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

Q: Well, then, when did you leave Moscow?
MILLER: I left Moscow when the U.S. presidential election took place.
Q: This would be the election of ’92.
MILLER: Ninety-two, yes.
Q: This would be the advent of Bill Clinton.
MILLER: Yes. I was in the Clinton foreign policy group, and after the election it was
clear that I would be a part of the Clinton administration.
Q: How did that develop? How does one – Bill Clinton was coming out of Arkansas, and
although he had been involved in other groups, I mean, still, he was a small state’s
governor and not exposed to foreign policy as far as having to really deal with it. How
did this work out?
MILLER: Bill Clinton is obviously a very skillful politician. It was, perhaps the luck of
the political game that some individuals didn’t run who might have won had they run.
Bradley, for instance. So Clinton won, and after he won he put together teams for the
transition, the transition being the period between the election and inauguration. It is
during the transition that the new President decides what needs to be changed in the way
of policies and people. Clinton began choosing the people he wanted to fill the several
thousand slots (actually about 3,200 slots) at the policy level that are regarded as
presidential appointments. It is during the transition that the shaping of the new
government takes place.
Clinton was very interested in foreign policy, he directed the policy goals and chose the
new foreign policy team himself, along with the new Vice President, Al Gore, as well.
Clinton’s closest advisors included people who were part of his Oxford experience.
Strobe Talbott, for example. The networking that is normal in Washington came into
play. In my case, I’d known Strobe all during the period of perestroika and before, and
for both of us that was part of our experience, he being a Russian-Soviet-scholar and
journalist and I because of my work in the Soviet Union. We both shared an Oxford
experience and we had many mutual friends in the Clinton group. Tony Lake, who was
appointed National Security Advisor, was my first student at Harvard, when I was a tutor
in History and Lit. The head of personnel and recruitment was Brian Atwood, who was
later head of AID, and he was on the Hill with me. He was with Tom Eagleton when I
was working for John Sherman Cooper, Frank Church and Mac Mathias, so we were
colleagues. Leon Fuerth was Gore’s long time foreign policy assistant, and was also on
the Hill. Dick Moose came into the Foreign Service about the same time and he was a
friend here at home for many, many years and still is a friend.
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