FIRST ‘CHICKEN KIEV,’ NOW ‘TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA REPUBLICS’: TIME TO RECALL BOB STRAUSS, RETOOL BUSH SOVIET POLICY

(Washington, D.C.): In the latest —
and perhaps most egregious — example of
the Bush Administration’s paternalistic
attitude toward independence-bound Soviet
republics, U.S. Ambassador to the former
USSR Robert Strauss demeaningly compared
them to undisciplined adolescents:

“At times, the republics
remind me of our children when
they were…teenagers. They
thoroughly enjoyed their
independence until their laundry
got dirty or they need a good
meal.”

This condescending remark unfortunately
was only one of several made to American
correspondents in Moscow yesterday in an
interview that underscored Strauss’ utter
unfitness for his present post. The
following comments demonstrate
conclusively that U.S. interests are not
well served to the extent that they are
being represented by a man who is so
transparently devoted to the Soviet
central authorities; so contemptuous of
those seeking independence from Moscow
center’s control; so out of touch with
the relative power of the two groups; and
so callous toward American taxpayers’
losses in a bankrupt USSR.

• Strauss called the overwhelming
  congressional rejection of a
  proposal that would have sluiced
  $1 billion from the U.S. defense
  budget into ill-defined but very
  black holes in the Soviet Union
  “a goddamned outrage.”
  This broadside should be a
  warning to Capitol Hill — if any
  were needed — that the Bush
  Administration intends to have it
  both ways. First, the White House
  withholds critical support for
  the Nunn-Aspin initiative and
  then allows one of its senior
  spokesman to trash the Congress
  for voting it down.
• Strauss blithely said “I’d
  rather risk a couple of
  billion bucks for our
  country out here and end up
  saying ‘Well, it didn’t work
  out,’ than fail to risk a couple
  of billion bucks and end up
  looking at a real fascist-type
  situation out here of communism
  [sic] and say, ‘My God, if we’d
  just spent a couple of billion
  bucks.” Such a cavalier tone
  is redolent of a man accustomed
  to spending someone else’s money.
• Strauss actually went so far as
  to suggest that aid to the Soviet
  Union was “a good investment
  of a modest amount of taxpayers’
  money” — even as he
  acknowledged that “the odds
  on its blowing up in our face are
  pretty good.”
• Particularly stunning for a man
  supposedly endowed with immense
  business acumen was Strauss’
  inscrutable response when asked
  by a young reporter whether he
  would advise U.S. businessman to
  invest money in the USSR in such
  chaotic times:

“If I had $100,000 and I was
your age, I’d be damn interested
in coming over here and investing
that $100,000 [i.e., 100% of
personal net worth]. If I had $10
million and I was your age, I’d
be interested in coming over here
and investing $100,000 of it
[i.e., 1% of personal net
worth].”

Ironically, Strauss’ trashing of the
republics comes at the same moment that
the Bush Administration seems to be
reluctantly admitting that Moscow center
is no longer viable. In sharp contrast to
President Bush’s speech in Kiev on 1
August 1991 — where he effectively
accused the Ukrainians and other
independence-bound republics of engaging
in “suicidal nationalism based upon
ethnic hatred” — the White
House is reportedly prepared to direct a
further $1.5 billion in
taxpayer-underwritten food aid to the
twelve republics of the former Soviet
Union. By so doing, the
Administration is effectively
acknowledging the political and financial
bankruptcy of its exclusive fealty to
Gorbachev and his reconfigured Soviet
center.

Still, when asked today how
the White House viewed Amb. Strauss’
comments to reporters in Moscow,
presidential spokesman Marlin Fitzwater
replied:

“Well, the Ambassador is the
man on the scene. He knows the
problems, he feels the need in
the street, he knows the plights
[sic] the Soviet people are going
through. So, it’s very helpful to
get his advice. Also, he’s talked
to a number of Soviet leaders;
represents the problem as he sees
it. We take all that into
account.”

Of course, one of the “Soviet
leaders” Amb. Strauss has interacted
with since assuming his post is Eduard
Shevardnadze — a man who clearly shares
Bob Strauss’s view of the independent
republics as a mischievous and unruly
“brat-pack.” Presumably, the
Texas Troika (President Bush, Secretary
Baker and Ambassador Strauss) are
euphoric over reports today that Mikhail
Gorbachev has decreed that Shevardnadze,
his abidingly loyal lieutenant, would
resume his position at the helm of the
severely listing Soviet Foreign Ministry.

The Troika — and their counterparts
elsewhere in the West — should be under
no illusions, however: Shevardnadze’s
reintroduction to the center hierarchy
will not measurably slow, let alone
reverse, the Kremlin’s waning fortunes. Neither
will it confer upon Moscow center a
greater legitimacy among the genuine
advocates of democracy and free market
reform who know full well that
Shevardnadze — like Gorbachev — is not
one of them.

The Center for Security Policy
believes that, in light of the
gravity of Ambassador Strauss’ gaffes, he
should be recalled to Washington
immediately. At the very least, President
Bush must take him to the proverbial
woodshed, making clear that his
deprecating remarks about the future
leaders of the former Soviet Union at the
republic level do not reflect present
U.S. policy. Ideally, the
President would see the wisdom of
removing Amb. Strauss before he does any
more harm to long-term American interests
in the erstwhile USSR.