Dinner With a Friend Climbing Falling Walls is sometimes a diary, a chronology of our time in Russia, working with the leaders of the former Soviet military-industrial complex to convert their flagship enterprises into competitive forces in a global market economy. Nonetheless, I still cannot adequately capture, on paper, the emotional intensity of that experience. Time focuses the perspective, but it does not dim the feelings . . . for the people or the country. I recently dined with a small group of American and Russian friends who have maintained the intensity of their (non-violent) fight to make things right. When we get together, I find myself easily identifying with that, and I’m eager to learn more. Without breaking confidence, these musings will try to convey my impressions of this candid evening. The broad brush of the Western Press doesn’t adequately recognize the many selfless and committed Russians—academicians, plant managers, and those in government service—who, then and now, labor against the odds of achieving freedom and openness in their political processes and market economy. Some of these dedicated individuals have so much energy but, if not currently in positions of power, must often rely on speeches to try to make an improvement—I’m not optimistic that has much effect. I am certainly not optimistic that the US will engage Russia in a way that makes a difference . . . we missed in Iceland; we missed in London; we missed in Tokyo; and I do not see any fundamental change in our policy. I note with sadness the growing anti-American posture of these energetic advocates of freedom. But they are right—we (the US) were and are at fault in treating Russia (and others, in my opinion) rather arrogantly. I now see the setup, "positioning" to repudiate the deals that have been made because the claim will be made, perhaps correctly, that Western companies did the deals with some form of bribery . . . or at least knowledge. And the State will start taking a bigger role. That has already begun. In the face of this, I wonder what to make of Yeltsin’s team of economists who went into the countryside searching for a way to have capitalism with a kinder face. That is the search in China and India. No one has yet written the "Capitalist Manifesto" . . . or at least the only listing at Amazon.com ("Earth’s Biggest Bookstore") is a 1975 out-of-print title. Ironically, crime provides the security in Russia that the State does not. (Not unlike Boston’s North End, which has the reputation of being the safest place in the city . . . if you know the ropes.) Dinner conversation turned to nuclear weapons, and I was reminded of the major concern we felt in the early 1990s—that suitcase-sized nuclear weapons can too easily be bought or stolen and transported. If anything, they are a greater and more organized threat today. In 1991, I was asked to serve as an intermediary, requesting US government assistance to disarm all types of weapons—conventional, nuclear and biological. (I indicated to our Soviet friends that I was not the person—despite their suspicions that I had motives other then private investment, I was simply a financial analyst who liked to find good companies. They insisted, however, and I agreed to try.) The Soviets felt the weapons were expensive to store, could not be protected, were moving into unknown and dangerous hands, and could be sources of instability to the Soviet Union. Further, the materials extracted by the decommissioning process could be valuable. Two US facilities were known to the Soviets as having the capability to deal with the weapons, and they wanted personnel from the US to come to do the job. The Soviets did not have the processes. They had tried through their embassy in Washington and via the Israelis. I spoke with a senior diplomatic official in Moscow who said there could not be anything to it . . . all the nuclear weapons were in control, and, if not, you don’t raise questions in government to which there are no answers. I then contacted the offices of three senators whose aides: (a) did not believe Soviets would have Americans enter their territory to disarm weapons; (b) thought it was a hoax; and (c) if it came out that their senator had anything to do with such a crazy idea, it would be embarrassing for him. Ultimately, all that was arranged was a meeting between a senior Soviet official and the US cultural attaché in Moscow at which the Soviets were told they must produce a list of what and how everything was manufactured before there could be any further discussion. So there was no further discussion. And so it ended. And the threat looms larger today. I fear the US’s wakeup call will be an incident, probably a bloody one. Our history suggests that is required. (In a different way, the latest involved Princess Diana . . . a "flare" event that brought attention to a host of big issues—right to privacy, the monarchy, charitable giving.) In the sense of armed conflict, the better examples are Pearl Harbor, the Lusitania, the Maine, and even Bunker Hill. My view then and now is that it would have been easy to arrange for undercover transfer of nuclear arms from the territory of the Soviet Union (and now Russia) to somewhere else. I had a small glance through the window at a time when something positive could possibly have been done, but the shade was drawn, mostly by Americans. I did not put this story in Climbing Falling Walls but have often thought it should be there. It seemed like a very unproud moment in American history. The dinner was wonderful . . . the conversation stimulating . . . the memories disconcerting. Dean LeBaron |
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