“The Russian Connection,” a remarkable documentary that details hard evidence of Soviet involvement in the training of PLO terrorists, will be televised Sept. 25 by the Public Broadcasting Service. The television documentary, a co-production of KERA-TV, Dallas Fort Worth, and the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., will be aired simultaneously in the United States and Canada.
“The Russian Connection” features the first public admission by officers of the Palestine Liberation Organization of their training in the Soviet Union. The program reveals the type of training they received and the names and places of the Soviet KGB camps where terrorist training takes place. Three other terrorist groups from Africa and the Middle East also receiving training are named by those who trained with them in Russia.
The documentary begins with the death of Gail Rubin, an American photographer murdered by a Fatan terrorist squad on a beach in Israel in March, 1978. Surrounding her death was a web of connections in transnational terrorism that reached to the Soviet Union, East Germany, Syria and to PLO training bases in Lebanon.
Analysis and commentary are given by Ray Cline formerly head of Intelligence, U.S. Department of State, now director of the Center for Strategic Studies, Georgetown University; Brian Crozier, director of the Institute for the Study of Conflict, London; and by Gen. Shlomo Gazit, head of Israeli Military Intelligence, 1974-79.
Cline calls the Soviet training activities and support part of a pattern of “low intensity warfare” serving Soviet geo-political interests in the Middle East and elsewhere. The experts’ commentary also considers questions regarding the free world’s response to the intention of Soviet involvement in terrorism. Veteran broadcast journalist Marilyn Berger will serve as anchor for the documentary. Producer for “The Russian Connection” is Herb Krosney.
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