Brent Scowcroft

He was kind of the man behind Perestroika in conceptual and policy terms.

There was this basic concord between you know, Bush and James Baker and people within, you know, Bush and Baker's orbit, like Brent Scowcroft, you know, Contra, the Team B coterie, kind of best exemplified by people like, or most purely exemplified by people like Cheney, you know, who wanted the Soviet Union dismantled and kind of, you know, laid prostrate.

in the most um you know in the most complete and punitive way possible um bush and baker's uh kind of absolute um imperative was that they wanted to preserve the soviet structure um not its internal constitution but its basic structure it's like kind of you know um essentially administrated governmental organizational modality until full disarmament had been accomplished okay you know total nuclear disarmament a drawing down of soviet conventional forces you know to something minuscule you know to to um levels of some kind of like internal you know constabulary element And only then would there be discussion about moving forward, like how the Soviet Union would be structured or whether it would continue to exist at all.

It ending up with tanks in Red Square and Yeltsin literally banning the Communist Party declaring himself president of the new Russian Federation, and then holding what him on to do, you know, like an ad hoc plebiscite, that was totally at odds with what the Bush administration wanted to develop, okay? And why that became possible in an indirect but essential way was impacted by what happened in Yugoslavia, right? for people who think i'm over emphasizing this um there's a fascinating memo um that circulated at the department of state i mean all the minutes of any like official meeting between the secretary of state and uh his soviet counterpart or the or the soviet chief executive would obviously you know be widely circulated um may 11th of 89 Gorbachev met with Baker and Shevardnadze was present too.

Like, they have no, they have no concept at all of, of, of the world and power political affairs or anything like that.

So, um, Bush, Baker, Scowcroft, even Cheney, and Cheney's a terrible person.

But again, uh, you know, we're not talking about the character of these people.

Um, you know, they, they stand out, um, and they come- kind of like the, the, the contrast emerges in high relief, verbally speaking.

And, uh, when Bush found himself elected president, um, he was surrounded by men, uh, who had, uh, gone on to very storied and powerful roles in, uh, policy planning corridors and the national security apparatus, uh, who, who, who were very hostile to, to his worldview and who did not view him as particularly competent, okay? Um, Bush tried to insulate himself with, with, with his own loyalists, and I think he did that in large measure.

You know, people like Baker or people like Scowcroft, who's kind of a complicated figure in terms of his values.

He had neoconish tendencies, but first and foremost, he was loyal to Bush.

Um, and, uh, when Bush took office, you know, uh, February 1989, again, not only was this kind of Team B faction that would much later become kind of known to the public as, you know, the neocon cabal, some aspect of it at least.

[sighs] And again, we- we're gonna, gonna come back to the CIA and its incompetence, and I know people think I overstate this, but consider this.

William Crowe, he was another general who was kind of-- He would've been considered something like a minister without portfolio had he served a European government.

But he was close to Bush 41 and Baker and Scowcroft and that whole coterie.

He said the CIA, literally in mid-1989, he said they were still, they were still issuing dispatches that spoke about the USSR as if it was 20 years earlier.

Yeah, right.

She's at this meeting, and her lectures and her discussions drew the attention of an individual by the name of Brent Scowcroft.

Now, on a previous podcast episode a couple years ago, we had our colleague on, Bill Newman.

who talked about the Reagan-Bush foreign policy, et cetera, et cetera.

And Brent Scowcroft, okay, was an important figure as far back as the Ford presidency.

Well, Scowcroft takes note, right, of the performance of this Stanford University, at the time, assistant professor.

She's not yet been promoted, right? So the next president is –

Um, I was reading the, the Wilson Center, which I, I think is kind of abominable in a lot of ways, but [laughs] their archives are very useful and very interesting.

Um, when Bush and Scowcroft, Bush 41 obviously, and Baker, and Helmut Kohl, you know, were negotiating with Gorbachev, particularly as regarded, specifically as regarded to what, you know, the START treaty, but generally, um, you know, the kind of expedience related to ending the Cold War.

Something that Kohl, and Bush, and Scowcroft all said to Gorbachev was like, "Look, like, however we leave this, you know, assuming that, you know, we can come to terms on, on nuclear weapons, assuming we can come to terms on, you know, a basically complete drawdown in forces and being in Europe." You know, he's like, "We need your guarantee that your satellites in Latin America are gonna stop exporting revolution." You know, and obviously they couch this in, like, the language of diplomacy and in the language of, of, of A- of, of, of American propaganda.

You know, like subverting the democracies in, in Latin America.

But this was very much on their mind, which is fascinating, and this makes sense.

Is there anything you, uh, you wanted to get out there?

I just, I just, yeah, one of the, I want to, and we'll, we, we'll deal with this more in a dedicated capacity, um, in a, in a more current events discussion.

But I, the degree to which the, uh, what people like Bush 41, Scowcroft, Baker, Nixon himself, and I mean, make no mistake, like, Nixon played a key role in ending the Cold War.

And I think he did that in large measure.

You know, people like Baker or people like Scowcroft, who's kind of a complicated figure in terms of his values.

He had neoconish tendencies, but first and foremost, he was loyal to Bush.

And when Bush took office, you know, February 1989, again, not only was this kind of team defection that would much later become kind of known to the public as, you know, the neocon cabal, some aspect of it at least, not only were they insinuated very much into the national security apparatus, but, you know, certain expectations have been raised by Reagan.

But, um, [coughs] the way it played out, um, in, uh, operational terms was Ford, Ford was informed of the seizure of the Ma- of the Mayaguez at his, uh, morning briefing on, uh, the 16th.

Um, like I said, the National Security Council was convened.

Brent Scowcroft, who, as I'm sure people will recognize, um, you know, later went on to play a major role in the Reagan administration, particularly Reagan's first term, um, you know, he, he basically early on in the crisis was, uh, wa- was the one who, uh, you know, convened, uh, what ultimately became, um, you know, the parties who, who determined what, what the, what the operational response would be, for better or worse.

Um, the, uh, the, um, the big concern, I mean, obviously aside from the, you know, the issues I just indicated relating to, uh, relating to, uh, US-Chinese relations and everything else, uh, America had a major credibility problem.