Matlock
Jack Foust Matlock Jr. (born October 1, 1929)[1] is an American former ambassador, career Foreign Service Officer, a teacher, a historian, and a linguist. He was a specialist in Soviet affairs during some of the most tumultuous years of the Cold War, and served as U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1987 to 1991.
Reagan appointed Matlock to the position of Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director of European and Soviet Affairs in the National Security Council (NSC) in order to develop a negotiating strategy to end the arms race.[12][33] Earlier in the year, the long-standing containment strategy toward the U.S.S.R. had been modified by Matlock's predecessor Richard Pipes to include bringing internal pressure on the Soviets while conducting negotiations in the mutual interest.[34] In following years, discussions with the Soviets were conducted under Matlock's "Four-Part Agenda" including Human Rights, Regional Issues, Arms Control, and Bilateral Issues.[35]
On November 25, 1983, Soviet leader Yuri Andropov announced the resumption of nuclear missile deployment in the western U.S.S.R., a sign of the increased tension in the relationship.[15] The thaw in relations can be taken to begin with Ronald Reagan's January 16, 1984 speech declaring that the U.S. and U.S.S.R. had "common interests and the foremost among them is to avoid war and reduce the level of arms" in which he added that "I support a zero option for all nuclear arms."[36] While the speech was commonly seen as propaganda, Lawrence S. Wittner, professor of History at the State University of New York - Albany says of it that "a number of officials–including its writer, Jack Matlock Jr.–have contended that it was meant to be taken seriously by Soviet leaders."[37] On June 30, 1984, the Soviets offered to start negotiations on nuclear and space-based weapons.[15]
In April 1987 Reagan appointed Matlock as Ambassador to the Soviet Union. Conditions at the Embassy were tense, as Marine Sergeant Clayton Lonetree had been found to have compromised Embassy security. Within a few months of the Lonetree scandal, all U.S. intelligence assets in the Soviet Union had been exposed. The Americans suspected that the security breach had meant that the Embassy code room was no longer secure and worked frantically to determine how.[47] It was not until 1994 that Aldrich Ames, a mole within the CIA, was caught.[48] Another mole, Robert Hanssen, this time within the FBI, was caught only in 2001.[49]
During 1987, relations improved steadily, with U.S. military inspectors present at Soviet military manoeuvres, an agreement to establish centers on Reducing Nuclear Threat, and a first round of negotiations aimed at banning nuclear tests.[15] The thaw in relations was reflected in the cultural sphere. Matlock’s invitation to ballerina Maya Plisetskaya to attend a reception at Spaso House provided a way for Matlock to judge Gorbachev’s intentions, as earlier Soviet leaders would have considered it a provocation.[50]
Matlock also gives his views on one of the basic distinctions in politics:
I don't see much difference between a communist regime and a fascist regime. In fact, I think one of the greatest intellectual confusions that many have had over these decades is the whole right and left thing – fascists are on the right, communists are on the left. Nonsense! They come together and overlap, and we're seeing this in Russia today where the allies are the nationalistic chauvinists and the communists. They are natural allies because they are authoritarians by nature. And more than authoritarians, they tend to be totalitarians, which means that they tend to destroy all of the elements of the civil society. To me that's much more important than whether you're philosophically right or left. You know, are you willing to create and live in a civil society, in an open society, or not? That to me is the basic issue.
After leaving government service, Matlock has occasionally joined with other experts to criticize U.S. government policy. On June 26, 1997, he signed an Open Letter to Bill Clinton criticizing plans for NATO expansion.[59] His reason for opposition, as given in his testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is the belief that NATO expansion will preclude significant nuclear arms reduction with Russia, and consequently increase the risk of a terrorist nuclear attack