Enginner Memoirs
A ..
In the fall of 1990 and early months of 1991, Bush was preoccupied with Operation
Desert Storm, resulting in the remaining START issues taking a back seat.
Shevardnadze had resigned abruptly on December 15, 1990, and was replaced as
foreign minister by Alexander Bessmertnykh, the able Soviet ambassador to the
United States. All of Baker's careful nurturing of his relationship with
Shevardnadze went to naught. Baker should have known better; our relationship
with the Soviet Union does not depend on the personal rapport between high--level
officials. Still, it continues to be a misperception on the part of Americans that
Soviets will repay our acts of kindness by changing their positions on policy issues.
President Bush had scheduled a meeting with Gorbachev for early January 1991.
Although I was no longer a part of the administration, I let several of my friends
close to the President know that I thought a meeting at this time was not a good
idea. The reasoning behind my advice was that the Soviet Union had used force
to crush the independence movements in Lithuania and Latvia, and that Bush
should show his displeasure by not meeting with Gorbachev. The President did,
in fact, cancel the meeting. However, the reason he gave for doing so was that he
was too involved with the Gulf war. While I was pleased that Bush did not meet
with Gorbachev, I would have preferred his using my reason for not doing so.
Several days later, the Soviet Union tried to get into the act during the Gulf war.
Although the Soviets had committed no forces, they tried to convene a meeting
between Iraq and the coalition in which the Soviets would play a major role.
President Bush, having read their intentions correctly, politely and firmly
outmaneuvered them. What is more, the Soviet Union had backed the U.S. in its
proposal that the UN apply sanctions against Iraq. It was a rare display of how to
deal with the Soviet Union and a pair of diplomatic triumphs for President Bush.
Q ..
After Iraq was defeated, didn't President Bush call for a summit meeting?
A ..
Yes. Following the cessation of hostilities, the administration floated a trial
balloon. It said that Bush would be willing to meet with Gorbachev at a summit,
whether or not a START treaty would be ready for signature. This idea of
attending summits as a routine event, separate from progress on arms control, was
a policy I had been recommending ever since Bush became President. Summit
meetings, in my opinion, should be held on a routine basis and not tied to the
successful outcome of negotiations on a treaty. Predicting progress always works
against us; the Soviets invariably use rising expectations that there will be an
agreement as a way of extracting concessions from us.
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