(00:00:00) Let me start with American diplomacy with the Foreign Service of the United of the United States. I recall when I came home from Hamlin having never ventured farther than six blocks to any school. And Hamlin is is was one block from where I was raised and where my mother still lives and I came home and announced. I was joining the Foreign Service. I was not going to be teaching in the neighborhood high school. And my mother asked what do you have to wear a uniform and I said no I did not but I must say one of the challenges throughout the history of the American Foreign Service was whether not that there was a uniform of clothing but whether more fundamentally the members of the American diplomatic service and the traditions of that service were uniform and exclusive and there is a time when they when they were Nonetheless substantial efforts have been made since 1953 recognizing that exclusivity is not representative of the United States or what we like to think of the United States efforts have been made since 1953 to open up the Foreign Service. I'm one of the beneficiaries of that as a true Midwestern ER and I think I can make this somewhat generic statement. I was not able to present my candidacy to the Foreign Service with a foreign language prior to 1953 that qualification had to be met before entry and the result was that Midwestern schools didn't have a strong tradition. The language is probably did not have a strong tradition internationalism. We're not producing successful candidates find large for the American diplomatic service in the mid-50s with a very careful and honest look at where the problems were and recognizing that the United States in the last half of the century could not be represented only. By Harvard Princeton Yale, Georgetown and Stanford. The language requirement was placed after entry. And the examination instead of being three days in Washington was one day in every capital city of every state and at every Embassy around the world the notion was that neither finances or the kind of school and location of the school. You attended should be inhibiting to your candidacy in addition all names were removed and they went to a numbered system of grading now the impact of this has not been successful throughout all the years. We still do have problems, but I can tell you that the Diplomatic service that today represents United States is about as representative of any institution in the United States knowing that we still have problems and challenges in terms of profile that that have to be met. For myself. I was one of Six Women of 42 new candidates and candidates who entered the Foreign Service in June of a year that now is so long ago that I'm past the stage where you dare not mention it. It was 1957. It's obvious. It wasn't the late 70s or anything. And until 1970 women had to resign from the service if they married. The Assumption was that women diplomats didn't marry they were seduced. And we became less reliable as a result unable to be privy to the secrets because heaven knows that kind of pillow talk when it's the woman who's gotten married is more likely to affect National Security than the pillow talk when a man gets married. That was changed in 1970. But today if you look at the profile of women in the American diplomatic establishment, the impact of that of those years is very clear and of the later years today the entry class of American Foreign Service officers the career diplomats you send abroad 50% female. At the mid-level 12 years down the line into those careers. It is 17 percent. And at the top with my retirement and the retirement of a long-term colleague, there is no one any longer that I would expect to be repaired quickly. There are some very very bright people ready to move into those slots, but I thought you might be interested to know why you go from 50 percent at the entry level the 17 percent at the mid-level and they are reasons that are ordinary to all of us. We in our career must be what we call worldwide available that is you go where your scent. And spouses are not always worldwide available spouses will not always go where you have been sent and so the government and the Diplomatic Services have the same problems of trailing spouse or the spouse in and outside career as you will find in the private sector and so women have to make some very difficult choices, but I would say by the way young men in our service are also making very difficult choices with respect to how best to pursue the career of the spouse, but women do have a special burden and the women with whom I spoke in the years. I was in the service told me that some 12 years out into their career. Let's assume there are 25 when they enter the Diplomatic service representing that 50% some 12 years out between age of 37 and 40. There's a decision that has to be made on children. How to raise families what to do with respect to having children not having children what kind of a setting to have them in it's a tough decision and it's one that we frankly for all of the work that might be done on changing things. It is biologically only a decision only a woman can make and we pay the burden for that. And for the most part that is what is explaining the drop off between 50 percent women in are entering diplomatic classes and 17 percent at the mid-level. My own career was all I could have expected of it and and more and at the end I could say certainly that I had been a witness to history and had participated in making history and I would tell you that I actively recommend hardly to other women the pursuit of such a career. The decisions are tough in those key years for all women everywhere. So diplomatic service is probably no more or less complicated than others. But I do believe that by and large government at all levels has been a good employer for women. Maybe I'm wrong about the experience in Minnesota. But when I travel the country, I have the sense where women have chosen to pursue careers in government. There is a larger sense of fairness and of an open system as to how decisions are being made concerning careers Personnel decisions in the like than one can find it present in the private sector that may that may change Marcia said that there was interest around here locally as to why when I say witness to history and participating why I chose to leave diplomacy. And it's a question. I occasionally ask myself and you know as well as I there's never a single reason for giving up a career but you know 32 years was enough. It's a simple as that. Those 32 years had been characterized and I left by the way. I joined the Foreign Service nine days out of Hamelin those 32 years have been characterized by continuous intellectual growth and challenge. There wasn't a day. I can recall that I didn't know half of what I was supposed to know. And then which I was scrambling to expand the edges of my brain to Encompass new and interesting things and at the end of 32 years and the exciting for years of the Reagan Administration. I could see that I was going to be coming around again to some of the same Topics in some of the same jobs and I just pretended one day that I was 75 and I was looking back and did I want to say at age 75 that I had continued doing the same thing and did I also at 75 want to remember the day the Packers came in again and packed up everything so that it could be dropped all at once rather than one by one. In a driveway outside the house and I decided that it was time for a change that for once I was going to break the Crystal and snap the frames on the paintings and that I was going to go do something else and I have been doing something else since the 5th of September and I'm very excited about it because I can tell you that in many of the new things I have taken on. I am where I was before. I only know half as much as I should know and I am studying frantically and meeting new people and seeking out new sources of information and if there's anything rejuvenating it is it is that kind of thing, but clearly as well one of the reasons for the sense of trying to get one's mind around things is in the area of Change Change in the world today not only in Europe, but in Asia and let me talk a moment about Europe. A few weeks ago sort of before the Berlin Wall came down. I was on a C-SPAN call-in show at 8 a.m. In the morning. That really is an obscene invention. By the way this call-in show 8 a.m. In the morning. It's at night. You can sort of figure you've sorted out the people with respectable jobs and everybody who's out there who's going to call in as a cause or a personal reason for being up that late but the people who follow the issues are probably asleep at 8 a.m. In the morning. They're all awake. They're all interested and they're all trying to inform themselves in those quick bits of information. So at 8 a.m. There I was I was picked up and early on and made up and then you go through a warm up on these TV programs and then the camera comes on and they ask you the first question. And the first question was what would you agree that this year of 1989 is a watershed year. And I was at a particularly agreeable mood and I said yes, I agree and then we went on but you know in the week since then. Watershed doesn't do it historic is inadequate and you are left with words are almost embarrassed to use fundamental and profound change is taking place. We are watching in Eastern Europe today a people's Revolution. And in that people's resolution as things that we held firm. Or things that we thought could never happen are altered. Short term analysis is impossible. You don't know until you turn on the television or pick up the newspapers what new startling thing is going to happen. It's a little easier however to deal with the mid and the long-term and although somebody like Yogi Bear. I think it was said, you know, the trouble with predicting is that you can't see the future. I'm not here to predict. I wouldn't be so foolish anybody if you meet anybody coming through the Twin Cities who says I'm here to tell you. I'm an expert on Eastern Europe. There is no such thing any longer. There are very few experts even left on the on the Soviet Union. There are experts on political behavior. And I think that is about my last remaining qualification that I do know something about International political Behavior institutional behavior, and I had a lot of history on to it and I think I can and some experience and I can offer at least some guidelines as to the context and direction of what's Happening that might make it possible to survive the impact of these day-to-day changes. They are shaking all of us and I hear words used such as frightening wearisome. I must tell you I think it's the most exciting thing that I can imagine half. And if institutions have to be changed, so be it we all understand political process the context briefly can be found in American foreign policy in the post-war period and let's remember some of the things together that we said we were going to be trying to do in these years. The objectives were very straightforward. We were going to defend the common democratic values and pluralistic society the West we were going to pursue the development of our own open economies. You may remember the Dean Acheson quotas. NATO was was building we will provide for our defense and if Lucky our prosperity, so those were two tasks and the third really was perhaps the one that is most startling to us today. We were trying to buy time in the conviction that with the passage of time. The inherent weaknesses of Communism in the Soviet Union the inherent weaknesses of Communism the imposed communist regimes in Eastern Europe would become evident and their failure would be acknowledged or we all said those things but it's only been in recent years and now in recent weeks that in fact that third objective that of buying time in the belief that that kind of system could not succeed has come to the Forefront the objectives were Global by the way, and I think that we have had as Western societies tremendous success throughout throughout the world in these 40 years. The Winds of Change then looking at buying time, what would happen The Winds of Change that are loose today in the Soviet Union are have profound implications for all of us not just people in the Soviet Union. The countries of Eastern Europe after the passage of time are today acting out their own aspirations at a pace that's knocking us all back on our heels. Now Eastern government is hanging back except Romania a personal dictatorship of Josh asked who his wife his son knows how many other relatives and the day they are gone voluntarily or otherwise is the day that I would expect Romania which has a western tradition has a latin-based western language to join with the others, but people have said two regimes The time has come. The key element if you ask me to fold steadfast policy for 40 years which created the framework and a Mikhail Gorbachev who much to our surprise. It's clearly decided that the Soviet Union will not intervene as it has in the past in the events and God of the countries of Eastern Europe. I was asked not long ago to predict. What is the line to be drawn in Eastern Europe? Where is it? There was a time when people would say well it's a communist government and membership in the Warsaw Pact and the East European economic Market Comic Con so much for that. I mean there are now known Communist governments the Warsaw Pact people will stand up and tell you we're only in the Warsaw Pact is the Soviet Union says it makes them happier. If we say were in the Warsaw Pact, but please take your forces home. We aren't coming to the meetings and we don't really belong for any other reason than it is premature to throw aside the Warsaw. And so we that next line. I don't know. I don't know either with respect to the Baltic states, which I now have a great interest that we are seeing a very intense political negotiation going on between each of those States and Moscow with Gorbachev personally again, I think he is trying to buy time. We'd rather not have to face the question of Baltic Independence. We are trying to stay clear. So it's not to become actors in a way that might be negative and each time that you read about a settlement. You see that the Baltic states have pulled a little more of the power to themselves. I mentioned the short-term mid-term long-term problem when we talk about entering the new decade. It does have 10 years in it. And so some of the things that that I might say, I don't think will happen in the next one or two years could well happen five to seven years seven years out. One of the things that has been lost in the concern about events particularly in East Germany has been the question. Will there be continued progress toward economic integration in Western Europe. The last time I was in Minneapolis meeting with the business Executives and National Security and Honeywell and elsewhere. That was one of the major concerns can United States protect its interests in EC 92. I would say yes, I would say EC 92 is very directly in the American interest provided the Europeans do not make it into a fortress. How do they not make it into a fortress again? I would say political process you state your interests. You may have to shout a bit and they will shout back. You have to Lobby consult, press argue. Negotiate work it all out the process seems to be going quite well beyond economic integration. There was always the hope that there would be very active political integration. I think you're going to see that stop. For a while as Europe asks itself. Do we continue to be 12? Are we 18 are we 23? They've got to know how many before the next the next stage. This morning's paper reports a Europe of 18 with the fine print was very clear. It really is a negotiated agreement between the countries of the European community and of f to the European free trade Association the neutrals of Europe on coordinating and somehow bringing together their own trade regimes, but it was not a an expression of an eighty Nation political political joining together. Arms control with the new opportunities them that are out there as Europe is moving forward the Soviet Union moving forward Eastern Europe saying take your troops home. If ever there was a series of unreliable allies. They are now the allies of the Soviet Union in the East if ever there is a job you wouldn't want to have today it would be as the Soviet General in command of those troops in eastern Europe with nothing behind him and just sitting there are those troops in East Germany. Just sitting there asking, you know, where is my future and Mi to withdraw will my numbers become less and what has my support system. So we have to say a lot of things on the on the table and we must pursue then the arms control negotiations. So my suggestion would be as there is this bewildering array of comment fact demonstrations government's falling people changing to remember three main streams that we have been following since 85 the developments in the Soviet Union their impact on Eastern Europe the opportunities for change. They bring in Eastern Europe in turn particularly with respect to Eastern Europe what that change does to what we have been watching in Western Europe The increased integration of Western Europe first economically and and I would expect in time politically for all of that. Then the development of a stronger European partner for the United States, even as we are pursuing with the Soviet Union and our allies and arms control agenda, which should not be forgotten and the president of course highlighted it at Malta beginning with the reduction of conventional arms in in Central Europe. Of course, I come from Washington where the talk is about defense budgets. And of course there are implications for defense posture defense strategy and all that. We see we do need a new assessment of the threat and I still threat assessment as part of our thinking and where do we go next on budgets, but I would tell you I think there's another question out there that rather worries me. As the world changes and as tensions are easing as a new relationships and new centers of powers emerge as we struggle with the question of the future of Germany and whoever thought that was going to be a question except somewhere in the next Century. Do we those United States really want to be a part we want to play a role in that new world, which is going to have new international institutions new ways of doing business. Do we want to invest in the things that go with being a world power which I'll tell you does mean a defense establishment. Or would we rather pursue the siren of isolationism? And the question is are we going to retreat behind our ocean borders and say okay everything in the post-war period was about a u.s. Soviet confrontation. It's changing. The threat perception is gone. Our allies can go pay for it themselves. They're big boys. Now. They by the way still will stay that way. They're not going to be saying big girls though. They're big boys now and it's time that we came home in addressed some severe domestic problems some new challenges. Let's opt out. I didn't really leave the Diplomatic service to become a preacher but I I will want as I hope others of the same view will want to take part in that public discussion of what our Global interests are because it is my conviction that the world still looks to America to lead that the United States remains a European power that the United States remains a Pacific power that the United States is in fact the balance in many parts of the world where states of the region itself cannot agree on who might be the leader and look outside for that leadership and turn to the United States for some that has meant yes to write the checks, but it is also meant for ideas and creativity and I'm convinced as we get through the next decade and as These events that were watching. In fact follow these lines. I've been talking about of economic integration the change in the nature of East-West confrontation the reduction in the number of arms a reordering of both the European and the international Global Systems political and economic the next agenda out. There is without politics. It's in the environment. It's the global warming. It's it's the population problems drugs terrorism the nature of resource management the condition of the world's oceans and I think that's an area in which the United States must take the leadership and where the world wants us to now do I worry a lot about this next decade if you read Kiplinger you now that the Kiplinger letter last week reminded everybody that in fact the next decade doesn't begin January 1 1990 next decade begins January 1 1991. So we have another year to get all of us together and get all Quit we have some time to think about it. Thank you very much. I'm sorry to have run over but it is always a pleasure to come home and to meet with (00:24:42) Roseanne Ridgeway former assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs. Now the president of the Atlantic Council of the United States listening to midday on Minnesota Public Radio about 25 minutes now past the hour Ambassador Ridgeway answered several questions from the audience. The first person asked if she thought the Bush Administration has been too timid in its reaction to the events in Eastern Europe. (00:25:05) Yes, I was I suppose it would not say timid, but cautious and was very careful in starting out and I think for reasons, I don't entirely understand felt somewhat suspicious of the opportunities that might be present. The President says that he turned from this view in July while he was traveling in Eastern Europe, but in any case we didn't know that until they announced the malta Summit. I would say there are a number of reasons one is a desire to be careful and review the bidding before you enter the game yourself. Another is the political requirement to have a personality and posture and definition of your own. And so desire to have some time to put in a break between what had preceded and what you plan to do and I am convinced it had to do as well with the looking over your right shoulder and I pick the which shoulder carefully (00:26:15) next was an Ridgeway was asked to comment on the role of women in the communist countries and if they might be fearful of the sudden rush to Western ways when they already have guarantees of a job Health Care day care and other things that capitalism might not (00:26:29) guarantee. Yes, and I think those women face contradictions that we we face and they all come under the you can't have it all problem. Let me give you my East German experience. Yes daycare centers. Yes guarantee jobs. Yes maternity leave have a second child. In fact before the first year of maternity leave is over another year. Percent salary the first year 95% salary the second 70 percent salary the third do you think you ever got promoted off the factory line in that country? Don't kid yourself. You ended up a liability for an employer at any level beyond the mass worker. And so that woman who wanted to extend herself professionally. And become a vital member of an organization found that she could not and when I would challenge East German labor leaders and others as to why I didn't sort and academics. Why saw I know women heading up at University academic Department. Why did I never see a woman supervisor of a department officer in a major Factory in the Diplomatic service? They all said the same thing. We can't have a person in that key position who is a potential for extended vacancies? The women in those countries have to decide which is it going to be I mean, it is in terms of business. It is true that if you are going to be on let me put it in our own terms on somebody's Legal ladder senior partner and you know what kind of cases you have to handle and you know where you have to be seen in the hours you have to put in in the kind of competition you have you can't at the same time say and by the way, I'm going to check out of here. I don't know when but for two or three years at a time and that kind of thing. And I don't think the women of of the other countries ever came to grips with it to the most part the most part the ones that I knew preferred to see themselves as people who had children my I came out of the Eastern your experience Eastern European experience with women very depressed and thought that they had accepted a role of child bearers for the state in return for a set of these things that maybe it was what they wanted to do, but for an American woman, it was very difficult to deal with (00:29:00) noting that Roseanne Ridgeway has long been a Russia Watcher. She was asked what so different about Mikhail Gorbachev. (00:29:07) Well, I don't know I was asked that question once at the national War college and I said, you know, I it's difficult for me because he came up through the bureaucracy of the party. And so the only thing I can think of is that he kept his mouth shut the whole way and yet you have to be articulate to have that kind of success. You must have stood for something. And he had no major successes along the way that we know of. I would say that leadership in the Soviet Union long before Mikhail Gorbachev late Brezhnev years on drop off ears and the others knew the Soviet Union was in the state of failure was reaching a terminal economic State. They could not do anything about it themselves for a variety of reasons. They didn't have enough time. They didn't have the imagination but they knew they had to have a generational change and they knew Gorbachev from his work in the party as let's say tough-minded a clear thinker and willing to reach conclusions and then act on conclusions. Perhaps they knew nothing more of him than that. But I think it was a correct assessment. I mean the man has come in and it said this thing isn't working. He still presents himself as a marxist-leninist and perhaps in his heart he is but it's not clear to me that that's what he will continue to be if that doesn't work. I would say he is a Russian nationalist. He believes deeply that a country of the Soviet Union in the richness of its culture its history the populations that make it up 11 time zones 250 million people 40 percent of the world's resources ought to be a major player on the world scene in the 21st century doesn't require nuclear weapons. In fact to be when you're that big to be a major player on the world system in the world seeing if your system is working. He could see Western European economic integration creating yet another large market. So you had the North American setting you have asean and Asia. You have Western Europe and you had at the time China and I think again, we'll have China and he has said this simply is going to have to be redone and I think what escaped all of us in 85 was the extent to which he was willing to do radical things. Not to announce them all at once to do them one by one by one by one good political reason you have to maintain your base as you go along you have to build new constituencies and new support groups and he has been doing that. Now he may have harbored a hope that somewhere along the line what he was doing would produce the eventual success and he could stop where he was and save what he could have the system having started out to change the system without changing the system essentially an impossible task, but if he could do it fine, I think he's now reached the conclusion. He can't do that many of the speeches that were reading about there will always be one party on the rest. I would invite you to read as his not to us, but to a domestic audience of party faithful to me has to keep assuring that he is within the confines of the Marxist dialectic the Marxist view of History, even if he knows perfectly. Well, he's he's not I've always thought he would have Superb American politician in the large city, he's great on the street. He has a warm handshake a direct gaze of fearlessness a wheeler-dealer, you know, you might wonder in a back alley because there's a lot of toughness there in short. He he's got it all. Surrounded by courage and the willingness to take risks and to do the extraordinary and not lose it. And so I think we will see more it's all unpredictable. But I also think that for the Soviet Union if you look at the long sweep of History, he's got it right unless it changes in fundamental ways. It will not be a serious player on the world scene for decades to come. It's still may not be even with this change but surely would not be if there's no change at all (00:33:42) Roseanne Ridgeway was asked if she sees a changing role for religion in the Soviet Union and Eastern (00:33:47) Europe Well, I wouldn't take the the question sort of to the historical extreme, which is that instead of the ideology of Communism. You have fundamentalists and fundamentalist Islam or go back to the age of the Crusades. But surely what the West has been saying for all of these years is that societies must have values beyond the means of production that people want values that there's a thing called the spirit and if people choose to express that in religion, they should be allowed to and it can enrich a society and indeed make it more creative and more functional it looks as if Gorbachev has said I think you've got it right. In fact, he's giving speeches on spiritual values and we know from his discussion in Malta that the Soviets are complaining that we have always spoken of Western values. They are Now saying there is a degree of arrogance to that. We all have values they are the values of the judeo Christian tradition. Just this is a Mikhail Gorbachev (00:35:02) Ambassador Ridgeway asked where the nation's leadership might be coming from and I was asked if careers in government and public service can compete with the private sector. (00:35:11) Well, I judging by my own experience. I mentioned these figures nobody at the top at the moment in the career service for women, but there's a generation out there with it's within a year of it bright people men and and women just a very very bright creative generation coming up and I think the biggest danger is the one that we all know. I think you can really excoriate public service and humiliate public service and laugh about a joke about in turn everybody by definition into criminals only for so long and then you start getting your own kind of people applying and so I think that what we do, You need is a very active Nationwide program that talks about public service and those people who choose to serve the public and who make it clear that just because you choose to serve the public doesn't mean that you really ought to ride a broken bicycle to work that you are entitled to think also of a proper set of of rewards. I see people willing to serve everyone I talked to and of course, I sort of tend to talk to the like-minded we all do but understands those people who are in government and in the administration of government that it is an exciting business and you never asked Mi relevant because you know that you are on the other hand. You should not have to ask. Can I pay the rent? (00:36:40) Rosanna Ridgeway former ambassador to East Germany and former assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs. She is now president of the Atlantic Council of the United States Roseanne Ridgeway.