The discussion at the Economic Club of New York was meaningful and at times heated. It was taking place at a complicated and bewildering moment. Economic reforms had begun in Russia and I was in favour of their overall direction, but critical of the ‘shock therapy’ approach. I was equally critical of the hopes placed on the magic wand of recommendations from American advisers and donor aid. I told the assembled businessmen and economists:
No donor is going to be able to cure an ailing body if it does not itself fight disease and mobilize its own organic defences. Not even the wealthiest donor has the power and resources to restore such a vast territory as Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States to health. The most promising approach is stable, mutually beneficial cooperation. ‘Not donations, but trade and investment’ is how I would summarize my view.
Unfortunately, American business was clearly in no hurry to enter Russia. I pointed out that there was almost no American capital invested. Such diffidence on the part of American entrepreneurs might lead to imbalances that would benefit neither them nor Russia. I urged them to act. ‘Today a campaign in the East is a bold venture, but not a gamble. There is risk, but it is entirely quantifiable. Anyone who comes into the Russian market and, despite all the difficulties, stays, will soon be in a position to implement large-scale projects.’
Regrettably, not many American corporations went down that road, but for those that did, it paid off, as I was told by the chief executive of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, Alan Mulally, when we met some years later. He spoke admiringly of Russian engineers and said many components of the latest Boeing aircraft were being manufactured in Russia. This, of course, raises the question of why Russia’s leaders missed the opportunity to develop our own aircraft industry. I believe our dealings with the world’s giants could have been handled much more to Russia’s benefit.
In Washington I had a meeting with President George Bush, visiting the White House, which I had previously visited during my two official visits, in a private capacity, without any claim to an official role. It was nevertheless no mere diplomatic courtesy visit. I spent more than two hours in the residence of the president of the United States, and our conversation was serious and meaningful.
First there was lunch in one of the rooms, attended by Barbara Bush, James Baker, Brent Scowcroft, an adviser and close friend of the president, the president’s brother, Preston, and son George W. Bush, at that time still only preparing to run for governor of Texas. George W. Bush behaved modestly and gave the impression of being very polite.
We talked about the prospects for relations with Russia, Scowcroft particularly asking questions. He wanted to know how robust the Commonwealth of Independent States was organizationally, and asked whether it was necessary to build a relationship with it. That was a difficult question to answer. Of course, I could see even then that the CIS was something of a formality. I advised that, after the collapse of the Soviet Union it was now necessary to have relations with the individual states, but primarily, of course, with Russia. It would be there that the main events that would decide the fate of democracy in the vast post-Soviet space would be played out. It would be with Russia too that the major issues of military politics would have to be agreed, and in cooperation with Russia that regional problems would have to be addressed. At the same time, I said I was sure that the states that had emerged after the dissolution of the USSR would eventually have to find some form of integration, and America should not interfere with that.
Then there were just the three of us, Bush, Baker and myself, and we recalled what we had managed to do together. This was not mere reminiscence, however. We talked about my impressions on this trip and exchanged views on international issues. James Baker expressed astonishment that the question of who owned and controlled the nuclear weapons in the CIS inherited from the Soviet Union seemed not to have been cleared up. Leonid Kravchuk and other Ukrainian figures appeared to be envisaging almost joint controclass="underline" ‘three fingers on the button’. Clearly, the only sensible solution was to concentrate all nuclear weapons in Russia. I was shocked that ‘the heirs of the Soviet Union’ proved incapable of reaching agreement by themselves and needed Baker’s mediation.
I talked to Bush and Baker frankly about my concern over events in Yugoslavia. So far, in Russia we had got by without a lot of bloodshed, I said, but in Yugoslavia everything was building up towards a major disaster. Bush replied that he was concerned about this himself and the US did not want to force the pace. As a year earlier, during our summit meeting in Novo-Ogarevo, he complained that some European countries were doing precisely that. I told him about my talks in the Kremlin in November 1991 with the leaders of Serbia and Croatia, Slobodan Milošević and Franjo Tuđman. It seemed to me then, and later, that the international community was not doing enough to move developments in Yugoslavia in the direction of negotiations.
Partners should be equal
I was to speak in the US Congress, and prepared meticulously. I was given a warm and dignified reception at the highest level. Members of both houses of Congress, the House of Representatives and the Senate, assembled in the historic setting of the Statuary Hall and I was welcomed by the leaders of the majority and minority parties. I knew many of those present from meetings and negotiations in Moscow and Washington. I recognized that this was not so much personal to me as to the change for the better in the relationship between our countries.
Tom Foley, the speaker of the House of Representatives, referred to that in his welcoming speech:
Many Americans first began to hope for true world peace, for an end to the Cold War against all previous experience, despite years of frustration and superpower stand-off, when they understood that Mikhail Gorbachev genuinely saw disarmament and the end of US–Soviet tensions as the only solution to his country’s economic and social problems and those of the rest of the international community.’
Foley’s speech showed a much deeper understanding of what happened in 1991 than many of our so-called analysts:
It was with great apprehension for President Gorbachev’s safety and the safety of his family that many Americans watched and waited during those anxious hours of the August 1991 attempted coup. The swift flow of events that followed brought an end to the Soviet Union, a dissolution that President Gorbachev had not wanted to see. Yet it was his commitment to the welfare of the peoples of the Soviet Union that ensured a peaceful and orderly transition to the 12 new independent states of the Commonwealth of Independent States. The peoples of those new nations owe Mikhail Gorbachev thanks for the peaceful relations that have ensued with the United States and its allies. So too does the entire international community, so too does the United States of America.[4]
Politicians, I said in my speech, have a responsibility to ensure that their nation has a correct understanding of its own vital interests. ‘It is dangerous to pretend these coincide with the opportunistic, selfish needs of particular influential groups or sections of society.’ The Russian Federation, looking to establish itself as a new state with its own national interests, is seeking a partnership of equals with the United States. This is also in the interests of America, not least, I said, because ‘Russia will undoubtedly be a large, prosperous state whose weight in the world will be in accordance with its immense potential.’ I expressed that view in the United States on many occasions, both during my first trip and later. It is a conviction I still hold.
4
Mikhail Gorbachev, ‘Address to Both Houses of Congress’, 14 May 1992; http://www.c-span.org/video/?26080-1/address-houses-congress. Accessed 26 July 2015.