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

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Political Section which revealed that we really were not sure of the answer. The problem was that we did not really know what deals were struck during and after the Cuban missile crisis about what could and couldn’t be done in Cuba by the Soviets. In fact, even the desk in the State Department could not give us a straight answer. Some people were saying that there were agreements made by Kissinger years after the Cuban missile crisis that were very closely held, and no one seemed to be sure what they entailed. We never did get a clear answer from Washington, and I am not certain that our Soviet interlocutor knew the answer. Komplektov may have been bluffing with his rhetorical question and betting that we would be uncertain of our answer. Q: I've been told that actually the Soviet brigade was the sum of all the support troops that had already been there. Somebody had added them up and said this represents a brigade but it really hadn't been an introduction of a new force. It had been there all along but people were surprised by the term brigade and this led to the crisis. PERINA: Right. It all fizzled out in a few months. It was never resolved, and then it got overtaken by the much larger issue of Afghanistan and people forgot about the Soviet brigade. What was interesting again to me was dealing with issues and agreements where you just didn’t have all the facts. You didn’t know what really had been agreed because the agreements were oral and not properly recorded, or at least not known even by the Embassy in Moscow. Q: And you can’t know if they hadn’t been recorded or maybe never agreed to. PERINA: Kissinger was known for this kind of secret diplomacy, and subsequently others whom I worked with were known for this. They purposely didn't record things. A major problem with these oral agreements was that very different interpretations could be taken by different sides because there would be no written texts to refer to. Q: How did we view the Soviet presence in Africa at that time? The Soviets put quite a bit of effort and money into Africa but it was pretty hard to figure out what was in it for them. Or for us. PERINA: There was continual sparring between us and the Soviets but it seemed to bring little benefit to the people of Africa. We supported regimes because they were on our side and the Soviets supported their side but this perpetuated the general bad governance on the African continent. But I do not recall any specific crisis in Africa during my time. Everything was overshadowed by Afghanistan. Q: Did you at all pick up from your seniors that the reaction to Afghanistan was largely shaped by Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was the NSC adviser? Carter had come in with the idea of getting nice with the Soviets. One reason why Tom Watson was sent out there was to boost the commercial ties. Then Afghanistan happened and Brzezinski’s position prevailed. PERINA: Clearly, Brzezinski had a lot of input on this. The U.S. reaction to Afghanistan 30
was very tough. We did suspend the wheat sales, we basically stopped almost all exchanges, and almost everything in the relationship was affected. And we even did what very few people anticipated and that was the boycott of the Olympics. That showed how really angry Washington was, and I think it even surprised the Soviets. They anticipated a negative reaction to Afghanistan and knew there was going to be fallout but I think they were really shocked by the boycott of the Olympics. As you know, there was a big debate even in the U.S. about this. Q: The Olympics were a big event for Moscow, I assume. PERINA: They were a huge event for the Soviets. They had rebuilt the airport and tried to refurbish the whole city. There were even rumors circulating in Moscow that the Soviets were planning to seed rain clouds approaching the city so there would be no rain in that 10-day period. I think this was an urban legend but would not put it past the Soviets to try. They really wanted the games to be a showcase, and we spoiled the whole thing for them. The games will always be remembered as the Olympics that the U.S. boycotted. It wasn't then just the U.S.; it was a fairly large number of countries but we were the organizers. We tried to create an alternate Olympics because our athletes were so unhappy that they couldn't compete. We created the Liberty Bell Classic in Philadelphia. A friend of mine, Nelson Ledsky, was in charge of organizing that. It was not much of a hit either, however. Carter’s decision was much debated but I concluded in later years that it had been the right thing to do. It got to the Soviets in a way they could not hide from their people, and it put the Afghanistan invasion into a chapter of the history book where the Soviets did not want it to be. Of course, it was unfortunate for the athletes. And then, of course, the Soviets had to retaliate so they didn't go to Los Angeles which was the next Olympics four years later, even though by then our relationship was much improved. So you had two Olympic games in a row that were damaged but I think it sent the message to the Kremlin that international anger was genuine and deep, and it did so in a way they could not hide from their own public. Q: Let's talk about working and living in Moscow during that time: in the first place, getting out, seeing people both on the official and on the personal level. How difficult was this? PERINA: Well, on the official level I never had problems with access to people in the Foreign Ministry and elsewhere. Of course, these were generally junior people like myself but even on senior levels, I did not detect a problem of access. What never or very rarely worked was to have them over for dinner or other social events in our homes. Only a limited number of individuals on the Soviet side were authorized to have social contact with Westerners. Most of the people at my level were on a very short leash in interacting with foreigners. Even at higher levels, Soviet officials sometimes accepted but then did not show up for events. After Afghanistan, the Embassy set limits and restrictions on entertaining Soviet officials as part of our own refusal to have business as usual. Basically, no purely social events were allowed. Only “working” lunches and dinners could be held and had to be justified. So there was very little social interaction, and it was limited to chatting with Soviet officials at third country receptions and so on. 31
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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 and 28: Q: So you were there from 1979? PER
Page 29: I will always remember that staff m
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
Page 41 and 42: museums. Even in the private sector
Page 43 and 44: to the Soviet Union. Everything tha
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
Page 67 and 68: eard, and he functioned as everythi
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
Page 75 and 76: Albanians were very anxious to have
Page 77 and 78: I remember Holbrooke’s first visi
Page 79 and 80: 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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