TV NATION NEWSLETTER September 1, 1995

LETTER FROM CRACKERS

I've been on the road for the past few weeks, winging it across America in search of corporate wrong-doing. As you saw on the August 25th episode of "TV Nation", I was sticking my big spongy orange beak in the face of some polluters in St. Louis. And just earlier this week (8/28 - 8/29), I was in Detroit, trying to break up the big American media monopolies (don't be surprised if we have trouble getting this on the air; so far it's planned for the September 8th episode -- our last currently scheduled "TV Nation"). Even by chicken standards, Detroit was a tough town. I was physically thrown 10 feet by some union-busting goons at the site of the local newspaper strike. Yee-ow! That smarts! I'm a chicken. I'm not suppose to fly. Check it out on September 8th -- if it gets on.

I also stopped in a whole bunch of other cities this past month - Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Decatur, Illinois. I met anywhere from a few hundred to several thousand people in each city -- all of them with killer corporate crime tips. In Chicago, where we had about 3,000 people, the crowd was so enthusiastic in its anti-corporate fever, the city actually called in riot police to shut us down. My chicken sense was telling me to say "Braackk the cops!" but alas, I am protected by several layers of feathers, foam, and metal -- to say nothing of my giblets of steel -- while the rest of you only have a few layers of skin to stop those baton blows. I cut my Chicago visit short. (If you're interested in a really cool write-up about Chicago, check out the article, "Tongue in Beak" by Steve Johnson, in the Chicago Tribune on August 14, 1995.)

For now, my corporate crime-gathering roadtrip is on hold until we find out where "TV Nation" will air next. Fox has until December to decide whether they will renew or cancel us. So keep barraging them with mail and phone calls to keep us on. Hey, and there's still a few other networks we haven't been on yet. Send those guys some letters too. We're available after December. Tell them The Bird sent you. And keep fighting for Truth, Justice, and a little thing called Corporate Responsibility.

I am chicken.

Hear me Braack. BRAACCKKKK!

YURI'S BIO

Yuri B. Shvets was employed by the KGB, the State Security Agency of the former USSR, from 1980 until 1990. In addition to working at the KGB's Headquarters outside of Moscow, Yuri was stationed in Washington, DC, from 1985 until 1987.

The following text is reprinted from the book jacket to Yuri Shvets's book "Washington Station."

In the spring of 1985, Yuri B. Shvets, an idealistic young KGB officer, reported to the Soviet embassy in Washington, D.C., home of the KGB's Washington station. His mission: to try to recruit Americans with access to important political offices, including the White House, the Pentagon, and the CIA. It was no easy task, and many of Shvets's KGB colleagues never even made the effort. Nonetheless, under cover as a reporter for TASS, the Soviet news agency, Shvets managed to recruit a journalist and former White House advisor - code-named "Socrates" - whose story has never been told before.

In "Washington Station," his riveting account of his experiences spying against the United States, Yuri Shvets describes in fascinating detail what only a real KGB officer could know: the daily activities of Soviet spies in our nation's capital, including the elaborate games of cat and mouse between KGB officers and FBI agents.

Ironically, it was Shvets's successful recruitment of Socrates that caused him to become disillusioned with the KGB. Shvets paints a devastating portrait of the Soviet spy agency in the final years of the USSR. The KGB was a mirror of Soviet society, collapsing from bureaucracy and incompetence. The head of the Washington residency was so fearful of FBI and CIA plants that he all but forbade his officers to recruit new agents. Because of his recruit, Shvets found himself under constant suspicion within the KGB. Increasingly frustrated and demoralized, Shvets finally quit the KGB in 1990 when the Agency began preparing to oppose the democracy movement in Russia by force.

Yuri B. Shvets is an honors graduate of Patrice Lumumba People's Friendship University, with a degree in international law. He studied for two years at the Yuri Andropov Intelligence Institute outside Moscow. He spent two years in the Washington residency of the KGB and rose eventually to the rank of major. In 1990 he resigned his position and in 1993 emigrated to the United States. He now lives in the suburbs of Washington, D.C.