#14 Arms control and the end of the cold war:
An oral history of the negotiations
“After forty years of ColdWar, not quite two
years passed from the conclusion of the negotiators’ mandate to the signature
of the final treaty in Paris. All of the negotiators felt that they, their
allies, and their counterparts on the Soviet side were under enormous pressure
to finish the treaty, to hurry to a conclusion before the mutual confidence and
trust of 1989 and 1990 dissipated.
….The
men and women on both sides had come to know and understand one another. They
had met one another’s families, sang songs, drank new Austrian wine together,
and in some cases traded World War II experiences, an important element of
credibility in Russian eyes. Along with the length of the negotiations came a
helpful continuity on both sides: Adrian St. John, Lynn Hansen, and Janet
Andres had worked on Mutual and Balanced Force Reductions (MBFR), the
negotiations under the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE),
and the Mandate. Jim Woolsey and Oleg Grinevsky had both taken part in SALT I negotiations….
There
are also important revelations about American and Soviet negotiating styles. As
the pace of negotiations picked up, the Americans were able to fashion a
streamlined process involving a small group of decisionmakers who worked
outside regular bureaucratic channels but who could speak for and deliver their
constituencies. As a result, important points could be discussed, amended if
necessary, but above all resolved without delay and without sacrificing the
benefits of consideration from multiple perspectives.
Something
quite different stands out on the Soviet side, at least as reflected through
the eyes of the American participants in the talks. It seems clear that the CFE
negotiations succeeded because Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and his
Foreign Minister Eduard Schevardnadze broke with regular Soviet diplomatic
practice and allowed the Foreign Ministry to dominate decisions about vitally
important military matters. The only times the negotiations threatened to break
down occurred when the Soviet military attempted to reassert its dominate
role….
Four
key participants in the CFE negotiations took part [in this oral history],
James Woolsey, head of the CFE delegation and later Director of the Centeral
Intelligence Agency; Ambassador Lynn Hansen, Woolsey’s successor as delegation
head and long-time participant in European arms control negotiations; Lt.
General Adrain St. John, who participated in the [MBFR negotiations] on behalf
of the U.S. Defense Department and joined Woolsey and Hansen in concluding CFE;
and Janet Andres, a senior member of the Foreign Service assigned to the CFE
team, who assumed major responsibilities
during the negotiations and in attaining the approval of the treaty by
the U.S. Senate….”
From the Editor’s Introduction
HALEY, P.
Edward, ed. (2002). 260 Pages (PB)
$ 15.95