Press: Glasnost Comes to TASS

Once a propaganda tool, the Soviet agency wins new respect

It seems that almost no news is good news for Moscow's leadership these days. The Soviet economy continues to sputter; ethnic tensions are flaring; independence movements are gaining force; Communist regimes are collapsing all over; and the Soviet population is increasingly disgruntled. Surprisingly, some of the fullest, frankest reporting of these events has come from none other than TASS, the official Soviet news agency and long an uncritical government mouthpiece. In a report from Lithuania last month, for example, TASS cited a description of that republic's "1940 joining of the Soviet Union as a 'violation by outside force' of the sovereignty...

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