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

to the Soviet Union. Everything that Max Kampelman and the negotiators reported to
NATO bore this out. The Soviets were very afraid of SDI and wanted desperately to find
ways of stopping or restricting it. But it was something that Reagan—rightly or
wrongly—believed in very strongly and would not negotiate away.
Q: I recall that at one point Reagan made a proposal to share the technology with the
Soviets so that we could each stop the other’s missiles.
PERINA: Right. But the Soviets were convinced it was a trick. They could not believe
that we would really share such technology with them, since they would never share it
with us if tables were turned.
Q: Were you getting the sense that the advent of the computer age and high tech was
playing into this?
PERINA: This is exactly what I was going to say. You have to put this in the context of
the revolution that was taking place in the United States and in the West, with average
people starting to acquire personal computers, and kids growing up at home and in school
with computer skills. The Soviets saw all this, and they were terrified. Their own kids
were still working with an abacus in most of their schools. They saw themselves falling
behind technologically in a way that would be qualitative and devastating. They never
expressed it that way but one could sense it in talks with them. I was not an expert on
SDI. I didn't know if it would or would not work. But I saw it as a useful ploy to motivate
the Soviets to change to a freer, more open system that could keep pace with Western
technological development. Their closed, authoritarian system just could not do that. In
conversations, they always tried to pick up on Western skepticism and say “Well, SDI
won't work and even your own experts say it won’t work.” But I would answer
something like “Well, you know, if you can build a missile that can fly 5000 miles and
hit a square block, don't you think it would be easier to find some way to throw that
missile off course?” They were very scared that this was indeed true and we would beat
them to doing it.
Q: What was your impression of the NATO apparatus? You had been working with two
other allies in Berlin but this was now the entire Alliance trying to work in tandem.
PERINA: My overwhelming impression from NATO was that this was basically a U.S.
run organization. One could really sense that. Most of the Allies were quite deferential to
the United States, the French always being a certain exception. In fact, most of the
delegates at NATO tended to be even more pro-American than their governments, or at
least they tried to give us that impression. In my time, we never had a really heated
discussion at NATO, even though I think many Allies were skeptical of some of our
policies such as INF deployment and SDI. Whenever Kampelman and his colleagues
came up, the questions were invariably softball in nature. NATO was a club and largely
our club. It was a very friendly environment for the U.S.
Q: What was your impression at the time of how much chance the nuclear and space
43