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

Ridgeway. During the time between the end of the Reagan administration and the
beginning of Bush One administration, George Schultz, Roz was saying – and she was
assistant secretary for European affairs – she said she knew James Baker did not have
any contact with George Schultz during that time. It was enough so that people got the
feeling that – I mean, this was the same administration, but it was, let’s say, a distant
relationship.
MILLER: That’s often the case, but that doesn’t mean they’re not aware of each other’s
doings or activities. The calling in of your predecessors is not normal in our practice,
except in “wise man” exercises where you bring in several preceding generations of
leadership in order to give public, visible legitimacy to what you’re doing, and hope that
you gain popular support for a tough decision, something that requires consensus. Well,
that certainly hasn’t happened in the present administration.
Q: You took over – catch me up on this, I still belong to the old school and I keep talking
about the Ukraine rather than Ukraine, which I’m sure is an annoyance for people who
are Ukrainians or serve there, now. Anyway – when you went to Ukraine – in the first
place you were there from when to when?
MILLER: I served as ambassador from the early fall of ’93 into ’98.
Q: What were our primary concerns when you went out there?
MILLER: The primary concern was the disposition of the third largest nuclear arsenal in
the world. ICBMs (Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles) aimed at the United States in
sufficient number with the capability and invulnerability to destroy the United States
many times over. The control of those weapons was very much an issue. Who owned
them? Did the new Ukraine own them, did Moscow own them? The Ukrainian
government said they had the right, as a successor state, to all objects on their territory,
and they persisted in this, as was their right under any understanding of the rights of
successor states. However, at the beginning of independence, the missile silo fields, the
deployment made by the 43 rd Rocket Army, were under the control of Russian
commanders, even though the Ukrainians asserted their right, very quickly. We did not
know, but it was the case, as I found out, that the Ukrainization of the 43 rd Rocket Army
was one of their first priorities, and this process of takeover went very rapidly to take over
control. The 43 rd Rocket Army was commanded by a general named Mikhtiuk who was
an ethnic Ukrainian, became a Ukrainian general in the newly formed army. He became
the commander of the 43 rd Rocket Army of Ukraine, and even though the officers …
[END SIDE]
Q: Yes.
MILLER: Even though the officers in the chain of command of the 43 rd Rocket Army in
the silos believed that they were under Moscow control, and indeed sets of codes and
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