U.S. Ambassador Jack Matlock has been central to relations with the Soviet Union throughout his career. After working as the Director of Soviet Affairs at the State Department, he then became Ambassador to Czechoslovakia before being named Ambassador to the U.S.S.R. in 1987. He served in that position through 1991, which, of course, was the period of the collapse of the Soviet Union and, basically, the end of the Cold War. During his time as ambassador, Matlock was present at a number of personal meetings between President Reagan and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev.
Many of Ambassador Matlock’s first-hand experiences undermine today’s Western narrative of Russia and its post-1990 history. Ambassador Matlock notes, for example, that the U.S. did in fact make promises to the Soviet leadership, at the time of Germany’s reunification, that if a reunited Germany were allowed to join NATO, that NATO would not move “one inch Eastward,” which promises were almost immediately broken.
