ambassador rudolf v. perina - Association for Diplomatic Studies and ...

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efore the invasion and what they said publicly after the invasion. Both things were totally in contradiction, and both were lies. It showed me for the first time how unashamedly people can lie in diplomacy. Q: What was our initial analysis of this? I have never been fully satisfied by explanations of why the Soviets invaded another Communist country. It caused all sorts of developments which are still with us today. One of the explanations I've heard is that it was a bunch of old men in the Politburo who didn't know what they were doing. What was coming from our Embassy at the time? PERINA: Well, the Soviets felt that Afghanistan was slipping away from them. The invasion was a fundamental miscalculation and not a rational move from any viewpoint. This in part explains why we ourselves were so surprised and caught off guard by it. The best explanation is that the Soviets just totally miscalculated at how difficult it would be to control the country. We couldn't figure it out even with the reputation that by then the Soviets had. They were willing to go into Hungary, they were willing to go into Czechoslovakia but nobody anticipated that they would really go into Afghanistan. And I think that really doubled the shock and then the desire to retaliate against them. Q: So what happened in the Embassy after the invasion? Did all the doors shut on you or did you shut all the doors? PERINA: Well, we were the ones who shut the doors, and it was a very intentional response. Our Ambassador by then was Thomas Watson, and we junior officers rotated sitting in on the morning Country Team meetings. I remember one dramatic staff meeting just a few days after the invasion when Watson came in and said, “We are going to retaliate. We are going to react very, very strongly to this Soviet action. I want from each section chief and agency head a list of things that we can do to the Soviets to show them how outraged we are.” This was at the Country Team meeting. Then he asked right there for people around the table to give him examples of what could be done to retaliate against the Soviets. It was a very tense meeting because he then did call on people around the table. He would go, for example, to the Cultural Attaché, to the USIA person. That person would say, “Well, you know we have a lot of exchanges with the Soviets. We have student exchanges, we have professional exchanges, and so on. We could stop all these but it wouldn't be in our interest to do so because it took us a long time to develop these programs. We would just be punishing the people who are going to have greater exposure to the West. So I would not recommend that we do this.” Then Watson went to the Economics Officer who said, “Well, we're selling a lot of wheat now to the Soviet Union and we could stop selling that. However, there is a lot of Congressional support for these sales. Farm interests want to continue selling wheat. We will get a lot of flack if we stop wheat sales so I recommend against it.” And he went predictably from counselor to counselor and almost everyone told him things that could be done but recommended against doing them. But of course, ultimately, we ended up doing almost all of those things. However, nobody even at that staff meeting suggested boycotting the Moscow Olympics. Nobody thought it would go that far. 28
I will always remember that staff meeting because it was so predictable how everyone tried to protect his or her bureaucratic turf. However, it was all for naught because the reaction from Jimmy Carter was very, very strong and we ended up doing all of those things and more. When it became clear that this was inevitable then of course certain people in the embassy became tougher than ever on the Soviets. I remember at a later staff meeting, after the decision had been made to boycott the Olympics, one person even suggested that the Embassy staff be instructed not to watch the games on TV. This of course was rejected by Watson as unenforceable and privately ridiculed throughout the Embassy. But it illustrated the mood that developed. The interesting thing was that for the rest of my time in Moscow, even though there were very bad bilateral relations in public, the Soviets never retaliated against the Embassy by shutting doors or cutting off our access. In fact, they always tried to show their desire for getting back to business as usual in private contacts. It was their way of showing that they hoped we would forgive and forget the Afghanistan matter and get back to building détente, which of course they very much wanted. Q: Let's go back just a bit. Before this you were dealing with Soviet policies in Africa and Latin America, Cuba, other places. How did we view Soviet policy? Was it seen as aggressive? PERINA: Well, that’s a very good question because my responsibility in the external political section was in fact for Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and parts of Eastern Europe. We had other people for Asia, Western Europe, arms control and international economic issues but basically I did the rest of the world. This was the developing world, or Third World as some called it at the time, and our relations with the Soviets there were very competitive. We were always watching what they did, and they watched us. There was one curious incident that happened during my tour even before Afghanistan that I think probably a lot of people don't even remember. It was the issue of a Soviet brigade in Cuba. Do you remember the Soviet brigade in Cuba? Q: I do but give us the background. PERINA: Well, in the fall of 1979 there were suddenly intelligence reports that the Soviet Union had stationed a brigade of Soviet troops in Cuba-- not missiles, not nuclear weapons or anything like that but just that there was a Soviet brigade in Cuba. It became public and there was a big outcry, particularly in Congress. The Embassy was asked to do a demarche on this and to find out what was going on. Again, it was Bob German, the Political Counselor, who delivered the demarche, and again he took me along as the note taker. As I recall, we met with Viktor Komplektov, who was a senior figure, the head of the Americas Department in the Foreign Ministry. The demarche again hit a complete stonewall, except this time the Soviets at least did not lie—they just would not answer. Their position was that what the Soviets had in Cuba was their business and not ours. They did not deny that there was a brigade, but neither did they admit it. Then when Bob German kept pushing, Komplektov asked, “Are you saying that we do not have the right to put Soviet troops into Cuba? Are you denying the Soviet right to do this? ” Bob very effectively dodged the question but after the meeting we had a long discussion in the 29
Page 1 and 2: The Association for Diplomatic Stud
Page 3 and 4: Holbrooke visits Albanians Dayton M
Page 5 and 6: throughout the country were execute
Page 7 and 8: capitalists and so on. At that time
Page 9 and 10: taken to an apartment which initial
Page 11 and 12: Q: You said that after Cleveland yo
Page 13 and 14: they agreed to send me there. Marxi
Page 15 and 16: most comprehensive collection of in
Page 17 and 18: Q: What was the background of your
Page 19 and 20: is there from that trial?” I thou
Page 21 and 22: word that he was going to come to a
Page 23 and 24: Q: During the Vietnam War, there wa
Page 25 and 26: very different interpretations. The
Page 27: Q: So you were there from 1979? PER
Page 31 and 32: was very tough. We did suspend the
Page 33 and 34: line was that a person was made to
Page 35 and 36: there. The Polish economy was nose-
Page 37 and 38: Q: What sorts of issues did you tal
Page 39 and 40: war. But I can tell you that the So
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Page 45 and 46: phrases “Open this gate, tear dow
Page 47 and 48: PERINA: Yes, they did. Jumping ahea
Page 49 and 50: Those plenary sessions I actually w
Page 51 and 52: PERINA: That is exactly right. The
Page 53 and 54: Q: OK, in 1989 you’re going to th
Page 55 and 56: PERINA: This was an issue because o
Page 57 and 58: position in Europe, and really the
Page 59 and 60: Soviet domination. They had histori
Page 61 and 62: Q: That was my impression as well w
Page 63 and 64: welcoming dinner in a restaurant an
Page 65 and 66: Q: How were you received by the Ser
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Page 69 and 70: Part of the reason that we didn’t
Page 71 and 72: One of the more interesting people
Page 73 and 74: Q: So what was happening with Kosov
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cannot now remember what finally tr
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Q: And this was not an idle comment
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price for having a very bad leaders
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PERINA: Certainly during the period
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Q: So you took over the Holbrooke r
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PERINA: Not really. We coordinated
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why I believed that it was not wort
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Q: Can you give a brief summary of
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PERINA: Well the American interests
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shorter visits of three to four wee
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Q: How so? PERINA: Well, he felt un
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Q: Still, it strikes me that all of
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As for the European Union, most Mol
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PERINA: Nagorno-Karabakh is the mos
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e called the “Prague Process” w
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we physically crossed the front lin
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were about three-quarters of the po
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down to the Black Sea. Since I was
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PERINA: It is difficult to say. He
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political interests to keep it goin
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a huge personal embarrassment. It l
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clearly followed the advice because
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good governance and so on. In its b
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Deputy Secretary, Richard Armitage,
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PERINA: Relations with Europe were
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End of interview 129
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