Featuring a thick black checkmark (Clinton was left-handed) and scrawled notes from Clinton, this memo from the national security adviser gives the President some bad news:
“hardening Russian opposition to NATO enlargement, unease among some West Europeans and still-uncertain Congressional support pose a challenge to our policy.”
Clinton wrote the next day,
“I think we need to discuss how the Europeans feel [underlined] about this and what they are likely to do.”
The timing here is important. Two months earlier, Clinton had attended Victory Day (May 9) in Moscow, commemorating the Soviet victory over Hitler, as a personal favor to Yeltsin, only to hear the Russian president yell at him that NATO expansion represents “nothing but humiliation for Russia.” Clinton promised Yeltsin again that no action on NATO expansion would happen in 1995 or 1996. Here, Lake tries to present the forthcoming study on the “how and why” of NATO expansion” as one that “should reassure the Russians on stationing of nuclear and major conventional forces on new members’ territory. NATO reserves the right to do so but sees no reason to undertake such deployments at present, particularly with respect to its nuclear posture.”
But the memo goes on to describe in detail the “hardening” opposition among Russia’s elites:
“Russian opposition to NATO enlargement is unlikely to yield in the near or medium term to some kind of grudging endorsement; Russia’s opposition is deep and profound. For the period ahead, the Russian leadership will do its level best to derail our policy, given its conviction that any eastward expansion of NATO is at root antithetical to Russia’s long-term interests.”
The best the U.S. can do, Lake concludes, is just to achieve a “muted reaction in a context of broader cooperation.”
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