ambassador rudolf v. perina - Association for Diplomatic Studies and ...
ambassador rudolf v. perina - Association for Diplomatic Studies and ...
ambassador rudolf v. perina - Association for Diplomatic Studies and ...
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Those plenary sessions I actually wasn’t involved in. I was in the small one-on-one<br />
meetings where Gorbachev did try to get these broad declarations. But Reagan resisted.<br />
In the end, the sessions became largely non-substantive discussions, <strong>and</strong> I can’t say that<br />
any dramatic things were agreed or disagreed.<br />
Q: Well, during this time what were you picking up from your colleagues about<br />
Gorbachev? Was it becoming clearer who he who he was <strong>and</strong> what he was up to?<br />
PERINA: There was a growing sense that he was something quite significant <strong>and</strong> that<br />
there were important ways in which he really wanted to change things. But certainly no<br />
one, including Gorbachev, expected the Soviet Union to fall apart. And this was in 1988,<br />
quite near to the end of the Soviet empire. People believed that Gorbachev knew the<br />
Soviet Union was in trouble economically <strong>and</strong> technologically <strong>and</strong> could not compete<br />
with the U.S. <strong>and</strong> thus he was trying to buy time so that the Soviet Union could be<br />
strengthened again. I think that was the dominant view of Gorbachev. But there was still<br />
a lot of debate on this. The CIA even hired a psychologist to study Gorbachev’s physical<br />
gestures <strong>and</strong> body language to try to get insight into his personality. I spoke with the man,<br />
who knew no Russian, but had studied hours of silent films of Gorbachev to try to figure<br />
him out. As I recall, he did not come up with any particularly revealing insights.<br />
Q: Well, let’s go back to the NSC at the time. In earlier years, under Nixon <strong>and</strong> then<br />
under Carter, you had Henry Kissinger <strong>and</strong> Brzezinski who both had strong opinions <strong>and</strong><br />
were very strong operators. By the time you got there you have Frank Carlucci <strong>and</strong> Colin<br />
Powell. This is quite a different NSC.<br />
PERINA: Yes, I think that’s true, <strong>and</strong> that’s more like it should be. The NSC was not<br />
dominating over the State Department as it was in the Kissinger years. There was a good<br />
relationship with George Schultz who I think was an excellent Secretary of State.<br />
Q: Did you get any feel about the influence of the Pentagon? Casper Weinberger was<br />
still there. Did you find that there was a pressure there to overplay the Soviet menace to<br />
keep up defense budgets <strong>and</strong> so on?<br />
PERINA: I wouldn’t single out the Pentagon because I think in all the departments, as<br />
well as in the CIA, there was a conservative side of the house that was still arguing, look,<br />
we can’t let our guard down. Gorbachev is one man <strong>and</strong> he can’t change the Soviet<br />
system. The missiles are still all there, the generals are still all there. We have to keep our<br />
guard up. My first boss in the NSC, Fritz Ermarth, was sympathetic to this view. Be<strong>for</strong>e<br />
the Moscow Summit, we made a lot of ef<strong>for</strong>t to try to prepare Reagan <strong>for</strong> this trip, even<br />
to the point that we asked the CIA to make a film <strong>for</strong> him about Moscow <strong>and</strong> about the<br />
sites he would be visiting. We thought he could particularly relate to a movie. The CIA<br />
did make a film under NSC bidding, albeit reluctantly because they seemed to feel it was<br />
not part of their mission, <strong>and</strong> the film was actually pretty disappointing. It was a bunch of<br />
clips from travelogues. I remember this because I organized it. I also organized a lunch<br />
<strong>for</strong> him with Soviet experts from all over the United States, academics <strong>and</strong> outside people<br />
ranging from Jim Billington to Richard Pipes. We got them to the White House <strong>for</strong> lunch<br />
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