The First Six Months of Clinton-Russian Relations:
Summits with Yeltsin at Vancouver and Tokyo, 1993

President Clinton calls his Russian counterpart to inform him about the Americans’ new “more active” policy on Bosnia and to invite Russia to cooperate closely with the United States. He tells Yeltsin that the U.S. full-time representative for Bosnia talks, Reginald Bartholomew, will travel to Moscow to brief Yeltsin about U.S. thinking and to “get your thoughts first hand.” Clinton wants to strengthen the Vance-Owen plan for de facto partition of the former Yugoslavia (negotiated by former U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and former British Foreign Minister David Owen) and to enforce the “no-fly” zone over Bosnia, preventing Serbian bombing. Clinton stresses the importance of U.S.-Russian cooperation. Yeltsin expresses full support for Clinton’s policy and promises to “bring pressure to bear on the Serbs.” But mainly, for Yeltsin, this is about the U.S.-Russian partnership that he deems the key to solving all of his, and the world’s, problems. He thanks Clinton “for [his] views on priority and importance of the U.S.-Russian relationship.” Clinton speaks with deep respect for, and appreciation of, the Russian president. To Russian ears, this call is the model of real partnership, the way they want it to be.

This is the first meeting between the new U.S. Secretary of State, Warren Christopher, and his Russian counterpart, Andrey Kozyrev, a former Soviet diplomat and veteran of Boris Yeltsin’s assumption of power in Moscow in 1991. The main goal of the meeting, which takes place at the Russian diplomatic mission in Geneva, is to prepare for the first summit between President Bill Clinton and Russian President Yeltsin; but the discussion also covers the wide scope of U.S.-Russian relations, including nonproliferation, peacekeeping and the economy. In his memoir, The Russia Hand, Strobe Talbott (who was present at the meeting but is not listed among the participants because he was not yet confirmed by the U.S. Senate as an ambassador) describes the awkward start of the session where Kozyrev tried to present himself to Christopher as a “lonely and beleaguered proponent of partnership” who might be replaced by a tougher person if the U.S. side did not show “sensitivity” to his position. Christopher did not like that approach, and the conversation was less than friendly.[2]

According to the transcript, the U.S. Secretary of State showed toughness and unwillingness to compromise on the economic issues: “no flexibility on credit guarantees until the arrears are eliminated”—this at a moment when the Russian economy had already crashed to levels worse than the 1930s depression in the U.S. Christopher counseled the Russian foreign minister on the necessity for defense conversion, recommending the “toughest” approach—“when an enterprise actually ceases production of a given defense item and begins to produce a civilian item.” He also warned that further Russian defense cooperation with India would lead to sanctions against Russia, regardless of existing contracts and Yeltsin’s hopes that Russian arms production could provide vitally needed export revenue.

For his part, Kozyrev expressed concern about Iran’s interference in Central Asia and its likely intentions to produce weapons of mass destruction and offered cooperation in the Middle East peace process and in Yugoslavia. The Russian foreign minister complained about Ukraine’s “repudiation of Lisbon accords” that the Bush administration had achieved in May 1992, committing the former Soviet republics with nuclear weapons—Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine—to consolidating the nukes in Russia and joining the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty as non-nuclear states. On European integration, Kozyrev expressed the strong Russian preference for close cooperation and becoming a part of a “free trade arrangement.” On NATO, Kozyrev emphasized the need for military-to-military cooperation and said that “Russia wishes to approach NATO as a partner, not a threat.”

This memo from National Security Adviser Anthony Lake outlines U.S. goals for the first Clinton summit with the President of Russia and explains the Russian domestic context. Clinton is going to meet “a survivor of the Communist political system” who just experienced “two of the most tumultuous weeks in Russian political life since August 1991.” The parliament tried but failed to impeach Yeltsin, and now he is facing a country-wide referendum—a vote of confidence—on his leadership and his economic reforms. Yeltsin needs the summit to boost his domestic standing and to bring back U.S. commitments to provide economic assistance. But, in a larger perspective, what he needs is a close partnership with the U.S. where the two countries could cooperate as equals. Lake stresses the need to cooperate on foreign policy and security issues and points to areas where Russian cooperation is vital, such as “Yugoslavia, Iraq, North Korea or Somalia.” Lake advises the President that “the first point you should be stressing is that this is very much a meeting of equals.” He prepares Clinton for possible “surprises,” such as a possible inability to conclude the agreement on highly enriched uranium and the “space trade agreement” granting Russia access to the commercial space launch market.

Secretary of State Christopher emphasizes the importance of the Vancouver summit for Yeltsin in the context of “Russia’s gravest political crisis.” He notes that behind the current standoff with the parliament in Russia “lie even more intractable disagreements over Russia’s future constitution, federal arrangements, and the nature and pace of economic reform.” Clinton should be aware that there is a perception in Russia that “the West has failed to honor past promises of aid,” so the bilateral economic package has to be specific and practical, followed by “even more substantial support” from the G-7. Christopher identifies two important, sensitive issues to be raised in the one-on-one conversation—Russian sales of missile technologies to India and “the behavior of their military forces” in some of the newly independent states. Among the topics to be covered, the memo proposes a “Lisbon II” foreign ministers meeting immediately after Ukraine ratifies the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty [START] to “provide security assurances and discuss implementation of the treaty.”

At the outset of this memorandum, the new U.S. Defense Secretary, a longtime congressman and former chair of the House Armed Services Committee, quotes Clinton’s observation that “the Russian military is the single most important hinge on which the future of Russian reform will swing.” Aspin provides a remarkably empathetic and perceptive analysis of the “state of mind” of the Russian army—the army whose “country was dismembered,” whose “world has collapsed,” whose “military profession became reviled,” and who “are forced to struggle to keep their families fed, clothed and housed.”

Aspin proposes that the U.S. strategy toward the Russian military establishment should be to “create for them real stakes in a cooperative U.S.-Russian relationship” and to build a “real partnership between our two defense establishments at all levels,” trying to “win their hearts, minds and guts.” This is an internal memo for the President and not a document that any Russians would see, and yet the U.S. Defense Secretary argues for a “thick substantive relationship,” “intense personal engagement,” and extensive exchanges that would produce “bonding” between U.S. and Russian officers. He proposes inviting Russian Defense Minister Pavel Grachev to the United States in June to “forge a personal relationship” between them.

Aspin proposes that, in the future, the U.S. defense establishment should do a lot more to engage their Russian counterparts and to help them get through the difficult transformation—to make it easier for them. He notes plans for $9 million in Nunn-Lugar funds for Russia in 1993 and his intention “to send two or three times that much next year in order “to thicken the defense-defense relationship between the U.S. and Russia.” He also mentions plans to include the Russian partners in joint peacekeeping, discussions about nuclear dismantlement and “the future of European security institutions and especially NATO.” All this needs to be done because, in Aspin’s view, if the U.S. fails to establish this defense partnership with the Russian military “they will go over to the other side in the ongoing Russian revolution.”

This is the second meeting of the first summit between Clinton and Yeltsin (the earlier one-on-one is still, astoundingly, classified at the Clinton Presidential Library, 30 years later). According to the account published in Strobe Talbott’s 2002 memoir, the first “restricted” session featured discussion of the U.S. aid package to Russia, during which Yeltsin specifically asked for assistance with housing for officers who were being brought back to Russia from Europe and the Baltics. “Tents, Bill! Can you imagine? They’re living in tents!”[3]

After the first meeting, the delegations enjoyed a boat ride around Vancouver Island. Talbott remembers Yeltsin downing many drinks and says that, since that moment, “[k]eeping count of Yeltsin’s intake was to become a standard feature of summitry.” Nonetheless, the Russian president was quite eloquent by the time of the working dinner.

The expanded meeting is mainly devoted to economic issues. Yeltsin is accompanied by his young finance minister, Boris Fedorov. Fedorov describes his financial reform plan that focuses on reining in inflation and trying to move the Central Bank to support the reform and not bow to the parliament. Fedorov already had a separate meeting with U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Lloyd Bentsen focused on the Russian economic reform known as “shock therapy” and possible ways for the Clinton administration to support it. The Russians are counting on financing from the G-7, which will be meeting in Japan in April and then with Yeltsin in July. Clinton promises to expand the U.S. aid package and to encourage direct investment in Russia. Yeltsin expresses very optimistic views regarding the prospects of Russian economic reform in the next five years: “I am certain that in five years we will be competing in the arts, in jazz, in oil, and we will catch up with you.” He later amends, maybe not jazz.

The conversation is relaxed, very friendly and full of jokes. Yeltsin makes clear his disdain for his vice president, Alexander Rutskoy, and the Russian parliament. He has just had a showdown with them on an impeachment vote and is campaigning against them in a crucial referendum scheduled for April 25. His U.S. interlocutors agree with him and give advice on engaging the public before the referendum. Among the important outcomes of this session is the agreement to set up the Gore-Chernomyrdin (the U.S. vice president and the Russian prime minister) commission that would become an extremely successful format for problem solving at a sub-presidential level.

At the end of the meeting, the presidents discuss the situation in Bosnia and the rejection of the Vance-Owen plan by the Serbs notwithstanding Russian pressure. Clinton proposes to lift the arms embargo for Bosnia, but Yeltsin is not ready to agree. He wants Kozyrev to make one more effort to reach a diplomatic solution. Yeltsin believes that the “arms in that area can make for thousands of deaths, especially if you know the Moslems.” Clinton responds, “They kill each other at abandon.”

This is truly a marathon conversation—Yeltsin calculated that they covered 52 questions in three hours. What was intended to be a conversation about security expanded to cover all the important issues in U.S.-Russian relations. Yeltsin, in front of his team, goes on the attack by demanding a repeal of the Cold War-era Jackson-Vanik amendment and export restrictions imposed by the Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls (COCOM). COCOM is especially painful for the new Russian economy, as it prevents other countries from supplying vitally important technologies that Russia needs to address its technological backwardness. Yeltsin brings with him “five pages of material outlining restraints on Russia.” In addition, Ambassador Vladimir Lukin points to the “Captive Nations” law, referring to the Baltics, and says “we’re treated as a communist power while China is not.”

Ironically, in this conversation, the Russian representatives argue for free market competition in defense production while the U.S. is not willing to allow such a capitalist element in U.S.-Russian relations. One of the few fields where Russia is competitive with the U.S. is the defense industry, and to keep it alive, Yeltsin argues Russia should be able to sell weapons abroad and wants Clinton to “agree that firms should be able to compete directly on market terms, with quality and price determining who wins.” Clinton promises to “look into” those questions but, as he pointed out in his memoirs, he could not spend his political capital to try to repeal the Cold War legislation while at the same time putting together any kind of large aid package for Russia.[4]

Yeltsin is brimming with concrete proposals for cooperation in space and in defense, but the Cold War legislation interferes with most of them. Both sides are committed to the highly enriched uranium (HEU) proposal known as “Megatons to Megawatts—in which HEU taken from demobilized nuclear weapons is down-blended into fuel rods—but the intense negotiations between Russian Minister of Atomic Energy Viktor Mikhailov and U.S. Undersecretary of State Lynn Davis held the day before failed to produce any compromise, mainly because of the low price the United States is willing to pay for the down-blended uranium. Mikhailov interjects, saying, “We dream of free competition, especially with high value-added products and technologies in U.S. markets.”

Yeltsin tries to persuade Clinton to agree to a ban on nuclear testing or at least to the extension of the moratorium until 1994. Moving to arms control, the Russian president tells his counterpart that the Russians have already destroyed 3,000 nuclear warheads and were “working to destroy our heavy missiles.” On biological weapons, Yeltsin says “we shut all the doors, and the personnel were dispersed to other institutions.” He invites U.S. inspection teams to “come and look whenever you want […] any time and in any town […] There is no longer any sin on our souls.” On missile defense, he proposes building a joint defense system “that is two times cheaper than it otherwise would have been.” One proposal that grabs Clinton’s attention is to put nuclear weapons on a “not combat-ready” status and to “give thought to taking multiple warheads off” alert status. Yeltsin wants to do it all fast, while he is still president, and Clinton agrees they should hurry.

Clinton moves the conversation to other global issues where the U.S. needs Russian cooperation: North Korea, the Middle East peace process, Iraq, Libya, and Bosnia. Yeltsin agrees to support all the UN resolutions and U.S. initiatives and to cut ties with former Soviet clients, even with Iraq, although it owes Russia $2.5 billion. The Russian president is at the same time extremely cooperative and also very demanding on issues where the U.S. cannot immediately deliver.

In an unprecedented way, Clinton and Yeltsin discuss what they would say during the closing press conference to present their desired image of a full partnership and unanimity on all the issues they discussed. The tone of the meeting is cheerful and friendly with light jokes and a genuine commitment to find mutually beneficial solutions.

Clinton calls Yeltsin to congratulate the Russian president the day after his victory in the important referendum that would allow him to continue his policy of economic reform notwithstanding the opposition in the parliament. The results led to early elections for a new parliament (those would take place in December 1993) but not for the presidency (those Yeltsin would postpone until 1996). Clinton is relieved and tells his Russian counterpart, “I want you to know that we’re in this with you for the long haul.” Yeltsin needs U.S. and G-7 financial support for the economic reforms to succeed and for his own political future. This is a very personal call that characterizes the emerging U.S.-Russian relationship. Yeltsin says that the Russian people were pleased with the summit in Vancouver and understood Clinton’s sincerity; they felt “close to [Clinton] as the President of the United States.” Clinton says he “felt close to the Russian people too.”

This telephone conversation reviews the issues that would be discussed in Tokyo at the G-7 meeting to be attended by Yeltsin. From the outset, Clinton asks Yeltsin to focus on the Russian deal to supply missile technologies to India. Without Russia canceling the deal, the U.S. might have to apply sanctions, and Clinton would be limited in his ability to provide financial assistance. This issue is very difficult for Yeltsin because, as he explains, the contract was signed by the Soviet Union, not Russia, and Russia “just cannot break this agreement, [Russia] cannot break [her] relations with India.” The agreement is also very important to the Russian defense industry, which is trying to maintain production and keep its highly trained specialists. Clinton pushes hard on this issue and links it to the decision to give Russia access to the market for space launches and oil and gas investment.

Yeltsin wants to leave the issue of proliferation to experts and instead talk about the “practical integration of Russia into the world economy.” He attempts, unsuccessfully, to persuade Clinton to sign a declaration “not of the seven leaders but of the eight leaders” in Tokyo, essentially giving Russia a de facto membership. The presidents decide that a delegation consisting of Lynn Davis, Strobe Talbott and the vice president’s national security adviser, Leon Fuerth, would come to Russia to negotiate the India missile technology issue and Russian relations with Iraq and Iran.

Clinton believes that the G-7 meeting will be very productive for Russia, that the G-7 would agree on providing a privatization fund (but smaller than they hoped), and that the IMF would approve $1.5 billion in aid even before the meeting in Tokyo. He informs Yeltsin that the U.S. “already obligated half of the program announced in Vancouver” and that he already went to Congress for an additional $1.8 billion in aid. Clinton also assures the Russian president that his administration was working on repealing all Cold War legislation, including the Jackson-Vanik amendment.

Yeltsin is pleased to hear these strong statements of support in advance of the G-7 meeting but expresses his main worry to Clinton: “I wouldn’t like to be in a situation […] like Gorbachev was in when he attended the summit in London [in July 1991], where he came away with nothing.” Clinton reassures his Russian partner: “That won’t happen.”

Meeting with Yeltsin separately from the G-7, Clinton goes over all the main issues they discussed in Vancouver and reports on the progress made on each by the U.S. side. Jackson-Vanik is a problem that would not go away, as Clinton gives Yeltsin a list of 65 people who are allegedly prevented from leaving Russia. Clinton thanks his Russian counterpart for his support on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty but raises the issue of possible sanctions if Russia does not stop selling missile technologies to India. Yeltsin does not like the idea of sanctions: “There should be no sanctions between friends. I cannot imagine sanctions between us. We are friends.” He dismisses his commission, which was unable to provide a solution that would satisfy the U.S. regarding the missile issue, and proposes a moratorium on sanctions.

This memcon is important because it shows the impressive variety of issues on which Clinton and Yeltsin had a productive exchange and agreed to cooperate, including:

• replacing COCOM with a new regime;
• making a deal on highly enriched uranium (HEU) that Russia was going to remove from the nuclear warheads being withdrawn from Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Belarus that would return some to Ukraine as fuel for nuclear power stations while selling some to the United States in the framework of the Megatons for Megawatts program;
• working with Ukraine to return the nuclear weapons to Russia;
• making progress on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty;
• making progress on non-proliferation, and specifically limiting Russia's sales of reactors, missiles, and submarines to Iran and India;
• the importance of getting North Korea to the negotiating table;
• supporting peacekeeping in Georgia and Nagorno-Karabakh; and
• the withdrawal of Russian troops from the Baltics.

On the latter, Yeltsin made an official request that the U.S. side conduct an investigation of the laws in Estonia to determine if they discriminate against ethnic Russians. (Christopher, in his cover note, recommends giving Yeltsin a proper legal response, even if it is negative.)

The breadth of issues helps one understand that Yeltsin truly was an indispensable partner for Clinton in 1993 across the range of U.S. priorities in the former Soviet Union and even globally. Only once is there a signal that Yeltsin is in a complicated place domestically. Mentioning that the Supreme Soviet has just passed a bill declaring Sevastopol, the naval base in Crimea, a Russian city rather than part of Ukraine, Yeltsin says, characteristically, “Thank God no one takes the Supreme Soviet seriously!”