“Summitting For Dollars:” Breaking The Code On Gorbachev’s Agenda For The Maltese Summit

At his press conference yesterday, President Bush dismissed the most pressing issue of the day as a mere "hypothetical question." When asked how he would respond at the summit to be held off the Maltese coast in early December "if Gorbachev should ask you to show forbearance in the event he cracks down domestically or in the event he feels it necessary to support a crackdown in Eastern Europe," the president simply said, "I am not going to buy into that hypothetical question."

This statement is striking not only because it suggests that the Bush Administration appears inclined to discount the likelihood of such a request from Gorbachev. It is the more astonishing in that it illustrates the lengths to which the Administration is prepared to go to avoid signalling that such a crackdown would entail real and painful economic costs for the Soviet leader.

The Center for Security Policy sees mounting evidence to explain why the Bush Administration is resisting conveying such a signal: The U.S. government is embarked upon a major policy initiative designed to assist the Soviet Union economically, financially and technologically and it is determined to let nothing interfere with this ambitious program. Indeed, it appears the summit is intended by both President Bush and President Gorbachev to be a vehicle for the endorsement of initiatives ranging from a comprehensive bilateral trade agreement to intensified cooperation in the strategic energy sector of the Soviet economy to the facilitation of Soviet bond sales and other forms of borrowing in the United States and Western markets.

The true character of this common agenda for the summit is signalled by two important events that will bracket the meeting off the coast of Malta: The first is the heretofore undisclosed meeting of the U.S.-USSR Joint Commercial Commission (JCC) on November 15-16 in Washington. This event will be hosted by Secretary of Commerce Robert Mosbacher. It will bring together an array of senior U.S. and Soviet officials who, in various working groups, will be charged with developing formal bilateral agreements. The JCC sessions will also lay the groundwork for ultimate negotiation of a full-blown bilateral Trade Agreement, of the type abrogated by the Soviet Union in early 1975 over the Jackson-Vanik amendment. Formal negotiations — or even commissioning a working group — are deemed to be proscribed until such time as the Jackson-Vanik amendment is waived.

The second is a major business conference to be held in New York at which top Soviet trade and financial officials will appear. According to published reports, in the aftermath of the announcement of the Maltese summit, the Soviets have begun to "heavy-up" their representation at this event. The list includes: the chairman of the Soviet Bank for Foreign Economic Affairs (Yuri Moshovsky); the chairman of the USSR’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry and co-chairman of the U.S.-USSR Trade and Economic Council (Vladislav Malkevitch); the chairman of the USSR’s Central Union of Cooperative Societies (Pavel S. Fedirko); and the department head of the Soviet State Commission on Foreign Economic Relations (Vladimir V. Ranenko). As one of the U.S. conference organizers put it: "By doing this the day after the Mediterranean meetings finish, [the Soviets] are trying for a one-two punch."

The Center entirely agrees with this assessment. In a major address to be delivered tomorrow before a conference on U.S.-Soviet trade sponsored by Washington Publications at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, Roger W. Robinson, Jr., a leading authority on the security dimensions of East-West economic and financial relations and member of the Center’s Board of Advisors, will explain why Moscow’s "urgent economic predicament" is the "prime mover" behind the interim December summit.

In releasing excerpts of the speech at the Center today, Robinson emphasized the larger significance of this hidden agenda. He observed that "Mr. Gorbachev’s objective is not simply one of obtaining increased U.S. financial and trade-related support to alleviate Moscow’s economic burden. Far more important for Moscow is obtaining the United States’ seal of political approval on Soviet approaches to other, deep-pocketed Western nations — especially Japan — that possess multi-billion dollar government-guaranteed and private credit capabilities, nations that have to date exercised appropriate restraint due to a more skeptical assessment of Soviet commercial and political risk."

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., the Center’s director added, "As events in East Germany and in various regions of the Soviet Union become ever more difficult for the communist authorities to control with platitudes and cosmetic concessions, the Bush Administration had best make it clear to the Soviet leadership that Moscow can forget about U.S. economic, financial and technological assistance if the USSR engages in repressive policies. Should the United States continue to signal that it is determined come what may to promote and protect these burgeoning relationships, the Administration will be conveying the message, as it did after the Tiananmen Square massacre in China, that such repression is essentially cost-free."

The Center for Security Policy calls on the Bush Administration to separate its agenda for the Maltese summit from that of the Soviet Union by making the centerpiece of its diplomacy before, during and after the summit the deterrence of a Soviet crackdown.

Excerpts of Roger Robinson’s speech are attached.