Word: gorbachev
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...Western response to the letter and the dire predictions was still "no sale." Faced with the G-7 decision that no hard cash would be offered yet, the Soviets shifted gears. "It would be naive," spokesman Vitali Ignatenko assured reporters, "to say that we expect President Gorbachev to come away with black limos filled with money." Soviet Ambassador to Britain Leonid Zamyatin passed the word that Gorbachev was reworking his economic reform plan...
...Gorbachev's two-hour presentation was "impassioned and eloquent," according to a British official, but was only "an expanded version of what we had been given on paper." Even so, both Bush and Major said they had been convinced that Gorbachev's commitment to economic reform was now irrevocable. Bush pledged the G-7 would "try to help in every practical...
...perhaps like professors, since many of the Western leaders believe the Soviets, Gorbachev included, do not fully understand what they are trying to do. "Every time we see him, we're reminded how profoundly ignorant of basic economics Gorbachev is," says a senior White House official. "He studied Marx and Lenin, and he still has a lot of trouble with the idea of private property." Says a British expert: "He mistakes some adjustments, some tinkering, for economic reforms." The Western conclusion, however, is that Gorbachev deserves help and advice, not scorn...
...Gorbachev must now decide how radical he is prepared to be in transforming his country's economy. Until he does so, he cannot expect the West to bankroll his efforts. He is still trying to have it both ways, an economy with both market forces and central control. In the coming months the G-7 countries will keep tabs on how reform is moving and consider whether they will be able to put some money where their advice is. The knowledge that the West is watching may help steel Gorbachev's own resolve to push for significant changes...
...with sacks of money, he achieved something perhaps equally dramatic. He dispersed the cloud of suspicion that had always shrouded Moscow's dealings with the Western democracies. By sitting down at the negotiating table with the leaders of the West and by seeking membership in the leading capitalist institutions, Gorbachev announced that the Soviet Union's ideological isolation from the rest of the civilized world is over...