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

PERINA: Not really. We coordinated on a lateral level with the NIS people, and a lot was
coordinated through Strobe Talbott who supervised both the NIS Office and the European
Bureau when he was Deputy Secretary. It did cause a bit of a problem with some of the
new countries of the former Soviet Union because they felt that the United States was
making a political statement and taking them out of Europe, especially since we made an
exception for the three Baltic states and kept them within the European Bureau. It was
hard to explain why the Baltic states were kept in Europe but Moldova and Ukraine, for
example, were not. But the motivation for all of this was simply bureaucratic and not
political. No political statement was intended. And Strobe Talbott had a good relationship
with Holbrooke. As a matter fact, it was sometimes said that Strobe was Holbrooke’s
only friend in the State Department. Strobe took a lot of interest in both the Soviet Union
and the affairs of the EUR Bureau, and he was seen as a much better person to work with
than Madeleine Albright, who was usually off on some travel.
Q: You must have worked closely with both Warren Christopher and Madeleine Albright.
What was your impression of them?
PERINA: I did spend a fair amount of time with Warren Christopher and found him very
much a gentleman. He was a careful and meticulous lawyer. His strength was that he
knew his own limits in foreign policy and did not hesitate to delegate and take the advice
of others. He was not a great innovator or strategic thinker, but rather a reliable caretaker.
Madeleine Albright was quite different. She came in with a lot of flair, stressing how she
would be non-partisan and active. There was a lot of showmanship with Madeline
Albright. She was very good at that. She knew how to deliver good sound bytes and
speeches. But in fact she became one of the most partisan secretaries of state I worked
with. She was distrustful of the Foreign Service and also not a very deep or strategic
thinker. Strobe Talbott was much better and more or less ran the Department during this
period.
Q. Let’s talk about the enlargement of NATO. How big an issue was this?
PERINA: It was a big issue, almost as big as Dayton implementation. Unfortunately, it
was also an area where I had some doubts about our policy. I felt that the biggest
challenge we faced in Europe was to keep Russia on the right path—promoting reform,
integrating it into Western institutions, and building a relationship that would not revive
Russian nationalism, something very easy to do. We did after all have this remarkable
opportunity in that we defeated Russia in the Cold War but not alienated the Russian
people, who by and large viewed the U.S. and the West positively. We had all the cards
for a really historic partnership with Russia if we could keep it moving forward rather
than backward. But NATO expansion did not fit into this. It was unnecessary and only
helped to revive Russian paranoia. And it was unnecessary. It did not bring anything of
value on the security front.
Q: So who was pushing for it?
89