The Spectator Spectator/A Reunion of Sorts
Kalnins, Ojars
THE SPECTATOR SPECTATOR Ojars Kalnins "A Reunion of Sorts . . . Reflections of an honored guest and past contributor on The American Spectator's annual Washington Club dinner. 9 9 A t The...
...will never recognize the legality of the forcible incorporation of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia into the Soviet Union...
...In what was touted as the first major test of Gorbachev's glasnost, a group of Reagan administration officials led 270 American citizens to a Latvian seaside resort to participate in "an exercise in open diplomacy...
...This annoyed the Soviets no end, especially since the proceedings were broadcast live throughout Latvia...
...Our outsidethe-Beltway credentials were immaculate...
...ambassador to the USSR and was an invaluable ally to the Latvian independence movement during the late 1980s...
...We migrated to Washington for a similar reason: to better influence the influential—that is, to become more influential ourselves./ n April 1987, the Spectator published my article about a little known event called the 1986 U.S.-USSR Chautauqua Conference...
...official in the delegation...
...White House delegate Edward Djerejian is now U.S...
...I guess this is what they mean by serendipitous networking...
...Foreign Service, became the first U.S...
...support during the conference was a catalyst for Latvia's awakening independence movement...
...While reminiscing with others about it at the dinner, I realized it was a milestone in many lives...
...I felt then that this event could be a turning point for Latvia...
...Ed was posted at the Journal's Brussels office, and I was passing through, on my way to a Latvian political conference in France...
...He recalled how the Soviets had ridiculed him when he displayed a pin depicting the flag of independent Latvia...
...Not many people were writing about Latvia back in 1987, and even fewer publications were publishing what little was being written...
...By coincidence, the Spectator Keynote speaker Sen...
...It was a powerful one-two punch...
...We'd first met at a dinner in Amity's apartment in Brussels in 1990...
...Ben addressed the conference on the role of mass media in forming public opinion, and publicly challenged someone, anyone, among the Soviets in the audience to say one critical thing about the Soviet Union...
...Special adviser Ints Silins, the only Latvian-born career diplomat in the U.S...
...My writing these days consists of cables to the Latvian foreign ministry in Riga, diplomatic notes to the U.S...
...As public-relations director of the American Latvian Association at the time, I not only participated in the conference (and got threatened by the KGB) but also got to meet a number of U.S...
...Ben had called me a week before to ask if I could provide some information on Latvia to a friend of his who wanted to visit there...
...The hero of the hour was Jack Matlock, then special adviser to the president on Soviet affairs and the highest-ranking U.S...
...Mark Palmer, who helped coordinate "the Baltic angle" at the conference, later became U.S...
...Although the Soviets planned to debate arms control, the Cold War, and other aspects of U.S.-Soviet relations, thanks, to the insistence of the LatvianAmerican community and the support of the Reagan administration, the U.S...
...Or when Latvia appointed Aivars Baumanis to serve as its ambassador to the United Nations...
...No, not for the Spectator or any other publication...
...In his opening speech, Matlock spoke first in Latvian, as a gesture of respect for local national sensitivities...
...Ben was met with total silence...
...After Jack Matlock, Ben was probably the most popular American in Latvia, largely because he was the most despised by the Soviets...
...The Spectator was an equally small opinion magazine in Bloomington, Indiana...
...Like many in Washington, I go to a lot of dinners—but this one was different...
...ambassador to Hungary...
...But Matlock wasn't the only U.S...
...Five years later we were colleagues in the Latvian foreign service...
...Memories of the conference have woven through many meetings in later years...
...Amity's name came up at the Washington Club dinner when my tablemate turned out to be Edward McFadden of Reader's Digest, a former TAS intern...
...Master of ceremonies Benjamin J. Stein David Brock B ut there's more, and the Spectator seems to keep weav ing in and out of it...
...We talked about Chautauqua and all the changes that have taken place in Latvia since then...
...member of the Chautauqua delegation to eventually move into the higher realms of diplomacy...
...Back in 1986, during a break between the debates at that very Chautauqua conference, I had helped him do some gift shopping in Riga...
...ambassador to Latvia in 1991...
...CI Theodore Forstmann and Ricky Silberman Daniel Pipes and Danielle Pletka 74 The American Spectator June 1994 Katy Tyrrell introduces her father Richard Grenier, Ojars Kalnins, and Cynthia Grenier Ben Wattenberg and Robert Bork Tod Lindberg, Christopher Caldwell, and Elliott Abrams "Now in paperback" The American Spectator June 1994 75 Mary Jo Joyce and Richard M. Larry Fred Barnes SPE(71.ATOR THE AMERICAN [ My Hanh Burr Free Expression Award winner Malcolm S. Forbes, Jr...
...Within a year the first massive pro-independence demonstrations anywhere in the Soviet Empire were occurring on the streets of Latvia...
...side also agreed to raise "the Baltic question...
...Ben explained that the Latvians had volunteered this view without prompting...
...R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr...
...Aivars was a Latvian journalist reporting about, among other things, my activities during the Chautauqua conference...
...Or maybe both...
...In September 1993, for example, when Secretary of State Warren Christopher visited Latvia, and three former "Chautauquans"—Talbott, Silins, and myself—took part in the meetings...
...Although I presume I was invited to the Washington Club dinner because Wlady Pleszczynski graciously remembered me as the guy who once wrote those obscure pieces about Latvia, I am not really a "writer" anymore...
...So he went out into the streets and did an informal public opinion poll of his own, which he later reported to the Soviet audience...
...I had to think for a moment before giving a yes-and-no answer...
...He knew me only as someone who had written a couple of articles about Latvia for the Spectator well over six years ago...
...Later, a Soviet publication described Wattenberg as "a typical representative of the sensationalist press more interested, not in heating up public opinion, but in manipulating and distorting it by lies...
...When I first started reading it, I was an ad man in Chicago donating my free time to promote Latvian independence...
...There was also one notable U.S...
...was a Washington insider or outsider...
...After all, this was the beginning of glasnost...
...The Spectator, as usual, was an exception...
...The rest is history...
...Five years later the laugh was on them...
...they laughed...
...After seeing so many familiar inside-the-Beltway faces I had encountered over the last nine years, I couldn't decide whether I Ojars Kalnins is the Latvian ambassador to the United States...
...Matlock went on to become U.S...
...Department of State, and memos to editors correcting this or that fact in the latest story about Latvia...
...ambassador to Israel...
...officials and 72 The American Spectator June 1994 reporters who would play big roles in Latvia's future...
...During the Chautauqua conference I became friends with Amity Shlaes, who was covering the event for the Wall Street Journal...
...Ben must have felt at home at the Washington Club dinner, for it seems like comparable charges have lately been hurled at the Spectator...
...Andrew Ferguson David Brock and Catherine Campbell The American Spectator June 1994 77...
...Nobody remembers that here...
...journalist who not only covered but also participated in the U.S.-Soviet debates on arms control during that fateful week in Latvia: Strobe Talbott...
...Richard Lugar The American Spectator June 1994 73 Heather Richardson Arnaud de Borchgrave Rachel Abrams and Mary Eberstadt that ran my piece on Chautauqua also ran a piece by Amity on Germany...
...This was a reunion of sorts...
...with Ronald E. Burr and R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr...
...9 9 A t The American Spectator's annual dinner on March 7, I was asked by an old acquaintance whether I had done any writing lately...
...The Soviet-occupied Latvia that I wrote about in 1987 is now the independent Republic of Latvia, and I'm serving as its ambassador to the United States...
...Yes, I have been doing a lot of writing since then...
...Frank Fahrenkopf 76 The American Spectator June 1994 Benjamin J. Stein and mom Mildred Stein Walter Williams William Schulz and Malcolm S. Forbes, Jr...
...There are many in Latvia today who believe that U.S...
...I saw Ben Wattenberg at the Washington Club dinner as well...
...Switching to Russian, he told the Soviet apparatchiks that the U.S...
...I have probably met half a dozen people here who objected to a Russian presence in Latvia...
...So you could say that the Spectator and Latvia have both achieved a modicum of success...
Vol. 27 • June 1994 • No. 6
