Part of a legacy
From a 1983 KGB letter to Yuri Andropov, head of the USSR:
Kennedy and his friends will bring about suitable steps to have representatives of the largest television companies in the USA contact Y.V. Andropov for an invitation to Moscow for the interview. Specifically, the president of the board of directors of ABC, Elton Raul and television columnists Walter Cronkite or Barbara Walters could visit Moscow. The senator underlined the importance that this initiative should be seen as coming from the American side.
Furthermore, with the same purpose in mind, a series of televised interviews in the USA with lower level Soviet officials, particularly from the military would be organized. They would also have an opportunity to appeal directly to the American people about the peaceful intentions of the USSR, with their own arguments about maintaining a true balance of power between the USSR and the USA in military term. This issue is quickly being distorted by Reagan’s administration…
Senator Kennedy, like other rational people, is very troubled by the current state of Soviet-American relations. Events are developing such that this relationship coupled with the general state of global affairs will make the situation even more dangerous. The main reason for this is Reagan’s belligerence…According to Kennedy, the current threat is due to the President’s refusal to engage any modification on his politics.
Kennedy’s critique of Reagan was public knowledge: “misleading Red-scare tactics and reckless Star Wars schemes.” But Kennedy’s reaching out to the KGB and Andropov with his offer to arrange favorable media coverage was a decidedly behind the scenes attempt to undermine his political foe. Feel free to decide whether that was a good thing or a bad thing in the conduct of American foreign policy