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<text id=90TT1427> <title> June 04, 1990: Anger, Bluff -- And Cooperation </title> <history> TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1990 June 04, 1990 Gorbachev:In The Eye Of The Storm </history> <article> <source>Time Magazine</source> <hdr> THE SUMMIT, Page 38 Anger, Bluff--and Cooperation </hdr> <body> Behind the Sandinistas' stunning election loss in Nicaragua is the secret story of U.S.-Soviet partnership in Central America. George Bush may lack Gorbachev's grand vision, but he and his advisers proved their mastery of creative diplomacy By Michael Kramer In late November 1989, American intelligence reported that the Soviet freighter Vladimir Ilyich, bound for Nicaragua, had loaded a cargo of four Mi-17 Hip helicopters at Port Leningrad. The 38 Hips previously shipped to the Sandinistas had been used to devastating effect in the war against the contra rebels. It now looked as if Managua would get more. In neighboring El Salvador, meanwhile, Marxist guerrillas had launched their strongest offensive in years, managing to trap twelve American Green Berets in a luxury hotel. President Bush responded by dispatching a contingent of Delta Force commandos. U.S. intervention seemed a distinct possibility. Then on Nov. 25 came an even greater shock for Washington. An unmarked plane carrying 24 SA-7 surface-to-air missiles crashed in El Salvador. The weapons were intended for the F.M.L.N. guerrillas--a clear violation of repeated Soviet assurances that surface-to-air missiles would not reach El Salvador. What followed was an escalation of U.S.-Soviet tensions that threatened to undermine progress on arms control, Eastern Europe and other sensitive issues. Cables flew between Washington and Moscow. George Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev had an acrimonious exchange at the Malta summit on Dec. 2. The growing superpower cooperation that seemed to mark the end of the cold war was fraying. But on the morning of Dec. 7, Moscow sent a flash message to the Vladimir Ilyich: "Return immediately to Leningrad." For Washington, the freighter's turnaround was proof that eight months of intensive and mostly secret Soviet-American diplomacy was paying off, an important signal that a tortured and bumpy attempt to end the conflict in Central America was back on track. The drama didn't end with the Vladimir Ilyich's recall. A good deal of hard bargaining between Washington and Moscow ensued. But when Nicaragua finally held its first free election in February, and the Sandinistas peacefully transferred power to the opposition that had defeated them, the superpowers had reason to celebrate. They had shown they could work together to solve the toughest conflicts. That cooperation is continuing now in an effort to end the war in El Salvador, and eventually it might help solve the thorniest problem of all in the hemisphere: the rancorous dispute between the U.S. and Cuba. Latin America has been a cold war battlefield for more than three decades. That the first breakthrough in resolving regional conflicts during the Bush presidency occurred there is remarkable. The virtually untold story of that success reflects how the two most powerful nations on earth do business. It is a tale of bluff, deception, anger, accusation, threat, candor, misinterpretation, goodwill and, above all, creative diplomacy. U.S. Secretary of State James Baker and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze have provided TIME with critical information. They have also made key participants available for extended interviews. Their motive is no mystery: it reflects pride in what they have accomplished and offers insurance against the day when old animosities re-emerge and citizens in both countries question the value of superpower cooperation. BUSH'S OPENING BID The Central American policy George Bush inherited from Ronald Reagan was widely perceived as being at a dead end. Secretary of State Baker felt he had "few if any cards--a very weak hand that almost everyone expected us to fold." Still, with Soviet military and economic assistance to the Sandinistas running at close to $1 billion annually at a time when Moscow was strapped at home, there existed the possibility that the Soviets wanted out--and that the influence their aid provided could be turned toward ensuring free elections in Nicaragua and an end to regional subversion. Bush and Baker decided to test their theory by making Central America a key measure of the Soviets' supposed "new thinking" in foreign policy. In an early strategy memo to Baker, the newly named Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, Bernard Aronson, wrote that Moscow must see "tangible signs that they will pay a high price in bilateral relations if they obstruct our Central American diplomacy, but also tangible benefits from cooperation." The key was speed: everyone realized that the proposed linkage would erode over time. Bush and Baker knew a lack of progress in the region could not long constrain movement on crucial issues like arms control and Eastern Europe. America's hook was the Soviets' public support for the 1987 Esquipulas II treaty, which called for Nicaraguan democracy and an end to regional subversion. Managua routinely ignored the agreement's provisions, as the U.S. said frequently. Even the March 24, 1989, Bipartisan Accord with Congress--a stroke that enlisted Democratic support for a new U.S. policy on Central America--echoed the basic line. Soviet and Cuban "aid and support of violence and subversion in Central America," said the accord, "is in direct violation of [Esquipulas II]." Three days later, on March 27, Bush reiterated the point in a private letter to Gorbachev: "It is hard to reconcile your slogans [about new thinking]...with continuing high levels of Soviet and Cuban assistance to Nicaragua. A continuation of [this] practice in this region of vital interest to the U.S. will...inevitably affect the nature of the [U.S.-Soviet] relationship." After bashing Moscow, Bush asked for a signal: "An initiative by the Soviet Union and Cuba to shut off the assistance pipeline feeding armed conflict in the region would pay large dividends in American goodwill. It would suggest that the Soviet Union was prepared to promote a political settlement in the region through deeds and not simply slogans." The immediate Soviet reply to Bush's letter was negative. On March 30 Shevardnadze told an American embassy official in Moscow that the real problem in Central America was "U.S. material support to the contras." He expressed concern that the latest round of contra aid was not "purely humanitarian," and he held to the discredited view that the Sandinistas were already complying with Esquipulas. Seated under a portrait of Lenin in his Foreign Ministry office in Moscow last week, Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister Viktor Komplektov explained that initial response to Washington's strategy. "We never believed that Central America was the key to improved superpower relations," he said. "We did, however, believe that Central America is especially important because conservatives consider the region as a litmus test of a President's toughness." This led Moscow to misinterpret Bush's opening. "Who was Bush but Reagan's man?" says Yuri Pavlov, the Soviet's top Latin America policy assistant. "That's how we incorrectly looked at it at the beginning, before we really engaged. So the prospect of the contras fighting again seemed to us very real." Then why did the Soviets play along? Their own interests demanded a different sort of linkage, but cooperation was the key to their goals as well. "As we have said," Komplektov explained, "we want to deny you the image of us as your enemy. Our desire to become respected by the international community is central to our efforts at home, because it will help us integrate into the world economy." From this perspective, Soviet-American cooperation anywhere serves Moscow's interests. Moreover, the Soviets genuinely wanted to reduce their overextended position in Central America, and Esquipulas, because it had regional legitimacy, offered both superpowers an honorable way to defuse their rivalry in the area. THE GAME BEGINS As Baker prepared for his first full-fledged meeting with Gorbachev and Shevardnadze in Moscow on May 10, the Administration was still in the dark. Washington had used every public and private avenue to press its message, but it had heard nothing from Moscow since Shevardnadze's rejection of the arguments in Bush's March 27 letter. With no fallback position, Bush and Baker resolved to push the strategy again. "Time is not on our side," Baker was reminded in a memo from his top aides four days before the Moscow meeting. "We must convince the Soviets not that we are in trouble and desperately need them to throw us an anchor, but that it is they who risk being seen as a spoiler. The bottom line is this: Soviet reduction of aid and Soviet pressure on its clients are necessary to make up for the leverage we lost in Central America when military aid to the contras was ended." Unstated in writing, but understood by all, was that the upcoming meeting could be the Administration's last chance to turn Central American lemons into lemonade. Late in the evening of May 6--the day before Baker left for Moscow--a breakthrough occurred. Gorbachev finally responded to Bush's letter. "We note the positive trends in Central America," Gorbachev wrote, "including the intention of your Administration and the U.S. Congress to `give diplomacy a chance.' I agree that productive Soviet-U.S. engagement on regional questions will lead to a growing potential of goodwill in Soviet-U.S. relations." Gorbachev, it appeared, had bought the linkage. Then the Soviet leader added something of even greater importance: "In order to promote a peaceful settlement of the conflict, and bearing in mind that the attacks by the contras' troops against Nicaragua have stopped, the U.S.S.R. has not been sending weapons to [Nicaragua] after 1988." Bush wanted proof of Moscow's good faith, and Gorbachev delivered. Encouraged, Baker set off for Moscow--and pressed even harder. In his first session with Shevardnadze, Baker pocketed Gorbachev's May 6 arms-cutoff disclosure and then complained that the weapons flow to Cuba and Nicaragua, and from there to the F.M.L.N. in El Salvador, was nevertheless continuing undiminished. He implored Shevardnadze to have his government "lend its support through deeds as well as words to convince Nicaragua and Cuba--in whatever manner [you] choose--to halt all aid for subversion in Central America and to comply fully with Esquipulas." If "these countries fail to comply," added Baker, "then we would ask that [you] reduce or end aid to these governments accordingly." And although he never uttered the word linkage, Baker alluded to arms control: "We have all seen how events in other regions changed the political atmosphere in which treaties agreed to by both sides were considered." The carrot was next. "We would not expect you to take these steps unless there were benefits," said Baker. The Secretary then presented what would become known as the "Five Points." Three were especially important: 1) early concrete steps by Managua toward complying with Esquipulas would result in improved U.S.-Nicaragua relations; 2) if the contemplated election were free and fair by U.S. standards, Washington would accept a Sandinista victory; and, perhaps most important to both the Soviets and the Sandinistas, 3) an overall regional settlement (by which Baker meant an end to the war in El Salvador) would free up American aid to the region and thus get Moscow off its financial hook. Later, Baker told Gorbachev that the deal was in Moscow's interest for another reason: if the Soviets embraced it, no one could accuse them of "abandoning Soviet friends in Nicaragua." While Baker's Five Points proved that Bush was not ideologically committed to an unending struggle with the Sandinistas, the Soviets to this day believe incorrectly that the Five Points were generated by Gorbachev's arms-suspension announcement. No matter. The important point was Gorbachev's reaction to Baker's presentation. In Esquipulas II, the two sides had a common text--a legalistic mechanism that could justify pursuing the same goal. Now, with a slight nod of his head, Gorbachev signaled that for the first time Washington and Moscow also had a common strategy. IN THE TRENCHES Five days after his Senate confirmation on June 14, Bernard Aronson took his first trip as State's top Latin expert. He did not go south, to the area of his responsibility. Instead, he flew east, to Moscow. Aronson's destination conformed to the Administration's strategy and signaled respect: the U.S. was serious about engaging the Soviets in Central America. On June 20 at 10:10 a.m. Aronson and his Soviet counterpart, Yuri Pavlov, sat across from each other for the first time at a long conference table at a Soviet Foreign Ministry guesthouse in Moscow. The initial session went better than Washington could ever have imagined. Both Aronson and Pavlov appeared intent on solving problems rather than scoring points. Each clearly spoke with the authority of his government, and each acknowledged the other's concerns. The Esquipulas agreement, Aronson suggested, was the perfect device for moving toward free elections in Nicaragua--and also for supporting Soviet demands that the U.S. keep its promise to press contra demobilization. From then on, the Soviets were co-conspirators in the effort to level the electoral playing field. More important, the Soviets demonstrated initial good faith in the matter of arms flows to Nicaragua and the Salvadoran guerrillas. While Soviet military aid to the region diminished in the wake of Gorbachev's May 6 letter, Cuba had stepped up its weapons shipments dramatically to fill the void. More ominously, evidence suggested that Soviet munitions intended for Havana were being transshipped to Nicaragua. Technically, Gorbachev's pledge to Bush was being honored. On the ground in Central America, however, the situation had barely changed. Aronson asked for a clarification: Was transshipment permitted by Moscow? No, said Pavlov. "We will talk to our Cuban friends." Of equal value, the first Aronson-Pavlov session resulted in agreement on a mechanism for halting Sandinista arms shipments to the F.M.L.N. in El Salvador. Nicaragua wanted U.S. support in the U.N. for deployment of a peacekeeping force: the U.N. Observer Group in Central America (ONUCA). The group was supposed to monitor compliance with Article VI of Esquipulas, which prohibited the use of territory to aid guerrilla operations in neighboring states. The Sandinistas were eager to have ONUCA ensure that the contras in Honduras could not infiltrate Nicaragua. The U.S. insisted that ONUCA also monitor the clandestine flow of arms from Nicaragua to the F.M.L.N. Pavlov hinted that ONUCA would allow the Soviets to insist that Nicaragua abide by the agreement. "To go to the Sandinistas and say the U.S. had developed evidence of their violations would not do for us," explains Pavlov, reflecting Soviet concerns that they not be perceived as abandoning their regional allies. "With ONUCA, we could say we were not carrying out the American agenda, but the U.N.'s." ONUCA could easily verify the movement of 12,000 armed contras in Honduras, Aronson argued, but would probably not have the means to track the secret arms flow to El Salvador. If in the U.N. Security Council the U.S. supported ONUCA's deployment, Aronson asked, would Moscow then be willing to accept American evidence of arms-flow violations, even if the U.N. force was incapable of confirming the allegations? Yes, said Pavlov. Cover was what the Soviets wanted. It quickly became clear that both Washington and Moscow were fortunate to have Pavlov as the Soviet interlocutor. At the second session on the first day of meetings, the Soviet delegation was joined by Komplektov, the Deputy Foreign Minister. Komplektov was well known to veteran American diplomats as a hard-line old thinker. With Aronson, he lived up to his reputation. At lunch between sessions, Komplektov told bad Russian jokes about affairs with the actress Gina Lollobrigida. Across the table, he rehashed old Soviet positions on Central America and lectured Aronson about the sensibilities of small Latin nations condemned by geography to labor in the shadow of the American colossus. Aronson was concerned that the Soviet tone was changing and wanted to signal that only the first session's manner could lead to progress. When Komplektov did his "small nations" riff for the third time in 90 minutes, Aronson fired back. "Mr. Minister," he said, "you don't have to tell me about the sensitivities of small countries. My grandfather was a Latvian." Komplektov never reappeared at a subsequent U.S.-Soviet discussion on Central America. To further their cooperation, the Soviets asked that Washington respond favorably when the Sandinistas took positive steps. "The more evidence Managua sees that the U.S. is willing to coexist with them after the elections, assuming they win," said Pavlov, "the easier it will be to create a free and fair election." On Aug. 4, the Sandinistas signed an accord with the democratic opposition calling for the disbanding of the contras and general elections in February 1990. On Aug. 7, in the tortured syntax that defines diplomatese, Baker said publicly the U.S. was "very pleased with the steps that Nicaragua has taken to establish a dialogue with the opposition and to move toward procedures that might permit a free and fair election." A pattern began to form. The Soviets posed a number of tests for the U.S., and Washington passed most of them. Pavlov argued that Moscow's ability to stem the flow of weapons to Central America depended on Soviet confidence that the military threat to Managua was lessening. In response, Aronson described as a concession the scaling back of U.S. maneuvers in Honduras. He cited the cutoff of humanitarian assistance to a contra commander who had independently attacked a Sandinista outpost in violation of the Bipartisan Accord's ban on offensive operations. He mentioned the closing of the contras' political office in Miami (although in fact the CIA had shut the office to save money). These efforts, said Aronson--and the return of the contras' political leadership to Managua to compete in the elections--should be taken as signs of U.S. good faith. It was now September, and while progress toward the election was clear, the movement of arms to Nicaragua and to the F.M.L.N. continued at unjustifiable rates. Aronson told Pavlov that the American public would hold the Soviets accountable for the continued flow, even if they were not directly responsible. "You cannot escape it," Aronson said. "No one will ever believe that you cannot control your allies when your assistance sustains their very existence." Moscow's allies understood the Soviet position, Pavlov replied. "We explain the changes in the world every time we meet with the Cubans. But Castro is not someone with whom one uses the word must if one is serious about changing his behavior. Fidel doesn't take orders from anyone." Almost as an aside, Pavlov wondered if it "had ever occurred to the U.S. that some of our friends have no interest in seeing an improvement in Soviet-U.S. relations." SMOKING GUNS On Oct. 18, Honduran troops intercepted a van loaded with weapons destined for the F.M.L.N. in El Salvador. The shipment was part of what the world would soon learn was a major infusion of arms designed to fuel the guerrillas' "final offensive" in November. Most of the cache had been manufactured in the Soviet Union, and the van's driver admitted having run munitions from Nicaragua to El Salvador on numerous occasions during 1989. "We knew about many previous shipments," says Aronson, "but this was a smoking gun." Summoned to the State Department, Soviet Ambassador Yuri Dubinin was presented with a packet of evidence. Shevardnadze's Oct. 30 reply infuriated Baker. The minister rambled on about the contras and dismissed Washington's evidence as providing "no grounds for accusing the Sandinista leadership of violating its commitment to end assistance to rebel movements." To Dubinin, who delivered the Shevardnadze note, Baker said "This is the same old stuff." What is more, the Secretary continued, it represents "old thinking...The Sandinistas are tooling you around badly...It is hard for me to believe Minister Shevardnadze wrote this letter. I hope that someone else did." Dubinin handed over the Russian original and joked that perhaps the letter would look better to Baker before translation. To underscore Washington's anger, Baker raised the problem publicly. In a speech to the OAS on Nov. 13, the Secretary said, "Soviet behavior toward Cuba and Central America remains the biggest obstacle to a full, across-the-board improvement in relations..." Baker's original text labeled the Soviet aid to Cuba and Central America "a big" obstacle. The Secretary changed "a big" to "the biggest" shortly before delivering his address. Baker's OAS speech got Moscow's attention, and Pavlov flew to Washington for an emergency consultation. Tempers cooled, but only briefly. The worst was about to happen. In the early morning of Nov. 25, two light planes stripped of identifying markings took off from a Nicaraguan military base and headed for El Salvador. One made the trip to a guerrilla airstrip successfully. It unloaded its cargo and was burned to cover up the evidence. The other, a twin-engine Cessna 310, crashed in eastern El Salvador. On board was a variety of weaponry destined for the F.M.L.N., including the 24 SA-7 surface-to-air missiles. The missiles had been manufactured in North Korea from Soviet designs. They were then sent to Cuba and transshipped to Nicaragua for delivery to the Salvadoran guerrillas. In the previous clashes over arms flow to Central America, the Soviets had sought to quell U.S. fears by pointing out that light weapons "like AK-47s could not tip the balance in Central America." Missiles could do that, admitted Pavlov, just as American-supplied Stingers "had in Afghanistan." Soviet seriousness, Pavlov had asserted repeatedly, "can be seen in the fact that there has been no introduction of SAM systems in El Salvador." Moscow knew that everything was at stake. The Soviets feared that Washington would cancel the Malta summit. The SA-7s were going to be hard to explain. On Nov. 28, Ambassador Dubinin officially denied "attempts to link us directly or indirectly with this incident. [There] is no reason for creating a crisis situation." Within minutes of Dubinin's demarche, Baker drafted the American response. "This latest incident," the Secretary wrote to Shevardnadze, "calls into question your government's undertakings toward mine...If the commitments we make cannot be kept, we have little basis on which to proceed...The time has come for [you] to stand up and...use your influence to put a final and definitive end to Nicaraguan and Cuban military and logistical assistance to the F.M.L.N." Someone was dissembling, but Baker was determined that Malta go forward. His public formulation on Nov. 29, just three days before the summit, was particularly artful. "Either the Nicaraguans are lying to the Soviet Union," Baker said, "or the Soviet Union is lying to us. We prefer to believe it's the former." The stormy seas at Malta prevented a full discussion of Central America--and what Baker thinks would have been a heated argument over the missile shipment. But the matter was discussed, and the tension it created was palpable. At a postsummit press conference in Brussels, Bush stowed his jovial manner. "We have a big difference" on Central America, said the President. "It wasn't all sweetness and light." For his part, Gorbachev stuck to a sentence crafted carefully in advance: "We have assurances--firm assurances from Nicaragua--that no deliveries using certain aircraft were actually carried out." Notice the "very precise wording," explains Pavlov. "[Gorbachev] said, `We have assurances' from the Nicaraguans, which in fact we did. But he didn't say we believed them." Clever distancing could be admired, but Washington cared more about changing behavior. To press the issue, Baker telephoned Shevardnadze shortly after Malta. "We will have to have another very serious conversation with the Nicaraguans and Cubans, even though we just had a visit," said Shevardnadze, instructing his translator to emphasize very. Baker then sent an eyes-only cable to Shevardnadze listing "requests of the Soviet Union by the United States." Among them, he asked for a "Soviet commitment that all arms shipments from Nicaragua to the F.M.L.N. cease definitively and that no territory of Nicaragua be used by others to provide arms support for the F.M.L.N." Baker also asked that Gorbachev pressure Castro: We want a "Soviet commitment to reduce Cuban military and economic assistance as necessary to ensure that Cuba does not increase [the] flow of lethal weapons to Nicaragua and to ensure that Cuba does not rearm the F.M.L.N." "Baker called his demarche `requests,'" Pavlov remembers, "but they were really demands. Malta had taken place as scheduled, but we believed quite seriously that the course of U.S.-Soviet relations was in jeopardy. We had to act." Within days, the Vladimir Ilyich, with its cargo of Soviet helicopters, was called home to Leningrad. Shortly thereafter, Moscow denied a Sandinista request for emergency funds. "They wanted money to put consumer goods in the stores, so they could portray the economic situation as improving and attract voter support," says Pavlov. "We didn't think it was a good investment." Another price paid by the Sandinistas came at the Dec. 12 convocation of the Central American Presidents in San Isidro, Costa Rica. It was there that the Sandinistas, in effect, repudiated the F.M.L.N. The declaration Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega signed at San Isidro called for the Salvadoran guerrillas to "immediately and effectively cease hostilities and join the process of dialogue." The document also expressed Ortega's support of Alfredo Cristiani's Salvadoran government as democratic, something Managua had previously never conceded. "We choked hard on that one," says a former Ortega adviser. "Of course we didn't believe it, but our backs were against the wall. It seemed that the whole world was down on us. Even the Soviets had said--in what for them was a strident manner--if Soviet-American relations seriously deteriorated, we would be to blame. If we hadn't gone along with the others at San Isidro, we would have been completely isolated." Broadly seen, San Isidro was a triumph of American and Soviet strategy. As the Feb. 25 Nicaraguan election approached, both sides wanted to lock the other into accepting the outcome. In the joint communique following their Feb. 10 meeting, Baker and Shevardnadze pledged both nations would "respect the results of free and fair elections." But the U.S. had another concern. Washington questioned whether the Sandinistas would actually transfer power if they lost. Aronson asked if the Soviets would continue denying weapons to the Sandinistas if Violeta Chamorro won. Pavlov said yes. In all their communications with Managua, the Soviets were always subtle. With the crisis over, the helicopters that were withheld in December were sent to Nicaragua at the end of January. Moscow, however, assured Washington that they were equipped for civilian use only. In explaining the Kremlin's decision to send the choppers after all, a Soviet academic at a Moscow think tank offers a lesson in the application of pressure. "To maintain one's influence in a situation," he says, "it is often necessary--in fact it is usually necessary--to both give and withhold. Especially in Latin America, where every leader thinks he is some sort of mystic God, diplomacy requires dealing as one deals with children. If you say no all the time, you are ignored, even if, as a parent, you hold all the theoretical power. The helicopters signaled that we were still on the Sandinistas' side. They already believed we weren't. If that impression stuck, our ability to influence their decisions would diminish. And at that time, when the question of their actually transferring office was very much in doubt, our influence was more crucial than ever." Equally important were the signals Moscow did not send. As the Soviets watched the Ortega campaign unfold, they thought the Sandinistas should steal the opposition's thunder by seconding Chamorro's promise to end the hated military draft, but Moscow never communicated its analysis. "We don't interfere in someone else's elections," Pavlov deadpans. THE FUTURE When Aronson and Pavlov met in Washington on April 2, five weeks after Chamorro's victory in Nicaragua, it became clear the Soviets had learned just how the new game could be played. The talk now concerned El Salvador, and the Soviets deftly reversed roles. With Moscow supporting the F.M.L.N. rebels, Pavlov borrowed the arguments Aronson had advanced for nine months with respect to Nicaragua. Pavlov said he saw "no lack of desire on the part of the F.M.L.N. to negotiate" an end to its war with the Cristiani government. He asked that the U.S. "pressure" Cristiani to "speak seriously" with the guerrillas. Pavlov even adopted Reagan's justification for the contras to explain Cuba's aid to the F.M.L.N. If the F.M.L.N. disarmed before a political settlement was reached, he argued, its ability to press the Salvadoran government to reform would be lost. It was Aronson's turn to reassure Pavlov. If the arms flow to the F.M.L.N. was reduced, he said, Washington would "do all it could" to press for serious negotiations. The echoes of the Nicaraguan settlement are distinct: Baker is trying to fashion the same kind of bipartisan accord on El Salvador that worked so well for Nicaragua, and the U.S. is strongly supporting the current U.N.-mediated peace talks between the government and the F.M.L.N. The lesson of the past year is simple: enough obstacles existed to derail the peace process at any time. Moscow and Washington pushed forward because it was in both their interests to do so. For that reason, the elements of a deal were always there. Assembling them was another matter. While the importance of the Soviet-American cooperation in Central America should not be exaggerated, it can serve as a model of trust and shared success, a potential bridge across rocky moments ahead. An example occurred last April, when Baker and Shevardnadze appeared stalled on an arms-control agreement that had seemed virtually sealed in February. On both sides, the mood was glum. During a break in the discussions, Aronson and Pavlov conferred in a small room on the State Department's seventh floor. As Shevardnadze walked by, Pavlov introduced him to Aronson. For the first time in two days, Shevardnadze's smile did not seem forced. "You two," said Shevardnadze, "are the only ones who seem to have accomplished anything." "A lot of that is due to Yuri's candor and professionalism," said Aronson, "and I really think that what we have done in Central America has affected the whole relationship for the better." Said Shevardnadze: "We are learning." "So are we," Aronson replied. </body> </article> </text>