Washington, D.C., December 18, 2024 – A now-legendary but long-secret 70-paragraph telegram written by the top political analyst at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow in March 1994, E. Wayne Merry, criticizing the American policy focus on radical economic reform in Russia, was published in full today for the first time by the National Security Archive.
Merry could not get the critical message cleared for government-wide distribution at the time in 1994 because of Treasury objections (“It would give Larry Summers a heart attack”) and ultimately resorted to the Dissent Channel instead, according to Merry’s retrospective commentary, which was also published today by the Archive together with the actual “long telegram” and other declassified documents.
Reminiscent of George Kennan’s Long Telegram of 1946 in the depth and scope of its analysis of Russian realities and almost as prescient in its prophecies, the Merry cable only reached the public domain as the result of a National Security Archive lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The State Department denied a copy to Merry himself, claiming public release of dissent messages would provide the wrong incentive for future Foreign Service Officers.
Titled provocatively “Whose Russia Is It Anyway? Toward a Policy of Benign Respect,” the Merry long telegram argued that radical market reform was the wrong economic prescription for Russia, with its history of statist direction of the economy, uncertainty of political transition and extreme challenges of geography and climate. The message described “shock therapy” as so visibly Washington’s program that the devastating austerity already evident in 1994 was blamed on the U.S., and the long-term consequences would “recreate an adversarial relationship between Russia and the West.” Plus, Merry warned, “we will also fail on the economic front.”
The one-page official response from the State Department, required by State regulations to come from the Policy Planning Staff, did not even reach Moscow until Merry had already left the Embassy that summer. Merry read the formal response for the first time only this year, after the National Security Archive obtained both his original Dissent Channel cable and the State response as part of a FOIA lawsuit. The State response, signed by then Director of Policy Planning Jim Steinberg, commended Merry for his constructive use of the Dissent Channel, accepted some of his criticisms of U.S. aid programs in Russia, but, in a tone-deaf passage displaying no knowledge of Russia, told him he was wrong to separate markets from democracy as policy goals, because the former were essential to the latter.
“In my experience, Washington seeks to understand other countries by looking in the mirror (a common human failing),” comments Merry in his contextual essay.
This really fits very nicely with Ungar’s piece from yesterday.