Posted on 01/03/2017 4:11:44 PM PST by daniel1212
RONALD REAGAN was intensely interested in the fate of individuals in trouble. He wanted to do everything in his power to help them. His harsh judgment of the Soviet leaders was based, more than any other single factor, not on the ideology he talked about so much, but on his perception of the way they treated their own people. When I first met him in November I981, I had just come from several months in Moscow in charge of our embassy and was on my way to Prague as U.S. ambassador. My family and I were invited to join the president in the Oval Office for a photograph. I expected him to ask me some questions about the Soviet position on arms control, or perhaps Afghanistan, or maybe whether I thought the USSR might invade Poland. He chose to inquire about none of those hot issues. Instead, he asked whether we were making the Pentecostals who had taken refuge in our embassy as comfortable as possible. When I assured him that we were doing the best we could with very limited facilities, he prolonged the meeting beyond schedule to inquire further. "Why don't the Soviets let them go?" he asked, genuinely perplexed as to what might motivate a government to keep its people captive. I tried to explain why the Soviet leader's had refused to acknowledge that their citizens had a right to leave the country. In part they had the attitude of landlords with slaves or serfs: that people who choose to settle elsewhere were, in effect, property stolen by the country to which they fled. Even more important, however, was their inchoate but powerful understanding that the Soviet system could not withstand the free movement of its people. It was a system based on falsehoods; unfettered contact with the outside world would expose the lies and undermine the entire structure...
When I had assured him about the treatment of the people who had taken refuge in our embassy, he could have dismissed the matter with a shrug, saying something like "I guess the Commies are acting true to form; they have to keep their people prisoner so the word won't get out how bad conditions are there." Or maybe even "Gee, that shows why those Soviets can't be trusted to do anything decently!" Instead, he had wanted to penetrate an alien mode of thought. His questions were not those of a man determined to crush an adversary at all costs, but of one mentally preparing himself to deal with that adversary. They were also the questions of a man who recognized that there was a lot he didn't know but was eager to learn. When I came to work in the White House a year and a half after this conversation, the insights I derived from that brief exchange served me well...
As regards the Vashchenko and Chmykhalov families, I had been part of their saga from the start, for I was at the American embassy in Moscow in June I978 when they pushed past the Soviet guards to enter the embassy's consular section. The guards seized seventeen-year-old Ivan Vashchenko and beat him severely, but seven — Peter and Augustina Vashchenko and three of their daughters, along with Maria Chmykhalova and her teenage son Timofei — got through. They all wanted to go to the United States, but the Soviet government would not issue the exit visas required to leave the country. Although we explained that U.S. visas would be useless without Soviet exit permission, and that the Soviet government would not give them this permission while they were in the American embassy, the Vashchenkos and Chmykhalovs refused to leave the embassy. Our apartment was just above the embassy's consular waiting room, and my wife. Rebecca, brought food to them. For several weeks they lived in the waiting room. When it became apparent that they could not be persuaded to leave the embassy voluntarily, we let them use space in the basement - spartan, but in some respects better than their normal accommodations in Siberia. I met with both families frequently and developed a deep respect for their commitment to their faith and their willingness to risk everything in order to worship in freedom...
The Vashehenko and Chmykhalov families quickly found a place in the embassy community. Though cramped in small apartments themselves, embassy families were supportive...This went on for five years. Permission for the Vashchenko and Chmykhalov families to leave the Soviet Union did not follow automatically or smoothly...Max Kampelman, the U.S. ambassador to the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) in Madrid, managed to obtain more direct assurances from Sergei Kondrashev, a Soviet diplomat assigned to the conference. Though he had diplomatic cover, Kondrashev was known to be a senior officer in the KGB. Presumably, he could communicate with the general secretary by KGB channels, bypassing the foreign ministry. Kampelman had initiated an unofficial (that is, off the formal record) dialogue with him in an attempt to obtain the release of Anatoly Shcharansky and several other dissidents and Jewish refuseniks. Several weeks after Reagan 's approach to Dobrynin, Kampelman called Kondrashev's attention to the Pentecostalists and explained that we requested the departure not only of the seven persons who had taken refuge in the embassy, but also of their family members who had remained in Siberia. After checking with Moscow, Kondrashev told Kampelman that all would be released provided they went first to Israel and not to the United States directly. He also warned that matters discussed with him should not be mentioned to any other Soviet officials. With Kondrashev's assurances, and help from Dr. Olin Robison, president of Middlebury College and a prominent Baptist who had befriended the Vashchenko and Chmykhalov families, American officials managed to persuade them to leave the embassy, go home to Siberia, and apply to emigrate to Israel. The Kampelman~Kondrashev dialogue contributed to ending the plight of the Pentecostalists and nearly succeeded in arranging Shcharansky's release,' but unfortunately it ended before more people could be helped. The reason is instructive. An American diplomat ignored Kondrashev's warning not to involve other Soviet officials and mentioned to a Soviet diplomat something Kondrashev had said. The Kondrashev-Kampelman "channel" thus came to the attention of the Soviet ambassador in Madrid, who in- formed Gromyko. When he learned that the channel was no longer private, Gromyko ordered it shut down.
The problem was not, as most Americans would suspect. that Kampelman's unofficial contacts were conducted without Gromyko's knowledge. Gromyko almost certainly knew of them. and even approved them. But the condition that they not be mentioned to other Soviet ofticials was important. Once these discussions entered foreign ministry channels' they became official. Gromyko would then be an implicit party to any agreement reached. If they stayed out of official channels. any settlements reached would be off the record. Gromyko was not necessarily opposed to solving such problems so long as the Soviet government did not have to acknowledge dealing with a foreign power on matters it claimed were purely domestic.
Senior American officials, including most secretaries of state, seemed in capable of grasping the bureaucratic thinking that lay behind Groymko's at titucle. They were to stumble over it repeatedly in attempting, out of courtesy, to notify Gromyko of informal contacts.
WHILE NEGOTIATIONS went: still under way in Madrid concerning human rights issues and Secretary Shultz was preparing to activate the U.S.- Soviet dialogue, President Reagan made a speech that injected a new element into the U.S. negotiating posture: an element that persisted as both stimulus and stumbling block well beyond his administration. On March 23, I983, he delivered an address to the American people that stressed the alarming Soviet arms buildup that had occurred during the 19705. He ended the speech by announcing "a comprehensive and intensive effort to define a long-term research and development program to begin to achieve our ultimate goal of eliminating the threat posed by strategic nuclear missiles." He called it his "Strategic Defense Initiative." Rarely, if ever, has a major proposal been so distorted and misunderstood by its friends and foes alike. Rarely has a proposal remained so controversial even after it achieved some of its goals. From his first briefings on strategic nuclear weaponry, Reagan had been deeply disturbed to discover that the United States had no means to defend itself against a missile attack. He found it morally unacceptable that an American president had no defense against nuclear attack aside from acts of vengeance that could spell the end of civilization on earth, if not humanity itself. A defense against weapons of mass destruction would clearly be preferable to retaliation. The second reason SDI appealed to Reagan was that he wanted to eliminate nuclear weapons, but believed they could be abolished only if an effective defense against them existed. The knowledge of how to make nuclear weapons would not disappear from human minds, and there would always be aggressors tempted to develop them covertly. An adequate defense would be necessary if the world could be induced to outlaw nuclear weapons and abolish existing nuclear arsenals.
Jack F. Matlock, Jr. ; Reagan And Gorbachev: How The Cold War Ended, pp. 55-58
See thread "Russian Pentecostals Took the Road" for more on the subjects: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/3510469/posts
Jack F. Matlock Jr.(born October 1, 1929)[1] is an American former ambassador, career Foreign Service Officer, a teacher, a historian, and a linguist. He was a specialist in Soviet affairs during some of the most tumultuous years of the Cold War, and served as U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1987 to 1991.
Matlock became interested in Russia as a Duke University undergraduate, and after studies at Columbia University and a stint as a Russian-language instructor at Dartmouth College, entered the Foreign Service in 1956. His 35-year career encompassed much of the Cold War period between the Soviet Union and the United States. His first assignment to Moscow was in 1961, and it was from the embassy there that he experienced the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, helping to translate diplomatic messages between the leaders. The next year he was posted to West Africa, and he later served in East Africa, during the post-colonial period of superpower rivalry....
After leaving the Foreign Service, he wrote an account of the end of the Soviet Union titled Autopsy on an Empire,[2] followed by an account of the end of the Cold War titled Reagan and Gorbachev: How the Cold War Ended,[3] establishing his reputation as a historian. He joined the faculty of the Institute for Advanced Study and he went on to teach diplomacy at several New England colleges. He and his wife Rebecca live in Princeton, New Jersey. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_F._Matlock_Jr.
Interesting. How does a president not meet his ambassador to Russia until 10 months after inauguration? Was he not the actual ambassador to Russia, even though he was running the embassy?
I don't know, but it does not seem that strange, unless it is the normal for all that the ambassadors to leave their posts and meet the President in person soon after they are elected.
Evidently that is the case. In 1974 he was "serving in the number two position in the embassy for four years" and "returned to Moscow in 1981 as acting Ambassador, or Chargé d’Affaires," which seems to mean he was in charge of the embassy in Moscow, and "was assigned to Moscow again in 1981 as acting ambassador during the first part of Ronald Reagan's presidency..."
He served as U.S. Ambassador to Czechoslovakia[5] (1981–83) and as Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs and Senior Director for European and Soviet Affairs[6] on the National Security Council Staff (1983–86). His languages are Czech, French, German, Russian, and Swahili.[5]
Also of interest:
during the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Matlock, along with Richard Davies and Herbert Okun, translated communications between President John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev
The August 26, 1977 ABC Evening News covered the story of a major fire at the embassy.[27] Despite the severity of the fire, all personnel were evacuated safely, and the efforts of the embassy staff elicited a commendation from President Jimmy Carter.[28] Former KGB agent Victor Sheymov testified before Congress in 1998 that the fire was deliberately induced by the Soviets in an effort to gain access to sensitive areas by agents posing as firemen.[29]
Also in 1980, the new embassy under construction in Moscow was found to be so riddled with listening devices that it would be unusable for secure work.[30]
In April 1987 Reagan appointed Matlock as Ambassador to the Soviet Union. Conditions at the Embassy were tense, as Marine Sergeant Clayton Lonetree had been found to have compromised Embassy security. Within a few months of the Lonetree scandal, all U.S. intelligence assets in the Soviet Union had been exposed. The Americans suspected that the security breach had meant that the Embassy code room was no longer secure and worked frantically to determine how.[47] It was not until 1994 that Aldrich Ames, a mole within the CIA, was caught.[48] Another mole, Robert Hanssen, this time within the FBI, was caught only in 2001.[49] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_F._Matlock_Jr.
Nothing new.
thanks for the post.
AHHHhhh...
This explains the many typos.
Yes (freeocr), i did not catch them all. Sorry.
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