Graham wilson discuss the relationships between president reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, as well as the relationship between george h. W. Bush and mr. Gorbachev. This is about an hour and 15 minutes. We have a great panel. And so Philip Zelikow is going to chair the panel. I think Everybody Knows philip. He has written a terrific book on the end of the cold war, principal author of 9 11 Commission Report and many other books. And he is now in the midst of writing a terrific book on sort of decisions for war. And in ways that illuminate old crises and old decisions like going to war in 1898 or wilsons decision for war in world war i. Hes sort of brilliantly reassessing these decisions. Were all looking forward to philips next book. At the same time, hes doing about a dozen other things that none of us can keep track of. Sometimes we dont know about. Philip, thank you. Thank you. I actually am sorry to say, we need to wait for james wilson to show up. So he is probably out there somewhere having a good conversation. Maybe we should send someone out. If we can send the search party out. So far its been a great panel. It is rather intimidating when you sit next to somebody who can refer to his book. If we had grandchildren here, they could sit on it. Here he is. Glad you could join us. Thank you. All right. Lets go ahead and get started then. This is a panel covering the period only of the great second crisis phase of the cold war in the early 1980s extending to the end of the cold war itself, into the beginning of the early 1990s and the disintegration of the soviet union. With a perspective on u. S. And russia relations, we will start actually with a perspective from the point of view of the Reagan Administration with james wilson. James . Thank you, philip. Should i go up to the sure. Thank you so much, philip. I was looking through a few files the other day and came upon a quote that i think might apply to the subject at hand. And that is the problems that bedevil American Foreign policy are not like headaches. With those, you take a powder and theyre gone. Instead, they are like the pain of earning a living. They will stay with us until death. We have got to understand that all our lives, the danger, the uncertainty, the need for alertness, for effort, for discipline, will be upon us. We are in for it. The only real question is whether we shall know it soon enough. I think that that line as dean atchison said in june, 1946 at the harvard club of boston applied very well to that moment. It applied very much in 1998 when strobe talbot, deputy secretary sent it onto secretary madeleine albright, and it very much applies to the topic we have been discussing. Incidentally, it probably also applies to mel leffler of me or his perception of me, when 12 years ago i walked into his office and six years ago, trying to finish up at the university of virginia in the history department, was living at his house with no potential Firm Prospect of employment, but its all worked out. I am extremely grateful to the uva history department, to my beleaguered adviser and Miller Center for having me and for having me back. Now, to the point that he said about common knowledge, i think what the Miller Center does in terms of president ial projects, recordings, oral history is tremendously important in this era where it is genuinely difficult to figure out what is real and what is not. What is authentic history, what is fake news. Im extremely fortunate to work with my colleagues in the office of the historian and particularly my colleague elizabeth charles, with whom i worked very closely on the u. S. soviet volumes in the Foreign Relations of the United States series to be working on a similar project that puts forward, i would say, about 90 of the top level conversations and internal memoranda of u. S. Policy makers from 1917 to 1991, when it comes to u. S. And russia. I should say that the views expressed here are my own, do not necessarily reflect those of the department of state or the u. S. Government, and with that, i think i would pick up on the heroic factor that vlad zubok and others have raised in the last day and to talk a little bit about what i think the lessons, potential lessons are of Ronald Reagan and the soviet union when it comes to u. S. russia today and in the future. Simply put, i would say dont wait for a gorbachev. Reagan didnt. Theres a common misperception at the time, later and even today, that reagan came into office focusing entirely on building up u. S. And allied strength, deferred negotiations until a new type of soviet leader emerged. In fact, reagan attempted early on to engage with brezhnev and his successors, and at times, giving real emphasis on the role of history in russian Foreign Policy. The russian role of history and lives of the russians he was dealing with. In thinking through this letter, he wrote in february of 1984, i have reflected at some length on the tragedy and scale of soviet losses and warfare throughout the ages. Surely those losses which are beyond description must affect your thinking today. I want you to know that neither i nor the American People hold any offensive intentions towards you or the soviet people. When it came to policy decisions, i think just as importantly or even more importantly, reagan put out on the table zero option on intermediate Nuclear Forces treaties, talks. He put that out in fall of 1981, and there was a wide perception that it was a purely cynical thing, because the u. S. And nato did not have yet have pershing ii missiles. Reagan stuck to this position even throughout 1987 when a lot of people around him and a lot of nato allies whose leaders had put their political careers on the line were not so excited to go forward with gorbachev. Reagan put forward with strategic reduction talks a much more ambitious proposal than had been seen before in the cold war when it came to the most destabilizing missiles, icbms, submarine launched ballistic missiles. In march of 83 when reagan announced the Strategic Defense Initiative, he said, he called on the Scientific Community to turn their great challenge now to the cause of mankind and world peace, to give us the means of rendering Nuclear Weapons impotent and obsolete. These two big proposals and one big idea went against a lot of conventional thinking throughout the cold war. I think set the terms for the big debate between u. S. And soviet leaders, even before gorbachev came to office. Now, in the summer of 1984, and this is the moment, a period that i think very much applies to today when i think it is fair to say theres a pessimistic view of the next ten years with the russians, but in the fall of 84 when there was no strategic arms negotiations going on, the soviets had walked out of geneva the fall before. Theres a wonderful memo i recently discovered to George Schultz about prospects for arms control in the second term, written by a magnificent Public Servant named james timby. He started out by saying it is unreasonable to expect consensus to emerge within the u. S. Arms control and National Security field and for that to happen simultaneously with consensus to emerge in the soviet arms control and National Security field. Therefore, what we need to do is to set the terms for what we would like to see five or ten years down the road with a sense of realism about what is possible. If you simply are waiting for both sides to grind through the bureaucratic process, even with the best staffers, thats not going to suffice. As we know, in march of 85, gorbachev comes in just before that. The nuclear and space arms talks had commenced in geneva, and they persisted throughout the gorbachev era. Just to be clear, we dont forget about the arms reduction achievements during this period. You have inf in 87, you have Nuclear Risk Reduction center is completed, you have an upgrade to the hotline, you have the strategic arms reduction treaty, the open skies treaty, start ii, conventional forces in europe treaty, chemical weapons convention, two very important president ial Nuclear Initiatives that are understudied and then start to so its an extraordinary period that really gets launched during the middle of the 1980s. I think that one moment that crystallizes what reagan is trying to achieve after he starts to engage with gorbachev and begins to think i can trust this guy to uphold his end of the bargain, and to the great surprise of some of the people around him, theres an evocative saturday morning meeting january of 1986 where eric edelman had been there, where there was a sense of the people around reagan that in geneva in their encounter he was talking about this fusion sharing technology, and bush said well, look, maybe hes just trying to get this out of his system, lets let him do this. And in fact, his ambitions were far beyond that. The letter that he sends in july of 86 to gorbachev laid out three phase agreement for the ultimate elimination of Nuclear Weapons. Even after he signs the inf treaty in summer of 87, says to his team lets go for the gold. I want a start agreement before the end of 1988. And ill just close by saying i think theres kind of a way of looking at these individuals, reagan, gorbachev, bush, yeltsin, through a lens of the heroic factor. Thats not to say it denigrates the contributions of others at other moments. Ill close by something thats really fascinated me and that is the last interaction with reagan in september of 1988 where reagan says, look, i know i said tear down the wall. He understood that the division of germany and berlin was a product of world war ii and the feeling on the part of the soviet union and others that germany should never again be be allowed to be the strongest and most dominant power in central europe. If you had said to reagan after that meeting, after he had left that in 2 1 2 years, were going to have reunified germany and nato, i think he would have laughed and smiled and said, that would be great but he also thought that would have been something that could happen maybe in 25 or 30 years. Thank you, james. [ applause ] bill. I too would like to join the chorus in thanking the organizers of this conference. I know that the hope of the organizers has been that we would not only recount history but try to derive some lessons for the future, for the present. Actually, i have derived some lessons from the discussion about the history, itself. Indeed, the subject of my book gorvachev and his relations with the United States. Some of what i am going to say is diverging from my paper, in order to take it account of how it has affected my thinking. Usually talking about gorbachev i begin with a famous quote that history is but the biography of great men by thomas carlyle. We know immediately there is something wrong with that. The word man or men but we know there are social movements and International Conditions and economic circumstances but i think gorvachev is a classic example of an individual leader that makes a decisive impact on history and whose biography helps to explain that decisive impact. This is partly because he had the power to have such an impact as the leader of the soviet union of a still totalitarian or post Totalitarian Society regime in 1985. It also has something to do with his uniqueness in the sense that he did not do what other soviet leaders in his peer group would have done. If he had, we could say that he was reflecting the values that they all shared or we could say that he was reacting to the demands of a situation which they all faced, but no. He acted in his own idiosyncratic way. There were only three members of the bureau that stayed with him to the end, edward sheranadza, not quite to the end because he did resign. Alexander yakalif, his closest ally, with whom he grew estranged, and vadim medvedev. He was unique. He was exceptional. Thats what i want to underline in line of the conference so far. What struck me about many of the papers is how much continuity the paper givers have discerned in the 100 years between 1917 and 2017. Between 1917 and 2017. Stalin is not putin. It is not putins return to the trinity of the czars. There are many differences. We talked about them all. There are these interesting parallels from which gorvachev and yeltsin are the exception. The search of the soviet union and russia under putin for a sphere of, we called it by different names, influence, dominance, first in Eastern Europe he talked about after the war and now in the near abroad. Several papers talked about how the soviet union and russia have seen the United States as hypocritical, proclaiming its adherence to ideals and ignoring them in its Foreign Policy practice. We heard several times how the soviets and now putin, himself, want to be treated as an equal of the United States. We have heard about how the liberal International Order is promoted and defended by the United States has been an obstacle to the soviets and the russians achieving what they wanted to achieve. We heard before lunch about the parallels as well as the differences between brezhnev and putin. So it strikes me even more as a result of this conference than it did in writing my book that gorbachev is and yeltsin is the great exception. Truly exceptional. Both at home and in his country and abroad in his determination to end the cold war and build a new postcold war order that would be based as much as possible, on the nonuse of force. So if he is such an exception, the question is, how did the United States react to him in the person of president s reagan and bush . To what extent did it understand the exception that he was, to what extent did it try to meet him and help him as he pursued his goals. To what extent did it not do so in a way that might have hindered his efforts to obtain these exceptional goals. In my book and to some extent in my paper, i talk first about reagan and then about george bush. I describe reagan as ironically an almost perfect partner for gorbachev, strange as that seemed at the time and in retrospect. He was an arch conservative president and gorbachev was a communist leader. Reagan talked about the evil empire. Reagan talked about Strategic Defense Initiative in the hope it would scare the russians. Even when they met at geneva, when you read the transcripts of their discussions, you see for the most part they are talking past each other and impatient with each other. It is really rather sterile conversations. Yet, they both feel, by the time geneva in november, 1985, is over, that they have made a breakthrough. It turns out they have because a few months later in 1986 they come very close to an agreement. We have to define what it means. They didnt define exactly what it means. But it was an agreement to abolish Nuclear Weapons. In that near agreement we see their compatibility. We see the fact that they both would like to get rid of Nuclear Weapons if they can. Unlike a lot of their colleagues in their governments who have come to the conclusion that Nuclear Weapons keep the peace as horrible as their consequences would be if they were ever used. Then, of course, when reagan goes to moscow in the summer of 1988 and he is standing in the shadow of the kremlin and he is asked what about that evil empire that you used to talk about and he says, that was another time, another era. And then in december, 1988, when reagan and bush and gorbachev meet at Governors Island in new york, bush sounds to gorvachev as if he will pick up where reagan left off and jokes to gorbachev if he doesnt do this, reagan will be on the phone from california pushing him to do what he has promised gorvachev he is going to do. By the time 1991 rolls around bush, i would argue, has become in some ways an even better partner for gorbachev. I think gorbachev felt more comfortable with bush. He felt as if he was dealing with a more sophisticated, experienced, intelligent politician. You cant read the conversations that took place in their summits without seeing the warmth between them. You read them talking about how striking and startling and stunning was the connection between them. Yet, when you look back at 1989, when bush comes in, and then you look at bush and gorbachev in 90 and 91, from gorbachevs point of view, bush is not measuring up to what reagan had been. I began to talk about this a little bit with philip before and i talked to james about what might have been involved in achieving gorbachevs goal, which was to sign a stark treaty in 1989 rather than 1991. I realize this is very complicated. In my conversation with philip, he even didnt like the use of the word pause, which is often used. The pause in the Bush Administrations dealings with gorbachev to reassess reagan and what he and schultz had accomplished with gorbachev. From gorbachevs point of view, this was really damaging, frustrating. He couldnt understand it. As i look back, and i expect that bob wont agree with me as philip did not but when i look back at it, it seems to me to have been a big mistake to the extent that it actually happened. You gentlemen may decide that it didnt. When i look back and i read brents memoirs, for example, i see him saying that gorbachev was trying to smother us with kindness. These are almost the word that i would find them if i opened the book. That gorbachev was more dangerous than his predecessors, more dangerous, because he was, in effect, lulling our vigilance by seeming to be so reasonable. You have to remember that by this time gorbachev had transformed the soviet system, thinking about the Party Conference in 1988 which set the stage for the free elections or mostly free elections of 89. He had discarded the ideological underpinnings of soviet Foreign Policy. He had signed one policy and moved to another and announced a drastic cut in soviet conventional forces in europe. He had begun to withdraw from afghanistan. I realize he is not entirely out until the spring of 1989. He had recognized universal human rights. In what i understand to be the summary of the fourpart strategy for coping with the gorbachev phenomenon and with the soviet union in early 1989, i understand it to be first to appear confident about our purposes and agenda. This is the bush strategy. Second, to signal that relations with our allies were our first priority. Third, to place a higher priority on relations with Eastern Europe than with russia and, fourth, to promote regional stability in a place like Central America. In my paper, i wrote notably absent from this list was helping gorbachev to transform his country and close out the cold war. Now, i look forward to hearing, bob, your version of this. And i understand there were reasons for choosing to do it this way. But it seems to me in 1989, unlike 90 and 91, gorbachev was riding high and doing well and very popular and to be further strengthened by the Bush Administrations picking up where reagan had left off would have been a wonderful thing for him and in the long run, who knows how it might have affected his fate. Then, we get to 90 and 91, it is a different world, different issue. It is germany, in particular. Gorbachev amazingly quickly accepts the reunification of germany and its membership of reunified germany in nato. He hopes that this will be part of a kind of sea change in europe, in which nato and warsaw pact will lose their military nature and eventually disappear and europe will come together in what he calls a common european home, which sounds like a propaganda device but which he believed in very seriously. He even thinks that secretary of state baker on february 10th, 1990, has told him that nato will not expand one inch to the east. And those are bakers words. Again, there is debate about exactly what they meant. Gorbachev took it to mean that broadly, nato would not expand and yet we know that it did. Against all of this background, i guess i want to bring up the word of Margaret Thatcher who posed a kind of alternative in 1991. No longer prime minister, she urged ambassador matlock, American Ambassador to the soviet union, she said, we have to help mikhail, she says to matlock. She wishes bush would lead the way as reagan had. Quote, this is thatcher, just a few years back, ron and i would have given the world to get what has already happened here, unquote. If the west did not come to gorbachevs aid, she added, history will not forgive us. So i guess id like to end with two questions. One about that time and one about our time and the future. Was there really no chance . What could we have done . Could we have done more to help gorbachev either in 1989 when i think it might have really made a difference or in 91 when i think probably it was too late because things were coming apart in the soviet union. Then, going back to the conference, there was talk about how someday, we dont know when, probably not soon, another heroic leader or different circumstances might come about when we have another chance to deal with a russian leader who wants to do things differently than they have done for the most part in the last 100 years. What might we do then . How might we be prepared to help then in a way that we couldnt or didnt or wouldnt back in 1989 and 1991 . Those are the two questions that i would like to leave to be discussed and, meanwhile, i welcome our next speaker. Who may not agree with me. [ applause ] well, i want to join with all of those who were complimenting mel and will and the millers center for organizing this conference. I personally find the ability to try to connect historical perspectives with policy a fascinating area. For phil and for me, it is what we try to do in our careers. I think this is a great venture. I appreciate the invitation. For the historians, you may not recognize this, but i know many of you from your books. It is a real treat to have a chance to be here with you. I told professor taubman i am enjoying his biography of gorbachev. It shows the irony of life. As i was flying back from paris yesterday, i just finished 1998. Finished 1988. I have a feeling of where he is going in 1989. For those of you that havent read it, it is a masterpiece. Its an extraordinary piece of work. James and i first met when i reviewed his book for the financial times. That perhaps is a little cautionary tale. When historians start to edge in the policy area, be careful, the reviewers may not be other historians, they may be policy makers. When i think of what he and his colleagues are doing at the state department, i know it is going to be a resource for people going forward. I will highlight five points today. One, economic strength and dynamism are the foundations of power. Even today at this conference, it is interesting. We have had a lot of discussion of arms control agreements and weve had discussions of summits. I think only in the connection of domestic and international kind of linked in the economic issue. Its not that i am a marxist determinist, but i think economics is very important in this story. Recall during the 1970s, it was very common to read stories about the death of capitalism. Oil shocks, stagflation, loss of confidence. Rather than review that in detail, i want to draw attention to four particular elements. One, the revival of the western market economies was not due just to reagan and thatcher. While they obviously played major roles, if you look at what japan did after the oil shocks with energy efficiency, it is transformative. If you look at what west germany is able to do to continue to expand inside the engine of europe. Miteron, as you recall, changes his approach in policy towards economics. The one other european figure that really worked with us during the germany unification was jacque delore. Of the european commission. Ec92 was clearly a magnet for the rest of europe. In sum, we saw adaptability of market economies of different types. Thats what i think partly drives the story of the soviet union, because the soviet union is not able to adapt. Two, critical for the reference for today, the domestic economic revivals were combined with International Adaptations in the 1980s. Without taking the detail, let me just mention these that took place in trade. They take place in Monetary Policy and exchange rates, g7 policy coordination, developing country debt and reforms. And so this economic revival was not based on a Narrow Economic nationalism, or it also wasnt based on another idea that was current and is faded in history, which is the new International Economic order, which was an International Economic sort of planning model. The geopolitical analysis who now move into the economic sphere often Pay Attention to economic strength but what they have a very hard time recognizing is there is a dynamic element to the power. Part of it is systemic ability to adapt and to change. Third, the ussr could not adapt. It was very dependant on Energy Resources and prices. Thats still true today. I note in the paper, my rough recollection, its about 20 of their gdp and 50 of their budget and 80 of their exports. It is a huge dominance for the overall economy. Four, the traditional focus on bush 41 is, obviously, his Foreign Policy. I hope historians will look at some of his economic and domestic aspects. Because, for example, the budget deal that he does at great political costs, he does, frankly, because hes worried about a domestic conflict going into the gulf war. But if you take that budget deal and take the one that clinton did, basically, youve got the foundations for a very Strong Economy over the course of the 90s. He finished the nafta negotiation, which clinton passed, almost finished the wto, which clinton finished and passed. And i might add, little recognizes passes, landmark clean rarely find somebody that comments this was part of bushs legacy. The question is whether the u. S. Is deconstructing this National Economic system and if so i think there will be very big costs to Foreign Policy and National Security. It may not show up immediately but in the world which i operate, you are already feeling it. Second, security negotiations require leverage. The euro missile debate was a fierce mixture of neutralism, antiamericanism and soviet manipulation. One of the challenges in terms of understanding the soviet union as you have detailed very well in your book, some of the things taking place. Remember what they saw in the course of the euro missile debate and others was a soviet union fundamentally different in challenging the system. I believe he acknowledged the ability to maintain cohesion and led them to move on to the inf treat. This also has applications for today. In the context of russia, the experience would suggest the need for the United States and nato to have response seriously. With real capabilities, to russian probes and firmness does not necessarily require belligerence. In the case of ukraine, i think putins aggression will be limited by the cost and it points to the cohesion of ukraine and their capabilities. Allies first, this has a historic and current applicability. This is an interesting aspect to this conference which i mentioned to phil as we came through. Not surprisingly, if you have people who specialized in the soviet union and russia, they focus on u. S. russian relations. If you are in the government, you might also focus on alliance relations. You can see in the history, the tensions between those that focused first on western europe and the soviet union. Marshall, truman, focus on the Alliance System after the Marshall Plan. I would argue that kennedy moves out of this view but very much focused on moscow. I dont know strobes view today but he said that bush made a mistake by focusing too much on coal and a little bit on your thesis. You see this in jack matlocks writings. Should the u. S. Have put a priority to gorbachev or coal and germany. Without getting too much into the pause, the difficulty for the people that are there, there is clearly a desire by bush to demonstrate he is going to have his own team. Partly, there is a shock to some of the reagan people that they dont get to stay in office. There are all these studies that are commissioned. Frankly, those studies were busy work. From day one, people werent pausing. They were trying to figure out how to deal with the world we inherited in 1989. Frankly, just as in the budget area, there was cleanup of snls and budget deficits. There were some things to clean up in the world of 1989. Our allies were not wildly excited about the romantic view we are going to do away with Nuclear Weapons. We can debate how likely that is going to be. This was a very troubling view for everybody from thatcher to cole. It left the shortrange Nuclear Missiles as the only ones left. For the germans, the shorter the missiles, the deader the germans. What i find most striking, there is almost no attention in the histories to bushs proposals. He has been in office three or four months, which is a very bold effort to move them off the agenda by saying if the justification was sort of a three to one conventional asymmetry. Lets equalize and go to much lower levels. No, the importance of this is that number one, it moves the shortrange missiles off the agenda where there is great conflict with the soviet union or with germany. It moves the idea of the politics moving away from Nuclear Negotiations to conventional forces. Most of the discussions are focusing on strategic arms as being the sole determinate of the u. S. Relations. If you could start to get the forces to start to leave Eastern Europe, that might also affect the politics. It also aligned the United States closely with germany but it did have the benefit of being a real Cost Reduction for the soviet union as well. The other benefit of this is that it clearly establishes bush as the alliance leader. Margaret thatcher didnt like this proposal. There was a conflict that was required to be resolved where bush had to make the decision over thatchers preference. You can compare with administrations but within the first four or five months, you have an extremely bold conventional forces initiative that changes the focus of the alliance. In addition, i was very much involved with the Central America negotiations, which baker starts in february. It is the first month. This was a way of also testing soviet seriousness and from a political point of view. It would be inconceivable that you could help gorbachev in any Financial Way if the soviets were seen as continuing to put money in cuba and nicaragua. In september, baker makes progress on the arms control at jackson hole. Along the way, we start these discussions about economics. We had the economic reform discussion on the plane out. In addition, in the summer of 89, bush visits poland and hungary. Where he has welcomed reform, but he is competing with gorbachev in terms of public diplomacy. In a way, throughout much of the cold war, the u. S. soviet relationship seemed to be defined around Nuclear Weapons. Now, the agenda is moving to everything from conventional forces to the division of europe to economic reform. Keep in mind, whether this was a limitation or not, what do decisionmakers have in mind . They have 1956 and 1968 in their mind. We had june, 89 in mind. The idea this was all going to be a Straight Line path, it looked that way 25 years from now but it didnt at that point. That was a warning of the cautions. Another way of saying this is i think in 1989, the u. S. Recognized in europe, the question would be as much a german question as a russian question. This came up a little bit in the earlier discussion. The prospect of what would happen with germany was not only a matter for russia but Eastern Europe and western europe. I think if you feel over eight or nine months that that set of actions is a pause, then i dont know how you would care it with anything else in recent political history. By november, over the first eight or nine months, you have the u. S. Well positioned on nato, germany, u. S. e. C. Relationships. To compare that with today, i think we have a world where trump is ambivalent about alliances. I think the generals will generally hold him in line. Trump prefers transactional policies. Strong leaders of an authoritarian nature may be easier for him to deal with. One of the questions going back to the wilsonian period, i wonder whether we might be moving back to a period more like 1900 or the 1920s where you have maneuvering of great powers if this system doesnt continue. Fourth point, prudence and respect. Bush and baker were not triumphant. Bush was reserved when the berlin wall came down as the most obvious example of this. They both tried to listen and understand the perspectives. An important part of diplomacy that sometimes works and sometimes doesnt is to help create explanations for your counterparts when they are in disarray. This was the case for the soviet union. Bush convinces gorbachev as he embraced the cse. He says countries should be able to choose their own alliance. There is another example that phil has detailed called the nine points where we had been putting out ideas to help the soviets. We werent sure that they had internalized them. So we reframed them in a different way. You see this in the handling of the baltics where bush was cautious about russian recognition. I Remember Baker trying to differentiate and distinguish the baltics to have them sort of have their ability for independence. You see this in bushs caution about the breakup of the soviet union. This was a very controversial issue. That fit the model of dealing with this prudently. Reasonable people will differ about this. You have to assess realistically what the u. S. Can and cannot do. I am surprised after recognizing with trillions of dollars we havent been able to remake afghanistan and iraq. How confident are we we will be able to remake russia. For todays contrast, as opposed to prudence and respect, he seeks confrontation and creates uncertainly. Uncertainty. He will act impulsively as part of his dealmaking. The reliability is an issue today. Again, this comes back to the idea of what one could believe the u. S. Could do. I have always had the sense that russias future is in the hand of russians. While there is a way that you could help and you could support, you have to be careful not to assume that you can remake their world for them. Again, from a historical perspective, we were trying to avoid what we call the versailles victory. This applied to germany as much as it did russia. We wanted germany to be unified in a way that its sovereignty was clear. So there wouldnt be future generations to say we were singled out. In terms of the german u. S. Partnership, we saw this not only in terms of old alliance obligations but we saw this in the future of europe. We believed that germany would become the most dominant country in europe and we wanted a special u. S. german partnership. I think germany has become the most powerful country in europe but the partnership has seemed to slip away from us for various reasons. We wanted opportunity for the soviet union and russia too, but i think our assessment of the reality was that the soviet economy was in much worse shape than the central and Eastern European economy. A key lesson of reform and economic development, which i know from my World Bank Days that is if the locals dont own it, it wont work. Frankly, from what i have read from your book, gorbachev or yeltsin doesnt grab economics. The technocrats in russia were far weaker than those in poland. It wasnt a question of money, although money helps. In the 90s, russia gets big sums of money from the imf, the world bank, the saudis and u. S. Ag credits. You have two big issues, the Macro Economic issues of budget, inflation and credit. I think they have a good macroeconomic policy. The my economic issues, property rights, rule of law, contracts and competition, russia is still struggling with those issues 25 years later. You have to be careful with comparisons, but i was deeply involved with polands process of transition in 1989, 90 and 91. The politics almost fractured even with the strength of the solidarity coalition. I noticed at the end of your paper you note that the u. S. Probably didnt miss a chance to save gorbachev and democracy but then you use this Margaret Thatcher quote setting up what might have been. From a practical policymakers perspective, i would suggest that Margaret Thatcher might have spent time more effectively focusing on britains relationship with europe, which was also a question that was posed by the 89 90 issue. It is an issue where i think what one has to do as a policymaker is to weigh the dream and hope that the United States could transform russia as you suggest in 89 and save democracy. It is a nice thought. As of 1988 when im bringing the book, he has internal problems way beyond our capacity to deal with. The lesson here i think for u. S. russian relations today is putin has clearly chosen a different path from gorbachevs cooperation or yeltsins integration with the west. He was willing to negotiate a convergence. Now, his preference is to have a policy driven by the idea of russia being a great power and he will act opportunistically. He will try to subvert western democracy. I use a phrase of a ruthless pragmatism. He has a different system. He will calculate costs. If you come back to the five principles, i would suggest that the u. S. Should work from economic strength including in a dynamic, adaptable system. It should work with its allies and meet aggression firmly. Oneish slew in recent years, dont diminish or insult russia. Russia is going to be a player in the system regardless. Remain open to opportunities. I think arnie mentioned this. Keep in mind we tend to look at these trends over time. History tends to be marked by sharp, discontinued events. With russia, recognize they will continue to change. That change has tended to be associated with transitions. I cant predict how the putins transition will work. That may be an area of opportunity as we go forward. Thank you, bob. [ applause ] i will take advantage of a brief opportunity to comment on bills argument and indirectly it is also a comment on reagan. You have to ask yourself, whats the substance of the agenda . Bill makes the comment we are really hoping bush would pick up where Ronald Reagan left off. When you go through the list of things that the Bush Administration does, wind up the issues with Central America and gets a process of diplomacy going there, cfe, shortrange Nuclear Forces, attitude toward the european community, vision of a europe, whole and free, policy on the polish round table with first offer of u. S. Assistance crossing the iron curtain since the Marshall Plan in 1947 and a speech on u. S. soviet relations which promises to go beyond containment and invites an agreement on mutual transparency. Thats all done by me. By may. It gets going in the third week of march after we are figuring out how to get our office badges to fit. We are about six or seven weeks in. You recite all that and folks come back and say, sound like a pause to me. My reaction a little bit is, this is a tough crowd. I listened very carefully. I hear what bill is saying. The sensibility that bill is reflecting is real. You have to take account of that. There is something about a personal dynamic thats being yearned for in an overpersonalization of the relationship that is there. Not one is what we inherited from the Reagan Administration. They were not moving on how to get cfe to work, which i can detail at some point if anyone is interested. It is then kind of like, well, lets wrap up the start agreement in 1989. Reagan could not wrap up at the end of 1988. It turned out to be really hard and couldnt be done until late 91. Thats it . Thats what helps gorbachev survive, getting a start agreement. Cfe, from a cost perspective, the conventional forces are vastly more expensive than the Nuclear Forces. If you want to relieve the defense burden in the soviet economy to reallocate resources, it is all cfe, folks, and making progress on that. It turns out that is politically destabilizing the soviet union in ways that bill odom describes. The way bill put it, and i quote, and it is worth studying this quote, help gorbachev change his country and close out the cold war, closed quote. You ask, break that into two parts. What would have been the agenda to help gorbachev change his country in 1989 . Did the Reagan Administration end 88 with such an agenda . It did not. Did Margaret Thatcher have such a responsibility . She did not. One of my responsibilities at the white house was Margaret Thatcher. I was privy to every meeting, letter, and phone call between bush and thatcher. For more than two years. I never heard her suggest a substantive proposal to help gorbachev remake the soviet union. Or in 1989 when he was the toast of the world and george h. W. Bush was a question mark, was it obvious the United States was in a position to start offering plans to Mikhail Gorbachev as to how to remake his country . But it is a challenging substantive issue. Maybe theres something that should have been proposed, done, discussed. But actually thinking through what it was and what the soviets wished we would have talked about is not an easy question to answer in 1989. The second half of that, close out the cold war, actually is really interesting. You know what . Margaret thatcher thought the cold war had just been closed out. It was done. She said it publicly in november, 1988, the cold war is over. November, 1988. George schultz agreed with her. Think about that. Thats europe divided. Germany, the most militarized piece of real estate on planet earth. Yet, the cold war is over. It has been closed out. We stood up to them in the test of strength. We have gotten them to relax tensions. Hey, lets put a bow on it and say, cold war over. Then, the issue is, if you have a different vision on how to end the cold war, thats all about a policy toward europe which circles back to bobs shrewd observation. There is a strong tendency in people that focus on u. S. russian relations to treat the rest of europe in between as instrumental to the achievement of u. S. russian happiness. As you can tell from what bob said and also my view, we very much did not think of europe as instrumental in this matter. In fact, europe was the central focus of where you would go about ending the cold war and your policies toward them. Thats more of a comment than a question. The comment that it does signal, the question it leads to, which is relevant today, notice it raises the issue of how do you define an end to the cold war concretely. To carry that to the present day . How would you define it today . Concretely. If you wanted to relax tensions, what would that mean substantively to meet your objectives . What would success look like. For reagan in 1986 and Margaret Thatcher in 1988 and to pose the question in the present day . I need to give both james and bill a chance to respond to that before we throw this open to the audience. I defer my time to bill. Well, those are very good arguments delivered in an elegantly lawyerly way. You are checking off all the boxes. I guess what i would say is that when it came to soviet american relations, specially in gorbachevs eyes, it wasnt so much a matter of checking all the boxes. It was the overall atmosphere. It was the sense that he had in washington a partner. Thats what he was trying to create. He thought he was creating it. You may say that what he says in his memoirs especially as opposed to what he said at the time isnt decisive. If we look at what he says, the notion that gorbachev is more dangerous than his predecessors, and that he is smothering us with kindness, doesnt sound like the end of the cold war. Maybe i am now checking off my box. You are right. Gates too. Scowcroft is personally ambivalent and uncertain. He is uncertain as to whether to say, we are all set now. This is good. He is suspicious. Baker, less so. I guess what gorbachev would have liked would have been a summit sooner than december, 89. Reagan had had one in december, 87, june, 88. December 88. Thats what a Partnership Looks Like apart from the specifics that you accomplish. So in that sense and will start always loom very large and in a way your comment or bobs that we dont pay enough attention to cfe and conventional weapons only underlines the fact that that is the way we operate . We do Pay Attention to strategic Nuclear Weapons. A start agreement if it had been reached in 89 would have been very big. James and i talked the other day about what the obstacles were to that on both sides. I am not an expert on that. I concede it. I guess it was very difficult. Again, leaving aside what thatcher did or didnt do, what he is saying is the big point. Thats the big point of my presentation. This guy was exceptional. This guy broke with stalin, brezhnev, putin. He was ready for a transformed world beyond the cold war. Against the background of that possibility, which we also have to worry about him being able to sustain at home, maybe yeltsin was also pushing for. Even if he was, it is a few short years. Against the possibility of that kind of outcome, i think that Central America pales. I think that Central America some of the other things with relations with allies, that shaky or fragile, that repairing them had to be put ahead of the possibility of this kind of outcome. Maybe im a romantic, a fantacist along with gorbachev and reagan. I wonder whether we couldnt have done more. I think thats an elegant statement of the other side of the case. Bill properly points out the gates position and scowcroft. This is where written sources, it is a challenge for historians. As i told you separately, baker had to crush gates a couple times on this. That tells you something. Gates wanted to give a speech that pointed out some of the cautionary stuff. Baker we first watered it down and basically said, i dont want this speech delivered at all. Brent, by nature, was cautious on this. I remember many times where baker would come back and say these guys just dont know what my friend wants and here he is referring to the president. My friend, gorbachev . His friend, bush. His meaning is bush is a very competitive man. He is a gentlemen. He is an extremely competitive man. He did not want to be seen as standing on the sidelines while gorbachev was framing the global context. You asked, is europe important . It really does come down, as phil framed it nicely, there was a view in the schultz state department, which ridgeway represented, that a divided europe was fine. Yes, the Bush Administration really did feel, and i can give you an example of this. In february of 89, we were thinking about german unification at the start of 89. You could see the forces that were breaking into it. So, frankly, if you are concerned about the german question, how they get unified peacefully and democratically with a stable security order, you do have to Pay Attention to europe. Remember, when that moment struck, germany didnt have many friends in europe. To the audience, first, matt frakes and then eric manila. I wonder if you could all speak to the opportunities that were available in the late 80s and the early 90s for cooperation and partnership. Im thinking for moments of crisis or anything else. This was a time of immense change and there were possibilities open that i dont think were imaginable before. I am wondering if you could talk a bit to these opportunities whether lost or otherwise and what that means for the handling of the u. S. soviet relationship at the time and also for today. I think thats what we were talking about in a sense. Im not sure of what i would add. I think there was a chance to do more. Although, i understand the fact that a lot was already done and that there were obstacles to doing more. It may be that this was a situation in which there was no way to go where in an ideal world we would have gone. The Economic System into the soviet union, with the gulf war or other crises at the time when the United States could have partnered with the soviets or did partner with them. This is always one of the challenges of history. We know how it turned out. In some ways, this supports some of bills caution here. I have a hard time explaining to people who didnt grow up in the cold war the fear and anxiety of the soviet union. I friday to make reference to 56 and 68. Those are just years. I think probably for the people who were of professional age in 1985 if you would ask, who are in this room, if you would ask them, do you expect the soviet union will withdraw from Eastern Europe or break up, you wouldnt have found one hand. This goes to the point of thinking about discontinuous events. I think policymakers have to think in probable terms. They have to keep open to the opportunities and prepare against down side risks. I use Tiananmen Square because we thought things were going one way in china and all of the sudden boom. It is the same year. The anxiety there would be a reversal was high. In a sense, bills book supports this. If you read about those debates going on in 87 and 88, they werent all in agreement. He adds one other element which was this thought of is gorbachev really just trying to remake the soviet union into a stronger opponent or is he trying to make it into Something Different . There was, i think, in your paper or one of the points, is he trying to make communism work . You can see gorbachev struggling with this. My view of gorbachev, he is a combination heroic tragic figure. He knows he wants to change. At least from what i observed and what i read and what i have read so far, he didnt really know what he wanted. He had launched some process of change but it wasnt clear where it was going to end up. So if you are representing the United States, you cant just say, ah, well, this is a wonderful dream. Well give up this. Well give up nato and so on and so forth. You have to be prepared for different evantualities. I continuing continue to feel, one of the interesting questions, what else could have been done on the economic side. I discussed this with phil to give you a personal sense. I was very early in the process starting to kind of look at the nature of the soviet economy and the reform process. So i was kind of digging into this and got to know some of the reform figures and so on and so forth. This is one of the stories with u. S. Bureaucracy. I was at the state department. Once this became a topic, the Treasury Department wanted to move in. The person who was point on this at the Treasury Department, david moford, he wanted to focus on the debt renegotiation, which is what Investment Bankers do. I remember getting frustrated because i was trying to work with some of the reformers to deal with a much broader question of structural reform. In a way, this story really transitions to the next panel because as i said i still believe the nature of the Structural Reforms in the soviet union for the economy were a huge challenge. I still wouldnt know today exactly what one should do. In fact, vlad made this point. Some of the soviet reformers were looking more for a better model from china or chile than they would have had from gorbachevs democratization. If on top of that you open up the political system, it is never going to work. To come back for the realm of possibilities, i think at least bush and baker were partly of the view to say, look, this is a historic moment. We want to try to sort of maintain or keep up the momentum as much as we can. We need the harvest, the benefits for things we wanted to achieve over the course of 40 years. Then, we also have to be prepared for some of the down sides. You asked about the gulf war. That was a story where many people in this room are probably well aware. Baker was in mongolia. Dennis ross and i were back in moscow with a guy who was very close to him. We arranged for baker to come back and have a statement at the airport about the soviet union and the United States standing up against saddam husseins aggression. What i learned subsequently was that he never got approval for that statement from gorbachev. At least so far i dont see that. That shows again the players, gorbachev was kind of hesitating. Going back to phils question, thats when baker says the cold war ends, when the soviet union and the United States come together to stop aggression. I would go a little earlier. I think it is earlier, when Eastern Europe is freed. It is telling for George Schultz and Margaret Thatcher, who said she liked germany so much she wanted two of them, she didnt like all that stuff. Her Foreign Policy assistant, charles pole, is a very good friend. She valued the gorbachev relationship so much, she didnt want germany unification to get in the way. That was a different policy choice. We are running out of time for this session. I want to get a question in and answer this and then we are done with this panel. First of all, thank you. My question is more about things you havent talked about. It did occur to me that much of the conversation to the extent it went beyond the soviet union and United States centered on europe. I am wondering to what extent some events outside of europe had an influence on this relationship and trajectory that you are describing. The two things that occurred to me and there may be other things that you would want to put on the table. Two things that occurred to me are the uranium revolution that led to the soviet invasion of afghanistan, which is on going for that period and the reforms in china, which im wondering to what extent they are shaping the way gorbachev is thinking about the future of the soviet union. Can i say very quickly, one thing i detect from the Reagan Administration, which i dont think i really appreciated before, is that in the early 1980s this fear that the iranian revolution would become a temporary thing, that it would fall apart and there would be a vacuum of power that would be very inciting to the soviets. That may have, i think, that fear dissipates over the course of a decade, but ive been kind of struck by early on that sense of it. You have to think about the reagan presidency in terms what ultimately brings it to its knees with iran contra. There were some people, who had the sense he needs to do a kissinger to china replication. And i think john poindexter, somewhere in 95, probably regretting turning off connection to his home email because that may have been credible for that. Can i pull a senatorial trick and yield my time to who has a question. And ill give you my answer later. Turn the question into the comment. And then close us out. Okay. Quick question. It was in 1991, not a policy, but kind of a feeling of getting preference to western europe. You mentioned that. It was like Eastern Europe first. Because when you read the discussions in terms of deliberations before the london g7 meeting before gorbachev came, the question was to crack down on europeans who wanted to rechannel the aid to gorbachev. And the position of president bush was, no, we have to help Eastern Europe first. You touched on that. Is it too far that we call it Eastern Europe first and soviet union second . And do you think that gorbachev would never get aid and why would he continue if he would . I did hear that. I didnt hear that. Did gorbachev understand in 91 that he was not going to get western aid . And if he didnt, why did he act as if he did . Well, i guess he understood after a while that he wasnt going to get it. I mean it took a great deal of determination and courage to ask for it in the first place. You know, initially, i think it was other people around him who named numbers and gorbachev put is it more generally like if you spent x billion of dollars in the gulf war, cant you spare anything to change, you know, the soviet union in this crucial way . That was his way of understanding for it. Asking for it. But i think he understood. But he didnt always behave in a way to make it more likely. His response to the gambit was to send primakov to washington. He undermined himself in that way and other ways. Your question about Eastern Europe, i guess the best way to answer it is we didnt see europe in categories in boxes, right . It was the whole region through the soviet union. Phil and i keep emphasizing, you know, in some ways because germany worked out okay, we dont see that as a big problem, if we realize in history theres a german question as much as a russian question. With Eastern Europe, that is related to germany. Theyre as anxious about germany as the soviet union. I dont recall the particular facts you mentioned with supporting Eastern Europe with the soviet union. The reality with the United States is, whether you think this is too narrow of a vision, remember, bush did a budget deal with that time we thought was a big deficit and ended up costing him reelection. The idea that, i remember thinking in the case of german unification, were helping to do all the things but we didnt think we should be paying for it, okay . Now, we were very supportive of the germans calling for it. In the gulf war baker gets the saudis to give additional contribution of funds. And for a minute, he needed to be a better person for the transition on this. You know, they were not small sums of money put in by the imf and the world bank. I continue to believe that money alone, unless you get the fundamentals right wont solve the problem. And again, i very much hoped there would be restructure of forms but as phil said here, we worked with others and primakov, and they kind of walked away. And there was never a good plan to invest in the process. The one last point, coming back to that point, ill switch it to today which is china. This is a question for all of you russian specialists in the room. I still dont quite grasp why putin seems more worried about nato and poland and the baltics and the United States than about china and the area to his south. So we can talk about the history of russia. But at some point, somebody has to recognize do you really think that poland and germany and the United States are a threat to russia . Or do you think that maybe some other regions might cause greater anxiety. All right. Lets thank the panel for their hard work. [ applause ] heres whats coming up. Next, more about u. S. Soviet relations from the george h. W. Bush and bill clintoner as, how they interacted with boris yeltsin, a discussion on kennedy and khruschev. Join us tonight in prime time, we continue a look at the relationship between the u. S. And soviet Union Leaders at the height of the cold war from university of virginias Miller Center. You can see American History tv in prime time, beginning 8 00 p. M. Eastern here on cspan 3. Elsewhere on the cspan networks, join us later when new america in washington, d. C. Hosts a Panel Discussion on influence of politics on race relations. Live coverage begins at 4 30 eastern on cspan. Later, White House Correspondents Association hosts discussion with Sarah Sanders and former White House Press secretary mike mccurry, followed by Panel Discussion with white house correspondents. Live coverage begins 7 00 p. M. Eastern, also on cspan. Cspan, where history unfolds daily. In 1979 cspan was created as a Public Service by americas Cable Television companies and today we continue to bring you unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court, and Public Policy events in washington, d. C. And around the country. Cspan is brought to you by your cable or satellite provider. A look now at the relationships between president s george h. W. Bush and bill clinton and russian president boris yeltsin, how they influenced the new russia after dissolution of the ussr. The Miller Center convened scholars for a conference looking at the complicated history in the last century. This is just over an hour. As with the end of the cold war, events are rushing forward with breathtaking speed and just when you think youre beginning to digest what happened by 1992, wait, theres a new administration in office and Strobe Talbott is going to explain it to us. Strobe . Well, let me start with a couple of ironies. I do remember as a reporter when the bush 41 administration came in. It was a little scratchy with the Reagan Administration going out, and i recall talk of pause, secretary of state jim baker, wanting to make sure he wasnt captured by the building and that kind of thing. When four years later the Clinton Administration came in, all i can say is that bill clinton picked up exactly where bush 41 was. It was an extraordinary transition. Well before inauguration, a number of people, including a couple of peoe
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