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1 The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign ...

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MILLER: Yes. <strong>The</strong> encouragement of high school students from the Soviet Union<br />

coming to the United States was called the Bradley Program, which is named <strong>for</strong> Senator<br />

Bill Bradley. His arrangement called <strong>for</strong> large numbers of high school students coming to<br />

the United States. <strong>The</strong> original proposal was <strong>for</strong> 50,000. It has never reached that level,<br />

but greater numbers of Soviets came to the United States than had ever come be<strong>for</strong>e, at<br />

any period in their history. Exchanges of professors reached high levels, <strong>and</strong> the normal<br />

channels of academic exchange burgeoned so the IREX (International Research <strong>and</strong><br />

Exchanges Board) wasn’t sufficient.<br />

Q: IREX meaning …<br />

MILLER: This is the NGO that <strong>for</strong> many years h<strong>and</strong>led student exchange from abroad.<br />

IREX was the main channel of student <strong>and</strong> academic exchange with the Soviet Union.<br />

IREX was funded by the academic institutions in the United States <strong>and</strong> the major<br />

foundations as a logistical clearing house <strong>for</strong> getting visas <strong>and</strong> h<strong>and</strong>ling travel <strong>and</strong><br />

housing. So a number of new organizations supplemented what IREX had been doing all<br />

throughout the Soviet period.<br />

Q: Did you get any feel <strong>for</strong> how the United States was taught – our history, our<br />

institutions, our society <strong>and</strong> culture <strong>and</strong> all – was being taught within the Soviet Union at<br />

that time?<br />

MILLER: Yes, of course, until Gorbachev, the United States was seen as a bourgeois,<br />

failing capitalist society. But it all changed when the Soviets themselves traveled to the<br />

United States. It was what was learned directly while traveling in the United States that<br />

caused a change in textbooks <strong>and</strong> overall perceptions of the United States. I’ll never<br />

<strong>for</strong>get the remarks of a fellow named Yuri Travkin, who was head of the transportation<br />

workers union, <strong>and</strong> a deputy in the Supreme Soviet. When he went out to the West <strong>for</strong> the<br />

first time, he came back <strong>and</strong> gave a speech in the Supreme Soviet, saying “I’ve been<br />

deceived my all of my life. <strong>The</strong> scales have dropped from my eyes. <strong>The</strong> West is not what<br />

they told us! It’s utterly different. We have been living a great sham. We have to re<strong>for</strong>m.”<br />

So I’m deeply convinced that we should bring Russians here to see the reality.<br />

Q: You were there during the – when was the coup attempt against Gorbachev, when<br />

Yeltsin came into his own?<br />

MILLER: That’s 1990.<br />

Q: So you were there at that time.<br />

MILLER: Yes, I was.<br />

Q: Was, at the time, was there concern that the coup people might bring it off?<br />

MILLER: Yes, of course, but there was also the suspicion that Gorbachev was part of the<br />

141

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