The Case of Eduoard Shevardnadze
In a totally non-ironic way, I don’t think it’s especially fair to see hypocrisy in calling former Georgian President Eduoard Shevardnadze “one the great men in the history of the world” in 1999 and years later slamming him as the leader of a “corrupt government” in Georgia. Before Shevardnadze became president of Georgia, he was Foreign Minister of the U.S.S.R. under Mikhail Gorbachev. In that role, he played an important part in the peaceful winding down of the Cold War. Because the peaceful winding-down of the Cold War happened we tend to forget what an extraordinary achievement that was. But leaders on both sides acted in a very wise and farsighted way to permit the withdrawal of Soviet forces from central Europe, the re-unification of Germany, and all the rest without a fight.
Shevardnadze really did play a great historical role before going on to lead a government in Georgia that really was corrupt. I keep meaning to write a post on Ulysses Grant, but suffice it to say that I don’t think it’s crazy to see Grant as one of the great men of American history even though his administration also had a corruption problem.
25 Responses to “The Case of Eduoard Shevardnadze”
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August 21st, 2008 at 3:46 pm
April 1865, The Month That Saved America is a good read if anyone is interested in the things that Grant did to keep this one country in one piece.
August 21st, 2008 at 3:53 pm
Matt – Corruption is a red herring and I am sad to see you buy into it. I think that Saakashvili has been spending something close to 25% of his GNP on the military. Also, we have had a very tough time tagging Shevardnadze as personally corrupt although God knows we’ve tried. I do know that Shevardnadze wasn’t the one building a magnificent Presidential Palace for himself in the middle of a very poor country. That was Saakashvili.
August 21st, 2008 at 4:04 pm
I submit that corruption is a red herring. Isn’t Saakashvili spending something close to 25% of his GDP on the military? I also do not think that we have been able to prove that Shevardnadze was personally corrupt, although God knows we have tried. I do know that it wasn’t Shevardnadze that was building the immense and magnificent Presidential Palace for himself in a poor, poor country. That was Saakashvili.
I also think that when we are painting others with the corruption brush, it is only fair that we look at our own. I’m thinking about you Dick Cheney. Using the government for his own personal enrichment through the Halliburton vehicle? Check. Using the government to provide power and riches to his immediate family members? Check. Using secrecy and lack of transparency to obscure the corruption? Check.
August 21st, 2008 at 4:09 pm
And of course, Grant’s memoirs really live up to their high reputation. Well worth reading if you haven’t yet.
August 21st, 2008 at 4:46 pm
If I remember rightly from David Remnick’s “Lenin’s Tomb”, Shevardnadze played a major role in f**king up the August 1991 putschist plans to stage an earlier coup by making a very public warning and resignation on the floor of the USSR’s Council of People’s Deputies. If he hadn’t done that, then their planned earlier coup might have succeeded, unlike the Keystone-Kop August putsch.
So yeah, we do need to acknowledge Shevardnadze’s historic role. Plus, Saakashvili has turned out to be much worse for Georgia.
August 21st, 2008 at 4:46 pm
Greatly corrupt – corruption on a history-impacting scale!
August 21st, 2008 at 5:09 pm
Grant was a great general, but a lousy president. He basically sat on his hands as terrorists (yes, that’s the word for them) engaged in acts of bullying, murder and every other thing they could think of to deny black Americans their rights and kill Reconstruction. Andrew Johnson, Ulysses S. Grant and Rutherford B. Hayes, each in his own way, let them get away with it.
August 21st, 2008 at 5:10 pm
You try running some small, poor country without running into some corruption problems.
August 21st, 2008 at 5:20 pm
You try running ANY country without running into corruption problems.
Like war is the health of the state, corruption is a defining characteristic of any state. That’s WHY the state exists.
August 21st, 2008 at 5:22 pm
Also a member of the Grant fan club and take exception to the suggestion he sat on his hands against the Klan. Absolutely false.
August 21st, 2008 at 6:05 pm
What Armando said — least racist president between Lincoln and FDR with the sole exception of Teddy Roosevelt. Add to that the only guy in a position of power in the 19th century (except Brigham Young) who even attempted a humane policy toward the Native American population, and had the decency to be ashamed of their treatment by the military of which he was a part.
August 21st, 2008 at 6:29 pm
Gorbachev and Shevardnadze helped disassemble the Soviet Union peacefully. It’s one of the most remarkable achievements of the last century. The fact that either man wasn’t very good at building a democracy is beside the point. Nobody is going to look back in 50 years and say “Michael Jordan was horrible. Don’t you remember his time as General Manager of the Washington Wizards?” Remember Shevardnadze as a player, not a GM.
August 21st, 2008 at 6:40 pm
This happens to all decent people who becomes president. Acting and believe in integrity means that moral and immoral behavior is heightened, and all of the *costs* of moral behavior are damned.
That’s why Jimmy Carter is reviled when Ronald Reagan was the destroyer of nations. Same with Grant, though to be precise, Lincoln, in my estimation, had to allow for rather huge amounts of corruption to maintain elite consensus for war, and the policy process hung on through to about CA Arthur’s term and beyond. Also, as Matt Y has blogged about before, there is quite a bit of a concerted effort by certain parties to trash Grant’s image, especially before about the civil rights era…
August 21st, 2008 at 10:01 pm
September 22-23, 1989–Jackson, Wyoming
At this second full ministerial, Secretary Baker and Foreign Minister Shevardnadze discussed the entire spectrum of US-Soviet relations. They issued a detailed statement describing the specific agreements or understandings they reached in areas such as arms control, bilateral questions, and transnational issues.
The Jackson Lake lodge at Grand Teton National Park proudly displays the table at which these negotiations took place.
August 21st, 2008 at 10:26 pm
John McCain’s IRI was right in the mix of the overthrow of Shevardnadze in Georgia. The bloodless coup, or Rose Revolution if you will, was predicated on Shevardnadze’s corruption. The bloodless coup, or Orange Revolution in Ukraine was also predicated on corruption.
These coups were instigated, financed and executed by American NGOs, including McCain’s IRI. Now these guys, Saakashvili and Yushchenko, are the hope of the free world and beacons of young democracy. We will praise and stand up for these guys and support them with military aid, insist they be issued NATO security guarantees and, if John McCain has anything to do with it, put the lives of our boys and girls on the line to prop them up.
John McCain turning like a dime on a guy he helped overthrow? Well that’s easy, my friends, he was corrupt. That’s why we overthrew him.
August 22nd, 2008 at 3:18 am
I admire Shevardnadze. He’s very smart , inteligent and great diplomat .Yes , He was a head of corrupted government ,but it wasn’t his fault .He became a president of already corrupted country and any effort of preventing corruption – wouldn’t make him look good ( I guess Georgians couldn;t forgive him for being a Foreign Minister of USSR)- Georgians would blame him for dictatorship.He was a president and he should’ve had palace .And Saakashvili should listen to advices sometimes .. and should get more experienced people in government and gain experience himself..They say we learn on out mistakes , We, georgians, cannot afford mistakes ..We’re small,we’re not strong and none of the countries would go against Russia because of Georgia ..Why should they ? Why american mother should send her son to fight for ossetia ,when she even has no idea where and what it is ..
And once again ossetia and abkhazia is Georgia ..
August 22nd, 2008 at 11:25 am
I for one would be very interested on any U.S. Grant posts.
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