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The discussions were extraordinarily frank. While
many of these policy veterans have written memoirs, at the
conference they were able to argue with each other, prod
each other’s memories, compare recollections, and debate
policy options and possible “missed opportunities” as
they relived the most important years of their careers. The
conferees discussed both domestic politics and grand
strategy; they debated underlying causes of events as well
as the details of statecraft; they recalled specific meetings
and decisions as well as the general perceptions that
underlay decision-making on both sides. And the
conference covered the critical years that bridged the end
of the Cold War and the new post-Cold War epoch. The
transcript of the conference—which will be published in a
forthcoming book—thus provides important context for the
memoirs that have already been published and for
documents that have yet to be released.
James Baker and Anatoly Chernyaev opened the
conference with brief presentations on the causes of the
Cold War’s end and the Soviet collapse. The opening
remarks were followed by four roundtable discussions.
The first session examined the recasting of the US-Soviet
relationship following the Bush Administration’s
inauguration and Gorbachev’s acceleration of reforms in
Soviet domestic and foreign policy. It illustrated both the
perceptual gap between the two sides that still existed in
this period and the complex relationship between
international interactions and domestic coalitions. The
fundamental question was, why were the Americans so
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much more uncertain of Soviet intentions than vice versa?
Scowcroft “plead guilty” to having been the
administration’s chief skeptic while Chernyeav explained
why the Gorbachev team maintained its “trust” in the
Americans even as Washington stalled the relationship in
early 1989 with a prolonged “strategic review.”
The perceptual gap and the complex links between
domestic and foreign policy were dramatically illustrated by
the two sides’ different reactions to Gorbachev’s offer of a
“third zero” on short-range nuclear forces, which he
conveyed to Baker during the secretary of state’s visit to
Moscow in May 1989. The former Soviet officials insisted
that this offer was not intended to sow discord in the
NATO alliance, while the Americans assumed that is was
precisely such a classic Cold War ploy. It temporarily set
back Baker’s efforts to reengage with Moscow and
strengthened the administration’s harder-line wing. The
perception in Washington was that the administration’s
chief advocate of improved relations had gone to Moscow
only to be duped by the wily Gorbachev. “I loved it!”
Scowcroft admitted.
The collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and
the reunification of Germany were discussed in the second
session. The participants debated the extent to which
unification-in-NATO was a consequence of superior
Western statecraft or the unintented outcome of a chaotic
and uncontrolled process, with the former Soviet officials
tending to argue in favor of the latter view. Chernyaev
detailed the reasoning behind Gorbachev’s acquiescence
to American and German terms while Tarasenko explained
Shervardnadze’s resistance to the “2+4” formula.
Palazchenko and Bessmertnykh described the assessments
and expectations that lay behind Moscow’s decision not to
form a coalition with Paris and London to prevent or slow
unification. The Soviet policy veterans also offered
numerous glimpses into the details of the Soviet
decision-making process in this period. They contended
that Gorbachev and Shevardnadze played a complex
strategic game designed to stave off the polarization of
Soviet domestic politics—a game that required unorthodox
decision-making procedures. According to Tarasenko, for
example, a major problem confronting Shevardandze was
the ingrained conservatism of the foreign ministry’s
German experts. As a result, bureaucratic strategems had
to be employed to circumvent them and present them with
faits accomplis. Such tactics help account for the erratic
character of Soviet policy during this period.
The third session dealing with US-Soviet cooperation
in countering Iraq’s aggression against Kuwait and
restarting the peace process in the Middle East generated
the most new information. We learned how
Shevardnadze—against the views of most of his ministry
and with only partial advance approval from Gorbachev—
agreed to a joint statement with Baker that condemned
Iraq’s occupation of Kuwait and endorsed an arms
embargo; how Moscow came to support UN Security
Council resolutions on Iraq; how Iraq special envoy
Yevgeny Primakov and Shevardnadze battled for
Gorbachev’s allegiance; and how Bessmertnykh
single-handedly revised a Soviet plan presented to Iraqi
foreign minister Tariq Aziz by Gorbachev and Primakov that
might have derailed US-Soviet cooperation. Chernyaev
detailed Gorbachev’s frenetic efforts to negotiate a
diplomatic solution, quoting extensively from transcripts of
Gorbachev’s talks with Aziz. It is quite clear from the
conference discussions that US-Soviet cooperation was
fragile and contradictory. Gorbachev desperately wanted
to avoid the bombardment of Iraq and the eventual ground
assault on Iraqi-occupied Kuwait. Primakov continually
kept alive in Gorbachev the hope that he could elicit
concessions from Saddam Hussein. Had Primakov
succeeded, the conference discussions leave little doubt
that a major rift in US-Soviet relations would have followed.
The final session directly addressed the crucial
backdrop to all the preceding diplomacy of the Cold War’s
end: Soviet domestic politics and the mounting dual crises
of the communist system and the Soviet empire. The
conferees discussed efforts by Bush, Baker and Matlock to
warn Gorbachev of an impending coup. Since many of the
principals were present, the conference provided an
opportunity to clarify the flow and eventual fate of
information during this unusual episode. The discussants
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