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

too much. We have enough of our own to do."
Q: What about the Baltic republics? It seems that Gorbachev sort of had a hope to keep
them within the – which sounds about as far out as you can come, because they never
really were a part of it?
MILLER: If Russification had continued for another generation or so, the three Baltic
city-states would have been Russified. The current ethnic situation in Lithuania gives
some idea of what the policy of Russification was intended to achieve.
I think Gorbachev's view was that the Soviet Union was still a good idea, and with reform
everybody would be happy, there wouldn't be repression and everyone could prosper.
Yeltsin’s view was somewhat different. His view was we'll probably be together at some
later point, but not now, we've got enough to do separately, Yeltsin wasn't very worried
about the future, his concerns were getting from one day to the next.
Q: Looking at it as a practical point of view, some sort of economic union, close union,
probably makes more sense.
MILLER: A good friend of mine is an Estonian. Igor Grazin was in the Supreme Soviet,
the last two Supreme Soviets. He experienced the Prague uprising – he was there. Grazin
is a distinguished lawyer, international lawyer. When I first met him Grazin lived with his
wife and son in a remarkable commune, you might say, of Soviet legislators who were
elected from the regions outside of Moscow. Many of the deputies lived together,
dangerous, in a modern apartment complex in a suburb called Krylatsky in the outskirts
of Moscow, a lovely part of Moscow. Krylatsky is in an area of parks. We used to go
cross-country skiing there in the winter. Grazin lived out there with all these Supreme
Soviet deputies and their families. Their children went to school together. The deputies
often ate meals together and the political issues of the Supreme Soviet were carried on
into the night in Krylatsky. A substantial number of the Interregional group lived in
Krylatsky.
Igor Grazin became a major figure in the last Soviet legislature. Grazin is a pure Estonian,
but he believes, even though he is a capitalist, that the survival of the Soviet Union would
have been a better result. He later went to Notre Dame as a professor and taught these
heretical ideas. As an Estonian politician he's against entering the EU (European Union)
because he believes it would be prejudicial to the best interests of the Baltic states.
Q: Okay. Well, Bill, it's probably a good place to stop. And we might pick this up, unless
there's something else you want to mention during this time. I'm sure there was so much
going on that I hope you'll be able to take a look and add. But we might pick this up in,
what, '92 or '93, when you left?
MILLER: I think '91 is probably a good time. Ninety-one is the end of the Soviet Union.
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