Key staffers from several U.S. Congressional and Senate offices received a unique opportunity recently to hear about the complex nature of reform in the Russian Republic—from the inside.  Mr. Vladimir O. Ispravnikov, a close advisor to Russian President Boris Yeltsin on economic reform and other issues, spoke to staffers as part of AFPC’s Congressional Foreign Study Project.  Mr. Gennady M. Gorchakov, another Yeltsin advisor as well as a member of both the Supreme Soviet of Russia and the Supreme Economic Council of Russia, accompanied Ispravnikov and also addressed the group.  Mr. Robert Reilly, a senior Editor at the Voice of America, introduced the speakers.

Mr. Andrei Kolosovsky, Deputy Chief of Mission at the Russian Embassy in Washington, was AFPC’s distinguished guest at a luncheon held in October.  The luncheon was another facet of AFPC’s Congressional Foreign Study Project and was attended by top staff members of the legislative branch.

Russian Foreign Minister Andrey Kozyrev was the American Foreign Policy Council’s distinguished guest at a reception on April 21, 1991, in Washington, D.C.  The visit is a component of the American Foreign Policy Council’s ongoing effort to bring together prominent officials from both the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. to discuss issues of mutual interest. 

Arms control, military conversion, and the Soviet’s internal balance of power were the primary issues discussed during an AFPC-sponsored trip to Moscow last winter.  William Schneider, Jr., Chairman of President Bush’s General Advisory Committee on Arms Control, and Sven Kraemer, Director of Policy at the American Security Council, were AFPC’s representatives to meet with policy makers in Moscow.  Officials they met include General Nikita Chaldimov and Sergei Stankevich, Deputy Mayor of Moscow.

The central theme of the “Peaceful Road to Democracy” conference, sponsored in Prague by Resistance International and the American Foreign Policy Council, addressed the difficult task of transition: How do we build a free-market economy and a democratic society “from under the rubble” (in Solzhenitsyn’s phrase)?  “Mr. Gorbachev is turning the Soviet Union into one giant Beirut,” said Vladimir Bukovsky in his opening remarks at the conference.  “State structures remain the greatest obstacle to human freedom, and…socialism cannot be restructured or reformed: it can only be eliminated.”

The American Foreign Policy Council traveled to Prague, Czechoslovakia this past July to co-sponsor the “Peaceful Road to Democracy” conference.  The three day event was initiated at the request of President Vaclav Havel, in coordination with his group, Charter 77, and was directed by the American Foundation for Resistance International.

On September 23^rd, an AFPC contingent will arrive in Moscow for three days of talks with Soviet intellectuals.  This group will include Former Undersecretary of State Bill Schneider, Sven Kraemer, a sixteen-year veteran of the NSC senior staff, and Herman Pirchner, Jr., the President of the AFPC.  The meetings will consist of talks with the intellectual advisors to both President Gorbachev and President Yeltsin, as well as specialists or members of the brain trust behind some of the independence movements of the non-Russian Republics.  This occasion will mark the first of four meetings to occur within the coming year; two American visits to the Soviet Union, and two Soviet visits to the United States.

Senator Robert Kasten (R-Wisconsin) will spearhead AFPC’s second conference in the Soviet Union.  Senator Kasten originally participated in AFPC’s Moscow Summer School held in June of last year.  Impressed by the Soviets sincere interest involving the workings of the U.S. Government, Senator Kasten believes that another gathering involving politicians from the U.S. and Soviet Union would be beneficial to the rapport between the two super powers while further promoting the values of a free and democratic society.

Commencing on the 4^th of July, Resistance International, along with co-sponsors American Foreign Policy Council and the Center For Democracy in the USSR, will conduct a three-day conference to be held in Prague, Czechoslovakia.  Under the guidance of Albert Jolis, The Peaceful Road to Democracy conference will involve democratic leaders from the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and the West.

The American Foreign Policy Council traveled to the Soviet Union this past June to co-sponsor the Moscow Summer School.