trols him. They are controlled by London, by theFabian Society faction behind Blair, the Blair govern-ment. The same crowd. They are controlled in theUnited States, in cooperation with London, byGeorge Shultz.

George Shultz—he’s the one who did the job in break-ing up the Bretton Woods system. He used the old Nazisto put Pinochet into power in Chile. Nazis. Bush, Jr., thePresident, is an idiot, Bush is an idiot. He’s actually amental case, technically. This is a problem of statecraft.In certain parts of history, including Russian history,you’ve had idiots in charge as head of state.

Khazin: We also have such a term as a dry drunk.LaRouche: Yes, with vodka. The dry vodka.The problem here is that we have institutions, the

older people who are officially active, or formerly active,like general officers, flag officers; former—but they’reactually still active—diplomats, professional diplomats;certain tendencies in the intelligence services; in otherinstitutions of government, the professional institutions,who work very closely with their friends who’ve gone outof government. This is our political elite. In general, werefer to these as the institutions. You have a comparablephenomenon in Russia today, still.

Khazin: Do you think that this grouping, these forces,are capable of overcoming the desperate opposition ofthe pro-British, or pro-financier forces, who, in the recentperiod, have been set at calling the tune?

LaRouche: That’s my job. My job is to create an intel-lectual conception of what the solutions are, and whatmust be done. The problem is, you can not act, to fight awar or something similar, without a clear understandingof what you’re doing. Once you have that understanding,now you must find a figure you put into a key position,controlling position, as the official leader.

Now I, as an American, can take responsibility forsaying the following point: The present President ofRussia was put in that position because he was perceivedto be a person in the position to become President, whomight carry out the job. From 1994 on, since I was visit-ing Russia, in that period, my concern, which I sharedwith many of my Russian friends in high positions, wasto try to get an understanding with President Clinton,

and people in Russia. So, some of the key people here inRussia organized a meeting which I addressed inMoscow. They were prepared, through me, because theyknew my connection to Clinton, to open a new channel ofeconomic understanding and cooperation with theUnited States. [Academician Gennadi] Osipov was one ofthe leaders of that group, to organize it. The former[Soviet] Prime Minister, [Valentin] Pavlov, was part of it.But the Vice President of the United States, Al Gore, wasa close friend of Yeltsin, and they put pressure on Clintonnot to do it.

Finally, in 1998, in August and September, Clintonrecognized I had been right. So they pulled a scandal totry to pull down the Clinton Presidency. Today, I thinkBill Clinton himself understands I was completely rightabout Gore. Unfortunately, Clinton’s wife, who’s a verybright woman, is not very strong on principle.

We face a situation now like a Great War situation.Obviously, there are circles in Russia who appreciate this,in one degree or another. Very important senior circles,from institutions in the United States, understand this.How do we put the two together? Do we have available acomplete solution to this problem? But the human factorof having the right leaders in position, together at theright time, is crucial. That’s what I’m focussed on.

The policy that we must agree upon, among people inthe United States, Russia, and so forth, is clear. Wecould probably win over enough people to do that. Butin both Russia and the United States, we have to func-tion through a Presidential system. We don’t have aPresident in the United States, or a Vice President, who’sworth anything. So, we have to go through a preliminarystage, we’re now in a preliminary phase of the task,which is my function and concern. We must have a dia-logue between Russia and the United States, involvingother countries, like China, India, and so on, who under-stand that we believe the same thing about the presentworld crisis, and can understand what we must do forthe next 50 years....

15

Photo by: Sgt. James R. Richardson

Vice President Cheney at Camp Lejeune, N.C. addresses MarinesOct. 3, 2005, to welcome them home from the war in Iraq.

Several hundred people gathered in Moscow on April24 at a conference called “Megaprojects of Russia’s

East: A Transcontinental Eurasia-America TransportLink via the Bering Strait.” News of their discussionstouched off a wave of optimistic thinking in many coun-tries, that the time has arrived for one of the greatest ofgreat infrastructure projects, a tunnel beneath the BeringStrait between Alaska and Russia’s Chukotka Region.

The participants issued an appeal to governments ofthe Group of Eight member countries, to place theBering Strait megaproject on the agenda of the G-8 sum-mit in Heiligendamm, Germany, in June. Russia’sAmbassador to Canada Georgi Mamedov told theToronto Globe and Mail that he is now optimistic thatthe tunnel will be built. Mamedov expects PresidentVladimir Putin to discuss the Bering Strait project withCanadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, when theymeet in Heiligendamm. “We need Canada aboard,” hesaid.

It is fitting that two American participants from theWorld War II generation put forward the idea that suchgreat development projects are the path leading awayfrom war. They were former U.S. Secretary of theInterior and Governor of Alaska Walter Hickel, a strongbacker of the Bering Strait tunnel project for many years(see his paper, “Megaprojects Post Alternative to War”),and EIR founder Lyndon LaRouche, whose contribution,“The World’s Political Map Changes: Mendeleyev WouldHave Agreed,” was read to the gathering. LaRouche, whoas early as 1978 called for a Bering Strait bridge-tunnelcrossing, wrote the article in response to a request fromconference organizers, for publication in connection withthe event.

The Americans radiated confidence that this can bedone, bringing North America into the Eurasian develop-ment perspective that is otherwise being promotedthrough such agencies as the Shanghai Cooperation

Organization. It would be, as LaRouche said in Moscowin 2001, part of “the greatest transformation of the bios-phere in history.”

High-level Russian specialists from Federal agencies,regional governments, and the Russian Academy ofSciences took part in the Bering Strait meeting, alongwith specialists from Japan and Korea. It was the first ofa “Megaprojects of Russia’s East” conference series, orga-nized by the Russian Academy of Sciences Council forthe Study of Productive Forces (SOPS), in conjunctionwith the Russian Ministry of Economic Development andTrade (MERT), the Russian Ministry of Transport, thestate-owned company Russian Railroads, and severalregional governments in Siberia and the Russian FarEast.

Victor Razbegin, who works in the MERT’s IndustrialResearch department, gave a press conference on April18 with other members of the Bering Strait projectgroup, to publicize the forthcoming conference. Theirhuge map of the Arctic connection, and their enthusiasmfor the $65 billion multi-modal project, with its associat-ed long-distance rail and power lines, grabbed headlinesin Russia. Over 60 stories about it appeared in press,web, and other electronic media, including a report onNTV, Russian national television Channel 2. NTV showeda dynamic map of the projected rail line from Yakutsk inEast Siberia, through Nome and Fairbanks, to FortNelson in Canada.

Academician Alexander Granberg, head of the SOPS,described the project’s advantages, in an April 16 inter-view for the economics website OPEC.ru. He said theroad, rail, and pipeline connection would handle 3% oftotal world trade in physical goods. It will make it possi-ble to harness more of eastern Russia’s hydroelectricpotential. It will allow development of previously inacces-sible mineral resource deposits. And, said Granberg, theconnection of the power systems of Siberia, the Russian

16

Russian-AmericanTeam: World NeedsBering Strait Tunnel!by Rachel Douglas

Far East, and North America will create economies inelectricity supply, worth $20 billion annually.

Russia’s leadership, according to Granberg, now seesthe development of transportation infrastructure asessential for uplifting Russia’s vast outlying regions.Demonstration of this, he said, was an April 10 presenta-tion by Vladimir Yakunin, head of the state-owned com-pany Russian Railways, at a meeting on rail transport,chaired by Putin. There, Yakunin laid out the construc-tion of a 3,500-km rail line from the Lena River to theBering Strait, as a high-priority task. The Lena is the east-ernmost of Siberia’s three great river systems, and is thetenth longest river in the world.

Feasibility and FinancingRazbegin, like Governor Hickel, has been closely

involved in efforts to secure action on the Bering Straitproject, for over a decade, as our review of its historyshows. Another longtime Bering Strait tunnel enthusiastis the American engineer Hal Cooper, whose overview ofthe scheme EIR published in 1994, and whose detailedwork-up of its parameters has recently drawn renewedattention from Russian, as well as American promoters ofa Bering Strait crossing. Cooper told EIR the week of theMoscow conference, that the push for the project mayhave reached “a real phase shift” now.

Speaking at the April 24 event, under big banners withmaps of the intercontinental project, Academician

Granberg said that the next step should be design andfeasibility studies for the 6,000-km rail-road-pipeline-power corridor from Yakutsk to Fort Nelson, including85-100 km of tunnel under the Bering Strait. There willreally be two tunnels, Granberg pointed out, because BigDiomede Island (Russia) and Little Diomede Island(U.S.A.) lie close together in the middle of the strait.Since Japan already has built 50-km underwater tunnelsbetween its islands, Granberg remarked, the technologiesinvolved are proven ones.

Conference participant Louis Cerny of the AmericanRailroad Association also presented the technical feasibil-ity of the Bering Strait crossing, noting that the schedulefor the project as a whole could be sped up by simultane-ous construction of its different parts.

Many of the Russian speakers referred to recent gov-ernment decisions, which make the Bering Strait pro-ject a live option. One of these is the Federal TargetProgram called “Development of the Far East andTransbaikal Region” to 2013. As EIR reported April 13(“The Russian Far East: A World Great Project,” byMary Burdman), Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov hasbeen active in launching an array of measures toaddress the underdevelopment and depopulation ofthese regions.

Dr. Jonathan Tennenbaum, a collaborator ofLaRouche for many years, introduced LaRouche’s paperto the conference as the work of the American economist,

17

Bering Strait

Bering Strait Darien Gap Sakhalin Bridge English Channel Strait of Gibraltar Suez Canal

ExistingProposed

5

4

6

3

1

2

Main rail lines

123456

ANorthern Corridor

BCentral

Corridor

CSouthern Corridor

Proposed World Land-Bridge

best known in Russia for his Science of PhysicalEconomy and his advocacy of basic infrastructure pro-jects. LaRouche’s discussion of the legacy of chemist andnational economist Dmitri Mendeleyev, as well as hisrelating the cooperation of great nations on the BeringStrait project to the tasks of war-avoidance, were receivedwith interest by the Russian participants.

Tennenbaum, who is known in Russia especially as aco-author of EIR’s 1997 Special Report The EurasianLand-Bridge: The ‘New Silk Road’—Locomotive forWorldwide Economic Development, then elaborated theconcept of infrastructure corridors, and networks ofintersecting such corridors. Building them in the farnorth is a challenge for the 21st Century, he said, whichcan be met by building chains of nuclear-powered cities.U.S. work on building the nuclear-powered researchtown, Camp Century, under the ice in northernGreenland in the 1950s, together with Russia’s city-build-ing experience in Siberia, makes this a tailor-made areafor U.S.-Russian cooperation, Tennenbaum said.

Maxim Bystrov, deputy head of Russia’s FederalAgency for Special Economic Zones, picked up onLaRouche’s and Tennenbaum’s remarks about the enor-mous financial bubble that exists today, as against thepotential for directing funds into productive investmentlike these infrastructure projects. Liquidity won’t flowinto long-term projects on its own, Bystrov stressed. Hesaid that the Russian government would advocateattracting private concessionaires for the project, ratherthan rely solely on state funding from the countries

involved. At the same time, Bystrov said that his agencywas prepared to put up $120 million for the feasibilitystudies.

Governor of Yakutia (Sakha Republic) VyacheslavShtyrov, whose paper was read to the meeting by theregion’s representative in Moscow, discussed the enor-mous development potential of that East Siberianregion. With a land area equal to half the size of thelower 48 U.S. states, covering three time zones andextending to the Arctic Coast, Yakutia’s population isless than that of Rhode Island. Shtyrov noted that “wehave all of the elements of Mendeleyev’s periodic table”in Yakutia, as well as enthusiasm for Mendeleyev’s ideasabout development.

Contagious OptimismNews of the high-level Russian backing for the Bering

Strait tunnel project was welcomed across Eurasia, fromSweden to Japan. Dagens Industrie, a Swedish businessnewspaper, reported favorably on it in the April 25 issue.German press coverage cited enthusiastic responses fromChina, Korea, and Japan, including the view of someJapanese business circles that the tunnel could be builtmore cheaply than the estimates cited at the Moscowconference.

In Denmark, where national attention has beenfocussed on the Schiller Institute’s program for magneticlevitation rail infrastructure, Schiller Institute leader TomGillesberg pointed out that Vitus Bering, for whom thestrait is named, was a Dane in the service of the Russian

18

© 2003 J. Craig Thorpe, commissioned by Cooper Consulting Co.

An artist’s conception of the proposed Bering Strait Railway Tunnel. The first in a series of Moscow conferences on“Megaprojects of Russia’s East” brought this long-dreamed-of idea closer to fruition.

Navy, during the time of Peter the Great in the early 18thCentury.

Publication of a story about the Bering Strait projecton the Saudi Arabian news website Elaph.com broughtforth contagious optimism. The report said, “The cost ofthis gigantic transport project, $65 billion, will be quicklypaid back through the revenue, created by the transit ofgoods between the countries in the region.” Commentson the site, from readers in Arab countries, as well asArab-Americans and Arab-Canadians, urged the Arabstates to learn from Russia, Canada, the U.S.A., and Asia,and launch construction of a network of railroads andbridges throughout the Arab world, from the PersianGulf to North Africa.

In Russia itself, many identify the Bering Strait projectwith LaRouche. The Bering Strait rail line was shown onmaps in EIR’s 1997 Special Report on the EurasianLand-Bridge. Academician Sergei Rogov of the Instituteof the U.S.A. and Canada, and Academician VladimirMyasnikov, then of the Far East Institute, used reproduc-tions of EIR’s map, to illustrate their own articles onEurasia’s development potential, appearing in majorRussian publications in the late 1990s.

Typical of the Bering Strait project’s reputation asLaRouche’s idea, and of the growing sense of such ideas’potential to change even the most rigid institutional atti-tudes, is a Russian blogger’s comment, posted April 23.With reference to a recent U.S. State Department report,which pledged support for regime-change in the formerSoviet region under the banner of “pro-democracy”movements, the writer commented: “This I must mental-ly applaud: answering the State Department’s latestattack, by proposing a gigantic, joint investment pro-ject—the dream of Lyndon LaRouche, who advised theDemocrats during the most recent Congressional elec-tions; and this from the Ministry of EconomicDevelopment and Trade, no less, though it’s headed byone of our dyed-in-the-wool liberals!” is the Americanengineer Hal Cooper, whose overview of the scheme EIRpublished in 1994, and whose detailed work-up of itsparameters has recently drawn renewed attention fromRussian, as well as American promoters of a BeringStrait crossing. Cooper told EIR the week of the Moscowconference, that the push for the project may havereached “a real phase shift” now.

Speaking at the April 24 event, under big banners withmaps of the intercontinental project, AcademicianGranberg said that the next step should be design andfeasibility studies for the 6,000-km rail-road-pipeline-power corridor from Yakutsk to Fort Nelson, including85-100 km of tunnel under the Bering Strait. There willreally be two tunnels, Granberg pointed out, because BigDiomede Island (Russia) and Little Diomede Island(U.S.A.) lie close together in the middle of the strait.Since Japan already has built 50-km underwater tunnelsbetween its islands, Granberg remarked, the technologiesinvolved are proven ones.

Conference participant Louis Cerny of the AmericanRailroad Association also presented the technical feasibil-

ity of the Bering Strait crossing, noting that the schedulefor the project as a whole could be sped up by simultane-ous construction of its different parts.

Many of the Russian speakers referred to recent gov-ernment decisions, which make the Bering Strait projecta live option. One of these is the Federal Target Programcalled “Development of the Far East and TransbaikalRegion” to 2013. As EIR reported April 13 (“The RussianFar East: A World Great Project,” by Mary Burdman),Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov has been active inlaunching an array of measures to address the underde-velopment and depopulation of these regions.

Dr. Jonathan Tennenbaum, a collaborator ofLaRouche for many years, introduced LaRouche’s paperto the conference as the work of the American economist,best known in Russia for his Science of PhysicalEconomy and his advocacy of basic infrastructure pro-jects. LaRouche’s discussion of the legacy of chemist andnational economist Dmitri Mendeleyev, as well as hisrelating the cooperation of great nations on the BeringStrait project to the tasks of war-avoidance, were receivedwith interest by the Russian participants.

Tennenbaum, who is known in Russia especially as aco-author of EIR’s 1997 Special Report The EurasianLand-Bridge: The ‘New Silk Road’—Locomotive forWorldwide Economic Development, then elaborated theconcept of infrastructure corridors, and networks ofintersecting such corridors. Building them in the farnorth is a challenge for the 21st Century, he said, whichcan be met by building chains of nuclear-powered cities.U.S. work on building the nuclear-powered researchtown, Camp Century, under the ice in northernGreenland in the 1950s, together with Russia’s city-build-ing experience in Siberia, makes this a tailor-made areafor U.S.-Russian cooperation, Tennenbaum said.

Maxim Bystrov, deputy head of Russia’s FederalAgency for Special Economic Zones, picked up onLaRouche’s and Tennenbaum’s remarks about the enor-mous financial bubble that exists today, as against thepotential for directing funds into productive investmentlike these infrastructure projects. Liquidity won’t flowinto long-term projects on its own, Bystrov stressed. Hesaid that the Russian government would advocateattracting private concessionaires for the project, ratherthan rely solely on state funding from the countriesinvolved. At the same time, Bystrov said that his agencywas prepared to put up $120 million for the feasibilitystudies.

Governor of Yakutia (Sakha Republic) VyacheslavShtyrov, whose paper was read to the meeting by theregion’s representative in Moscow, discussed the enor-mous development potential of that East Siberianregion. With a land area equal to half the size of thelower 48 U.S. states, covering three time zones andextending to the Arctic Coast, Yakutia’s population isless than that of Rhode Island. Shtyrov noted that “wehave all of the elements of Mendeleyev’s periodic table”in Yakutia, as well as enthusiasm for Mendeleyev’s ideasabout development.

19

This article was delivered on April 24, by Dr. JonathanTennenbaum, to the Moscow conference on “ATranscontinental Eurasia-America Transport Link via theBering Strait,” and will appear in Russian and English in aforthcoming issue of FORUM International. The meetingwas sponsored by the Russian Academy of Sciences, StateScientific and Research Organization, Council for theStudy of Productive Forces (SOPS), in conjunction withthe Russian Ministry of Economic Development and Trade,the Russian Ministry of Transport, Russian Railroads, andregional governments in Siberia and the Far East.

The intention to create a trans-Siberian rail system,implicitly extended, across the Bering Strait, to North

America, dates implicitly from the visit of DmitriIvanovich Mendeleyev to the 1876 U.S. CentennialExposition in Philadelphia. The defeat of LordPalmerston’s scheme for destroying the United States, byU.S. President Abraham Lincoln’s leadership, spread theinfluence of what was called The American System ofpolitical-economy into Russia, as also the Germanyreforms under Bismarck, the industrialization of Japan,and elsewhere. These global, so-called geopolitical devel-opments of the post-1865-1876 interval, have been thefocal issue of all of the spread of great wars throughoutthe world from the British orchestration of the first warof Japan against China, in 1894-1895, until the 1945death of U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt.

Throughout the ebbs and flows of global economicand geo-political history, up the present day, the realiza-tion of Mendeleyev’s intentions for the development ofRussia remains a crucial feature of that continuing histo-ry of the post-1865-1876 world to the present moment.The revival of the intention launched by him, now, ispresently renewed as a crucial quality of included featureof crucial importance for the world as a whole today.

The same impulse toward new world wars persists in newguises today. At the present moment, the world is gripped bywhat threatens to be, very soon, the greatest global mone-tary-financial collapse in the entirety of modern history todate. The spread of warfare and related conflict out ofSouthwest Asia is nothing other than a reflection of thesame, continuing, so-called geo-political impulse which hasprompted all of the world’s major wars since the 1763 Treatyof Paris, but, more emphatically, the rise of the U.S.A.’s 1865-1876 challenge to the Anglo-Dutch Liberal monetary-system.

This onrushing collapse of the world’s presently hyper-inflated, disintegrating world monetary-financial system,requires early concerted emergency action by responsibleleading nations. A sudden change in U.S. political trends,

back to the traditions of President Franklin D. Roosevelt,is urgently needed for this purpose. Such a change in U.S.policy must be realized through emergency cooperationwhich would be led by a concert of leading world powers.These must include the U.S.A., Russia, China, and India,as the rallying-point for a new, spreading partnershipamong perfectly sovereign nation-state economies.

In such cooperation, the development of a great net-work of modern successors to old forms of rail transport,must be spread across continental Eurasia, and acrossthe Bering Strait into the Americas. The economicallyefficient development of presently barren and otherwiseforbidding regions will enter into the urgently neededfuture development of the planet as a whole.

Such a plan was already crafted, during 1990-1992,under the direction of my wife, Helga Zepp-LaRouche,who remains the principal political and cultural leaderamong my associates in Europe and beyond. This perspec-tive must now be revived to become a global actuality.

Technologically, the leading thrust of scientific devel-opment is located in the succession of the work of suchexemplary figures as Mendeleyev and Academician V.I.Vernadsky, and the work of the relevant, but too littleheralded leader in the same field, the American pioneerWilliam Draper Harkins.

This requires the creation of long-term diplomatic agree-ments among nations, creating a new system of relativelyfixed-exchange-rate treaty-agreements, at very low primeinterest-rates, over forward-looking intervals of between aquarter to half century. These present periods cover theeconomic-financial half-life-span of principal long-terminvestments in the development of that basic economicinfrastructure which the needs of the present and cominggenerations of the peoples of these nations require.

We have thus entered a time, measured by the clock ofnuclear-fission and thermonuclear power’s development,when the long history of the domination over the land-mass-es of the planet by actually or implicitly imperial maritimepowers, is no longer an acceptable practical proposition.Instead, the science-driven, capital-intensive mode of devel-opment of the basic economic infrastructure and standardof living of the populations, will dominate any successfulform of civilized development of relations among the sover-eign nations of the planet. To this end, the tundras anddeserts of our planet must be conquered by the forces of sci-ence-driven technological development of the increased pro-ductive powers of labor. Development must now proceedfrom the Arctic rim, southwards, toward Antarctica.

The bridging of the Bering Strait becomes, thus, now,the navel of a new birth of a new world economy.

20

THE WORLD’S POLITICAL MAP CHANGES

Mendeleyev Would Have Agreedby Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr.

This paper was presented by formerAlaska Governor Walter Hickel onApril 24 to the Moscow conference on“A Transcontinental Eurasia-AmericanTransport Link via the Bering Strait.”The full title of the paper is “The Priceof Progress Does Not Have To BeBlood. It Can Be Sweat. MegaprojectsWith Peaceful Purposes as Alternativesto War.” Subheads are in the original.

Hickel served as Governor of Alaskafrom 1966-68 and 1990-94, and asU.S. Secretary of Interior in the NixonAdministration (1969-70).

The world joins Russia in its sad-ness over the passing of Boris

Yeltsin yesterday. His couragechanged a nation.

Bringing Russia and AmericaTogether Will Change the World

Congratulations to AcademicianGranberg, the Council for the Studyof Productive Forces, and our otherhosts for this important gathering. By initiating thisseries of International Conferences on TransportMegaprojects of the 21st Century, you are doing a servicefor all peoples. And Alaska wants to help.

These conferences may prove to be one of the mostsignificant initiatives of this century. And I share yourvision.

This Can Be an Alternative to WarIn recent years, the clash of cultures in many parts of

the world has expanded from misunderstanding and sus-picion to hostility and violence. Countries that aspire tobecoming cultures of freedom have become cultures offear.

Having watched the world’s conflicts all my life, I havelong believed that war rarely solves problems.

Historically, the most cynical political and businessleaders have used it as an economic strategy. Wars canunite and mobilize people. Wars put people to work andgive them a purpose. But my question is, why war? Whynot big projects? War is just a big project.

The price of progress does not have to be blood. It canbe sweat.

Big projects are the alternative to war. This idea is asold as the pyramids of Egypt, the aqueducts of Rome,and the cathedrals of Europe.

In that tradition, let’s fulfill the theme of these confer-ences: Let’s create a worldwide transportation infrastruc-ture for the 21st Century.

Why not transport fresh water to where it is dry?Why not replace coal and diesel fuel with natural gas

and electrical power to clean up our smoggy cities?Why not open Russia’s pioneering Northern Sea Route

to the world?Why not explore space for the resources man needs?All of this is possible. And much more.When I was elected Governor of Alaska in the late

1960s, I proposed a railroad around the world—a rail-road from the continental United States, through Alaska,across the Bering Strait into the Russian Far East, con-necting with the Trans-Siberian Railway and on toEurope.

21

MegaprojectsPose Alternative to Warby Walter J. Hickel

FORUM International

Former Alaska Gov. Walter Hickel addressed the conference in Moscow on April25, on cooperative infrastructure development as the best avenue to peace amongnations.

Time magazine had fun with the idea.They labeled it the “Vladivostok, Nome, andthe Santa Fe.” But they weren’t thinking bigenough. Imagine boarding that train inLondon or Paris and riding it to Moscow,then across Siberia to Alaska, and on to theGreat Lakes and New York City.

Such a rail link would carry a wealth ofideas, curiosity and commerce. It would beone of the great wonders of the world.

‘Workers, Unite the World’For years, philosophers have dreamed of

building a new world. My belief is that theway to build a new world is to actuallybuild it.

It begins with the optimists and thevisionaries, like those gathered here. Thenwe need leaders who can make decisions.So the engineers can step forward. Andthe skilled workers. Tens of thousands,even millions, can get involved. It’s time tore-write the old slogan, “Workers of theworld unite.” It’s time to proclaim, “Workers, unite theworld.”

We have gathered today to discuss the prospects forthe creation of a Multi-Modal Transport Corridor via theBering Strait. On our side, it is still in the visionarystage.

In Alaska our attention is focused on another bigproject, a natural gas pipeline from Alaska’s NorthSlope to the tidewater or across Canada. We expectconstruction of the Alaska gas line to begin as soon as2010.

A transport corridor to link Europe, Asia, and NorthAmerica will require leadership both from Alaska andfrom our President and Congress to permit access acrossAlaska’s Federal and state lands and waters.

This will require the support of the Alaskan andAmerican people. The key to winning that support is thevalidity of the vision. Here is how I would describe thatvision.

As we look at goals for the 21st Century, it’s fitting thatwe bring Russia and America together. There couldn’t bea more important symbol.

I have believed for many years that it will happen. Andthe place to start is the Bering Strait.

Let’s build a link between our two great nations—atunnel to move people, resources, and goods east to west,and west to east.

The world’s greatest reserves of natural resourcesawait in Siberia, Alaska, and Northern Canada.

Let’s build a rail connection to take that wealth to theworld.

Let’s build a fiber optic cable link to improve worldtelecommunications.

Let’s build long-distance transmission lines to the 1.6billion people on Earth who have no electricity.

Show me any area in the world where there is a lack of

energy, and I’ll show you basic poverty. There is a directtie-in between energy and poverty, energy and war, ener-gy and peace.

In the 1970s, inventor Buckminster Fuller launchedthe idea of a Global Energy Network. Existing electricalgenerators, unused during the nights in the North, can betapped at the speed of light to bring poverty-fightingpower to the South.

The technology to move electricity very long distancesstill needs improvement. Let’s dedicate some of theworld’s greatest minds to this task. This can be a vast andvisionary undertaking worthy of our generation and thenext. And one of the few missing links is across theBering Strait.

Some ask, “Where will the money come from?” Myexperience is that money is never the problem. Iremember the dark days of the Great Depression in the1930s. We were struggling to save our farms and keepour families fed. When we asked the politicians forhelp, they told us there was no money. Then Japaninvaded Pearl Harbor, and we had all the money in theworld!

Today, there are critics who doubt that a tunnel canbe built beneath the Bering Sea. They say, “It can’t bedone.”

When I moved to Alaska as a young man, I argued fora highway from the south 48 states to Alaska. They said itwas impossible to build a highway over 2,000 kilometersacross some of Alaska and Canada’s most remote wilder-ness. But once World War II began, the U.S. Army builtthe Alaska Highway in nine months!

Other critics of the Bering corridor believe that “smallis beautiful” and “wilderness is the world.” They say thatthe rail link will be too expensive or will ruin the environ-ment. They oppose all big projects. But we in the Northunderstand the power of big projects to change society

22

EIRNS

The view from the Trans-Siberian Railroad: here, the town of Vladimirovka.“We in the North understand the power of big projects to change society forthe better,” Hickel said. “Russia did it with the 10,000-kilometer Trans-Siberian Railway. Alaska did it with the great trans-Alaska oil pipeline.These modern wonders mobilized our people, gave them a challenge, and agoal.”

for the better. Russia did it with the 10,000-kilometer(6,500-mile) Trans-Siberian Railway. Alaska did it withthe great trans-Alaska oil pipeline. These modern won-ders mobilized our people, gave them a challenge, and agoal.

And so will the Eurasia-North America transport corri-dor. In fact, I believe it will be great for the world envi-ronment. Because there will be no answer to pollutionuntil we find an answer to poverty. That truth is as real asthe Ten Commandments.

The Bottom Line Is Not the Only LineToday, I want to salute Russia for taking the lead in

thinking about big projects. The fact that this conferenceis taking place in Moscow is a sign of the new role Russiais playing in the world. I predicted this when I visitedhere as Governor of Alaska in 1992.

“You will see a new and prosperous Russia,” I said.“Not overnight, but in one generation.”

Today, you have surpassed even my optimism. Youare the world’s largest energy exporter. Your major citiesare flourishing. And you are now ready to expand yourprosperity from the center to your far-flung regions.

This is where Alaska may be helpful. Alaska is aremote region, historically poor, ignored, and exploited,that has found its own road to prosperity. Our solutionbegan with an understanding of the commons.

There are vast, commonly owned lands in Alaska. Andit is the government, not the private sector, that controlsthese assets.

Other than Alaska’s indige-nous, Native corporations,that own 12% of our land,the government owns 99%of the rest. Private individu-als own less than 1%.

The United States andWestern Europe have atradition of private owner-ship, but that is not truein Alaska. And it is nottrue in the world as awhole. Eighty-four per-cent of the world is ownedin common, including theoceans.

The United Nationscalls these commonlyowned lands, waters, andresources the “global com-mons.” So to care for thiscommons and to use it forthe benefit of mankind,we must learn to worktogether.

How do we do this?Unbridled capitalism maynot be the answer. Whendealing with the commons,

the bottom line is important, but it is not the only line.Without concern for other people, for their needs andwants, activities for strictly private gain become destruc-tive not only to others, but eventually to oneself.

The indigenous people of the North have alwayslived on the commons. They learned long ago that in acold, harsh environment, you have to care about others.You waste nothing. You care for the total. You share tosurvive. Every hunter shares his whale, walrus, or cari-bou with others, especially the very old and the veryyoung.

These same principles are enshrined in the AlaskaConstitution. What we own in common in Alaska mustbe managed not in the interest of a few but for the “maxi-mum benefit” of all. The obligation rests with govern-ment both to care for the land and to make it productive.That’s why I call Alaska the “Owner State.”

In conclusion, I believe that if we bring Russia andAmerica together, it will change the world

First, we can create a new generation of hope, and alessening of tension.

Second, a transport corridor will greatly improve com-munications and commerce.

And third, Russia and Alaska can offer a model forboth conservation and development to other nationsaround the world that are owned in common.

The result can be a truly better world. Let’s do it!In closing, let me say, right out of the blue, our hearts

are with the Russians, too.Thank you.

23

Anchorage

Berlin

Chita EdmontonEl Paso

Fairbanks

Fort Nelson

Irkutsk

Istanbul

Khabarovsk

New York

Paris

Skovorodino

Seward

Tayshet

Tynda

Ulan-Ude

Vladivostok

Yakutsk

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Bratsk

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BeringStrait P A C I F I C O C E A N

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A

RC T I C O C E A N

R d f H A CRedrawn from H.A. Cooper

Future Global Rail Connections, as Seen from North Pole

It was the great railway-building thrust led by PresidentAbraham Lincoln and his economic advisor Henry C.

Carey, that laid the basis for creating a rail networkcrossing the Bering Strait. In 1869, at Promontory Point,Utah, the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroadswere joined, creating the Transcontinental Railroad,which linked the United States from coast to coast—Lincoln’s great vision. At the U.S. Centennial Exhibitionin Philadelphia in 1876, exhibits and discussions wereheld on building rail networks, including by internationalfigures such as the Russian scientist and railway builderDmitri Mendeleyev. In the 1890s, American nationalistnetworks joined their Russian counterparts in buildingthe Trans-Siberian Railroad.

•William Gilpin (1813-94), an American System ally ofPresident Lincoln, proposed a railroad line going over theBering Strait, as part of his idea that all great cities wouldbe linked by railroads. In 1861, Lincoln appointed Gilpinthe first Governor of the Colorado Territories.

•Toward the end of the 19th Century, the first propos-als were made in Russia, for building a railroad betweenYakutsk, Russia and the Bering Strait. Several optionswere considered for the railroad, which was to headsoutheast, and connect Yakutsk with the Sea of Okhotsk,and continue along the coast via Magadan to the Strait.

•At the start of the 20th Century, capital was raised toform the Trans-Alaska Siberia Company, which wouldbuild a railroad line extending from North Dakota (whichwas already connected to U.S. rail lines) through Canadato Nome, Alaska, which is within 100 miles of the BeringStrait. There would also be a railroad built from theChukotka region of Russia (now the Chukotka AutonomousRegion), which borders on the Strait, heading southwest,which would connect to Russia’s Trans-Siberian Railroad.

Funds were raised to fund the initial feasibility studiesfor the 5,650-mile rail system. The idea was that NewYork, Moscow, and Paris could all be joined together forworld peace. The company was advancing toward raisingthe $300 million required in 1907 to complete both theRussian and American railway land components, whenBritish-allied interests halted the railway. The alliances ofWorld WarI put a permanent halt to this effort.

In 1902, Loicq de Lobel, the French explorer,approached the Russian Imperial Technical Society with aproposal to explore the length of the future track fromYakutsk to the Bering Strait, and further to Alaska, up tothe point where it would connect with an existing track.Upon receiving the approval of the Russian and Frenchgovernments, Lobel set up the first committee for promo-tion of this project, and a second such committee, affiliated

with the American Railroad Administration, was created inNew York. The explorer delivered several reports on hiswork at the Paris Geographical Society at the Sorbonne.

In October 1906, a Russian Government Commissionon the creation of the Great Northern Route held discus-sions attended by four American, one French, and oneCanadian representative. It was decided to expedite workon the project, putting Lobel and the American engineerJames Waddell in charge. Preliminary technical parame-ters for the track were set. Construction was supposed tobe carried out by the New Jersey Construction Company,under a 90-year contract which entitled it to a strip ofland 24 kilometers wide. Plots of land on both sides ofthe track were to be divided in chessboard patternbetween Russia and the contractor.

In March 1907, the Russian government terminatedthe contract, having decided its terms were not favorable.

In 1905, Tsar Nicholas II proposed building a BeringStrait rail link.

In April 1918, Russian leader Vladimir Leninaddressed the All-Russian Executive Committee on theneed to intensify the construction of railroads, first of allin the North, including those reaching the Bering Strait,to expedite exploration of natural resources. Projects forbuilding a track from Yakutsk to the ports Ayan andEikan, and to Nikolayevsk-on-Amur, reaching the BeringStrait, were again on the agenda.

During the 1930s-1950s, Josef Stalin put himself incharge of the Polar Track project for building a NorthernSiberian railroad from Vorkuta to Anadyr.

In 1942, During World War II, the Seattle District of theU.S. Army Corps of Engineers conducted a feasibility studyto build a proposed railroad line, from Prince George, inBritish Columbia, Canada, to Fairbanks, Alaska, and thenceto Teller, a city in Alaska’s Northwest. The Army Corps pro-jected for this project, a capital construction cost of $87 mil-lion for the 1,417-mile route, and a purchase cost for rollingstock of $24 million. The initial idea was to ferry war-timesupplies needed by Russia, from the Alaskan port of Teller,to the Chukotkan port of Uelen, until a railway tunnel acrossthe Bering Strait would be built. Another railroad wouldthen be built, heading westward, from Uelen to Egvekinot,and to a junction, where it could then proceed to one orboth of two Russian rail corridors. One rail corridor wouldgo along the south shore of the Arctic Ocean to Vorkuta, tojoin the newly completed 1,100-mile rail line to Moscow.

President Franklin Roosevelt’s personal emissary toRussia, Harry Hopkins, had raised this rail proposal, fol-lowing a trip to Moscow, and briefed Roosevelt,Secretary of State Cordell Hull, and Roosevelt’s uncle,

24

CHRONOLOGY

Origins of the Bering Strait Projectby Richard Freeman

Frederic Delano. Roosevelt’s uncle, among others, urgedhim to fund the Army Corps feasibility study. After theJune 1942 U.S. defeat of a Japanese carrier force atMidway Island, the project was deferred.

After the end of World War II, Stalin contactedPresident Harry S Truman to restart discussions aboutconnecting the Russian and U.S. rail networks, through atunnel under the Bering Strait. Truman rebuffed Stalin.

In 1991, the nonprofit corporation InterhemisphericBering Strait Tunnel and Railroad Group (IBSTRG),known as “Transcontinental,” was officially registered inWashington, D.C. The founding members on theAmerican side were the State of Alaska, the AmericanRailroad Association, and several large railroad, construc-tion, consulting, and extraction companies. In Russia, adivision of the corporation was set up under director V.N.Razbegin, a vice president of IBSTRG, as well as aCoordination Research and Development Committee,whose first chairman was Academician P.A. Melnikov.Participants on the Russian side included the RailroadMinistry, the Energy and Fuel Ministry, the Committee onthe North, the Economics and Finance Ministry, theConstruction Ministry, Unified Energy Systems,Transstroi Corporation and the Russian Academy ofSciences. Overall, 40 organizations were involved.

In 1992, Lyndon LaRouche and Helga Zepp-LaRouchebegan presenting proposals, which would become knownas the Eurasian Land-Bridge, which would connectEurope, Asia, and ultimately the whole world, throughefficient, high-speed rail networks and accompanyingdevelopment corridors to reconstruct the shattered worldeconomy. The proposals called for either a tunnel or abridge to connect rail systems across the Bering Strait.

In 1994, the American Engineering Association held aconference in Fairbanks, Alaska, entitled, “The BeringStrait Tunnel.” Participants included V.N. Razbegin, vicepresident of IBSTRG, and Hal Cooper, a consulting engi-neer of Cooper Engineering.

In its April 16, 1994 issue, EIR published an article byengineer Hal Cooper, “Bering Strait Tunnel and RailwayProject Will Boost Pacific Development.”

From May 7-9, 1996, in Beijing, at a conference enti-tled “International Symposium on EconomicDevelopment of the Regions Along the Euro-AsiaContinental Bridge,” Helga Zepp-LaRouche gave a speech,“Building the Silk-Road Land-Bridge.” In the wake of thisconference, EIR published a Special Report entitled TheEurasian Land-Bridge, The ‘New Silk Road’—Locomotivefor Worldwide Economic Development, which includeddiscussion of worldwide plans for development throughinfrastructure corridors, and also the physical economicprinciples upon which such plans are based.

In March 1998, a draft resolution was introduced tothe Russian government on the necessity to conduct com-plex research on the possibility of building a polytrack,which was coordinated with the Railroad Ministry, theConstruction Ministry, the Committee on the North, thehead of the administration of the Chukotka AutonomousRegion, and the presidents of Unified Energy Systems

and the Transstroi Corporation.At the end of 2000, Viktor Razbegin, of the Moscow

Regional Transportation Institute, announced a feasbilitystudy of building the connecting rail to the Bering Strait,indicating that it would be very economically feasible,and would benefit freight transport between the interiorof Asia and the interior of the United States.

On Nov. 20-28, 2002, the 70th Anniversary Conferenceon the Railroad Transportation Developments in Siberiawas convened at the Siberian State Transport Universityin Novosibirsk, at which the Bering Strait tunnel propos-al was raised.

In July 2006, IBSTRG president George Koumaladdressed U.S. President George W. Bush on this subject.

On Sept. 28, 2006, at a meeting at the Federal Agencyfor Railroad Transport (Roszheldor), the decision wastaken to build the Yakutsk-Magadan track with its fur-ther extension to the Bering Strait.

25

Appeal forBering LinkDirected toG-8 Summit

The communique below was issued April 25, 2007 as an“Appeal from the participants of the international conferenceon an Intercontinental Eurasia-America Transport Link viathe Bering Strait, to the heads of state and governments ofRussia, the U.S.A., Canada, South Korea, Japan, China, andthe EU member-states.” Along with the Appeal, the partici-pants at the April Moscow conference sent a draftMemorandum of Cooperation, proposing that those nationsendorse the project and consider financing feasibility studiesfor the Bering Strait project at the June 6-8, 2007 G-8 sum-mit in Heiligendamm, Germany. The studies, they say, couldbe completed by 2010. (Subheads have been added by EIR.)

The idea of creation of a global land transportation sys-tem connecting four out of six continents (Eurasia,

North and South America, and Africa) has occupied theminds of mankind for centuries.

The issues of economic growth and global energysecurity, strengthening political and trade ties, containingand preventing wars and civil conflicts, and culturalinteraction are directly related to the global community’sability to clear the hurdles in the way of solving globalproblems and ensuring constructive cooperation in allspheres of the world economy.

Today, on the agenda, are expansion and diversifica-tion of trade ties between countries, combining theirenergy, transport, and information resources for develop-ing uncultivated territories and exploiting their naturalresources. Now is the time to pay most serious attention

to projects aimed at peace and creation; it’s time to revisithumankind’s great ideas.

Continuing Great ProjectsThe past 150 years were marked by numerous ambi-

tious projects. These are the 9,000-kilometer-long Trans-Siberian Railroad, the Transcontinental Railroad in theU.S.A., the tunnel between the Japanese islands ofHonshu and Hokkaido, the Great Belt Fixed Link inDenmark, the Eurotunnel, and many others.

The 21st Century will see the construction of tunnelsunderneath the Straits of Gibraltar and the Bosporus, a tun-nel under the Yangtze River, tunnels between the Russianmainland, Sakhalin, and Japan, and a tunnel betweenNewfoundland and Labrador Peninsula in Canada.

The construction of the intercontinental link unitingEurasia and America, Intercontinental Link (ICL)-WorldLink, could become a crucial contribution to the creation ofthe Global Transportation System (GTS) as it pulls togetherglobal experience in implementing international projects.

Today, the main deterrent to a multimodal GTS andthe actual linking of the two continents is the absence ofa connection between Eurasia’s and America’s trans-portation and energy systems.

In order to overcome this hurdle, it is necessary to build6,000 kilometers of railroad from Yakutsk, Russia to theNorth American railway network via Magadan, Chukotka,the Bering Strait, and Alaska incorporated in a single corri-dor with a power transmission line and fiber-optic lines.

The project’s feasibility has raised no doubts amongthe international engineering community.

The necessary target investment in the project is esti-mated at $65 billion. Providing financing for the project asof 2008 would ensure that the feasibility study is complet-ed by 2010. The approximate cost of the feasibility study,including all necessary research and an ecological assess-ment, is estimated at $120 million and may be dividedamong the countries participating in the project. A majorportion of the Russian share of joint financing will be dis-bursed under the program for development of the Russianrailway transportation system, which was approved at agovernment meeting held on April 10, 2007.

Economic efficiency of the project is ensured by largevolumes of cargo to be shipped (400-500 billion tons/kilo-meters per year), synergies between hydro- and tidal-power generation systems, and the effects of competitiveexploitation of the plentiful natural resources in the areacovered by the ICL-World Link.

However, the project’s geopolitical significanceappears to be even greater, as it unites continents andcreates conditions for multifaceted and fruitful coopera-tion among the peoples of many countries.

In just 15 to 20 years, the new multimodal transportartery will change the world. Humankind will gain accessto new energy and natural resources. The ICL-WorldLink will provide access to territories colossal both inphysical dimensions and economic potential.

To implement the international research program andcoordination of efforts to prepare and realize the project,

the international nonprofit organization Interhemi-spheric Bering Strait Tunnel & Railroad Group(IBSTRG) was created in 1992.

As of today, the basic technical and economic charac-teristics of the link, and the possibilities and ways of hook-ing it up to Russia’s and America’s transport routes, havebeen defined, and the preliminary analysis of the econom-ic and social effects of the project has been completed.

Creating Economic PotentialWe, the participants of the International Conference

on an Intercontinental Eurasia-America Link via theBering Strait, which took place in Moscow on April 24,2007, having discussed the prerequisites, opportunitiesand the expected effects of the project, and appreciating:

•the unquestionable economic potential of creating aglobal transport, energy, and telecommunications systemwith the key element being a land link between the conti-nents of Eurasia and America;

•the urgency of combining efforts to implement theproject;

•the advisability of further research pertaining to theproject;

•the necessity for the participants of the project, andmembers of the political and business communities of allcountries involved, to coordinate their activities,

•hereby put forward this proposal to the governmentsof Russia, the U.S.A., Canada, Japan, China, Korea, andthe EU member states:

1. We propose that the countries assess the merits ofthe project for building the ICL-World Link, at the levelof ministries and agencies responsible for this area, andits inclusion in their respective strategies of economicdevelopment on the macroeconomic and industry levels.

2. Provided that the construction of the ICL-WorldLink is deemed advisable, we propose that the govern-ments appoint their representatives for participation infurther elaboration of the project, and discussion of dif-ferent options of the countries’ involvement in construc-tion and operation of the ICL-World Link.

3. We propose that the governments consider thefinancing of feasibility studies for constructing the ICL-World Link at the highest international level in June 2007within the framework of the G-8 meeting. We proposethat they pass a memorandum outlining the govern-ments’ positions on developing the global transportationnetwork, and the feasibility of building the ICL-WorldLink as a key element of providing intercontinental ener-gy and infrastructural ties.

4. We propose that a working group be created for fur-ther elaboration and promotion of the project. We thinkit advisable for the sources and amount of financing to bedefined at this stage.

5. We propose that the governments consider theappointment of the international nonprofit organizationIBSTRG as the authorized international project coordi-nator for the duration of the feasibility study of the ICL-World Link. All participating governments will have rep-resentation on the IBSTRG Board of Directors.

26

Hal Cooper, PhD, a Seattle-based transportation consul-tant, is a longtime advocate for an intercontinental railroadconnection across the Bering Strait, and for developmentcorridors—rail, utilities including electric transmission,natural gas, and water, and highways—on key routes in theAmericas, and worldwide. He has frequently attended scien-tific conferences in Russia and other countries on greatinfrastructure projects.

Cooper was interviewed by EIR’s Richard Freeman onMay 1. Here are excepts (the complete interview appearedin EIR May 11, 2001.

EIR: Several hundred people gathered in Moscow onApril 24, at a conference called “Megaprojects of EastRussia—A Transcontinental Eurasia-America TransportLink via the Bering Strait.” This was sponsored by anumber of agencies, but participating were the RussianAcademy of Sciences’ Council for the Study of ProductiveForces, in conjunction with the Russian Ministry ofEconomic Development and Trade, the Russian Ministryof Transport, and so on, and a number of papers weredelivered.

You wrote a paper that appeared in the Sept. 16, 1994EIR, titled “Bering Strait Tunnel and Railway ProjectWill Boost Pacific Development.” So, you’ve beeninvolved in this thing for a very long time, and in a cer-tain sense, you’ve been on the ground floor. Tell us howyou look at the developments right now, with this confer-ence, in light of the progress that’s been made over thetwo decades that you’ve been working on this.

Cooper: I think what has happened in Moscow isthe indicator of a major phase shift in the world. Theold-time forces that have been in control in this coun-try and this world for so long, are beginning to beremoved, and no small amount of the credit for thathappening belongs, of course, to the Lyndon LaRoucheorganization, in which you and I have both played apart.

And I think that in Russia, they have basically decidedto adopt the LaRouche infrastructure development poli-cy, with emphasis on nuclear energy, the emphasis onrailroads, the emphasis on economic development andemployment creation, which are so contrary to so muchof the thinking in the United States today. I think the peo-ple in Russia and many of the countries of the world donot have this obsession with political correctness that wehave developed in this country, that has prevented us

from being responsive to the need for economic develop-ment, and for our own national self-interest throughoutthe world.

EIR: This railroad will go through the Bering Strait.Tell us something about the physical aspects, bothfrom the Russian side, and the American side, andwhat’s involved with building this, both the tunnel andthe railroads?

Cooper: You’re going to have to actually build about5,000 to 6,000 miles of railroad to connect everything.And you would be connecting, on the east side of theLena River, near the city of Yakutsk, in the SakhaRepublic. You don’t actually have to go into Yakutsk, butit would be helpful to do that, because it’s the largest cityin that region. I was there in 1996.

You would come out through the Magadan region,and through the Koryak region, into the Chukotka regionin Russia, and then a place called Egvekinot, which is agold-mining place. It would be a junction for a futureconnection of lines going to the west, to Vorkuta, far inthe west of Russia, 1,100 miles northeast of Moscow,which was originally laid out under the direction of JosefStalin, prior to World War II, as well as the line going tothe southwest, to Yakutsk, which ultimately would go toChina over a 3,000-mile route.

The railroad would then go through the TenkanyiMountains in the eastern part of the Chukotka Peninsula,and then go into a tunnel which would be about 65 mileslong, west of the town which is called Uelen, right at theedge of the Bering Strait, on the Chukotka side. And thenit would go through a tunnel.

EIR: Is this the tunnel that’s going to cross the BeringStrait?

Cooper: Yes, it would go under the Bering Strait.Actually the water there is 180-200 feet deep; it’s relative-ly stable limestone chalk, there are no major rock fis-sures or earthquake faults, or anything like that. Thereare two islands in the middle: There’s Big DiomedeIsland, which is about two miles by four miles wide(that’s in Russia), and then there’s Little Diomede Islandon the U.S. side, which is about three miles away; itsabout one mile by two miles. It is an inhabited island,there are some native people who live there; whereas onthe Russian side, I believe there is only a weather sta-tion, military facilities.

27

INTERVIEW: Hal B.H. Cooper, Jr.

Bering Strait ConferenceMarked ‘Major Phase Shift’

Each of the islands is about 20 miles away from theshore. On the U.S. side, you would come to Wales, andthen to the edge of the Brooks Mountains, and thenthrough, ultimately, a place called Galena, and you wouldparallel the north side of the Yukon River, and ultimatelycross the Yukon River, and go into Fairbanks....

EIR: Now, you’ve mentioned, in a paper that you wrotein 2004, that there is a whole story here, in terms of theSeattle district of the Army Corps of Engineers. Can youtell us about that?

Cooper: I’ll discuss the U.S. route later, but first, onthe Russian side, Stalin ordered a series of feasibilitystudies of railroads to be built, including the tunnel toSakhalin Island, and so forth—a great deal of work wasdone. And what is being talked about now in these greatinfrastructure projects that are being proposed, is only areincarnation of what Stalin had originally proposedback in the 1930s for economic development of theSoviet Union.

Whatever horrible things Stalin did, he was dedicatedto upgrading the conditions of the infrastructure and theeconomy of Russia. You cannot fault him for that.

His way of going about it wasn’t right, although hisobjective, what he was trying to get to, was right. Hemost certainly did not conduct things in ways that ademocratic society would work, or even as Russia doestoday. You do not hear the Putin Administration or otherpeople touting what Stalin did; but actually those originalplans were laid out during Stalin’s time.

Now let’s go over to the U.S. side.

There had been several attempts, early in the 20thCentury, to build a railroad up to Alaska. None of this gotterribly far. One came relatively close in 1906, but it did-n’t actually happen.

But, in early 1942, at the start of the war, there was aneed to consider getting to Alaska. And one of the propos-als was to build a road—and the traffic would come fromGreat Falls, Montana, to Fairbanks. And then it was to goto Nome, and it was to supply Russia.

It really came about because of these meetingsbetween Harry Hopkins, with Molotov and Stalin, andthe other people in Moscow during the early to mid partof December 1941.

They came back, and they said: “Yes, we’ve got to getthings moving.” So they decided to build what was calledthe Alcan Highway. It started in Dawson Creek, BritishColumbia, and it ended up in Fairbanks. There was actu-ally a road from Fairbanks to Delta Junction. There was-n’t much after that, but there was a road—basically a dirtroad.

That was actually to tie in airfields. And those airfieldswere built as ferrying points for the planes that were car-rying supplies to Russia. The runways were built, origi-nally, to help Britain, but it was ultimately used to serveRussia as well.

The planes would fly with supplies from Great Falls,Montana, and they would go either to Fairbanks orNome, and Russian pilots would come over—they wouldbe trained in these planes with U.S. people—and thenthey would fly the planes back with all the supplies, andthen they would keep both the supplies and the planes.

28

This sketch map wasincluded in a paper byHal B.H. Cooper, Jr.(Cooper Consulting Co.)and J. David Broadbent,president of the CanadianArctic Railway Co.(British Columbia), forpresentation to the 70thAnniversary Conferenceon “RailroadTransportationDevelopments in Siberia,”held at the Siberian StateTransport University atNovosibirsk, Nov. 20-28,2002. The series of coalplant sites indicate theimportance of power forboth electrified rail, andregional economicactivity along thecorridor, which could bepowered by nuclearenergy for the mostadvanced development.

Proposed Route for the Intercontinental Railroad Line Corridor Between Asia and North America Across the Bering Strait, Employing Power Plants and Transmission Lines

Then they would come back to get another one. Andthere were always these shuttles going back and forthbetween Alaska and Chukotka.

EIR: And this was ’41-’42?Cooper: 1941. And that continued until the end of

the war. That was one of the ways in which Russia wassupplied from the United States, and it’s interesting,that Franklin Roosevelt overruled Winston Churchill tomake this happen, because Churchill was adamant thatwe not supply Russia, either through Alaska or any-where else.

And Roosevelt said, “No, we’re going to help Russia.They are our allies, and we’re going to help them.”

The planes at that time didn’t have a very long range—they only flew short distances at relatively low speeds. Soit wasn’t a real high-speed air service at that time, but itwas the best that there was.

Now, in late 1941, after Harry Hopkins returnedfrom his trip to Moscow, although they had discussed arailroad to Russia, its logistics just weren’t going towork for a military purpose, because they needed to dotoo much too quickly—it would take away from otherthings.

But what Frederic Delano—Franklin Roosevelt’suncle, who was really wealthy, and I believe he had beenan executive of the New York Central Railroad, at onetime in his life—went to Franklin, and he said,“Franklin, look, we really need to consider building arailroad up to Alaska.” And he said, “We have to be pre-pared for the possibility of a Japanese attack, and wehave to be able to supply Russia.” And he said, “That’sthe best way to get the troops and materials up there. Soyou need to study it.” Franklin said: “All right, Frederic,We’ll do it.”

And he commissioned a study, and it was done by theU.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Seattle office. And theyjust marched up into Canada, and got started. They did-n’t ask for permission; they just showed up. And fromJanuary to June of 1942, they did the study. It’s a 130-page study—it’s actually quite interesting. When youlook at the cost numbers then, as compared to today,you’ll be astounded. They were looking at $50,000 amile, or something like that, to build it. And of course,early in World War II, that was realistic, from the end ofthe Depression, in terms of construction costs at thattime.

They were very concerned about the possibility of aJapanese invasion of Alaska. Well, it happened, actually.The Japanese occupied the Aleutian Islands of Attu andKiska in mid-1943. That’s several hundred miles southof the Bering Strait, where the earthquake fault is, andthe volcanos are. It’s stable up at the Bering Strait, froma geological standpoint, in contrast to the AleutianIslands.

Well, Admiral Halsey—this was at the time after PearlHarbor—was very concerned about the West Coast of theUnited States and Hawaii, since most of our ships hadbeen sunk. Fortunately the Enterprise and the Yorktown

aircraft carriers weren’t, but they were very concernedabout another Japanese attack. They had intelligence thatit was going to happen. Were the Japanese going toattack Alaska, or were they going to attack Hawaii?

So Halsey took the calculated risk that the Japanesewere going to send a small number of ships with troopsto the Aleutian Islands, but their main force was going toget ready to attack Hawaii.

That led to the Battle of Midway, after which therewas less interest in the railroad to Alaska.

In the meantime, this proposed railroad actually wentby a route from Vancouver to Prince George, through theRocky Mountain Trench, which is now Williston Lakeand a large part of northern British Columbia, so itwouldn’t be available for a railroad today—it was then—through the Tintina Trench, and then along part of theroute of the Alaska Highway. Actually, there was an oilpipeline over part of that route, that went from FortSimpson in what is now the Northwest Territories. Itwent to Skagway, and then up towards Fairbanks, andthey could supply oil. This oil was used to supply some ofthese airfields.

EIR: Coming from Alaska, let’s say we cross the BeringStrait through a tunnel, which has been bored—howmany tunnels will we have, by the way?

Cooper: At the Bering Strait, only one. It’s just onelong one with two or three tubes. There are islands in themiddle, so you have places to enter it. It’s only one tun-nel. There are no tunnels to the east of Fairbanks.

There are several tunnels that will be needed east ofNome, Alaska, west of Galena, through the mountains.And that is probably the most difficult single stretch onthe North American continent to build that railroad.

That’s because of the terrain: There is a lot of per-mafrost land, and steep grades for the rail. It’s not easyterrain to build in. It’s much more difficult than it wouldbe east of Fairbanks, where most of it is relatively flat,except near Dease Lake and east of Watson Lake.

EIR: I understand that you’ve been looking at how, ifyou come through Fairbanks, and start heading south-east, there are actually two branches: One would gothrough Fort Nelson, and all the way to Chicago, andanother—

Cooper: That’s correct. Let me explain. When youleave Fairbanks, you go down to near the Alaska borderto a place called Tok Junction, about 20 miles northwestof Alcan, at the border. And that’s right across fromBeaver Creek. It’s a town of about 800 people. BeaverCreek is in Yukon Territory; Alcan is in Alaska.

The Tanana River runs south of that, and matches therailroad, basically parallel to the Tanana River, whichultimately runs into the Yukon River, which ultimatelygoes into the Pacific Ocean. And you would parallel theYukon River for 250 miles, west of Fairbanks, on thenorth bank of the river. But as you come into TokJunction, there are two possible routes. One goes rightalong the Alaska Highway through Beaver Creek, just

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exactly the way the Alaska Highway goes. The other goesnorth of the White and Ladue river canyons. and ends upin a place called Carmacks, north of Whitehorse in theYukon Territory. The Yukon River starts there, flowsnorth, and then comes back south and west again; it is apretty big river, even as far away as Whitehorse, which isa beautiful place.

But then it would split, and you have one line that cango through the Tintina Trench, through Carmacks, sothat it would rejoin that at Watson Lake. The other linewould come south along the Alaska Highway, and itcould go to Fort Nelson, and then down to DawsonCreek, and east to Edmonton in Alberta.

The other line would go from Whitehorse to a placecalled Jake’s Corner, about 30 miles east of Whitehorse,or southeast, and then it would head southeast throughBritish Columbia, and then ultimately end up just rightnear Prince George. It would come down at Takla Lake,Chipmunk and Minaret, via Dease Lake, and a lot ofthese little settlements, and it’s mostly forest there.

The extension would come from Dawson Creek, tonear Grand Prairie, Alberta, and then come down to aplace called Whitecourt, Alberta. I think it’s called theSandy River there—you need a big bridge there, believe itor not, about a mile long. Then you would come downand ultimately you end up at St. Albert, and you’re rightthere in Edmonton, the capital of Alberta.

There’s a Canadian National Railroad branch line thatactually would just follow along Highway 16 andHighway 11 to Vermillion, and Lloydminster, andSaskatoon, and eventually end up down in Regina. Andthen you would follow the Canadian Pacific Railroadright into the United States at Portal, North Dakota.

EIR: So basically you’ve got a rail line in northern BritishColumbia, but you’ve got something that’s missingbetween there and Fairbanks?

Cooper: There’s a 800-mile-long gap, where there isno railroad; that has to be built, to fill in the missing sec-tion, at a minimum.

EIR: A lot of that is in the Yukon Territory, and I knowthat the Canadian government blows hot and cold onthis issue. What do you think is the status right now?Because that rail line covering the gap would have to bebuilt, for this Bering Strait tunnel and rail linkage towork, right?

Cooper: It would be essential, yes.

EIR: What is your estimate now of both sides agree-ing—the Alaska legislature on the one hand, and saythe Yukon Territory legislature (but they would have totalk to people in Ottawa to make this work? Is thatright?

Cooper: Well, they would be likely to give permission.But as you know, I’m working with a private company,the Canadian Arctic Railway. I’ve actually done a feasibil-ity study for them, and they’re looking to finance it.

Private financing is probably the primary vehicle by

which this project, at least east of Fairbanks, would bedone. It’s going to require some government help,whether it’s loan guarantees or whatever, but the real bigparticipation of the government is going to have to bewest of Fairbanks, because of the difficulty of the terrain,the fact that you’re going to have to deal with the nativepopulations. It’s a long ways before you’re going to runinto a place where there’s any large population, or anytraffic.

But there is something that you need to consider—andyou know it affects China. You asked about traffic: I’ll getinto that now: What are you going to haul? Oil, coal,potash, containers, machinery, oil and gas developmentequipment, all kinds of consumer goods, and passengers.And I think there’s going to be a great opportunity, notonly for people to travel along there because they hadwork, but for tourism purposes. You know the AlaskaRailroad makes money on its tourism. It has a huge busi-ness with that, and now it’s going to expand. We couldhave as many as 3,000 to 5,000 passengers a day, on therailroad.

EIR: Do you have a sense of how many rail cars may betravelling during the course of a year, to bring goods andso forth?

Cooper: You probably wouldn’t build it until you had100 millions tons a year of cargo. But you would getthat. How many carloads is that? Well, figure each one is100 tons—100 million tons would be 10 million carloads.Or 5 to 10 million, probably. A lot of cargo would behauled.

Now you have a gauge problem you’ve got to dealwith, because the Russian gauge is different from theU.S. gauge. China is on the U.S. gauge. I did a lot of stud-ies in containerization as part of this feasibility study,and I would look at bringing traffic from China to theUnited States by rail, as compared to by ship.

By railroad, the distance is so much shorter with thegreat circle—it’s about 8,500 to 9,000 miles, say, fromXian [in China] to Chicago. By a combination of landand sea transport, the comparable distance is somethinglike 13,000 miles. And then you have land-side harborproblems, both in China and on the West Coast of theUnited States.

EIR: You’ve estimated that it would be cheaper to go byrail?

Cooper: Cheaper, than if you go by the conventionalland-ship-land containerization. Say if you had thePanama Canal built, and you were going to go to NewYork, the cost of moving by rail would be a little bit—maybe 1%, 2%, or 3%—more than going by ship. But itwould be in 12 days rather than 30. Well, is time worthmoney in international shipping? You’re darn right.

Personally, my feeling is, when the international ship-ping companies of the world decide that the BeringStrait tunnel needs to get built, it’s going to get built.And if you want my opinion, I have the feeling some-how, that this is the background of what is going on in

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Russia today. I can’t prove that, but I believe it. And ofcourse, the most important of these companies is the APM@toller Maersk company, from Copenhagen,Denmark, because they’re the biggest shipping compa-ny. But all the others have a role. You know, if they putcontainers on the trains in the United States, they couldcertainly do it between Russia and the United States, orChina and the United States.

EIR: If you went from Xian to the United States, howmany days are you looking at, by rail, and how manydays are you looking at by ship?

Cooper: Ten versus 30. Actually, if you are going byship-rail, it’s about 20. It’s 10 by rail, it’s 30 by all water,all shipping. The only thing that’s shorter, of course,than going on the all-rail route, is putting the containerin a plane, and flying it to the United States, which takesall of one day. But, boy, is the cost up—six or seventimes!

EIR: Dmitri Mendeleyev, who of course was a railwaybuilder, and also a great scientist, said that a railroad islike yeast: There is great fermentation, and uplifting ofthe population. How do you look at that?

Cooper: I think he is 100% correct. You know, thiscountry was much more tied together when we had rail-roads. And when people travelled they could see every-thing on the ground, and they understood. Well, let’s

look what we do today. We fly from one urban area toanother urban area. Do we know what’s going on in theareas in between? No. We have no idea. Urban Americadoesn’t have a clue what Rural America is about, doesit?

You know, when we had railroads as our predomi-nant transport, back prior to 1920, all these little townswere quite active. Many of them have died off, or aregreatly reduced from what they used to be. Of coursethe railroad companies in this country operate on thepoint A to point B mentality. We forget everything inbetween. And if this country returns to a predominant-ly rail transportation system—which I think in the nextten years it’s going to, because of the rise of the price ofoil—we’re going to have to put an end to point A topoint B mentality in the railroad industry. Whichmeans we’re probably going to have to go back to a reg-ulated industry, just as the LaRouche movement hasbeen saying.

EIR: Let’s take the broad sweep. We’re now building arail line that’s going to go from the United States,through Canada, through the territories like the Yukonterritory, to Alaska, then into Russia. You’ve got vastexpanses of undeveloped parts of this world. And ofcourse, taking these rail lines across the land-bridge,you’re going to go into areas like Afghanistan eventually,

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© J. Craig Thorpe. Commissioned by Cooper Consulting Co.

The proposed bridge would cross the Lena River near the city of Yakutsk, in Russia’s Sakha Republic, creating a rail link thatwould sweep east to Alaska, and south to China.

and sweep all the way into Iran on the southern route,and into Europe. What would this do for the develop-ment of those territories?

Cooper: They would just explode. You would put somuch additional traffic, and business, and economicactivity, it would just far, far exceed anything that existsnow. And you would allow many of the resources to bedeveloped, and of course you’d have a much greater levelof integration of trade, transport, and commerce, amongthe different countries.

I’ve been on the Eurasian Land-Bridge in China to seethat. It’s a very heavily travelled railroad line, lots and lotsof trains. Until two years ago, they were still runningsteam locomotives. I was over there in 2000, and theywere running steam locomotives, in some areas, not inall.

They are beginning to electrify in some routes, and ofcourse, they’re doing maglev and high-speed rail, sothey are certainly ahead of the United States in whatthey are doing, as compared to what they’re talkingabout. And it would have an enormous impact on thatentire region.

In China, they’ve been building this to Urumqi in west-ern China, through the capital of Kazakstan, and thenthrough Tashkent, and down through Ashgabat, andfinally across the border into Iran, I guess at a placecalled Mashhad. But then you’ve got another gauge prob-lem, because it runs on standard gauge. India, interest-ingly enough, has five railroad gauges....

EIR: In your rough estimate, what would building this dofor the U.S. economy?

Cooper: It would require us to retool our economy.You know, the machine tool decline would have toreverse. All the domestic supply industries, and, ofcourse, the need for developing all the resources wouldgo back up again, and all that would have to happen....

EIR: LaRouche has been talking about thinking of thenext 50 years, and how you plan projects for the genera-tion, two generations, because many of these great pro-jects have a lifespan of that. How long would this projecttake?

Cooper: the minimum would be 10 years. If you gotserious, you could get it built in 10 years. It could be aslong as 20 years. Actually, what I think is going to happenis it can be built in increments, you can get started—I

noticed my cost projections, if you built just fromYakutsk to Fort Nelson, they were looking at $65 billion,with a double-track system. And the tunnel cost wasabout $15 billion, which is about the same as the cost ofthe English Channel tunnel—a shorter link, but morecomplicated.

My assessment was, if you build a double-track tunnel,it’s about $15 billion, but I think you’re going to needthree tracks, and my estimate is, it’s $25 billion. And myestimate is probably $75 billion for the same distance,instead of $65 billion....

EIR: OK, so you’re going to have three tracks. Would youhave fiber optic cables in there...

Cooper: Yes, and electrical utilities. Power plantsalong the line at 300- to 400-mile increments, or whateverit is. Nuclear, coal, gas, hydro—whatever will work there.The thing is, once you build a power plant, if you build itbigger than what the electric railroad’s demands are, youcan use all the rest of the electricity for local economicdevelopment. Exactly what the LaRouche movement hasbeen advocating.

EIR: In terms of comparing this, say for instance, to thetunnel between France and England, or in Japan, theSikan tunnel, how would you rate the difficulty?

Cooper: Probably easier than either of those, becauseof more stable soil, and the fact that it doesn’t have to beas deep. You don’t have rock fissure problems, as youhave in the English Channel, and you’re not building inan earthquake fault zone as you are with the tunnel inJapan.

EIR: Former Alaska Governor Walter Hickel was at thisApril 24 conference, describing such big projects as “thealternative to war.” The Russians, historically, were ori-ented toward American System networks, whichhelped build the Trans-Siberian Railroad. Do youthink the Russians are thinking about such precedentsnow?

Cooper: My personal belief is that it was VladimirPutin’s intention, from the day he became the Presidentof Russia, on New Year’s Eve of 1999, that he wanted toestablish a strong relationship with the United States,and even wanted there to be an alliance. That opportuni-ty is still open, and needs to be based around the BeringStrait railroad tunnel project.

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