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

MILLER: Armenian-Azerbaijanian conflict.
Q: ... problem, which had predated the independence of these countries.
MILLER: That's right, the Armenian-Azerbaijan conflict had been, in part, fomented by
the disintegrating situation of the Soviet Union. Yazov was very loquacious, extremely
decorous and polite to our group, particularly to Yelena Bonner, which astonished me,
because she was not decorous or polite to him in any way. This was an extraordinary
business meeting in the Ministry of Defense, but Yazov’s discussions of the future of the
Soviet Union and the dire straights that the country was in. The conversation was very
direct and to the point. This was a group of people Yazov was not accustomed to having
discussions with, a delegation of foreigners and human rights activists. It also included
some important people in the new Russia who were emerging, as well as the leader of the
last Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union.
The leadership group at the end of the Soviet Union and the beginnings of Russia was so
broad and so reflective of the south as a whole that it succeeded in breaking down all the
old preconceptions. I'm stressing the importance of this time because of the, I won't say
amorphous, but the very malleable moment that it was. Moscow and Russia could have
gone in any number of directions.
Q: Did the intellectuals sort of grab hold of this?
MILLER: Yes.
Q: How did they fit into this?
MILLER: Well, they talked a lot, of course. They talked, and talked, often brilliantly.
When they wrote, there was a resulting great explosion of newspapers, great exposure of
new ideas in new forms of television commentary. There was also an enormous amount
of tract writing, of handbills, these handbills and essays that were widely distributed in
the parliaments.
Q: Almost an offshoot from the old Samizdat, isn't it?
MILLER: With a public kind of Samizdat. That sounds contradictory. There was so much
to read that people were exhausted by the end of the day from reading about what
allegedly was happening and what it all meant, even though the readers were part of what
was happening and many readers were writing these very same things they were reading
about. It was an extraordinary time, and it was extraordinary to be in the middle of it. The
reason I was able to be in the middle of it was certainly the support of people like
Sakharov and his group, I also had an instinct, an empathy for what was going on.
My Russian and Soviet colleagues looked on Americans like me and my fellow board
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