CO 6 8 3 8 2 4 4 FIED U S Department of State Case No F-2017-13804 Doc No C06838244 Date 10 19 2021 ·- J i 1 ' __ - - RELEASE IN FULLJ IIC RET DECLASSIFIED September 27 1994 To secretary Christopher and Tony Lake From Strobe Talbott subject Handling Yeltsin ' FEB 2000 Dep Sec Has Seen The fo low1ng assessment of Boris Yeltsin's frame of mind and recommendation on how President Clinton should deal with him today and tomorrow is based on a long private talk last night with Georgi Mamedov Mamedov is as worried as I've ever seen him about the interaction of Russian and American domestic politics 1 Yeltsin comes to Washington with one concern above all others Is President Clinton still committed to helping Yeltsin and the reformers build a strong unified democratic Russia that enjoys respect and exercises influence in the world Advisers and political manipulators wl om Mamedov calls Iagos 11 have been whispering in Yeltsin's ear They are trying to fan suspicions that there are forces in the u s including in the Administration that want to contain Russia exploit its current weak-ness They· argue that President Clinton is facing huge opposition domestically and_ therefore may yield to pressures from anti-Russian elements in the Congress Yeltsin still has fundamental confidence in President Clinton but he needs reassurance Mamedov urges that the President avoid being drawn into the weeds on any of the contentious issues instead he should concentrate on an overall theme working together building on our common interests we can continue to accomplish a lot on the specifics o cocoM This is in the too-hard category for resolution at this summit Message Boris our experts are doing their best but so far that's not good enough What you should know is that -- just as I told you at Vancouver -- I'm determined to work with you to bring Russia into all the major institutions of the post-Cold War world Let's resolve that we'll try to get this solved once and for all by the CSCE summit in Budapest -- The Vice President' s telephone call to Chernomyrdin on this subject angered Yeltsin Some advise s put a mischievous spin on it saying that it was an attempted end-run on Yeltsin himself an indication of how raw nerves are in Moscow these days o The Russians are interpreting the American backgrounding as highly invidious to them we're keeping our powder dry for another arms race if necessary we don't believe they're reducing their strategic forces Nualear Posture Review Declassification Authority Geoffrey W Chapman Senior Reviewer A GIS IPS 8 6 2020 UNCLASSIFIED U S Department of State Case No F-2017-13804 Doc No C06838244 Date 10 19 2021 I c O6 8 3 8 2 4 4 IED U S Department of State Case No F-2017-13804 Doc No C06838244 Date 10 19 2021 _ ' - fast enough we're not serious about START III Defense Minister Grachev beat up on Bill Perry over this yesterday Again without getting into substance or backing off in the least on our-actual policy the message can be You're simply misinformed on this The NPR is a dramatic and positive response to what our countries have accomplished I'm telling my own people that for the first time in so years we don't regard Russia as an enemy and we're adjusting our military posture accordingly We're totally committed to arms control peyond START II I believe Bill Perry was able to clarify our thinking and our intentions with Grachev on Monday His Deputy John Oeutch is coming to Moscow in a few weeks and he'll be prepared to go deep into the details o NATO Our people have worked out a good statement on European security It makes clear that we regard Russia as a key participant in the process of building new structures in Europe I promise you that we're not going to spring any surprises on you Quite the contrary we're going to work together on this problem taking account of the interets of all the emerging democracies notably including Russia You and I personally are going to keep in close touch on this This is one of the mo$t important common tasks in which we're joined My goal continues to be integration -resisting the temptation of creating new divisions or recreating old ones o BOSNIA1 This is a prime example of where we've already done a lot together ·we've got to keep the Contact G roup together -- not just for the sake of peace in the former Yugoslavia but for the sake of Russian-American cooperation Just in the last few days I think the Bosnian government has given us a way to defer the issue of lifting the arms embargo By the way I know how hard Andrei Kozyrev has worked on this issue and he's made a very important contribution Tell him I said so Secretary Christopher values him immensely You and I have to do everything we can to make it possible for Andrei and Chris to stay together on this issue SBE RE'f UNCLASSIFIED U S Department of State Case No F-2017-13804 Doc No C06838244 Date 10 19 2021