Philip zelleco will chair the panel. I think Everybody Knows philip and hes written a terrific book on the end of the cold war. The principal author of the 9 11 Commission Report and many other books and hes right now in the midst of writing a terrific book on sort of decisions for war and in ways that eliminate old crises and old decisions like going to war in 1898 or wilsons divisions for war in world war i. He sort of brilliantly reassessing these decisions. So were all looking forward to philips next book. At the same time hes doing a dozen other things that none of us can keep track of and sometimes we dont know about. Philip, thank you. Thank you. I am sorry to say we need to wait for james wilson to show up. So hes probably out there somewhere having a good conversation. If we can send the search party out. Ill get james. One of the messages of this so far its been a great panel. [ laughter ] its rather intimidating when youre sitting next to someone that you can refer to as book. If we had grand children here they could sit on it. Here he is. Glad you could join us. Thank you. Um, all right. Lets go ahead and get started then. This is a panel just covering the period of the great second crisis phase of the cold war in the early 1980s extending to the end of the cold war itself and to the beginning of the early 1990s and the disintegration of the soviet union and with the perspective on u. S. And russia relations well start 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, and 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 they are 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, but we are in for it and the only real question is whether we shall know it soon enough. Now, 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 199 8 when deputy secretary talbot sent it on to secretary madelein madeleine albright, and it very much applies to the topic weve been discussing. Incidentally, it probably also applies to mel lefler and me or his perception of me when i 12 years ago walked into his office and six years ago trying to finish up in 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 and im extremely grateful to the uva History Department to my dear and beleaguered adviser to the Miller Center for having me and for having me back. Now to the point that jeremy said about common knowledge, i think that what the Miller Center does in term of the president ial proyejects and the oral history is tremendously important or it is genuinely difficult to figure out what is real and what is not. What is authentic history and 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. Policymakers from 1917 to 1991 when it comes to u. S. And russia. I should say that the views expressed here are my own and do want 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 subak and others have raised in the last day and to talk a little bit about what i rfrthin potential lessons are of Ronald Reagan when it comes to u. S. Russia today and the future and simply put, i would say dont wait for a gorbachev. Reagan didnt. There is 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 and deferred negotiations until a new type of soviet leader emerged and in fact, reagan attempted early on to engage with breshnev and his successors and constakonstantin chenyenko the time giving the history of russian Foreign Policy and the russians he was dealing with. In thinking through this letter he wrote to chenyenko. I have reflected at some length on the tragedy and scale of 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 intensions toward you or the soviet people. When it came to approximately see decision, i think, just as importantly or even more importantly, reagan put out on the table zero option on intermediate Nuclear Forces treaty talks. He put that out in the fall of 1981 and there was a wide perception that it was a purely cynical thing because the u. S. And nato did not yet have pershing crew and launch cruise missile, but reagan stuck to this. He stuck to this position even throughout 1987 when a lot of people around him and a lot of allies whose leaders had put their political careers on the line were not so excited to go forward with gorbachev. Reagan put forward with the 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 and submarine launch ballistic missiles. In march of 83 when reagan announced the strategic Defense Initiative, he said, he called upon the Scientific Community to turn their great challenge now to the cause of mankind and world peace to give us the means of rendering these Nuclear Weapons impotent and obsolete. These two big proposals and this one big idea that went against the conventional thinking throughout the cold war, i think, set the terms for the big debates between u. S. And soviet leaders even before gorbachev came to office. In the summer of 1984, and this is a moment this is a period that i think very much applies to today when i think its fair to say there was a pessimistic view of the next ten years with the russian, but in the fall of 84 when there was no strategic arms negotiations going on, the soviet his walked out of geneva the fall before. There is a wonderful memo that ive recently discovered to George Schultz about the prospects for arms control in the second term, and it was written by a magnificent Public Servant named james timby and 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 the 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, but if you simply are just waiting for both sides to grind through the bureaucratic process and 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 and just to, you know, just to be clear, we dont forget about the arms reduction achievements during this period you have inf and 87 and the Nuclear Risk Reduction center is completed. You have an uplie and upgrade to the hot line. You have the strategic arms reduction treaty and the open skies treaty and the start to the conventional forces in Europe Treaty and the chemical weapons convection and two very important president ial Nuclear Initiatives that are understudy and said then start, too. Its an extraordinary period that really gets launched during the middle of the 1980s, and i think that one moment that really crystallizes what reagan is trying to achieve after he starts tone gauge with gorbachev and begins to think that i can trust this guy to really uphold his end of the bargain, and to the great, i think, surprise of his some of the people around him, theres a very evocative saturday morning meeting in january 1986 where i think eric edelman may have been there where there was a sense among people around reagan and hissen counter and they were talking about the ifusionsharing technology and maybe hes trying to get this out ofs is system. Lets let him do this and as ambitions were beyond that and the letters that he sent in july of 86 to gorbachev let out this three threephase agreement for Nuclear Weapons even after he signs the imf treaty in december of 87 he says to this team, lets go for the gold. I want to start an agreement before the end of 1988, and ill just close by saying that i think there is a very there is a kind of way of looking at these individuals, reagan, gorbachev, bush, yeltsin through the lens of a heroic factor and thats not to say that to acknowledge the strengths of particular ones at particular moments denigrates the con tribugs tr tribugzs of others at other moments and ill close by something that has fascinated me and that is the last interaction with vs r veb nassy, and tear d the wall and i understand it may have been perhaps unrealistic to have suggested that the berlin wall be torn down in its entirety. He understood that the division of germany and berlin was a product of world war ii that germany should never again be allowed to be the strongest and most dominant power in central europe, and if you had said to reagan after that meeting, after s r srebrenase would have laughed and smiled and said that would have been great and that was something that could happen in 25 or 30 years. Thank you, james. I, too, the chorus of the members of this conference. I hope the organizers would not only recount history, but try to derive some lessons for the future and for the present. Actually, ive derived some lessons from the discussion about the history itself, and indeed, the subject of my book gorbachev and his relations with the United States. So some of what im going to say is diverging from my paper in order to take account of what i have heard here and how it has affected my thinking. In talking about gorbachev i begin with a famous quote of the famous historian Thomas Carlisle that history is, quote, but the biography of great men, and we know immediately there is something wrong with that. The word man or men, but not only there, we know there are social movements and conditions and economic circumstances, but i think gorbachev is a classic example of a leader who makes an impact on history and whose biography help his explain that decisive impact and this is partly because he had the power to have such an impact as the leader of the soviet union and as a still totalitarian regime in 1985, but 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 he was reflecting the values that he all shared or we could say that he was reacting to the demands of the situation which they all faced, but no, he acted in his own idiosyncratic way and there were members of the bureau who stayed with him almost to the very end, and edward srebrnaza because he did resign. Edward, whom his closest ally with whom he grew estranged and vladim medvedev. He was unique and he was exceptional and thats what i want to enlighten in light of the conference so far because what struck me about many of the papers is how much continuity the paper givers have discerned in the hundred years between 1917 and 2017. Of course, there have been differentes and stalin is wanot putin and the communist ideology is not to return to the trinity of the czars and the nationality and there are many differences and detant was different from khrushchev, we talked about them all, but there are these interesting parallels from which gorbachev and to some degree yeltsin is the exception and just to list a few of them that i heard mentioned here and the search of the soviet union and russia in the sphere of we call it by different names. Influence, dominancer is ral of the papers talk about how the soviet union and russia over and over again have seen the United States as hypocritical, proclaiming its adherence to ideals and then ignoring them in his foreign approximately see practice. We heard several times about how the soviets and now putin himself wants to be treated as an equal of the United States and weve heard about how the liberal International Order is defended by the United States has been a kind of obstacle to the soviets and the rugs achieving what they wanted to achieve. We heard just before lunch about the parallels about the differences between breshnev and putin. So it strikes me as a result of writing the book that gorbachev is and yeltsin to some extent to be determined in the next half of this panel is the great exception. Truly exceptional both at home, in his determination to try to democratize his country and abroad in his determination to end the cold war and help to build a new world order postcold war order which 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 of what he was . To what extent did he 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, and in my book and to some extent, in my paper i talk first about reagan and then about george bush and i describe reagan as ironically, an almost perfect partner for gorbachev, strange as it seemed at the time and in retrospect. After all, he was an arch conservative president and gorbachev was a communist leader and reagan talked about the evil empire and reagan talked about the Defense Initiative in hopes that it would scare the russians and even when you met in jen eve a even when you read the transcripts of the discussions theyre impatient with each other and its a rather sterile conversations and yet they both feel that by the time geneva in 1985 is over that they have made a breakthrough and it turns out they have because a few months later in rakovic in 1986, they come very close to an agreement and an agreement to abolish Nuclear Weapons and in that near agreement we see their compatibility and we see the fact that they both would like to get rid of Nuclear Weapons, if they can. Unlike many of their colleagues that have come to the conclusion that it would keep the peace as horrible as the consequences would be if they were ever used and of course, when reagan goes to moscow in the summer of 1988 and is standing in the shadow of the kremlin and he is asked what about that evil empire that he used to talk about and he says that was another time, another era, and then in december 1988 when reagan, bush and gorbachev meet at Governors Island in new york, bush sounds to gorbachev as if he is going to peck up where reagan left off and even jokes to gorbachev that if he doesnt do this reagan will be on the phone from california pushing him to do what he has promised gorbachev he is going to do. Now, 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 though 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. Theyre talking about how striking and striking and stunning was the connection between them, and 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. Now ive begun to talk about this with philip before, and i talked to james about what might have been involved in achieving gorbachevs goal which was to assign a s. T. A. R. T. Treaty in 1989 rather than 1991, and i realize this is complicated, but i think 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 and as i look back and i expect bob wont agree with me as philip did not, but when i look back at it it seems to me to have been aing about mistake to the extent that it actually happened. You gentlemen may decide that it didnt, but when i look back and i read brent scokrofts memoirs, for example, i see him saying that gorbachev was trying to smother us with kindness or that gorbachev, and these are almost the words, i would find them if i opened the book that gorbachev was more dangerous than his predecessors, more dangerous than his predecessors because he was, in effect, lulling our vigilance by seeming to be so reasonable. Noi you have to remember by this time, gorbachev had transformed the soviet system and im thinking about the 1990 conference in 1988 which set the stage for free elections of 89. He had discarded the ideological underpinnings of soviet policy. He had signed one disarmament treaty, imf, and moved toward another start. He had announced a drastic cut in conventional forces in europe. He had begun to withdraw from afghanistan although i realize hes not entirely out until the spring of 1989. He had recognized universal human rights and yet, and what i understand to be the sort of summary of the fourpart strategy for copes with the soviet union in early 1989, i understand it to be first and 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 higher priority on relations with Eastern Europe than with russia and fourth, to promote regional stability in Central America, and in my paper i wrote, notably absent from this list was helping gorbachev to transform this 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, and then we get to 90 and 91. Its a different world, its a different issue and germany in particular, gorbachev amazingly, quickly accepts the reunification of germany and its membership of reunified germany in nato and he hopes that this would be part of a sea change in europe in which nata and warsaw pact would lose their military nature and eventually disappear and europe will, and a common european home and which he believed in very seriously and he thinks secretary baker in 1990 has told him that nato would not expand in the east and theres a debate about what exactly they meant and gorbachev took it to mean that broadly that nato would not expand and yet we know that it did. So against all of this background, i guess i want to bring up the words of Margaret Thatcher. No longer Prime Minister she urged ambassador matlock, American Ambassador to the soviet union to tell weve got to help mikhail, she says to matlock. She wishes that bush would lead the ray just as reagan had, quote, this is thatcher, just a few years back ron and i would have given the world to give what has already happened here. If the west had not come to gorbachevs aid, she added, history would 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 it was probably too late because things were coming apart in the soviet union and then going back to the conference, was there talk about how some day we dont know when, probably not soon, another her on being leader and circumstances might come about when we had another chance to deal with a russian leader who wants to do things differently and then theyve been done for the most part in the last hundred years. What might we do then . How might we be prepared in a way that they couldnt, didnt or wouldnt back in 1989 or 1991. So those are the two questions id 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 all of those complimenting mel and will in the center for organizing this conference. I personally find the ability or the opportunity to try to connect historical reflections, and fascinating area. For phil and for me this is what i try to do in our career and i appreciate the invitation and for the historian, you may not recognize this, but since i know many of you from your books its a real treat to have a chance to be here with you, and i told the professor, im enjoying his biography of gorbachev and its just to show the irony of life as i was flying back from paris yesterday, i just finished 1988 so ive got a feeling of where hes going in 89, but i dont and for those that havent read it, its a masterpiece. So its an extraordinary piece of work. James and i met when i reviewed his book for the Financial Times and that, perhaps, is a cautionary tale when historians edge into the policy area and they may be approximately seemakers, but james has done a wonderful when i think of what he and his colleagues are doing at the state department i know it will 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, its interesting and weve had discussion of arms control agreements and weve had discussions of summits and i think it is only in the connection of domestic and international linked in the economic issue and its not that im a marxist determinist and i just think that economics becomes very important in the story. Recall, during the 1970s, it was very common to read stories about the death of capitalism, oil shock, stagflation, loss of confidence and rather than review that in detail i want to draw attention to four particular elements and one, the revival of the western market economists were 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, its transformative. If you look at what west germany is able to do to continue to expand and its the engine of europe. Mitt rand, as you recall, changes his approach in policy towards economics. The one other european figure that really worked with us during uniif i kag was jack delore, and ec92 was clearly a magnet for the rest of europe. So in sum, we saw adaptability of economies of different types and thats what partly drives the story of the soviet union because the soviet union is not able to adapt. Two, and critical to the reference for today, the domestic, economic revivals were combined with International Adaptations in the 1990s, without taking the detail, let me mention these took place in trade and they take place in Monetary Policy and Exchange Rates and the g7 coordination and the 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 has faded in history which is the new, International Economic order and it was a 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 theres a dynamic element to the power, and part of it is the systemic ability to adapt and to change. Third, the ussr could not adapt and it was dependent on Energy Resources and prices and that is still true today. Its roughly 20 of their gdp and 50 of their budget and maybe 80 of their exports so its a huge dominance for the overall economy, and four, the traditional focus bush 41 is obviously his foreign approximately see and i hope historians will go back and look at his economic and domestic aspects because, for example, the budget deal this he does at great political cost, 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 a nafta negotiation which clinton passed which clinton finished and passed and i might add, little recognizes the landmark Clean Air Act amend ams and not bad for a first term and you rarely find that this is part of bushs legacy. The question today is whether the u. S. Is deconstructing this International System that it led in creating and if so, there may be very big costs to Foreign Policy and National Security. It may not show up immediately, but in the world in which i operate youre already feeling it. Second. Security negotiations require leverage. The euro missile debate was a fierce mixture of neutralism and antinuclear pass vichl, and soviet manipulation and one of the challenges in terms of policymakers with the soviet union and remember with asaw in the course of the missile debate and others was a soviet union that was challenging the system and i believe gorbachev acknowledges the ability of the western countries to maintain the cohesion which led the soviet union toledo to the imf treaty. 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 a response seriously and with real capabilities to russian probes whether in the baltics or central and Eastern Europe or now especially in cyberspace, and i might add that firmness does not necessarily require bell ij rens. In the case of ukraine, i think putins aggression will be limited by the costs and it points to the importance ultimately of the ukraines cohesion. Thirdly, allies first. This has both a historic and current applicability, and this is an interesting aspect to this conference which i mentioned as it came through and not surprising is you have people who specialized in the soviet union and russia. They focused on u. S. Russian relations and you might focus on the alliance relation and you can see in the history, the tensions between those that focus first on western europe and those who put their priority and relations with the soviet union. Marshall, truman, atkinson were after the Marshall Plan. I would argue that canon and john f. Kennedys advisers and kennedy moves out of this, view, i believings with berlin, but are very much focused on moscow. I dont know, but the book that he did right after bush 41 said bush made a mistake by focusing too much on coal and not enough on your sort of thesis. You see this in jack matlocks writings and the idea should the u. S. Have put a priority to gorbachev or to cole in germany . Without getting into too much of the pause, you will encounter the difficulty for the people that were there is that there is clearly a desire by bush to demonstrate hes going to have his own team and so partly, its a shock to some of the reagan people that they dont get to stay in office, and theres all these studies that are commissioned, but frankly, those studies were busy work, okay . And from day one people werent pausing and they were trying to figure out the world that we inherited in 1989 and frankly, just as in the budget area there was cleanup of snls and budget deficit, there were some things to clean up in the world of 1989. Our allies were not wildly excited about the romantic view that well do away with Nuclear Weapons and we can debate how likely this will be, and this is a troubling view of everybody from thatcher to cole and it left the short range Nuclear Missiles are the only ones left and this meant the shorter the missiles, the deader the germans. What i find most striking is that theresal most no attention in the histories to bushs conventional forces proposal that he does in late may and its been in office three or four months and this is a bold effort to move the short range missiles off of the agenda by saying that the justification was a sort of a three to one conventional symmetry, lets equalize and go to much lower levels. The importance of this is that, number one, it, as i said, moved to shortrange missiles off the agenda where there was great conflict with the soviet union with germany, and it moves the idea of the politics, moving away from Nuclear Negotiations and youll hear most of the discussions today and other days focusing on strategic arms as being the sole determinant of the u. S. Soviet relations and this goes back to what is the history of the cold war which is the soviet army occupying Eastern Europe and there was a political implication to all of this, if you can 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, and the other little benefit of this that takes place is it clearly establishes bush as the Alliance Leader and Margaret Thatcher didnt like the proposal and there was a conflict that bush had to make the decision over thatchers presence. So again, you can compare with administrations within the first four or five months weave had conventional forces that changes the focus of the alliance. In addition, i was very much involved with the Central American negotiations which baker starts about sort of in february and its the first month and this was a way of also testing serious soviet seriousness about whether and frankly 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 into cuba and nicaragua. Its a political reality. How do you move that away been in september, baker and srebrenica, and we start the discussions about economics. We had the economic reform discussion on the plane out. In addition it the summer of 89 bush visits poland and hungary where hes welcomed reform and hes competing with gorbachev in term of the Public Diplomacy so in a way, throughout much of the cold war the u. S. Soviet rips were around Nuclear Weapons and now the agenda is moving from everything from conventional forces to the division of europe to sort of economic reform and keep in mind, whether this was a limitation or not, what do decisionmakers have in their mind . They have 1956 in their mind. They have 1968 in their mind and this is also very important for historians looking in one area. We had june 89 in our mind and we come back from the conventional forces success asks theres Tiananmen Square. So the idea that this was all going to be a straightline path looks that way 25 years from now, it doesnt necessarily look that way at that point and that was sort of a warning of the cautions, and 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 and this came up a little bit kind of in the earlier discussion. You know, the prospect of what would happen with germany was not only a matter for russia. It was a matter for Eastern Europe and it was a matter for western europe, and so 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 compare it to anything else . It matches that level, and so and since by november which is within the first eight or nine months you have it positioned on nato and germany and the usec relationships and baker talks about the csce as a way to deal with the common european home by december. To compare that with today, i think we have a world where trump is ambivalent about alliances and the ink the generals will hold him in line, but trump prefers transactional policies and strong leaders of an authoritative nature, and so one of the questions going back a little bit to the discussion about the wilsonian period is i wonder whether we might be moving back to a period more like 1900 or the 1920s where you had maneuvering of great powers if this system doesnt continue. Fourth point, prudence and respect. Bush and baker were not triumphant. Bushs reserve when the berlin wall came down as the most sort of obvious example of this. They both tried to listen and understand the perspectives and an important part of diplomacy that sometimes worked and sometimes others is to help explanations for the counterparts when they were in disarray and this was definitely the case of the soviet union in 89 and 91. Remember, when bush finally convinces gorbachev to accept german unification and nato he does it on the basis of cfce principles because gorbachev didnt embrace the csce and it has a principle that countries should be able to choose their open alliance. How could you deny that possibility. Theres another example that phil has detailed called the nine points where basically we had been putting out ideas to try help the soviets and we werent sure that they had internalized them and so we reframed them in sort of a different way. You see this in the handling of the baltics where bush was very cautious about russia and recognition. I Remember Baker trying to differentiate the discussions with skreb nis ina, and you hav the breakup of the soviet union and this was a controversial issue and this was again, to sort of fit that model of dealing with this prudently and also i think this is again, reasonable people will differ about this, but you have to assess realistically what the u. S. Can or cant do. Im surprised by this view in that after recognizing trillions of dollars we havent been able to remake afghanistan and iraq, how were we going to remake russia . In todays contrast in respect to prudence and respect, i think trump seeks confrontation. He creates uncertainty, and he will act he impulsively as part of his deal making so the reliability of the United States is i think an issue today. Finally, again, this comes back to the idea of what one can believe the u. S. Could do. Ive always had the sense that russias future is in the hands of russians and you have to be careful not to assume that you can remake their world for them. Again, from a historical perspective, you know, we were trying to avoid what we called a versailles victory, but this applied to germany as much as it did russia. We wanted germany to be unified in a way that if sovereignty was clear so that there wouldnt be a future generation of germans saying why are we singled out and all we have to look at is to have a sense of whether those things are possible over time and in terms of the germanu. S. Partnership we saw this not only in terms of alliance obligations, but we saw it in the future of europe. We believed it could be the dominant country in europe. I think germany has become the most powerful country in europe and im afraid the partnership has tended to slip away from us for various reasons. We wanted the 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 of Economic Development which i also know from my World Bank Days is that if the locals dont own it, it wont work, and frankly, at least so far of when i read your book i have a sense that gorbachev and yeltsin grasp Market Economics and i had this when i engaged with them and their people the technocrats and russia were far weaker than those, for example, in poland and this wasnt primarily a question of money although money helps. You may remember, in the 90s, russia gets big sums of money and the saudis, u. S. Ag credits, but you have two big issues here and this is a relevance for today. One is the Macro Economic issues of budget, inflation, credit and russias eventually gotten a hold of those and russia has very good macroeconomic policy and the microeconomic issues and the property right, rule of law, contract, competition and those are more difficult and russia is struggling with those issues 25 years later 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 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, sounds 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 kchymiracl. 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 s 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. Expected one sooner. 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. And some the other things with the 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. Theres a lesson of historical method. Bill propertily points out kind of the gates position and s scocroft. 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. What he is meaning is that bush, bush is a very competitive man. You see it in his sports. 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 erez 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 try 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 Event youllal different evantualities. I 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 what 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. On china. Turn the question into the comment. And then close us out. Okay. Two very quick questions. It was in 1991, not a policy, but kind of a feeling of getting pref reps rens preference to Eastern Europe. Erence to eas. Preference to western europe. You mentioned that. It was like Eastern Europe first. 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 to behave that way if he would . 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. 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 paying for it. In the gulf war baker gets the saudis to give additional contribution of funds. And strobe had to leave 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. What did you decide . [ laughter ] just what you said. Yeah. All right. Lets thank the panel for their hard work. [ applause ] heres whats coming up. Next a look at u. S. russia relations during the george h. Bush and clinton presidency. Later the relationship between president nixon and brezhnev. Join us tonight in prime time as we continue to look at the relationship between the u. S. And soviet union leader at the height of the cold war from university of virginias Miller Center. You can see American History tv in prime type, beginning at 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 politician on race relations. In 1979, cspan was created by 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. Okay, so if theres a wall between candidates and super pacs, and if i, as a political donor, throw big money at a super pac, my personal politician does not get to decide how its spent. Right . Well, that is technically correct except that the people who do decide how to spend it are usually in this scenario, the former Campaign Manager of the candidate or Close Friends of the candidate. And one of my favorite example, the parents of the candidate who are running the super pac. So its they also can share what are called common vendors so they can use the same consult unlts. Basically, i think is useful to see it as the other pocket on the candidates coat. Okay. But if the candidate sells a super pac exactly what to do with the money that would be illegal. Okay. However. First they have to get caught and then the the fec has to have a majority vote on whether to investigate it. As you may heard, the fec basically deadlocked on all of this in the last couple years. That, just a short person from the first unrig the system summit in new orleans. Watch it in its entirety tonight at 8 30 eastern on cspan. A look now at relationships between president s george h. W. Bush and bill