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Article: Strings attached. (Lithuania's economy)
- Article from:
- National Review
- Article date:
- September 23, 1991
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1991 National Review, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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EIGHT telephones still stood on the desk in the Vilnius KGB chairman's office. An oil painting of Lenin glowered down from the wall. A shrine to Felix Dzerzhinsky nestled on the shelf. The ashes in the antique stove in the corner of the room contained burnt remains of several sheets of paper. I picked up the red telephone--the one set aside from the rest and with a Soviet coat of arms in place of a dial. There was nobody at the other end any more.
The Vilnius KGB stayed loyal and obedient to the end. In the dungeons, eighty cells had been spruced up to welcome the expected internees. But when Moscow bungled the show and the order was to give up rather than ...