Question: I'm from Los Angeles, California. I've been reading in the paper about the Russian oil companies being indicted. I was wondering if you could tell us about that. And also if you have any feelings about Ezra Pound, the poet. Not the economist, but the poet, if you could tell us about him, your opinions? Thank you.

LaRouche: Russia has--we discussed this somewhat indirectly, the same subject area, yesterday in Baltimore, as some of you may recall. There are two nations on this planet which have a global view of the planet. China does not have a global view of the planet; Russia does, the United States does. Other nations may have a global view of the planet, but they don't have an efficient global view of the planet. That is, European nations, continental European nations, do not have a global view of the planet, because they are living in the Anglo-Dutch liberal parliamentary model, or its influence today, and therefore they do not have a sense of sovereignty, because their sovereignty is contaminated, not only by the fact that there are other powers which are relatively hegemonic in respect to them in recent history; but also because, if your government is subject to veto by a private interest called an independent central banking system, you don't have any sovereignty at all.

And that's why European governments go to dictatorships under conditions of financial crisis; because when the conflict comes between the general welfare in a modern state, and the interest of the bankers, then the government must choose. And governments which are controlled by the central bankers will choose against the people. And how does the government do that? Well, it simply imposes a dictatorship. First thing it does, it overthrows the parliament, the parliamentary government, creates a crisis, with a news scandal or some kind of scandal. Overthrow the government and put in a dictatorship, or put in a de facto dictatorship, by some ministerial government, which is a dictatorial form of government. So that European nations, your continental European nations, do not have a true sense of sovereignty. And if you don't have a true sense of sovereignty, you're imperfect in your ability to try to understand the planet as a whole.

Because, the planet as a whole is a matter of different states which should be sovereign. And therefore, you have to look at one sovereign nation, in terms of how do you relate to the planet as a whole which is a mosaic of nations which should be sovereign. Therefore, you have to look at what is the common interest, the common characteristics, what is the driving force that is determining current history? And if you are in a great power, which the United States is in various respects; if Russia, which used to be a great power, which is implicitly still a great power, they look differently at the world than do the continental Europeans generally, or China, or other nations.

Now, therefore, that's key to understanding the issue of the Yukos oil question, which is what's the Khodorkovsky case. Putin is walking as an institutional person. Putin is a former member of the Foreign Service of the KGB, the Russian intelligence service, a foreign service specialist, who spent a good deal of time in the Saxony region of Germany, where he was associated with the high-tech industry, which is especially electronics, which is based around Dresden. As a reflection of the institution which has been cut back in Eastern Germany, the Freiburg Academy, which was for a time, the Freiburg University, which was the driver of electronics development for the Soviet system, in terms of production, in Saxony, in Germany. That's where he was. He was sitting on--the Freiburg Academy at the university, which was integrating a lot of capabilities in East Germany and Russia on projects of development, and for example, computers and so forth, were developed there. Dresden, which is a city which is part of that area--and Leipzig next to it--was the area where a lot of this development was occurring, in East Germany. So, he was there. And he was the coordinator of the Soviet interest operations of that nature in East Germany at that time.

So, therefore, you are dealing with a professional intelligence officer with a foreign service qualification. He comes out of the St. Petersburg mafia, in a sense, in the postwar period, the old Leningrad mafia. He now becomes a part of the Yeltsin government, what we call the Al Gore government over here, because of its corruption. And he then becomes the President of Russia.

Now, what are you dealing with? You are dealing with a figure, not as a political background, but as a ministerial background. In other words, his background is not as a political party person, not a political campaign. He is a ministerial background. He is interacting with various institutions. The country has been destroyed, largely, and looted--chiefly by the United States, in the post-war period. It is still Russia. It still has Russian passions, which are specifically Eurasian, rather than European. Russia is not a European nation. It is a Eurasian nation, with dominant European characteristics, but as a special kind.

Now, Russia was once a superpower, and thinks of itself as having been a great power and superpower. Therefore, when it looks at the world and the mess the world's in, it has a double opinion, a divided opinion. On the one side, Russia, under Putin--remember, don't look at him as a political figure in the ordinary sense. This is a ministerial figure, who is now the President of Russia. In other words, he is a bureaucrat, who is now the President of the country, with a special ministerial background. His one side is to establish at all costs, if possible, cooperation with the United States; that's his primary concern. His second concern, his other, secondary, concerns: China; Russia already has a good relationship with India, of its special type; but China is a great concern to Russia, the relationship to China. But the relationship with the United States is in a sense primary, from a Russian standpoint. Its relationship with Western Europe is tertiary, but important, extremely important.

So, therefore, you're sitting in a position, on the one side, he's trying to find cooperation for Russia, with the United states, with China, maintain the relationship with India, and develop a richer relationship with continental Europe at the same time. That's the peaceful version.

On the other side, he's faced with the reality, which he has expressed an understanding of publicly, that the world is headed for a war, a world war of a type lying between conventional warfare and thermonuclear destruction. Russia, on the other side, like China, and so forth, is preparing for world war of that type in the foreseeable future. As Putin is.

Now, up to a certain point, Russia took the view, which some people would call cynical, others opportunistic, others whatever, that they had to tolerate the continued looting of Russia by the United States, by financial interests--and Israeli interests--called the oligarchs, the thieves. They had to tolerate that as a political condition of a peaceful relationship with the United States. So, therefore, the looting of Russia--we're talking about hundreds of billions of dollars of looting directly by this method; talking about mass death of Russian people, the destruction of a large part of the nation and the people, by this Anglo-American looting, which leaves some very deep feelings there.

So, there are the two sides. So, his policy is a balance between these two things. At this point I come into the picture; not because of Russia, as such, but because, as you know, as I've said, I spend about half my time outside the United States, and apart from just being a candidate in the United States, I am an important candidate of the United States internationally; probably more significant than any of the other candidates of the United States, internationally, by far. Some of them don't exist. I mean, Sharpton, for example, doesn't exist outside the United States! I don't think he exists in Brooklyn, actually, either. I think he's just an object in search of money, rather than having any well-defined purpose.

I've had a certain impact on these questions, especially in the past two, three years. And therefore, the way in which countries such as Russia, certain countries in Western Europe, China, India, elsewhere, the Arab world generally, the Islamic world, to a large degree, think about the United States, they think in terms of the equation, that is including me as a factor in U.S. policy. And the question is, to what degree do I have an influence in shaping U.S. policy: That's a part of their calculation. It's not simply something that's discussed; it's an active part of their consideration, of the way they look at the United States. And Russia looks at the United States, also, in terms of me and my candidacy. Therefore, Russia's concern is to maintain its relationship with the United States, if possible--for example, I'm a factor in that--on the other hand, to go to war generally, or be forced to war in the coming period, if that doesn't work out.

Now, what's my attitude about Yukos, and these swine? As President of the United States, I'd be perfectly sympathetic to putting the whole bunch in jail and clean the whole mess up. So, therefore, to the extent that either Putin's circles think that they can rely on my having a greater influence in the United States--or they don't give a damn, that the case is otherwise hopeless--they're going to proceed, and change their government to eliminate or reduce significantly the power of the mafia. And that's what's happening.

On the question of Ezra Pound: Ezra Pound was a traitor to the United States. He is a Nazi. And in order to escape being shot, he pled insanity, and his friends arranged it for him. He's terrible. He's a Nazi in his poetry. He's a Nazi in his literature. And he's the one who said you could sell ideas by the pound.

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