A Word on Words; 2419; Jack F. Matlock, Jr.

ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch disease is on guns in the once again welcome to a word on words something today russia really the subject of the soviet union before russia i guess jack matlock jr former ambassadors so you and welcome to world war ii it was a great honor and privilege to have you to talk about your book and one book is autopsy on empires once called and and the empire is dead auntie on autopsy is completed i think eight hundred pages exciting pages about thurman year set literally shook me and

our and so it so it crumble and you're there let me begin where i think you began gorbachev christmas day ninety nine one odds over for a year gone from about six months and here in florida set the scene for our television audience in the same way you said it for the readers an autopsy lowe's christmas day and of course dave having been in the foreign service we've been away for many christmases so i spent it with my family and and with my mother in florida and then we got some of the news said but i took my laptop computer upstairs plugged in the modem and then have downloaded that the latest news from some databases that have access to all of the details and i was suddenly hit by the enormity of what had happened of course i knew it was going to happen it's wielded by that time

and will we get the will of moscow gorbachev was confronted by some apparatchiks who want him out of their own and that's right and there is an attempt to refrigerate to remove him that's not so it was inevitable that that he was going to go but just a question of when he has more than a tent so undermine the system they were never really able to put it together good and bad and so it really was an inevitable i think after the middle of august that it was going to happen but it could have happened in a lot of different ways but sort of like a person you know well you know has terminal illness deal the death when it occurs does bring a shock i think and this i felt the sort of the same shock and i began to think well you know what does all this mean and i began to realize that though i could give a number for answers about well there was an evil empire and it was destined to collapse nevertheless i really couldn't give an honest answer while now why this way and i thought well you know i've

really gotta go back think it through maybe relive it talked to a lot of people again and try to figure out just what caused this to happen at this time and as it is happening so three years later the autopsy and by jack eye but dr jack matlock has been completed and you get a very real sense now if you read the autopsy yet very real sense of fun of the why and how of it you say clearly on that one of the most confusing aspects of it was that it was self destruction that the people who were involved were not fuck off the solzhenitsyn so people with courage to stand up against the evil are indeed the most corruption in the soviet union went wrong by people who had been part of mikhail

gorbachev and self love boris yeltsin and self and i never thought of it i never thought of it before but it was they did self destructive and that's right now of course those who oppose them are like the sawgrass another's very bravely played a role in this but it was the decisions that people are predicting that gorbachev made that first the decision to open up the country to try to reform it not realizing that you couldn't really reform the system that any opening up was going to unleash forces that would probably bring it down still when he had to make the decisions he made the decisions to open up to have real elections to allow the communist party could be overshadowed by the popular will and in fact lose its position as the ultimate the controller of that society and it was decisions that gorbachev made and by the way they were rational decisions he didn't start out you know i'm thinking i'm going to destroy the khan insist the county's gonna make it stronger but he didn't understand one thing

and that was in the modern world power and creativity has to start at the bottom and come to the top russia have always been ruled from the top down and he would often say in private vs process in the modern world we can be competitive if we had that's the system but he said you also say i can't reinvent russian history i can't reinvent the russian people it's going to take time so it i think that was a very important insight that was what what's needed is illusion was that the communist party could do it but the communist party would change with him and supporters and of course they didn't because he is our lunch at the economist himself was was changing i suppose the ultimate test came in the election and you say you wanted were surprised about the outcome of that of that crucial election but if you were surprised by the purity of that gorbachev who had the power to cheat ah and the telecoms bodies still had rain to control in hand had the opportunity to undermine the election but his commitment to

people rule by that time persuaded him for from from interfering that's right in a number of the election that lime sherbet ice sheet but the fact that there was widespread cheating and that they would allow the notion that they would allow noel going out of the gate but he also won the moscow constituency by ed nine point six percent of the votes now obviously you know that my head to be a fair count because of people counting off where the communist whose candidate got you know five point four percent so yards like that and i said allowing that add to it to happen was i think a great contribution to market the process is the important part it's not so much you know who wins or loses any given time it's a system because voters can make a mistake but if you have a democracy you can you can correct that next time if you don't have the right to vote or it's not counted properly don't have that

and that that was a contribution gorbachev may you conclude from that that gorbachev was demand for that time and that and that they're in a very real sense that he was able to do what's probably nobody else inside the party was was a wooden pallet with person bound as improv part of it was and understanding the time come for change not ready for the fortunate but he was a man for his time i would say a dream of booker jack matlock was the ideal land to be ambassadors from moscow at at the moment we made a great difference in the eu came out of north carolina went to duke university a one off to colombia received in the end to the soviet studies program there knowing you're gone only that change in the field of soviet union political history and economic history or that you've been in the foreign service you did

you were in russia four separate times seven years in africa a year looking at how the soviet union is moving in africa do not at one point you back to the white house alone brazilians in office in the national security council and developing a policy which remarkably like maine few foreign service officers i know about erie with the bakken implement policies you put in place so so you to remember that i'm the perfect man to write about the autopsy was tremendously lucky there with the timing of these things in it but i must say you know in making our policies work and we have a great advantage at that time and having a president ronald reagan because you know what the personality aside although that was in court and he was a man who thought he could change by persuasion was a man who detested nuclear weapons who really did want to make them obsolete he wanted to go down as a peace precedent but perhaps set also important politically was he could make deals and the senate would not

repudiate he could not be our fight from the right and i'm not sure with a different president we could have done the sort of opening we made well i think that's why i think that at the time i was a notorious to say usually shouldn't call this evil empire in all areas of song someone's of change there another lou cannon describe jack matlock of millikan hard liner and you make the case that this was an evil empire it kill mormons on innocent people and germany did here in durham they are during the holocaust and i'm i guess is the reagans hard line position and that that whole policy that you help develop be part of it have been have a substantial impact me if you go through year by year after gorbachev is in month by month it's now clear i mean it seems to me that the ramos russian know that

gorbachev the absolute issue where the administration was going to come down on a given issue on and tension and conflict continued until change that we kept the pressure on for change but we recognize today as it occurred and complimented and you know by the time reagan got to moscow at the summit meeting in the summer of nineteen eighty eight he was asked about the evil empire and he said that was another time and another occasion it's no longer an evil empire and and you know that the fact that he had sent in it was well on gaza's was played in their prayers and then he said are on the right track has had a tremendous political impact there but of course here it also meant that he could sign an agreement but perhaps no president carter or even george bush might assign that could've been questioned in the senate soft headed or whatnot but no one could accuse ronald reagan us actively of being soft hit i mean even if some thought that because politically to said he really couldn't be outflanked from the right and of course those who

wanted a green is with the soviet union anyway we're going to support it so in a sense we had the feeling that whatever we negotiated without was good there was no there was no way we were going to be tripped up by a senate unwilling to ratify an agreement that he signed and that was a great strength because russians knew that too and they had learned that not every american president could deliver and bad that you know until reagan may have been pretty hard in his demands they knew if they met them that would be a deal that i didn't have to worry about the delivery you know you really autopsied you conclude that there are four dominant personalities gorbachev was one clearly maybe the dominant personality bore show sons another ronald reagan and george bush being the other two and it does it does seem to me that we have a

policy each administration knew what was each president's party other than bush was parlor reagan presidency in a very real way and that that can't really help make a difference actually does work through our united their two leaders with totally at odds and then dumped you get a very real sense a different person obviously talk about ill gorbachev and boris yeltsin when you talk about it taught now little bit about those those two conflicting version of islam and the family and the tension was always there between them oh it certainly is it's still a gorbachev is more reflective he is a better educated he went to the best university in the country and even though he was part of the common stock and he learned other things to it was a more manipulative person and it would carefully planned his movies he would often you surprised then he had to move against the communist party it was usually

against him even though he was in charge of it and he was able to use that position with great skill yeltsin was one more who had to fight his way to power he didn't have nearly the education air that day that gorbachev did ek came out of a construction institute and the province is set in the euro's and eighty four his way up in the communist party and then of course when he was cast out of the leadership and eighty seven by gorbachev he had to fight his way back by using public opinion and essentially by i use in the election process and in so doing he developed i think on the one hand a very good feel for public opinion what people were thinking but he had to use all the techniques of a politician they can promise is necessarily that he couldn't fulfill being often unfair in his criticisms but if the other side was vulnerable we would use it and i mean possums have to do that to get elected and he had to get elected if he was going to be in and the leadership but quite a different

personality gorbachev suspected all along that he wanted to replace him my i think that desire came only with continued rejection by gorbachev i think or the shop couldn't manage that relationship and the difficult one and kept him on the team but it didn't he chose not to eat show strike it to exclude him from politics and that was his big mistake because as yeltsin got more popular with the public and gorbachev's mistakes began to be seen than gorbachev's opposition to yeltsin actually gave yeltsin a real push because he was increasingly defined by opposition by the old comics establishment which which gorbachev still headed despite his reforms sold this became an almost epic struggle by ninety one is a scene in which a president bush and barbara bush or while they are let's yeltsin in fact be part of

partly of that bothers them either established himself these were men working and and willow does way back in the elected president of russia that's exactly right and he isn't even a position of prestige and so they can be afforded be secure at that point and you point out that he just couldn't he could not get away from trying to be a big speech he had to one up you not only got the top of the bushes was as well he kept bush waiting nearly mile fifteen minutes i mean this is where you know the best of the united states or any of the chief of state audio the press conference without telling them advance and then of course service at all perhaps the most trivial but very characteristic thing at the state dinner he waits goes through the line lands and then tries to escort this is bush's iaea vote as if he was at where the us ended its not ratified gorbachev gorbachev

thing in senegal which offer comes when you talk about the effort to make him understand the difference between a corporation and collectivism me simply could probably a private the private sector goes on the deadline early new year's he had a visceral and this course came from his communist upbringing dislike for private property and means of production and in his view even though when he began to allow that well under certain circumstances this should be allowed still collective property meaning a co op or something of that's already considered superior and at one point he started saying well you know corporations we're a form of collective property and i think he was at that point trying to expand the definition of socialism and what was acceptable but today he also had a pretty dim view of that time understanding of what really you know corporations all

about or less told the two presidents are period the reagan as we said was tough on what had been much of that time the he decided he had they would try to give a turning point i have a feeling because you save the so it asked too much expected too much that it didn't live up to its full position of the potential it was played as a great failure because they did not in fact agree to the next summit in washington which was one of the purposes in fact we made more substantive progress there than probably any other subject we got essentially add agreements on the big issues and arms reduction fifty percent cut in the soviet heavy muscles that for the first time on site inspection

and the ins missiles down two hundred actually wanted zero and eventually got zero but basically we got almost everything i'd say ninety five percent of what we wanted and but he did insist on keeping as the idea what all star was the laboratories which reagan saw as an effort to kill it and it was on that point that reagan sort of refuse to go into the comprehensive agreement although he had agreed on such things as early as a goal for the total destruction of our nuclear weapons which was something he believed in and most of his staff did not ministration didn't but he did he'd consensus had before very much disliked the nuclear weapons and what to get rid of it but we were very close to empower the most comprehensive arms control agreement in world history by an aide we broke up on that point but when we began to look at the details we found that actually we had gotten virtually everything we were looking for and in fact when these trees were

eventually negotiated we came out with something very close to what it already been agreed to reykjavik so in many ways it was a breakthrough because you know in a negotiation want you have shown so your bottom line nobody nobody's going to accept anything else once they told us under certain circumstances they would cut fifty percent of the heavy muscles which was at one of our biggest you know objectives in the start negotiations once they agreed to come down two hundred ins missiles and we found that's acceptable it wasn't that hard to figure out both sides figure out a zero is better well one thing is easy to verify and what the hell can you do with the hundred you know so in a sense we really have a substantive breakthrough there which was it recognized immediately the eye of the media which i've long been a part of the media gave a in catholic courtroom as a softball

really was not let pride didn't know where it was going sometimes had had cue cards to keep him on track i'm sure that the fact that the that means president disability loss drugs that may make some people wonder about their different picture of him from reading your book well it was not a man who was caught with a lot of details that is absolutely true but you know what's the bottom line of the sorts of things that he really wanted and he knew what he wanted in these negotiations surely use cue cards but quite frankly i see on tv anchors are very dependent on the accu about someone i liked that but he did you know it it's true that that air that he didn't have a mastery of detail to that that you there that president carter had or the president bush head

but i think he did keep his eye on the bottom line as he defined it and you know he would let the staff put things over on the idea that somehow he was telling guided is entirely wrong and i recall one letter but i drafted for him going back to gorbachev which was he wanted to say that we would share as the eye with nobody in menstruation we we good so i've always a word hideous and i sent it in to him he set it back no tellin i wanna share and i tried it again and it came back three times and finally said that all jackets my letter this is what i want with those am just men waited to i get a sense of the troop presence is there isn't there was a truck that wish mike's first trip to moscow's for the us that first of all

by norwich love is a is a problem for months of bombing but this time they're there they're doing great stress is inside the inside russia and sela sodium in there on the fringes he's got problems breaking out all over of those what would become a public says are frayed around the edges but that atm he has to deal with with well and norwich are from really wants him to go to a kia i'm sure your love story quite well and they send that signals a year in moscow and you get a call from state department saying we just had that were artisans so you come over here and say no way no they do not want to the president go to cuba after he's in

moscow and you go see your job is well let him go and he goes on i had a feeling that president bush would've been better served if he relied more on his ambassador to moscow then on his own political staff and reading one how do with how to do with gorbachev to how to do with the leadership and clear eyed about that well that i wouldn't personalize it that way actually i thought he and the kiev is it pretty well and i'd say this in the book there were a couple of sentences in his speech that i would have advised him to say differently when he complimented early gorbachev's soviet union i think that was no need for that but the basic thrust of his speech is that the freedom and independence are not saying in other words you really only go for freedom first of law and democracy then you know independents can come or not

because what was happening in ukraine then was that the nationalists who want freedom were making cause with economists who want to retain control of property and that was granted you know it'll get freedom under those circumstances i mean to get independence and the circumstances are not necessarily going to improve the situation and i think he wanted to point that out and he was right to do so by now so i you know basically i defend that speech though you know if i'd read a little earlier i would have a couple of sentences out to be sure but i think that the actually the ukrainian leadership particular some of the nationalist misread it we'd gone every effort to meet most of their requirements and yet in seeing what was good and had they focused on you know a few things which they didn't like which i thought was probably not in there and then as you point out our friend wouldn't sell for lights or chicken kiev yes and it'll always be known as a lab an alliterative phrase a number of fascinating

personalities in the book i think the one who stands out in my mind's them or mosque a couple for a couple of reasons one was that there came a point where he told to we need to get a political system when you get press when you get in the island's communist party and then i don't know whether we have time to tell the story but that graphic dramatic meeting your office twenty most say out loud that right you know what you're talking about most of it is going to be a crude into guard corps which of you got to get in touch with the awesome united states and tell yeah it was in offices in my resume new residents so that was important as my office would've been volatile environment but he wrote it so we couldn't be overheard and of course i did report this and then somebody else then yeltsin would be told he was meeting with bush that day in washington and then of course i was told to alert gorbachev of which i tried to do without naming things