Opinion by James A. Baker III reported in The Washington Post, 07/08/14
James A. Baker III
was U.S. secretary of state from 1989 to 1992.
I vividly remember
the time and place when I knew that the Cold War had ended. It was Aug. 3,
1990, at Vnukovo II Airport outside Moscow. I stood shoulder to shoulder with
the foreign minister of the Soviet Union as history was made when we jointly
declared our countries’ opposition to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and called for an arms embargo on
Iraq, then a Soviet client state. My counterpart was Eduard Shevardnadze. While he was an adversary,
he was also a trusted diplomatic partner. In time, he would become a close
friend. My biases should therefore be clear: I liked and admired the man.
But I believe that
history, too, will judge Shevardnadze kindly. For the Cold
War could not have ended peacefully without him. He helped shepherd the Soviet
Union, Europe and, indeed, the world through a period of profound and
unpredictable change. Looking back, it is easy to say that the Soviet empire
would inevitably have collapsed with a whimper, not a bang. But there was
nothing inevitable about it.
A staunch supporter
of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s policies of reform, Shevardnadze struggled
mightily against powerful domestic forces with a vested interest in sustaining
ruthless repression at home and permanent Cold War abroad. At one point, he
even resigned, saying “dictatorship is coming.” And shortly it did,
with the coup attempt on Gorbachev. Shevardnadze was tough; he was tenacious;
above all, he was brave.
His political courage
was on display for the world to see when we made our joint statement on Iraq.
Just before doing that, a weary Shevardnadze privately told me that the
hard-liners in his country had warned him that there would be “blood on his
hands” if he took that stance. But Shevardnadze was willing to confront those
hard-liners. “This aggression,” he announced at the airport, “is inconsistent
with the principles of new political thinking.”
Time and time
again, Shevardnadze demonstrated such courage. He was a perfect partner for
Gorbachev, who was a tremendously optimistic leader, not unlike Ronald Reagan
in his ability to buoy a room with his confidence and upbeat outlook.
Shevardnadze, on the other hand, was like a wise owl who carried the aura — and
burden — of intelligence and insight. He was a soft-spoken man — but one to
whom it was always worth listening. And one who was always willing to consider
the arguments of others.
Together, Gorbachev
and Shevardnadze had the vision to work with their Cold War adversaries to
reunite Germany in NATO, negotiate far-reaching nuclear and chemical arms
treaties and allow members of the Warsaw Pact to determine their own futures.
Above all, they refused — in the face of massive pressure from reactionaries at
home — to use force to keep the Soviet empire together. This helped ease the
path to freedom for tens of millions of Central and Eastern Europeans.
There was no other
foreign official with whom I worked as productively, although it didn’t start
out that way. Initially, our meetings were the formal and stilted affairs that
were often the norm when the U.S. secretary of state and the Soviet foreign
minister met. But as time wore on, we gained more and more trust in one
another. Eventually, when just the two of us were together, he would seek my
objective counsel about problems that his country was having with the rapid
changes occurring there.
He was a man of
contradictions and surprises. Born and raised in an authoritarian Soviet Union,
Shevardnadze was a committed Communist. But at the height of his power, he
promoted reforms. Although his government had espoused universal atheism his
entire life, he was baptized into the Georgian Orthodox Church in 1991. During
an exchange of gifts at our arms control negotiations in Jackson Hole, Wyo., in 1989,
I was amazed when Shevardnadze gave me an enamel picture of Christ teaching the
people. “You see, even we Communists are changing our worldview,” he said
With the end of the
Soviet Union, he would return to his homeland, Georgia, and eventually become
its president. His legacy as leader of Georgia is admittedly more ambiguous.
Nothing, however, can overshadow his historic accomplishments as foreign
minister of the Soviet Union.
Eduard Shevardnadze
was truly one of the great statesmen of my lifetime.
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