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

deeply about the necessity to eliminate nuclear weapons. It was a major factor in their
mentality. For them, help from others in dealing with this problem was a test of
friendship and this was a very important diplomatic lesson for me. They asked for help,
we said we would give the requested help. This request for help was made to the West,
generally, and the United States in particular. We had several pledge conferences to raise
the funds necessary. I can remember one held at the Waldorf in New York in 1995, it was
a spin-off from an official visit of Ukrainians to Washington. Vice President Al Gore was
chairman of this meeting, and the EU nations and Japan and a number of others and the
United States, of course, pledged money for repair of the Chernobyl sarcophagus, the
tomb that had been put around the blown-up reactor. We pledged ourselves to meet the
need. Thus far, we haven’t yet met our pledge. This failure to honor such a solemn
commitment has damaged the Ukrainian view of the integrity of our work.
The Ukrainians’ sense of abandonment and fear of being cut adrift was reinforced by this
failure. It is a reminder to me, as a diplomat and sometime policymaker, that when you
make these kinds of commitments you’ve got live up to them. We said we would do the
job. To Gore’s credit, to the Clinton administration’s credit, they worked mightily to try
and meet that, but they didn’t fully. It underlines the necessity of transition groups to
convey the understanding necessary to make clear obligations that a new administration
has to honor past commitments. You can’t destroy treaties because you find them
inconvenient. You pick up the burdens that you inherit, as odious or difficult as they may
be. Chernobyl is one of those things that has not been satisfactorily met in the minds of
the Ukrainians. So I would say any ambassador that goes out to Kyiv, any Assistant
Secretary for European affairs, any national security council advisor should be made fully
aware of the Chernobyl burden that stems from 1986. Every Ukrainian has a memory of
it, every Ukrainian has had a relative somehow affected, either directly by radiation or
death, so it’s a constant in their mentality. I understood that it was very important for me
to go to Chernobyl, and I went frequently. So I shared their understanding of these things
and they had, of course, ceremonial days the way the Japanese do at Hiroshima about
Chernobyl. It is very important for an ambassador and embassy staff to participate in
solemn ceremonies like commemoration of Chernobyl, the famine, or the slaughter of
Babyn Yar or the sacrifice in the war against the Nazis.
Those are not things that are taught in area studies generally.
Q: You left there when?
MILLER: Ninety-eight.
Q: What have you been doing since?
MILLER: I haven’t stopped my interest in Ukraine, largely because of what I’ve been
doing at the Woodrow Wilson International Center, first as a policy fellow and now as a
senior fellow. When I went to the Wilson Center it was for a year, to work on a book on
the Ukraine, which I’m still working on. I hope to finish this year. The Wilson Center is a
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