Engineer Memoirs
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version of what occurred. None of his principal advisors thought so. But Reagan
noticed I had nodded affirmatively.
"Ed seems to think they would be interested," he said. "Why don't we call Prague
and find out?"
I called our arnbassador in Prague, Jay Niemczyk, an old friend. He said he
thought it was a good idea and would check with the Jakes government. In an hour
he called back with a favorable reply. I then called Warsaw, and in similar fashion
received an invitation to debrief them. My response from Budapest was the same.
Armed with these three invitations, I called our ambassador in East Berlin,
Rozalind Ridgeway. She personally thought it was a good idea but said she would
have to check. She called back to say that the East German officials were
originally cool to the idea, but since Czechoslovakian, Polish, and Hungarian
officials were being briefed the East Germans did not want to be odd-man-out.
I was well received at the four capitals behind what was then the Iron Curtain. The
Czechs, Poles, and Hungarians told me that the facts I presented were identical to
those Gorbachev had given them, although the interpretations and policy
implications were far apart. Only in East Germany did the officials contest me and
argue with our interpretations.
This started a pattern which I repeated three more times during Reagan's second
term. I also traveled to Rome, where I debrief4 the Pope. These discussions in
Rome were as fascinating as they were personally satisfying.
Following my trips to Europe, President Reagan sent me on similar missions to
Asia. I had consultations with our allies: Japan, Korea and Australia, and
discussions with our friends: China. The distinction between consultations and
discussions was an important one-we only consulted with allies. This pattern
continued into the first year of the Bush administration. I made four trips to
Europe and nine trips to the Far East during Reagan's time and two trips to each
area during Bush's time. In addition, I made two trips to Latin American capitals
for discussions there during the first year of the Bush administration.
The consultations proved to be especially worthwhile in Asia, and particularly
useful in connection with the INF treaty.
Following the first Reagan-Gorbachev summit meeting, there were several
meetings between the nine arms control experts on each side, of which I was one.
There was a hint at the second of these experts' meetings that the Soviets would
reduce their INF forces in Asia from 572 to 100. They had previously said they
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