THE “KYL-YELTSIN” AMENDMENT: HOUSE DECISIVELY VOTES STRUCTURAL CHANGE AS PRICE OF AID TO USSR

(Washington, D.C.): At the initiative of Rep. Jon Kyl (R-AZ), a distinguished member of the Center for Security Policy’s Board of Advisors, the House of Representatives yesterday took the most important action on U.S.-Soviet relations since the Jackson-Vanik amendment was enacted in 1974. By a vote of 374-41, the House insisted that henceforth radical, structural change in the Soviet Union must precede any further American taxpayer-underwritten aid to Moscow.

The Kyl Amendment adopted yesterday contains statutory language that would require the President to certify that the character of the Soviet political and economic system has been fundamentally transformed before additional government guarantees, credits, loans, etc., can be extended to the Kremlin. Under the terms of this amendment, in the event he cannot so certify, the President would be obliged to secure collateral for such aid.

The most dramatic moment of the brief debate on the Kyl Amendment came when one of its cosponsors, Rep. John Miller (R-WA), revealed that a short while before in a meeting with Members of Congress, he had personally asked the visiting President-elect of the Russian Republic, Boris Yeltsin, what be thought of putting conditions on U.S. aid to the Soviet Union. Miller reported that Yeltsin replied, "Absolutely … and make themideological."

The House then handily turned aside an amendment offered by Rep. Harry Johnston (D-FL) that would have replaced the Kyl Amendment’s firm, clear and statutory requirements with a sense of the Congress resolution that merely exhorted the Soviets to behave differently. By then overwhelmingly endorsing Rep. Kyl’s guidelines for aid to the USSR, legislators put both the Bush Administration and the Kremlin on notice that the end of untied, taxpayer-subsidized aid to an unreformed Soviet Union is at hand.

"By adopting the Kyl Amendment with a veto-proof margin, the House of Representatives has performed an historic service for the people of the United States and for those who live under Soviet rule," said Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., the Center’s director. "It has established that wholesale political reforms — such as an end to Soviet militarism, support for subversive client states and abuse of human rights — as well as the complete dismantling of Moscow’s centralized, command economic arrangements are non-negotiable preconditions for future aid to the USSR."

Gaffney added, "The Kyl amendment immeasurably strengthens President Bush’s hand as he meets with Boris Yeltsin today, considers the so-called "Grand Bargain" and other purported aid-for-reform ideas and maps an alliance strategy for responding to Mikhail Gorbachev’s demands for assistance at the London Economic Summit. It would be both politically astute and fiscally responsible for the President to embrace the Kyl Amendment and to encourage its enactment into law."

The text of the Kyl Amendment as passed by the House of Representatives is attached.