15.1 The Silver Fox

Angelozzi Tetriverdzi was born to a poor family in the village of Mamati in Guria, western Georgia, on 25^th January 1928. A hardworking lad who began his political career in 1940 by joining the Komsomol – the Youth Wing of the Communist Party. In 1948, he joined the Georgian Communist Party (GCP) and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). He rose steadily in the hierarchy to serve the GCP as First Secretary from 1957 to 1961. His comrades called him ‘The Ram’. During his Secretaryship, he met Mikhail Gorbachev for the first time.

It should be noted that Mikhail Gorbachev chose allies like Ram and Yakov as his partners with visions of perestroika; the principles of restructuring the economic and political system. Though during Gorbachev’s era, he realised Gorbachev was too conservative to make the leap away from communism and embrace democracy. He gave up his foreign office and left the party. Ram returned to Georgia in 1992.

Khrushchev delivered his Special Report in close session to the 20^th Congress of the CPSU on 24^th and 25^th February 1956, in which he broadly criticised Stalin’s rule of his direct involvement in the Red Army with his lack of ingenuity that brought heavy loss at the first stages of WWII, purging of oppositional cadres who deviated from the direction of Soviet economic and foreign policy, even that Khrushchev rejected foundational Marxist principles and theses denouncing the proletarian dictatorship.

Shortly after he delivered that Secret Speech, as it became known, western intelligence agencies obtained the script through their network of spies, translated into English, and distributed widely outside the bloc.

Anti-revisionist protests started in Tbilisi on 4^th March and quickly spread to other areas of Georgia with their cries and slogans directed at the Soviet government and its ‘destalinisation’ policy. On 7^th March, students of Tbilisi State University refused to attend lectures and all moved to Lenin Square to protest the new policies of the Communist Party. They demanded an appointment with Marshal Zhu De, leader of the Chinese civil war on a visit to Georgia, in the hope of obtaining support from China and Chairman Mao Zedong. The numbers reached 70,000 and the capital was paralysed. Zhu De appeared to greet the crowd but he gave no speech. On 9^th March, protestors moved towards the postal building to send a telegraph to Chairman Mao. Troops deployed in the city opened fire upon the students picketing the government buildings in what the official version was ‘an act of self-defence’. The agitated crowd continued resistance however dispersed by tanks and lethal force. Eyewitnesses claimed hundred demonstrators were killed and many more injured.

Ram was disillusioned by the crimes perpetrated by Joseph Stalin and shocked by the government’s brutal response to the demonstration. It appeared parting from Stalin’s authoritarian system was a bluff and any form of change indefinite. Ram himself was a pro-Stalinist and a pro-reformist. He was demoted after offending a senior official in 1961.

He was appointed as First Deputy of the Ministry of Public Safety of the Georgian SSR after challenging his predecessor on corruption charges in 1964. Throughout his leadership, he campaigned for anti-corruption. At the time, his country was most afflicted by corruption among Soviet republics, branded for weak leadership, nepotism, despotism and subornation. Ram engaged in subterfuge; dressed like a peasant and drove his merchandise across the border to evaluate illegal trade. The entire Georgian border police was purged. It was even said of him that he would ask leading officials to show their hands and those who wore western watches ordered to replace them with Soviet ones. Little was known of him in the broader world or nothing at all.

The irony was – when he was forced to resign as head of state of an independent Georgia at a much later stage in his political career, he was characterised by every facet of corruption and accusations of nepotism. He was known as ‘The Silver Fox’ who helped the West. When the Soviet Union collapsed, he was categorised by the CIA as ‘the disciplinarian in a loose republic’ who negotiated to secure the liberating states within the new federation.

On a cool Autumn afternoon touched by a gentle breeze, Salazar arrived at Tbilisi by train and checked in at Okros Satsmisi, another fabulous hotel with corridors carpeted in a red and gold seamless Baroque pattern and his suite in dark blue and gold. He was glad to see a huge comfortable bed and a complimentary bottle of Chateau Mukhrani wine in a bucket. Out of his window, he glanced at the buildings around and a skirting hillside glazed in a terrestrial radiation to hurt his eyes, shadows lingering at the hour. He stopped his focus at the isolated building lit in the sunlight, standing right in front of the hotel on the opposite side of Gia Gulua Street. His earnest request for an appointment with Colonel Tetriverdzi was granted for five minutes on the following day at that building of the Ministry of Public Safety.

Monday morning on 4^th October, he sat down at the visitors’ lounge going through the contents in the file he carried. He came prepared to submit the case though still unclear how to present his case. He made large prints from Tyler’s assortment of photographs and 35 mm film cartridges; chose 100 relevant images including 16 pages of the TAM file and a bunch of addresses from the card holder. He figured it was about a purchase agreement of two Antonov aircrafts, model An-24, from Aeroflot with Tbilisi Aircraft State Association as the escrow agent, to be delivered to the buyer, Macedon Air, by March 1965. Salazar checked with Macedon Air in Skopje and those aircrafts were in operation. There were other particulars, including part of a renewal aircraft maintenance services agreement with Antonov Research and Design Bureau.

The signee for this new airline, Macedon Air, was Aleksandre Giorgashvili. Salazar brought a picture taken of him at the Nyolc restaurant as well.

Aleksandre Giorgashvili was born in the village of Lakhiri in the Svaneti region of Georgia and educated in Gagra. He joined the Navy in 1924 after completing the Leningrad branch of the Frunze Higher Naval School. He was posted to the Baltic Fleet and taking command of the submarine ShCh-321. Alexey retired and the reason was unknown but he did not serve in the Second World War. He was a Board Member of TAM Aviation Group.

Angelozzi Tetriverdzi was appointed Minister of Public Safety of the Georgian SSR on 22^nd May 1965. Later this ministry reverted to its former name as the Ministry of Internal Affairs on 19^th November 1968. News reached Salazar promptly and he was told that Ram was a kind of man with authority and power no matter his background portrayed no qualities of a noble descent or wealth. The Politburo found him gifted to crush crime and corruption hence put him in charge of law and order. He was a Board Member of TAM Aviation Group as well.

Therefore, Salzar decided to meet this man. His only problem was that he couldn’t find this case to tie up with fraud. Besides, this could be common knowledge to the Georgian Authorities. His only desire however was to take this opportunity to ask him to set Tyler Friesen free from exile in Siberia. Then what was he doing in Georgian SSR? Salazar clenched his fists nervously.