Combating Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction

A small secretariat guides the day-to-day work of the commission and serves as acommunications channel for the Vice President and the Prime Minister. The three U.S.members of the secretariat are the Vice President’s National Security Advisor; the NSCSenior Director for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasian Affairs; and the Special Advisor to theSecretary of State for the New Independent States. The Commission functions as acoordinating body to establish a framework for cooperation, and the instruments of thatcooperation are the bilateral committees.Vice President Gore and Prime Minister Chernomyrdin held the first commission meetingwith the respective committee chairs in Washington in September 1993. The VicePresident and the Prime Minister made several decisions with significance both for thedurability of the commission and for the ability of the principals to take up sensitive securityissues such as proliferation.• They determined that the committees making up the commission should beinteragency in nature, meet regularly at the call of their co-chairs, and settheir own work plans. (The role of the U.S. committee co-chair wasenhanced by his or her authority over funding specific programs withmoneys appropriated to his or her department.)• They agreed to meet in plenary session, that is, with all the committee chairsin attendance, twice each year, alternating between Washington andMoscow. This established the principle that the work of the committeeswould be subject to regular and intensive review by the Vice President andthe Prime Minister.• They agreed that the two leaders would meet together privately, with onenote-taker on each side, on the eve of each semi-annual commissionsession to resolve any outstanding issues related to the commission’s workand to discuss sensitive issues not appropriate to the commission setting.(This practice became known as the one-on-one meeting, for which aseparate agenda, called the off-line agenda, was developed.) The one-ononemeetings facilitated discussion of the most sensitive matters in U.S.-Russian relations.• Finally, they agreed that they would meet with the president of the hostcountry at the conclusion of each commission session to report on theiraccomplishments and discuss other matters that their respective presidentsmight wish to raise. By regularizing joint meetings with the president of thecountry hosting each commission meeting, they became a keycommunications link between Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin.17