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341 Document No. 36: Record of Conversation between Aleksandr Yakovlev and Henry Kissinger January 16, 1989 The following series of documents from the Kremlin’s talks with Henry Kissinger in Moscow provide the first primary-source evidence ever published on one of the most controversial subplots in the narrative of the end of the Cold War. The former U.S. secretary of state, largely excluded from official roles during the Reagan years, volunteers himself to the incoming Bush administration in December 1988 as an intermediary with Gorbachev, with the idea of proposing a cooperative superpower effort to maintain stability in Europe. The documents suggest there is interest in both Washington and Moscow, but to the outside world this would look like the Yalta division of Europe all over again—a great power condominium to decide everyone else’s fate. By March 1989, Secretary of State James Baker would leak the Kissinger initiative and disavow it, shrewdly limiting the political damage for the president. In this set of notes written by Yakovlev’s aides, Kissinger begins by trying to convince Yakovlev of his closeness to Bush, then quickly moves to a warning about the potential for “unpredictability” in Europe “[i]f the balance of military forces on the continent shifts drastically.” Kissinger continues, according to the Russian notes: “G. Bush, as president, would be willing to work on ensuring conditions in which a political evolution could be possible but a political explosion would not be allowed.” Otherwise, Kissinger warns, German nationalism would rise, and U.S. troops would therefore need to stay in Europe because “[we] need a guarantee against the adventurism of Europeans themselves.” Kissinger alerts Yakovlev not to expect rapid movement on Washington’s part, because “the incoming President will need some time to grasp in detail all the discussions on military-political questions that are going on now in the United States.” Yakovlev may well be asking himself at this point what Bush had been doing for eight years as vice president. I received H. Kissinger upon his request. At the start of the conversation, H. Kissinger made a statement about his closeness to the new president of the USA, george Bush, and to the people comprising his inner circle. At the present time, he said, in this circle Bush, Baker, Sununu, and Scowcroft are actively debating perspectives on Soviet–American relations. The general goal set by g. Bush comes down to the following: that in “four years we should be able to demonstrate a new quality in relations between the United States and the Soviet Union.” For this purpose it is necessary to make a more decisive turn toward the most essential, substantive issues of relations between the two states, mainly the political ones. I do not believe, said H. Kissinger, in the reliability of relations that are built only on personal contacts between the top leaders. Stable relations can only be Melyakova book.indb 341 2010.04.12. 16:20 342 built on the basis of the long-term interests of each side. In this connection, the coming U.S. administration is currently taking an inventory of U.S. interests for the future, and is developing a philosophy of its own foreign policy course, and so [the administration] is ready to accept relevant ideas from the Soviet side. The long-term and principal interests of both the USA and the USSR require them to turn to the political side of their relationship. “The top leaders should not be preoccupied with counting warheads or confidence-building measures,” said H. Kissinger. “This is the business of experts.” The top leadership should mainly consider the political issues on which the content and the reliability of future relations will depend. In H. Kissinger’s opinion, those initiatives and proposals that have been presented up till now, even if they are 100 percent implemented, “will only touch the outer surface of Soviet-American relations, and will not engage them substantively .” The key issue is precisely about how genuinely to engage the political essence of the relationship. H. Kissinger reiterated this idea numerous times in the course of the conversation. In the United States, continued H. Kissinger, presently “a very serious discussion is taking place about political relations” between the USSR and the USA in perspective. “You are leaving Afghanistan,” he said, “but other conflicts remain, for example in Angola and Nicaragua. Even in Afghanistan, the conflict will persist after your withdrawal.” But even the future of Europe carries within itself the...

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