To the Editor:

Angelo M. Codevilla’s assertion in response to letters by Ukrainian ambassador Yuri Shcherbak and myself [Letters from Readers, January 1997] that “in May 1996 the U.S. government officially protested to the government of Ukraine over its sale of SS-18 missile components to China” is simply untrue. The U.S. government did not officially make such a protest either in May 1996 or at any other time. The National Security Council (NSC) has advised us that no such official protest was made. Additionally, the government of Ukraine has denied the existence of any government committee to conduct sales of strategic goods to Libya or of any agreement to sell missile technology to China, as Mr. Codevilla also asserts.

Due to a speculative CIA report, the U.S. Foreign Operations Law for Fiscal Year 1997 includes the following language regarding the earmarking of funds for Ukraine:

Funds appropriated under this heading may not be made available for the government of Ukraine if the President determines and reports to the Committee on Appropriations that the government of Ukraine is engaged in military cooperation with the government of Libya.

Similar language appears with reference to the other independent states of the former Soviet Union. This “caveat” represents circumspection on the part of Senator Mitch McConnell, the author of the bill, rather than the possession of any evidence of illicit dealings on the part of Ukraine. To date, President Clinton has no grounds for making such a determination.

Askold S. Lozynskyj
Ukrainian Congress
Committee of America, Inc.
Washington, D.C.

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Angelo M. Codevilla writes:

I do not know who on the NSC staff said what to Askold S. Lozynskyj, but then-Defense Secretary William J. Perry said publicly to the Washington Times on May 21, 1996 that the U.S. government had made protests to Ukraine. Let me quote from the Times story:

The United States has strongly protested China’s efforts to buy SS-18 missile technology from Russia and Ukraine, Defense Secretary William J. Perry said in an interview yesterday. . . . “I will assure you that there have been communications at high levels both to the Russian and Ukrainian governments. The demarche to the Russians and the Ukrainians was very specific. . . .”

Later in the same news story the Secretary was again quoted on the issue of transferring SS-18 components or technology to China, an action which he asserted would violate U.S. Russian strategic-arms treaties as well as the 31-nation Missile Technology Control Regime:

We are adamantly opposed to any such transfer, and we are being very direct with both the Russians and the Ukrainians on this issue, since a good bit of the SS-18 technology is made in Ukraine.

In the normal course of things, a Secretary of Defense issues warnings of this nature only when he knows something is happening, or has already happened.

In any event, it was on the basis of facts such as the ones I cited in my original article, “Defenseless America” [September 1996], and not on the basis of any “speculative CIA report,” that Congress, in the U.S. Foreign Operations Law for 1997, vehemently discouraged money for Ukraine. This provision did not come about as the result of a single Senator’s “circumspection”; such language is adopted by Congress only after official consultation and advice, and on the basis of knowledge such as that which Secretary Perry felt strongly enough about to speak out in public.

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