Jack Matlock was US ambassador to Moscow during the Gorbachev period and Ronald Reagan's full-time go-between with the Soviet leadership. He is a career diplomat, fluent in Russian and knowledgeable about Russian history and culture. He traveled widely in the Soviet Union. He has written a book, "Autopsy on an Empire," on his experiences as a diplomat during the rise and fall of Gorbachev and the collapse of the Soviet empire.
Present at his talk: Malgorszata Gajda, Poland; Pavlo Fedorchenko, Kiev; Gabor Juhasz from Hungary; Heshan de Silva-Weeramuni; Dionyz Hochel of Slovakia; Darius Aidukas of Lithuania; Yuri Shevchuk, Ukraine; Magdalena Iwanska, Warsaw; Mariela Vargova, Bulgaria; Nikolai Rudenski, visiting scholar; Viktor Piskounov, Russian mission to the United Nations; Jeff Goldfarb, New School professor, sociology; Ina Breuer; Belinda Cooper; several New School degree candidates.
Elzbieta Matynia: [After introducing Mr. Matlock] Ambassador Matlock is now Professor Matlock at Columbia University.
JM: I know that everyone here has a very deep knowledge of all the things we will be talking about, and I think I should really leave most of our time for a discussion so you can raise those questions that most interest you and we can get your points of view as well. But let me just start off -- the book is largely historical, it looks into the process by which the Soviet empire collapsed. As I understood it, you wanted me to talk today about what goes into making foreign policy today. And clearly what we are seeing in all of the successor states of the Soviet Union is a transition period which is quite painful; the degree of pain may differ slightly, it's somewhat less in Estonia and Latvia and maybe much more in say Ukraine and Kazakhstan, with Russian somewhere in between. But we have certainly seen in the politics of Russia the development of concerns growing out of the way that the economic transition, in particular, has been carried out. And I think that we saw that in December in the results of the state Duma elections, where the reconstituted Communist Party, it's not the Communist party of old but the one led by Gennady Zukhanov, won more votes than any other party, that is about 22%. Well 22% is a long way from a majority, and yet when you look at the other protest votes, and these were protest votes, you have Zhirinovsky's liberal democratic party, a misleading name if there ever was one, coming n with between 11 and 12%, and on the other side you had Our Home is Russia, the one supporting the current government, at around 10%, a little under actually, and Yablokov, Yavlinsky's party, a reform party but one which has been in opposition coming in at less than 7%. So in a sense those four various types of reform were certainly outvoted by those who don't like what's going on. Many people have found this election very disturbing, just as they found in December 93 the sudden upsurge of Zhirinovsky's liberal democratic party, which in that election got over 20%, as opposed to 24, they got only about half in this December election, so it seems that the protest votes were drifting to other parties, and particularly to the Communist Party.
So the question arises, how much should we be concerned about this, is this some movement that could return to communism. After all, much of the political rhetoric centered on the difficulties that the economic transition, and particularly economic reform, had brought to large numbers of people, and in fact those changes have caused an unprecedented stratification of income, with the creation of an extremely rich class making up probably less than 1% of the population, and relegating 30% or more to the edge of existence. This obviously is a very very unstable social situation, when one gets this much discrepancy. At the same time, many of the people who criticize the social and economic effects of the transition have also accused the Yeltsin government of being too cooperative with the West and not sufficiently defending Russia's interests. Frankly, I think that those charges are not only untrue, they are also beside the point, but nevertheless they have a political effect, and of course one can find some rather outrageous statements, particularly from leaders like Zhirinovsky, who has anything but a coherent program. Well, since the election I think we have seen the new Duma getting organized fairly rapidly, with some chairmanships that shifted perhaps to the more anti-reform side; but at the same time, the overall composition, as I see it now, is probably not that radically different from the way it was before. They have a Communist speaker, Mr. Silizniov {???}, but he comes from the more moderate wing of the party, and on the whole a lot of the key committee chairmanships remain in the same hands they were in before; Yablokov, for example, still has foreign affairs and budget, and these are two very key committees. On the whole, however, the Duma is not really going to be capable of changing the course of Russian policy, either foreign policy or domestic policy, because no one has anything near the two-thirds majority that would be required for overturning presidential vetoes or presidential decrees. The presidency remains the most powerful institution under the constitution; and we have seen, more significantly than congress, president Yeltsin moving fairly rapidly to position himself for the June elections, and this has meant particularly purging the remaining democratic reformers from his cabinet, bringing in people who have in effect made many of the criticisms of Yeltsin's opponents in the past, and this I think many people find very disturbing, though we haven't yet seen what these people can do. I think we do face, particularly with the replacement of Kosyrev with Primakov, a foreign minister who is going to be more assertive than his predecessor; whether Russia can change its policy very much is very much questionable, though, because in effect Russian policy has not been ignoring Russian interests, and in fact Russian interests, in my opinion, are very heavily engaged with the West, and any attempt to confront the West on any of these issues is going to hurt Russia most of all, although it may be unpleasant for the rest of us. So in the final analysis, I think there are real limits to the degree that the policy can actually change. The rhetoric, however, may change, and I suspect that we are going to be seeing also more assertive Russian rhetoric in regard to the other successor states of the Soviet Union. But here again I think it is probably going to be more rhetoric than actually aggressive policies. The fact of the matter is, when we look at Russia today, that much of the power that was once exercised by Moscow has now seeped out to the regions, and I don't believe that the country would support a dictatorship again, or that it could or would support an attempt to revive the Soviet Union by force, simply because, well, the reality is they don't have the strength to do it anymore, provided that the successor states want to stay independent; now Belarus may not want to, that's another question, but even then it's going to be hard because even though you see the president of Belarus, who was elected in a fair election, campaigning for some sort of union with Russia, there are certain elements in Russia that find this very flattering, but when they get down to negotiating the details they find that it's going to be very expensive, and the Russians tend to back away. We saw that in the currency agreement, there was an agreement over a year ago in principle to merge the currencies and to exchange the Belarussian ruble at one to one, and in the final analysis the state bank and others looked at this in horror and decided that Russia simply couldn't afford it, it would simply bring too much inflation to Russia and undermine their whole effort to stabilize the currency. So I think that's instructive, that those who talk about reviving the empire, talk about reviving or strengthening the commonwealth of independent states, are sometimes ignoring the reality that some of the things that they would have to do to do this would be extraordinarily expensive. And certainly to do it by force would be expensive. They have learned that they can't even subdue one of their tiniest provinces that has taken up arms, so how in the world could they get themselves rationally in a battle with an independent state that doesn't want to be taken over? And the answer is they couldn't, and they wouldn't. So it does seem to me that we have to separate the rhetoric from the reality so far as Russian politics is concerned, and be more concerned with the reality. The problem with the rhetoric though is it does have a political effect, it has a political effect dealing with the West and the rest of the world, because people are familiar with Russian and Soviet history and worry about a repeat when people begin to talk that way. But it has a particularly deleterious effect, I believe, on the possibility of developing better economic and other institutions within the Commonwealth of Independent States. The fact of the matter is that all would benefit from keeping a single economic space, from keeping open borders, from having customs unions and that sort of thing; nobody gains from the separations which have begun to occur since the breakup of the Soviet Union. But if Russia leaves the impression it's doing this as a hegemon and forcing it on the others, the others will refuse to go along. We've seen this in the repeated negotiations with Ukraine, we've also seen it in the repeated rejection in Kazakhstan of some of the Russian demands, and some of the others. Even though President Nazerbayev has been one of the champions of strengthening the Commonwealth, he wants to strengthen it in a way that doesn't leave Russia the hegemon, and Russia has so far rejected that. So what we are seeing is an interrelationship which is still evolving, but one in which in fact the other states are probably going to define the pace, and if Russia seems too aggressive, this is going to work against Russian interests. However, politics in no country are totally rational, and certainly that's true in many of the successor states, emotions run very deep and demagogues can tap these emotions.
Well that's a very long introduction to the situation as I see it there, and what about our foreign policy toward it? Well, one thing I think we need to understand and bear in mind is that in dealing with the Soviet Union as it began to open up and democratize internally, the United States and Western Europe too, for the most part, had never recognized the incorporation of the Baltic states in the Soviet Union and consistently backed their independence, if that was the free choice of the people. On the other hand, as far as the rest of the Soviet Union is concerned, although we were aware of the nationalist movements, we ourselves had no interest in trying to break up the Soviet Union provided it could go democratic. This was the business of the Soviet leaders, and if Gorbachev could have negotiated a voluntary union, we certainly would not have objected, and in certain respects we probably would have been a little more comfortable with that, particularly when it came to negotiating issues like nuclear weapons. That was not the choice of the people, and through the political processes, or the failure of the political processes, within the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union broke up. The United States accepted this, and accepted this readily, and immediately recognized all the successor states, and was the first country to announce it would establish diplomatic relations with all of them. And we did, within almost record time in 1992, establish full diplomatic relations with resident embassies and ambassadors in all the successor states. Clearly we wanted to have good relations with all, and to the degree that, in these days of budgetary stringency, we could have economic assistance, the intent was to provide it on a reasonable basis to all. We ran into problems, particularly in Ukraine, over nuclear issues, and particularly over the unwillingness for a time of the Ukrainian Rada, not the Ukrainian government, the Ukrainian government had agreed early on that they would become a nuclear free state and join the non-proliferation treaty, however the Parliament, the Rada, refused to agree to this for several years, and that of course caused some problems with us, but the biggest problem in developing aid programs with some of the successor states was not that the United States was favoring one over the others, I know the charge was often made that our policy was Russocentric, it was only Russocentric to the degree that Russia being the biggest, and Russia having in many cases the most problems that impinged upon us, obviously absorbed more time of policy makers than the others. We also recognized that if Russia really bolloxed things up and went in the wrong direction, this would create an almost impossible situation for everyone else; whereas a Russia which could reform and become a good neighbor would have a favorable effect everywhere, just because of its size. So yes, a lot of attention did go to Russia, but there was no -- as far as I know, I was not in the government then, I retired in 91, but as far as I could tell there was no intent to favor Russia over the others. But, there was one big advantage Russia had when it came to aid. Russia did start economic reform very rapidly, and it was the economic reform that gave us the basis for developing some aid programs. As I used to tell Gorbachev, and since when I would talk to Kravchuk and some others, I would say, look, if you want help as to how to run state enterprises, don't come to us, we don't know how to do it; we think it can't be done. If you start privatizing, if you're going to create a market economy, we do have some experience, maybe we can help; but if you're going to try to preserve the old system, we're irrelevant. It's your business whether you do it or not, we're not trying to make the decision, but don't expect us to be able to come in and either invest in state enterprises that are losers, or think that we can somehow help you out run them efficiently, we just don't know anyway it can be done. So one of the problems with Ukraine other than the nuclear one was that the Ukrainian economy was not being reformed, and this left very little scope actually for US assistance expect for the most direct humanitarian kind. The technical assistance that we might have given simply wasn't relevant until there were reforms. Russian was reforming very rapidly--imperfectly to be sure, but in principle very moving much more rapidly, and that gave more opportunities. So at least in 92, the bulk of the aid did go to Russia; later, when by 93 and 94 actually the majority of aid was going to successor states other than Russia, even though Russia has about half the population of the former Soviet Union. In any event, what we're facing today are a number of questions about whether, in fact, there can be an effective partnership between Russia and the United States, and for that matter Western Europe, or whether we're going to see a revival of a confrontational relationship. Some rhetoric on both sides would tend to convince one that it's going to be the second, that is, more confrontational. And yet, when I look at the overall situation, I don't see any area where Russia's real interests conflict with the United States' interests. Now that's not to say that our interests are identical, of course they're not identical. I'm simply saying I don't see any areas where they conflict, if you define the interests properly [laughter from audience]. And of course this is the question. If we look at history, for example, we'll find that of all the countries the United States has never been in a real war with, one is Russia. The other is France; and other than that, every other major country we've had some war with at some time. The Cold War was not a war, thank goodness, or we probably wouldn't be here, and it was about ideology, it was not about Russia or Russian national interests; in fact one could make a very strong case that the whole Soviet experience was disastrous to real Russian interests. But the fact is, there is no reason for us to assume that there is a fundamental conflict of interests. Inevitably, there will be arguments about how best to defend our interests, and of course there can be economic competition, as we have with even our best friends, and so on -- as we have even within our society. But that's quite different, that's not the same as a conflict of interest. ON the specific issues, it seems to me that the United States does need to be a bit patient during this period of transition in Russia and in the other successor states, not jump to conclusions, and particularly not adopt policies which can become self-fulfilling prophecies; after all, if we define our policies in ways which are inimical to Russia, clearly that's going to create a confrontation, if we assume that Russia is defining their policies in ways that are inimical to us, that will have the same effect, so I think that we do have to keep the lines of communication open, and do our best to keep our interpretation of our interest in ways that they don't come into confrontation. On the whole, I think we've done a pretty good job of that, probably better in reality than some of the rhetoric would indicate. We've had rhetorical exchanges about whether NATO should expand eastward or not, and yet we find in practice the Russians are part of the partnership for peace, they are cooperating with NATO, we are developing a sense, and of course in Bosnia there are Russian troops there, and this is extremely important. If this works, then this will begin to establish habits of cooperation. Under the surface of some of this rhetoric, there is a lot more cooperation going on than people usually hear about. Other issues that we have, such as selling a nuclear power plant to Iran, the United States doesn't like that, Russia says it needs the money and this is safe because the power plant is the same type that we're going to supply North Korea, and inasmuch as North Korea has a greater nuclear capacity than Iran, and it's hard to argue that they are a greater threat, so what is wrong with supplying the same sort of plant? Frankly, I find their argument not totally invalid, but at the same time it seems to me that our policy has made a mistake in not approaching it from the standpoint of United States and Russia have a common interest in defending the non-proliferation treaty and the non-proliferation regime; clearly if Iran should gain nuclear weapons or a nuclear capability, it would be even more damaging to Russia's interests than to American interests--after all, we're further away. And therefore, the thing is, let's not do something stupid; if you really insist on selling it, let's get together and decide how we can keep the controls on the sale as tight as possible to prevent diversion into a weapons program, and at the same time make it clear that this is not a conflict of American and Russian interests, but one where we should be working cooperatively; our judgments about the impact may differ, but we can talk about that, because their interests are even more involved on the non-proliferation side than ours. And I think as one goes along and looks at the various issues, it seems to me that there are ways that one can reconcile the real interests of both countries with policies that would serve both rather than bring us into constant confrontation.
One of the most difficult issues in many ways, of course, is what the United States position should be if Russia involves itself in unwelcome ways in other successor states of the Soviet union, or to use their term, which I don't normally, the Near Abroad. I think there are several things to be said here, if one excludes the Baltic states, which as I said we formally as well as psychologically never considered rightfully part of the Soviet Union, we put them aside. And at the same time, in a geopolitical sense there is no particular reason for the United States to take a position on what the arrangements among these countries are. That's a decision for them to make. I don't see it as a great geopolitical disadvantage to the United States if there is a grouping which develops more intimate ties. On the other hand, I think it's extremely important for the future that whatever association develops, develops in a voluntary way, and in a way which meets the needs of all parties. So issues such as customs unions and things of that sort, even for that matter defense treaties, as long as they are equal and entered into by both sides, I don't see as in any way a detriment to the United States. On the other hand, if these are the result of Russian blackmail or threats or force, then obviously it is a different question and it is something that if we are going to have a relationship in the future that is one of partnership, that we should do our best to discourage it and certainly not approve it. But in any event, we should bear in mind, looking back at the way the Soviet Union broke up, there were two really key countries in that breakup: first was Ukraine in its decision to pull out, but then it was Russia's decision not to accept what was left, because they could have had a confederation or even a federation, including the central Asian states and Belarus, if they had chosen, and it was the Russian leadership, the elected leadership that decided not to do it, to go it alone; they formally recognized, for the first time in Russian history, the independence and territorial integrity of all the others, and this was ratified by the elected Russian parliament of that day, with only 5 or 6 dissenting votes out of I think over a thousand, and so this was as definitive as a legal act can be. And to give them their due, despite a number of disturbing tendencies, the Russian government, the presidency, the foreign ministry, since then has never wavered from the position that the other states are independent and they recognize the territorial integrity. When Crimea began to attempt to loosen ties with Kiev, they got no encouragement from the Russian government, they got some from perhaps some parliamentarians, but parliamentarians tend to be a little lacking in discipline in a lot of countries, including our own. And when the city council in Sevastopol declared itself a Russian city, this was actually denounced by the foreign ministry officially, that this could not be and that Russia had no territorial designs on Ukraine--whatever one may say about the way the transfer of the Crimea was effected in the 1950s; many Russians consider that unfair and all of that, but that's past, and Russia has officially recognized the independence and has not in any sense raised the question of Ukrainian sovereignty, independence or territorial integrity since then, and that is true of the others also, in a legal sense. Of course, there have been Russian practices which are disturbing, particularly support for the 14th army in Moldova and some of the actions taken earlier in Georgia, and one can find others, and yet it does seem to me that these were not the result of some grand design, but often simply a reaction to a situation that occurred locally and that was politically very difficult to turn off in Moscow. In any event, these do remain issues that people dealing with the area will be looking at very closely; on the other hand, I would go back to my original statement that I see no reason why, at least if we keep lines of communication open and Russia continues its policy of legal correctness vis-a-vis other countries, there's no reason in my mind for these to become serious issues in US-Russian relations.
Now, as far as we react to some of the recent developments, there's no reason to jump to conclusions; let's wait and see whether we do see a hardening of foreign policy and more difficult, or if we're just seeing a certain amount of rhetoric to hold off the critics until there's a presidential election. Actually it seems to me the most important thing for both Russians and foreigners who deal with them is that the democratic process in Russia continue; and the most important issue right now is not who holds which ministerial seats or which parties cross the finish line in some election first, but whether they continue to have elections, whether the democratic process is preserved; and I would hope that we would use as much private influence as we can with President Yeltsin to make sure that he or his close associates do not begin to somehow subvert this process or try to bypass it. There is a fear of course that if it looks as if Yeltsin cannot win in June that they will try to find by hook or crook some way to either avoid the election or to subvert it; I think that would be extraordinarily dangerous for Russian democracy and for everybody, and I think that we need to preserve a relationship that will allow us to at least do some things to deter that. I think we have that sort of relationship now. There is one issue that is often raised that I'd like to add and then turn this over to questions. That is, we often hear it said that we're sticking with Yeltsin too long, we should put more distance between us, we stuck with Gorbachev too long and look what happened. Well, this is a point of view it's very hard for me to understand. First of all, I don't see that US interests suffered in the slightest from our relationship with Gorbachev; as a matter of fact, our relationship with Gorbachev paid many many dividends, when one looks at what we were able to do as a result of the confidence of that relationship. When the Soviet Union broke up and he was no longer leader, it had no negative effect whatsoever on our relationship with the successor states; in fact our honeymoon with Russia occurred just after Gorbachev left office. As a matter of fact, I was in Moscow and had a private meeting with Yeltsin in October 1992 and the first thing he told me was, he was praying for George Bush's victory; now this was the person who had supposedly offended Yeltsin by not giving him enough attention and working with Gorbachev. The fact of the matter is, when a country has a president, particularly an elected president, they expect other countries to deal with them; and even the opposition, when they think about it, is not too happy if other countries begin to act as if somehow that president is not the president. Obviously, you do your business with whoever is in charge of the country. If that person changes, you do your business with the others. A country that is wise will maintain contacts with everybody, and in an open society they're expected to. You talk to the opposition, you talk to the others, you keep in mind what they're doing, but you don't take sides. And I don't know what people think we're supposed to do now. Obviously Yeltsin has made a lot of errors, and some of his policies have been very disturbing, and we've made this clear publicly on occasion, but are we supposed to endorse somebody else, does anyone think that would help? Nonsense! On the other hand, by keeping at least a correct relationship and maintaining a personal relationship, you do have a certain influence over him. I think it's probably no secret that the reason Russian troops are no longer stationed in Latvia and Estonia is because Clinton was able, in a personal relationship, to extract a promise from Yeltsin, even though politically this was difficult, given some of the citizenship problems there. Nobody has said that publicly, and they can't, but I'm sure that's true. And I think that one of the forces working for the continuance of the electoral process is this, because as I understand it, and I hope that it's true, Clinton is making it very clear that the personal relationship would not survive widespread fraud in the elections or trying to call off these presidential elections. Now this is the sort of influence that if you have a good relationship you can exert, if you do it privately; and those who think that we should take every concern and everything we're upset about and make a big public issue of it, I think are maybe a little naive about how diplomacy actually works and how politicians actually operate. This was one of the things that, when we have been effective, we've been cognizant of. Reagan, for example, attacked Communism and the Soviet Union as an evil empire--he never attacked the individuals though; they attacked him, but he never attacked them. He never singled them out by name, he never said they were bad people. As a matter of fact, in issues such as human rights, though he made it clear where we stood, he didn't make a lot of propaganda; he worked privately. And privately we began to get really many more results than we do in a public polemics, and I think that's what people ought to understand. Every country is rather jealous of its sovereignty, and if you put another politician on the spot and make it look as if that politician is bending to foreign pressure, you destroy that politician as far as the country's politics is concerned. If you want to achieve something, you have to work quietly, and you have to work in a way that you make the changes at least appear to be in the interest of that person. And I think that's also true today. So I think it would be wise for the United States to keep its voice down publicly, though making it clear what our policies are and what our preferences are, to avoid rising to argue every point, but at the same time showing patience, understanding that Russia, like most of the other successor states, are going through a very traumatic period of redefining their national identity, of changing the whole political system, and of going through a very very painful transition to a market economy. This is not at all easy; it has many difficulties, and nobody has all the answers, it would be absurd to think that we do. So on the whole I think we can be really encouraged with how far most of the successor states have been able to travel in the years since the end of the Soviet Union, though they all still have quite a ways to go to create the societies that we would all like to see them have.
EM: I'd like to have the first question. You've been in the Soviet Union and then in Russia for such an extensive period of time, and you sensed and knew that in American dealings with Russia, in a way, that Russia also designed or determined not just what had become the successor states, but also other parts of the Communist bloc. In other words, to be an ambassador in Russia was to be in a position to somewhat shape, this is what my question is, or to somewhat sense determining the foreign policy of other bloc countries, the members of the communist bloc. Now, how did it look, and what do you think had changed, how did it effect actual policy? I mean, to deal with Russia is now dealing with Russia and only with Russia, and in some way influencing the successor states. But is there also an element of a kind of triangle of politics involved or not? Recently there was this terrible scandal in Poland when it turned out the prime minister was spying for Russia well after everything, at least those are the charges, well after the situation had changed; that a lot of people from those countries are still being very, well they feel certain kinds of dependency or connection with Russia. How does it complicate, or actually maybe simplify, how the situation in transition simplifies the foreign policy in this part of the world.
JM: Well when you say this part of the world, are we speaking of the former Soviet Union or Eastern Europe, or the Warsaw Pact?
EM: I'm talking about Warsaw Pact, yes.
JM: Warsaw Pact. We were quite aware that the countries of Eastern Europe were reluctant members and had little support of their population. The least reluctant may have been Bulgaria, because of particularly historical conditions, which for good reason the Bulgarians tended to be more pro-Russian than the others. And of course we had recognized for some time, not only that there were differences there, but we tried to encourage it; I mean, we had special policies in regard to Poland and Romania, for example, because in the case of Romania they seemed to be more independent, although internally it was a despicable regime, but at least independent from the Soviet Union, and for a while Ceausescu was able to play on that independence and get some special treatment. With Poland it was different, it was a variety of things; one, the communist government was not as complete as it was in some other countries, for example there had never been agricultural collectivization, and I think also the ties between Polonia, the Polish diaspora in the United States, and Poland were never cut completely; this made Poland always sort of a special case in American foreign policy. But fundamentally, we recognized that the Warsaw Pact was an artificial creation, and though in a certain sense, when you looked at military balances and so on, they would add this up, I think everybody realized that this was artificial; I would sometimes at NATO briefings ask the general who was briefing if we really thought that for example a Polish or Czechoslovak division should be considered in the same category as a Soviet division, and the answer was, well obviously not, on the other hand how else can you do it? And of course in a conflict situation, they would be forced by the very circumstances to behave in a hostile manner; but on the other hand, many would say, I really don't envy the Warsaw Pact commander, because it must be a horrible decision to decide where do you put the East European units? You don't want them behind your Russian units, on the other hand you don't want them on the front lines. There are dangers both ways -- if the battle starts going wrong. If it's going right, you can keep discipline, but if it starts going wrong, you can have whole units defecting, and is it better to have them defecting behind you or in front of you? [laughter] So people recognized this. So in many cases, when you really began to look at military strategy it was clear that the fact that the countries in Eastern Europe were not voluntary members of the Warsaw Pact, as were the members of NATO, that this had very profound implications.
The fact that they clearly had intelligence agents everywhere in Eastern Europe, not only in Eastern Europe, but there they actually controlled the internal intelligence organizations. The KGB had set up the UB in Poland, the STB in Czechoslovakia, and so on. These were fraternal organizations, and whatever they had, the Soviet KGB had access to. However, because of their own ideological blinders, they didn't understand what was happening; I think we understood much better than they did [they meaning the Soviet leaders]. And I think particularly we understood that if there's no longer any threat of tanks in Eastern Europe, and if Moscow lets or even presses the Communist leaders to begin liberalizing, that the Communist regimes could not hold. Now he didn't know that, when he came and was pressing Husak and then Jakis, or Honecker and the others to liberalize, and he [Gorbachev] did, he thought he was going to get a Prague Spring, that he would get socialism with a human fact -- people like him. And of course that was no longer possible; even if it was possible in 68, it wasn't possible in 88-89. So once it was clear in Eastern Europe that Soviet tanks were not going to come in and save the regime, once they began trying to reform they were simply swept away in country after country; where you didn't get reform, as in Romania, you had a real revolution. I don't think any of this surprised Americans who understood that situation. Now, you had that, now of course in working it out you also had the issue of divided Germany, which was the most serious of the issues in divided Europe, in that the country itself had been divided as a result of World War II, and of course there were all sorts of political hang-ups in dealing with it. And yet I think probably the most brilliant diplomacy came in working that out, and allowing a reunification of Germany, but under conditions that provided just about as many assurances as you can get in this life that there would not be a revival of the bad habits of the past; Germany stayed in NATO, the armed forces were reduced, any claims to territory in Poland or elsewhere in the East were renounced, etc. So it was part of a package that I think was really a brilliant settlement. And it was one which Gorbachev was finally convinced, though many of his people were not, that it was in Soviet interests to agree to it, and it WAS in Soviet interests to agree to it, because one thing the Soviet Union needs and Russia needs are good relations with Germany. And they understood this, they understood this really better than the British and French, who were more reluctant than the Soviets. They didn't want to come out and try to block it, but they thought the Russians would. But Gorbachev and his people started telling us even in February and March 90, that some countries may think we're going to block this, we're not. Because it's not in our interests to block it, it's not in our interests to become the enemies of legitimate German national feeling. So I think this was a period.
Now, when we get to the borders of the Soviet Union itself, we find a distinction. There was one thing, the Warsaw Pact; it was artificial, all that had to happen there was the Russians give them there freedom. And of course Gorbachev announced in December 88 at the UN that the freedom of choice knows no limitation. And I wrote in my diary at the time, does he really understand what he's saying? East Europe will certainly go, and the Baltic too -- where is he going to draw the line? He didn't draw it in Dec. 88. But they tried to draw it when it came to what they consider the boundaries of the Soviet Union itself. Of course, they considered the Baltic states a part of the Soviet Union. We did not, and we never had, from 39-40 on we had never recognized the incorporation of that. And so all along, though we had made it very clear, because we had to, there was no way we could liberate the Baltic states, we live in a nuclear world after all, you couldn't attack the Soviet Union or get into war with it, but we believed, we never budged from our non-recognition policy. So as far as we were concerned, the Soviet Union were the other 12 republics, and the problem of Baltic independence was a separate one that was already de jure recognized by the United States, that they were in principle independent countries, the only question was the political question of how you achieved it. And our pressure there was to make sure the changes were peaceful. Because if there had been any widespread violence, the Baltic peoples would have suffered most of all, and we did want to avoid widespread violence. We didn't avoid all violence, but given the magnitude of the problem, the violence that occurred was really quite limited. Nineteen or 20 people killed at the television tower, and there were other deaths, and they were tragic, and yet for the liberation of a whole area, given the emotions, this was relatively small, and certainly nothing like what would have occurred if Gorbachev had given the order to simply suppress the movements by force, because then you would have had wholesale bloodshed, and probably lots of people sent to Siberia and whatnot, as happened at the end of World War II. In any event, that was the second thing. Then, the others, we did not challenge the incorporation into the Soviet Union. This wasn't a matter of endorsing the Soviet Union, it was a matter of legality. Moldovans used to ask me, well why are we different from the Balts, because after all we were taken in as a result of the Nazi-Soviet pact too. And of course this was true of all of Moldovia that lay west of the Dniester. And the answer to that was that Moldova was not an independent country before, it was part of Romania, and that transfer of territory was in the peace treaty with Romania, which was on the Axis side, and to which the United States was a signatory. So we had actually signed a peace treaty part of which transferred that territory to the Soviet Union. So that put them in a different legal category. Now obviously under all of this, another principle that we adhere to is the principle of self-determination, provided the self-determination is carried out by peaceful means. There were other policies, and some of these were worked out in great detail in the Helsinki Final Act, in the principles for change of territory. And that was essentially it should be carried out by the mutual consent of the parties. If it can be carried out by the mutual consent, it should be recognized by others. But change had to be peaceful, and without one country forcing another. Now, we did not apply these to any particular border, but I think they were useful principles to look at. In fact, the Soviet Union broke up with the consent of all the parties. People probably would have had difficulty predicting that, although our own embassy, I sent my first message saying that we had to recognize in our policy planning the distinct possibility that the Soviet Union would collapse. I sent that message in June 90, about 18 months before it happened. I was not yet willing to predict that it necessarily would, but we began to see what was happening and what the possible consequences could be. So we had, on the one hand, the legal position which was very clear and unequivocal, but behind that was also a political position, that favoring a rule of law and self-determination within the rule of law. It happened that the Soviet constitution granted the right of secession, and though Gorbachev tried to take this away by legislation, the fact was that their constitution made it legal to secede, so even those republics other than the Baltic states, we would just say, you know your own laws, your own constitution, allows the right of secession, so it would be illegitimate to consider those who are pushing for secession somehow guilty of a criminal offense. This is simply impermissible; on human rights grounds, on civil rights grounds, on rule of law grounds, we did in our comment encourage the recognition of national movements and others. And we had always supported complete freedom of conscience, and such issues as legalizing the Uniat Church, the Ukrainian Catholic Church in Ukraine, allowing the churches to go back to the Uniats, if that was what the parishioners wanted, and so on. So these were whole groups of civil and human rights issues which we supported, along with freedom of conscience and lack of state control of churches and other religious expression. So many of the things that went in to the movements that eventually broke up the Soviet Union, we did support, but not in order to break up the Soviet Union, simply because we thought the rule of law, self-determination and these other things are principles which any respectable country should respect. I don't know if that answers your question, but I would say there were several layers, depending on where the countries were, what one's attitude was, and how it fitted in both legally and politically.
EM: My question, just one more thing, was because of the breaking up, and because of the collapse of the Warsaw Pact, there are other large entities that emerged and are independent, like Ukraine, or Poland, or Kazakhstan, and how does that change? Those are territorially large. How does that change the dynamics of the policies of the region -- with Russia?
JM: Well obviously it changes the policy in the sense that we now have recognized subjects of international law, independent countries, members of the United Nations, members of the OSCE, more, and there is no Soviet Union, so that there is no sovereign authority covering the territory that was once the Soviet Union. That's why I said that although we should have no strong national interest in either keeping the states apart or trying to push them together, whatever arrangements are worked out, that they follow international norms, that they're voluntary. I mean, if we're going to have a customs union with Canada and Mexico, how can we say that Russia shouldn't have one with Kazakhstan and Belarus if that's what all three want. The question is do all three want it. What one has to oppose is the use of force to try to create something artificial that is dominated by one. Now obviously Russia is in many respects going to be a dominant influence in the area simply because of its size and its resources. Except for Kazakhstan and maybe Turkmenistan, most of the others have to get much of their energy either from Russia or from somewhere else, and somewhere else is probably more expensive, Ukraine in particular is very dependent on Russian energy. Russia is also to some degree dependent on Ukrainian foodstuffs and agricultural products, except that usually these don't cost as much as the oil and gas that Ukraine has to import. But in any event, it's natural that countries, whether large or small, when they have lived in the same economic community, have an awful lot of ties, and to break those suddenly is going to be hard on everybody, is going to reduce standards of living. So the United States shouldn't be, and is not, against any type of economic cooperation. Certainly if they're going to have any sort of social peace, you need open borders. One of the reasons that we live as a good neighbor with Canada is that that border is completely open. Citizens of both countries cross it as if it's your own country. And there's no reason, it seems to me, if you have the right relationship, for Russians to have to take a passport and visa to go to Kiev. Nevertheless, that is for those countries to work out, it's not something for the United States to take a position on, other than don't do it by force, don't do it by intimidation, work it out, and as long as it's mutual, it's no skin off our back if you want to cooperate in various ways, even if you want to confederate again. I don't see that we have a geopolitical interest in keeping the area fragmented. Some people feel that, but I'm not a geopolitician. I think geopolitics plays some role, but a fairly minor role, in the modern role, and I think the whole meaning of sovereignty has been much exaggerated. The world is not a jungle; I think the realists are basically wrong, I think foreign policy is determined not by geopolitical factors, which means every country operates like a billiard ball, if you just understand the vectors, but that foreign policy depends critically on the nature of the government, how democratic it is, and other things, what sort of culture you have, and these factors are just as important, aside from the fact that no country is truly sovereign. The United States cannot really decide what its interest rates are going to be or what the exchange value of the dollar is going to be without taking account of many other things, and you have to make those decisions understanding how the markets work, or else you're going to damage your economy very greatly. You're not sovereign in the ultimate sense, only in the legal sense that you can say you can do anything you want, but you'll end up paying a very high price for that. Even ownership now is so spread out. You know, over 60% of world trade now, as I understand it, occurs within corporations! It's much more important now, in many cases, the trade between firms rather than between countries. I heard a speech not long ago, the head of BMW, at a German American association, he said in a few years, our car will be marked "made by BMW" -- you can't say "made in Germany," because they can be made almost anywhere now; plants in the United States, plants elsewhere, and parts move around and so on. So increasingly in the modern world you have all these transnational things happening, and sure, countries have an influence on it, and they can bollox it up royally if they try to decide everything and put up a lot of barriers. They are usually the ones who suffer most if they do. But the fact is that, and I think it's particularly something to remember for countries which have just declared their sovereignty and independence, is independence is not everything it may have been cracked up to be; it's a relative concept, and it doesn't bring automatic prosperity by any means, particularly if the policies of the government are not in tune with the way the world is operating now. So that's a long way of saying that I think many of the things in trying to work these things out, the geopolitical view that somehow Russia has lost large amounts of territory that now it has to regain is simply a wrongheaded way of looking at it. There is nothing that weakens a country more than taking over territory inhabited by people who don't want to be part of that country. That cost is very large. And we can see the cost to the Soviet Union of Stalin's move West, courtesy of Adolf Hitler. He took the Baltic states, Western Ukraine, Moldova, and that was precisely where the forces that eventually broke up the Soviet U. got their start, and then spread to the others. If he hadn't taken that territory, in my opinion, the Soviet Union would probably exist in some form today. And the same is true of the Warsaw Pact in Eastern Europe. Soviet security in the long run actually became weaker because of the fact that Eastern Europe was occupied and not a voluntary ally. We had the strong thing that we could only stay in Europe as long as we were wanted, but the Europeans wanted us, for very good reasons. And this gave us influence of a quite different nature from the Russian influence in the Warsaw Pact. NATO was and still is a genuine alliance; and that means people can disagree, as we have recently, over Bosnia policy and whatnot. But the Warsaw Pact was not a genuine alliance, and therefore it was an extraordinarily weak alliance and one that was quite brittle, and that's why it didn't survive the end of the Cold War and NATO did. So what I'm saying is some of the myths out there, and particularly the geopolitical view of things that looks at everything as if it were just a matter of geopolitics, is a very limited and often such a distorted view that you really fail to understand what's going on if you put too much stock in it.
Jeff Goldfarb: The first part of your talk, it seemed to me that you informally emphasized one very important thing, and that was the difference between the rhetoric of international relations and the real interests that somehow lie behind it. It seems to me, from your own experience with Mr. Gorbachev you were able to perceive that, and you could assume on the part of Soviet and then Russian actors a capacity to see those differences, a deliberative capacity within the government we have to deal with. And I wonder whether you think, given what seems to be a mess in Russian politics, we can depend on making the distinction between rhetoric--for example, having to do with the former Warsaw Pact and the expansion of NATO--the rhetoric of what would be an attack upon Russian interests, on the one hand, and what is actually viewed as an attack on those interests, on the other. We have a continuous State Department, with a foreign service, with a tradition, and we can depend more or less that there's a capacity to think about these things in a rational fashion; whereas in a society which has been fundamentally torn apart and reorganized, and in the process of being reorganized, disorganized--I wonder if we can trust that the manias that are sometimes articulated publicly aren't going to be acted upon.
JM: I think you're right in suggesting that given the current flux in Russian politics and all the stresses, you're going to get more rhetoric coming out of it than you will in other countries, though every country engages in sometimes emotional rhetoric for domestic consumption, and this never helps the international relationships. Professionals can usually sort it out, that's their job, and they normally do, but sometimes they're overwhelmed by politics. I would just say this: I think we will continue to hear some very disturbing rhetoric coming out of Russia. I don't think we don't need to react, though we may in fact, but I don't think we need to react too negatively, other than making it clear that that's unacceptable, because the worst aspects of this cannot be carried out. As I said before, Russia just doesn't have the strength or capability to carry out some of these threats. In fact, Russia is not a threat to Poland, the Slovak Republic, or even the Baltic states now, because they cannot afford to be, in the security sense. And even though you get some crazy statements from their people, there's nothing they can do about it. I mean, I don't think it's going to happen, I'm sure it's not going to happen, but even if the Russians should elect a Vladimir Zhirinovsky, he could not carry out any of his threats, and he'd probably be a pretty meek one, as a matter of fact, cause he's a guy who likes to stir up people, but on the other hand is not very good at delivering. So although it'd be very unpleasant, I don't think he'd be particularly dangerous to other people. He'd be dangerous to Russia. And that's the other thing: if any of them should, heaven forbid, try, it would come back, I'm sure, and not result in acquisition of further territory, but fragmentation of Russia itself, because the power has so seeped out of Moscow--you know the provinces aren't going to go along with this, the army is not going to. Who's going to do it? Nobody. And yet if you get dissatisfaction growing even further, you're going to get more and more of the areas actually pulling away from Moscow, and this could be very dangerous as a process. So I would say they don't have the capability, and therefore we should be much more prudent and even calm in accepting it. Sure, you don't praise it, and you make it pretty clear that's a crazy idea, and of course you're not going to do it because you'd harm yourself more than anyone else, and wake up, stop living in this dream world; I think that should be our attitude, rather than getting terribly upset about it.
Nikolai Rudenski: As a Russian, I find it quite reassuring when you say about Russia's national interest that there is no conflict between Russia and the US in terms of correctly-understood national interests, it is important that they be correctly understood. And I am afraid I have a little problem understanding what you mean by that, these correctly understood national interests? Do you mean in 1941 there was a conflict between Germany and Japan on the one side, and the US on the other side in terms of correctly understood national interests? Ultimately, the outcome of World War II showed that it was not in Japan's national interest to attack Pearl Harbor, was it? So if you mean national interests, you reject the geopolitical argument, it seems that you understand correctly understood national interests as something essentially benign. So it would seem there can be no such thing as conflicts between states in terms of correctly understood national interests.
And the second question is different but maybe along the same lines logically. You argued quite convincingly that people who say the US has stuck too long with Mr. Yeltsin are wrong, that in politics you have to deal with the person who is in charge, and if you have to apply pressure for some reasons, for example advocating human rights or whatever, you should do this discretely and privately, well then why doesn't the US apply the same logic and pursue the same line with regard to Cuba, or Libya, or whatever, because the argument seems pretty universal, why is Russia so special?
JM: Well first of all, let me take the second one first. To the degree that we deal with those countries, if we have relations at all--when you break relations with a country, then obviously you're not dealing with it, and countries do break relations. But in the case of Libya and Cuba, and I'm not meaning to defend our policy necessarily in the answer, you have cases where leaders have clearly taken positions which for years have been interpreted by the United States as fundamentally hostile. Yeltsin has never taken a fundamentally hostile position to the United States. And we recognize Russia, they were elected -- in both Libya's and Castro's case they were not elected. So those are not comparable situations.
Yeah, you're right that in a certain sense you can make a case that no country ever has a true national interest in going to war with another. What I'm suggesting is there are certain types of issues which clearly do . . .one side is going to see one solution inevitably in its national interest, and the other not. Now politically speaking, no Armenian politician can ignore the status of Nagorno Karabach. Politically speaking, no Azerbaijani politician can ignore the status of Nagorno Karabach. Inevitably, there is going to be a conflict of interest in how you solve that sovereignty question. Now you can certainly argue that they shouldn't fight over it, that both suffer, and I think it's true that both suffer, but there is inevitably, given the political things . . . and whenever territory is involved, whenever nationality and other issues are involved, you have true conflicts of national interest, at least as it is perceived. Now I would always argue that you still shouldn't solve things by violence, and that everybody has suffered from the violence. But we don't have any of that sort of conflict with Russia.
NR: Do you have it with any other states at the moment?
JM: No, the United States, thank goodness, doesn't have that sort of conflict with any other state. This doesn't mean you don't have differences. Obviously we have different attitudes with Mexico over questions of illegal immigration, and so on. But this is not something we're going to go to war for, or come even close to it. You deal with it in other ways. And fundamentally, as I think NAFTA has shown, although it is debated here, one is arguing that you're better off cooperating and enlarging, say, your economic sphere, then going about it in a confrontational way. Now how does this translate in reality? It is certainly in Russia's interests to have good and close relations with all the republics of the Soviet Union. We have nothing against that, why shouldn't they? And we also recognize that Russia, like any country, is more sensitive to what happens in its immediate neighborhood than it is in more distant things. It is more important to Russia what happens in the Transcaucasus than it is to the United States. It is more important to the United States what happens in the Caribbean or Central America than it is to Russia. That recognized. However, if Russia is going to achieve this sort of cooperation, it must be convinced that it is in its interests to do so by peaceful and cooperative means. Yes, countries have acted very irrationally in the past, but are you suggesting that we shouldn't try to learn from mistakes? I think that what I'm saying is the sort of differences of opinion that are likely to arise, and have already arisen, between the US and Russia are amenable to diplomacy, are amenable to reason and working them out. And I don't think there is any inevitability that we get into a zero-sum type of relation, which was definitely true during the period of the Soviet Union, because of the ideology and the perception on each side that any gain for one was going to be a loss for the other. We don't have that psychology any more, and it really isn't true. Most Americans would like to see gains for Russia, in the sense of a better economy, a healthier society, and even more friendly and open relations with its neighbors. Which would be in Russia's interest. And I don't think we look at it, we certainly shouldn't look at it, as that would be somehow against our interest. On the contrary. And at the same time, I don't think there's any reason for Russia to feel that if the American economy improves, that's to Russia's disadvantage: it isn't. And so it seems to me that we ought to try to encourage a more healthy view of national interest, which I think is developing; granted, there's been backsliding in some areas the world, and yet that should not be grounds for confrontational policies. That's my only point.
Yuri Shevchuk: The issue of ethnic Russians in the successor states of the Soviet Union and how the Russia government is trying to use their presence, I would like to ask you to comment on that. Another question is, I think the United States failed to address what seems to be Ukraine's legitimate security concerns in the question of nuclear disarmament. Certain groups of Ukrainian population, politicians of course, had legitimate concerns about what will happen to Ukraine, whose territory is claimed, maybe not officially on the governmental level, by certain influential political parties in Romania, and then also in Russia, what will happen if Ukraine relinquishes its nuclear arsenal, which obviously it couldn't afford maintaining in that state, without any Western assurances of security. And the United States, I think, was insensitive to those concerns, and I think they still are, because many Ukrainian politicians think there has been a remarkable absence of reaction on the part of the United States and Western countries to Romanian claims to [Ostrozmjen??], it's just ignored somehow.
And personally, did you have any role in President Bush's address to Ukrainian parliament, the famous Chicken Kiev speech? You were an ambassador at that time.
JM: Let me take them in reverse order, because some are simpler than others. I had no role in writing the speech; I saw it on the plane as we were flying to Kiev, and at that point you could make only minor adjustments, I tell about this in the book. Actually it didn't bother me all that much, because this was a speech which we had said very clearly before it came was directed not at Ukraine but at all of the non-Russian republics. Therefore, some of the comments made were not pointed at Ukraine. For example, the comments about suicidal nationalism referred to Georgia, and Gamsakhurdia's policies at the time, which were getting them into a civil war. His statement that freedom is not the same as independence was also meant as a warning that, okay, the independence forces, you make league with the communist nomenklatura to get independence, to prevent reform, you're going to have a problem, and we could see that, and Ukraine still hasn't solved that one. But it wasn't . . . in fact, we had done all of our preparations, for the first time in the history of national relations in dealing with Ukraine as a distinct and sovereign entity. All of the things connected with that were totally different. And Gorbachev didn't want him to come; he tried to block it at the last minute, and we finally said, this will be a horrible public relations thing if he doesn't go to Ukraine. First of all, we made all the arrangements through the Ukrainian government; second, the languages used were Ukrainian and English, not one word of Russian was spoken; third, the president had a private meeting with Kravchuk, and even though Yanayev, the vice president, came, he had to cool his heels outside that, and I sort of kept him involved in conversation. And if it is a province, you don't do that. A state governor would not meet, a foreign chief of state, without some representative of the federal government there, it just wouldn't be done in the United States. So we made every effort, and no other country had ever done this before. When Kohl came, he met with Gorbachev, excluding the Ukrainian leaders, and everything was done in German and Russian; when Nixon came earlier, everything was done in English and Russian; now everything was done in Ukrainian. So that speech, I think, was not all that bad, and if you go back and read the whole thing and bear in mind that he was talking to all republics and not just Ukraine, there are a couple of unfortunate sentences that I would've cut out if I'd had the chance, but it had already been reproduced. But I thought we had planned this thing so carefully that it couldn't be misunderstood, and for the first time in history we were in effect recognizing Ukraine as a distinct entity, quite distinct from Russia, and doing it in what really counts, that is really dealing with it as if it's different, using their language and excluding others. So I don't think we have any apologies for that, although obviously Bill Safire's term is going to stick with it.
Now moving back to the nuclear thing, nuclear weapons never provided any aspect of security for Ukraine in any sense. Ukrainian authorities never had true control over them because they never had the ciphers that could have armed them and used them; those on Ukrainian territory were intercontinental missiles, they could not have been aimed at Romania, and they could not even have been aimed at most parts of Russia. Instead it would make Ukraine a target. So first of all, it was an idiotic idea that this gives you some security. Second, when you say the United States didn't look at these concerns, of course we did. And when we finally got a solution, we had an agreement with Russia and Ukraine to which the United States is a party, in which Russia reaffirmed its recognition of Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity, making a commitment not just to Ukraine, but to the United States. So we are now a party to the agreement guaranteeing Ukraine's independence and territorial integrity. So of course we took that into account. And we took into account the way it would be transferred, and made sure Ukraine gets all the proceeds from the nuclear material that comes out of those weapons. they can either get the material back to use in their power plants, or get paid for it. And all of these things were worked out under American brokerage. So it's not factual to say we didn't take Ukraine's things in mind. Now if Romania wants to make claims, it can make claims. Nobody supports them. And in a legal sense, the border we recognize is the border we recognized in the Romanian peace treaty, which we signed and which they signed. Any country can say, if it wants to try, okay this should be our territory, and under the OSCE rules, of which both of you are members, it doesn't have to be accepted unless you agree. I mean, if the people in that area would prefer to be in Romania, it might be nice to agree; we've straightened out our border with Mexico in several places by simply transferring it to them, but obviously this is not going to happen. Nobody is supporting the Romanian claims, why should we involve ourselves? If anyone asks us legally, what border do you recognize, it will be the border described in the Romanian peace treaty. Because when we recognized the borders of Ukraine it was the Ukrainian SSR as it existed before, and everyone recognized that. So if somebody wants to make a claim they can make the claim, but it has no force. And of course if Romania tries to do it by force, they'll be breaking all sorts of rules. And they're not going to. Romania can't take it over by force. Russia doesn't make any claims against Ukraine officially, and it's not only officially; there are probably still people in Britain who think the United States was wrong to be independent, certainly in the nineteenth century there were, but what the hell difference does it make? Sure, people have a lot of attitudes, but if they don't have any way of carrying them out, what difference does it make?
YS: Well the difference it makes, after Ukraine finally agreed to disarm, the United States appear as if they stop caring for these threats or claims, they don't care to even denounce them or say, "this is unacceptable." That's the difference it makes, and that's why people feel nervous. JM: Of course it's unacceptable. YS: But the United States for some reason doesn't do it. And that's the wrong message they are sending.
JM: I'm not sure that's the case, I think we've probably made very clear where we stand on the legal issues involved. Maybe we're not shouting to the rooftops; if we shouted to the rooftops about everything we didn't like, we'd get pretty hoarse. But the Romanian claims are not serious, I mean come on. What can they do about them?
Now, the Russians abroad, this is a serious political issue in Russia, and it's one which has been exploited by the demagogues, and in some cases has been exaggerated. I think it has a number of aspects. Nobody can deny that it's a political problem in Russia. You can say that it's not in Russia's interests to make it a problem, but that's probably not going to work as long as the Russians feel that their people are being discriminated against. I think there is no question that the early citizenship laws, and still to a great degree in Latvia and Estonia, have not been what human rights people think they should be, and I think at some point you simply have to draw a line in history and treat people right, and not say, well, we can turn history back. And it does seem to me that both Latvia and Estonia would be better off being liberal in giving citizenship. I think they should certainly make a language requirement at some point, but I think the next generation will be speaking the language, and this won't be a problem. If a lot of them retain the knowledge of the Russian language and so on, this is an advantage, and there shouldn't be any reason to stop that, any more than the United States should try to keep its citizens from Spanish or Chinese households from using their language when they do so. And there are some areas, of course, where the majority of people speak a language other than English. I know there are particular problems in the Baltic, but still I think that's one where, unnecessarily, opinion was inflamed in Russia over issues that probably didn't have to be handled quite that way.
Now, some of the other times it's different. In Central Asia you clearly see a case where, because of the predominant positions of Russians in many areas, Russians have been forced out of many key positions. . . . [pause between sides of tape]You lose capabilities, and if people are willing to stay and be good citizens, in the long run it is to Russia's advantage if these people come back to Russia. Otherwise, if people are emigrating from Russia, they worry about a brain drain; if Russians are coming back, they say my God, this is terrible. Well the Germans haven't had that attitude, the Israelis haven't had that attitude, most others, when there have been changes they've welcomed them back, because this actually strengthens the country, the immigration does strengthen it. Well, I can understand that given the present disarray in the Russian economy, people would be concerned, but I think that the rest of the world does need to pay some attention to these issues. It has, in fact. You often hear Russians say, just as you said about Ukraine, you don't really care. This isn't true. The OSCE has had delegations in both Latvia and Estonia, has worked and has gotten some very significant changes in the citizenship law by bringing pressure to bear. And I think this is true in many of these other areas. We are paying attention to it, but we're trying to do it by negotiation. I would also say that I think it is quite understandable if some countries resist giving dual citizenship. This is one that both Kazakhstan and Ukraine have refused, and I think that's reasonable. Citizenship should not be based, if one wants a stable society, on nationality or the language spoken. All of the countries should be encouraged to develop a civil society. And that's why I think distinctions over ethnic background in making such questions of citizenship is in the long run not a good idea, even in the short run not a good idea. But I do think these things can be worked out, if both sides are reasonable, without conflict, and should be worked out without conflict, but they are political issues and there's no denying it. Ultimately, Russia has to understand that it really cannot as a principle assert a right to protect Russian language citizens outside its borders. France doesn't do it for the Walloons in Belgium or the Genevoise in Switzerland, Sweden doesn't do it for the Swedish-speaking Finns--you can't do that. On the other hand, the other country has to make sure, for internal reasons, that ethnic groups are comfortable, because otherwise they're either going to lose them, or they'll get conflict. So in the final analysis, those leaders who broke up the Soviet Union very precipitously in December, this is one of the issues that Gorbachev pointed out would be hard to deal with, and he suggested a common citizenship, he said you can be independent but why don't you have a common citizenship. Well, that would have solved it, but that was rejected. So that was one of the consequences of the way the Soviet Union broke up, and of settlement policies before that. But I think that policies that create great discontent or create differences among the population based on ethnic origin are unfair, unwise and should not be encouraged. On the other hand, I think Russia has to understand that it does not have an inherent right to espouse any particular ethnic group. It has a duty, like every other country, to do what it can to support human rights in every country, and to do it through the mechanisms that we have, and maybe try to improve those mechanisms. So the rights for linguistic and cultural minorities in all countries should be protected, including Russia. I think that should be the position. We don't go around the world saying that we can intervene if you mistreat English-speaking people, particularly those of American descent, although we have a lot of Americans living abroad. We do protect our citizens. But a citizen of one country does not have the right to live in another country without that country's approval. So that I think that every country has the right to determine who is a citizen, but if they make that determination exclusively on ethnic grounds, I think they're asking for trouble.
EM: We have very little time, so I think we'll take a few questions and then have you answer them all.
Dionyz: The countries of Central Europe would like to freely join NATO because they do share similar political .. .than Western political nations, and there is obvious conflict between US support and Russian reaction, and how do you think it will continue? Will the US continue to support Central European ambition, or will they moderate that policy and look to the imperial ambition of Russia in Central Europe?
And my second question is, how would you evaluate the recent membership of Russia in the Council of Europe, vis-a-vis, for example, the recent war in Chechnya. Do you think that Russia could even be a member of the Council of Europe?
Heshan: Another question about rhetoric. We talked a little about the harmful rhetoric and the fact that that is actually non-political reality. Could you comment on the new isolationism in Aemrican politics, where the rhetoric is actually being backed up by solid proposals such as a national defense missile network and a decrease in the amount of aid given by the federal goveernment to federal agencies, and whether that will affect the relationship that the United States has with Russia, especially given the fact that we might have a new president or the fact that United States politics has moved to the right and there's a lot of rhetoric reminiscent of the 20's.
Guljan: I'm from Kazakhstan. If you look back at 1986-87 there was the first bloodshed in the Soviet Union, but many people don't know that it happened in Kazakhstan, when Gorbachev sent his ? into my country, and Kazakhs did not agree with that. And second question is about our leader, you know strong leader now in Kazakhstan, former Communist, nomenklatura, but still . . . JM: Nazerbayev, yes, I know him well. Guljan: How do you see him as a leader of the country, and his influence on the politics in that area, and how do you see the whole of Kazakhstan?
Actually about the bloodshed, we had no access to information how foreign countries reacted to this, so I'm more interested in history.
JM: Okay, NATO expansion. I don't think at this time the countries of Eastern Europe are being threatened by Russia. I would much prefer to see us have a policy that we would say if they were ever threatened, we would favor immediate entry into NATO and would even give guarantees separate from NATO, but that we see no reason at this point to expand. There are several reasons for that: one is, I think that would actually act as a deterrent to the development of the Russian policy, because it's clear that if their rhetoric increases, and so on, that there would be a price to be paid. But you're not in effect writing them out of Europe immediately. A decision to expand would raise all sorts of questions. First of all, the signal to Russia would not be that you're threatening them, everybody in his right mind knows that's not the case, but that you're cutting them off from Europe, you're drawing a line again. Second, it would raise a serious question of how far do you go? Do you stop with Poland, or do you go to the Baltic states? Where do you leave Ukraine? You've got to stop somewhere, unless you're going to take Russia in as well, and anytime you stop, you're sort of signalling that, well, you can't come this far, but it's okay for you to beat up on the others. And I don't think that's the impression we want to leave. And I think that you really have almost insuperable problems, particularly when there is no real, material threat. Furthermore, it is something that is going to cost money. First of all, it is going to cost the countries; if they're real members they're going to have to outfit their military to NATO standards, and that's not cheap. Or else they're second class members. Who's going to pay for that? If they try to pay for it, it's going to push their economy in the wrong direction, that's not where they need to put their money now. I mean Czechoslovakia has never had an army that's fought anyone else, and they probably don't need to; they have their own means of taking care of their integrity, and usually they just undermine whoever tries to take them over--they did it very well in the Austro-Hungarian empire, and they did it very well with the Russians later. I understand that they want to make sure history doesn't repeat itself and they're part of Europe, and that's legitimate; but they have to come into the EU as rapidly as possible, and this is another disadvantage, because the real tough decision for the West Europeans is bringing them into the EU, where they have to open up trade and other things. If they say, well we've brought them into NATO, the rest can wait, you give the West Europeans a good excuse for delaying what the East Europeans really need. And that's sort of a subtext here. So for a whole variety of reasons, I hope we don't rush with this, but it has nothing to do with, you know, I think it is very clear that the United States and NATO will not let any of these countries be taken over by force again, whether they're in NATO or not. You have to ask yourself, why is it that Finland and Sweden and Austria are not clamoring to get into NATO? They know very well they've got an implicit protection, they're in the EU and they have it now. And the same is true of the others, there is an implicit protection there, as long as they don't do something stupid and pick a fight. That would be my attitude. Actually, our current policy is not that, it's not "if" but "when." Though we are hearing less and less of this, because quite frankly, if we keep pushing this issue of NATO expansion, we're not going to get the Duma to ratify the START II agreements, which are very important to all of us to get those nuclear weapons down, and we are going to have a much more confrontational policy in general with Russia than we really need. But most of all, the signal to the Russian democrats is, we're cutting you off, you're not really part of the rest of Europe. And I think that is the worst possible signal to be sending to Russia at this time. If they start threatening somebody, that is another question, then you take whatever steps you need to. And you will have plenty of time, given Russia's weaknesses.
Okay, Council of Europe, Chechnya. I understand that the relevant committee has voted to bring Russia into the Council of Europe, I think that happened late last week. I think they should. I think we have to recognize that with all the horrors of what is going on in Chechnya, this is a very difficult problem. This is not a peaceful national liberation struggle. The control of Chechnya by Dudayev and his clique was achieved by a coup d'etat and by military force, and has been carried out by military force, criminal connections, and other things. This would be a problem for any country to deal with peacefully. Russia should not have dealt with it as it has; it has hurt Russia more than Chechnya. But to make heroes of one side and villains of the other is not correct. The tragedy in that area is that the leaders who seized control of Chechnya, and the stupid and incompetent Russian military who have encouraged Yeltsin to try to solve it that way, have chewed up innocent people who are caught between these two forces. But not to realize what really happened, and to treat the Chechens as somehow people who simply want national liberation, is simply misunderstanding the situation. And I think foreign countries have a lot of difficulty dealing with this, other than condemning the violence. Of course you condemn the violence. Do you take sanctions against it? I'll tell you, the challenge that the Chechens, the Dudayev leadership, I shouldn't say the Chechens because many Chechens didn't agree with Dudayev, they were caught in the middle. And of course, when fighting started they would fight with the Chechens even though they didn't agree with him before. The challenge to Yeltsin by the Chechens was a much more serious challenge in many ways than the challenge of the South Carolina militia was to Fort Sumter, which started our Civil War. I come from the South, and after all, our states had entered the union voluntarily, but there was nothing in the Constitution that said you couldn't secede. Arguably, what the South Carolinians were doing was legal, and what Lincoln did was illegal; many people argued that at the time. We lost millions of lives, and fortunately we ended with unity. But the point is, how can we Americans say that no matter what the provocation, you can't use force. We would use it. I'll tell you, if somebody got a bunch of irregulars and got arms and marched on the state capital and took it over, we wouldn't deal with them entirely by peaceful means, unless they gave up pretty fast. And that's exactly what happened in Chechnya. They surrounded every Russian base, and Russia was simply too weak to react to it, and they finally turned over all the arms to the Chechens. Which was all taken over by force. Well, it is a tragedy, they have made some stupid and even utterly inhumane decisions, they should be condemned for it; but on the other hand, what would any other government have done, confronted with this sort of rebellion? If they had had the means, they would have put it down. And it is a reflection of Russia's weakness that they have had to use indiscriminate military force, and it has greatly weakened Russia. Among other things, it means they probably won't try it with anybody else, and certainly not outside their borders. If the Russian army can't even deal with Chechnya, which I think had 700,000 people -- it had 1.3 million before the Ingush broke off -- good heavens, you think they really could invade Ukraine, or Poland? Come on. That would be utterly insane, and of course they couldn't do it. So as tragic as it has been, the signal back in Moscow--even though they still haven't gotten the point totally, certainly I don't think anyone could be so stupid as to try to apply the same method to another area of Russia, much less areas that are outside Russia.
But in general, it seems to me that we should not treat Russia, even because of these infractions, as being incapable of moving into the rest of the world. And that's why I think that, though if the Council of Europe had wanted to delay a little longer it wouldn't have hurt, in general I think you exercise more influence by bringing a government in than by trying to keep them out; if you try to keep them out, I think you really create more problems than you do by trying to be inclusive in an organization of this sort.
And finally, Kazakhstan. I go into some detail actually on the riots in December 86 in Almaty. Essentially, what happened was that when they forced Kunayev, the party secretary, out, a Kazakh who probably was corrupt, but at least had favored Kazakhs over Russians, he had pretty well put Kazakhs in charge of the Kazakh Communist Party, and although there were a lot of Russians in Kazakhstan, the party was predominantly Kazakh at that point, so I think he was seen as one who defended the national honor of a people who had been almost wiped out in the 30's and 40's; I mean the famines that followed collectivization hit the Kazakhs even harder than the Ukrainians, they were the two nationalities that suffered most, and it came almost to the point of genocide, because the number of Kazakhs, millions, they didn't have that many millions, died or had to flee into China--shows how bad things were, if you have to start fleeing into China, in those days--to get out of the area. So if anybody had a national grievance over what had happened to their lands, the Kazakhs did. In any event, a Russian, Mr. Kolbin (?), was sent as First Secretary. I think that it was almost in a fit of absent mindedness. The people in the Kremlin then, and these personnel decisions were generally made by Ligachev and not by Gorbachev at the time, though Gorbachev clearly approved it -- they really thought there was a new Soviet man, and that nationality didn't make that much of a difference. And they looked at the Central Asian parties as having gotten rather corrupt, and Kolbin was sort of a Gorbachev type, he was to be sent down to clean things up, and they really didn't expect a nationalist explosion. Of course they got it, and I think they thought that probably Kunayev had stimulated it. He denies it, and probably correctly so. It started spontaneously, and then I think there were elements that took advantage of it. And I would say that, having sent Kolbin, though they left him a year or two, they learned their lesson; they never again, as long as the Soviet Union existed, they never sent a person of a different nationality to run the Communist Party; later when they changed party secretaries they always picked somebody of that nationality, so that Luchinski came back to Moldova, for example, and you always had an Armenian in Armenia and an Azeri in Azerbaijan and so on. So in fact the Kolbin appointment, they did learn a lesson, but it was a case of utter insensitivity, the way they carried it out. And I would also say that though the charges were probably correct, the whole anti-corruption drive in Uzbekistan was mishandled politically, because it seemed to be directed just at Uzbeks, and when they were arrested for corruption they were replaced usually by Russians, and this of course was treated by the Uzbeks as quite unfair. Nazerbayev, I have great respect for his political skills, he guided the country very very carefully. He tried to keep the Soviet Union as a confederation, but to get total autonomy within it; he was disappointed when Yeltsin and Kravchuk broke it up, but he saw that if he kept Kazakhstan together, you could not have a Slavic federation and a Turkic federation, if the Soviet Union broke up that way it would literally split Kazakhstan in half, and he understood that. And I think that's why within a few days, at first criticizing the Bjelovechke (??) agreement, he switched, got the other Central Asians together, and said we'll come in too, with the rights from the very beginning. It actually has been Nazerbayev who has pushed most consistently for closer ties in the Commonwealth of Independent States, and the Russians have not supported this, because he has wanted this on the basis where Russia would not have any special rights, but would be treated as the others. So if Russia really wants closer ties, I think they'll get support from people like Nazerbayev. But if they want special rights that others don't have, it's going to be resisted by Nazerbayev and the others. So this is a case of defining national interests again. Sure, a lot of people aren't defining it very . . . but if Russia really wants closer ties or open borders, they'd better start treating these countries as independent, it's in their interests. And I don't think that the whole Russian political system is so benighted and backward that they can't eventually understand that, if people help.
Now, I know that recently Nazerbayev has conducted some practices that are hard to approve; on the other hand, I do understand that when you have such a long way to go in moving the economy toward a market and bringing it back to health after all the blows it's had, that it's very hard to do that if you have all of the openness of a political system that a full democracy requires, because among other things you get all sorts of interest groups that get very powerful very early, that try to block the true operation of the market. We're seeing that in Russia. And those interest groups do keep you from going back to a dictatorship, but they may block real creation of a market, simply by exercising excessive political influence. So I'm inclined not to be too critical, as long as he doesn't go to the extreme of arresting the opposition or sending out hit squads, the way Karymov has done out of Uzbekistan, picking up people in other countries and so on. I don't think he has gone to those extremes, but he has become more autocratic of late, and I think history will judge; if he is successful in pushing the economic transformation and doesn't indulge in real excesses, I suspect he will be excused for that, but if he doesn't bring about the transformation of the country, he will probably be looked upon not quite so favorably. But I think he does see himself as an instrument for the revival of the Kazakh people, which had been brought to the brink of extinction, and I think one must understand that background in understanding many of the things that have happened, and the attitude towards the Russians. I think Kazakhstan has acted honorably, on the whole, given the fact that they feel all their grazing lands were taken by the Russian settlement. Of course it isn't the fault of the settlers that came in, this was part of a campaign that Krushchev started; they also went in in good faith, so again the tragedy of these things is that when political mistakes were made in the past, people get caught up in them, people who are in no way at fault for them. But I think that in Kazakhstan's interests, every effort must be made, while protecting the rights of the Kazakh people, not giving them exclusive rights, but trying now to absorb as good citizens of the country all the various nationalities. Of course Kazakhstan was one of the dumping grounds for deportation, political and otherwise, that Stalin was. So it has ended up with a very varied ethnic makeup, and I think of all the countries it really does have to establish a citizenship and a civic code independent of ethnic background, and I think that's possible. And I think Nazerbayev himself understands that. But anyway, it's not going to be an easy road.
EM: Thank you very much.
