Read My Pins_ Stories From a Diplomat's Jewel Box - Madeleine Albright [19]
Among our most contentious discussions with the Kremlin were those involving nuclear arms. The United States wanted to make changes in the antiballistic missile treaty, and our counterparts did not. At the beginning of our talks, the Russian foreign minister looked at the arrow-like pin I had chosen for that day and inquired, “Is that one of your interceptor missiles?” I said, “Yes, and as you can see, we know how to make them very small. So you’d better be ready to negotiate.”
One high point in U.S.-Russian relations occurred in 1998, when modules from our two countries linked up at the International Space Station. In Florida, I witnessed the night launch of the space shuttle Endeavour, which carried the U.S. module to its rendezvous. Space shuttle pin, RC2, Corp.
As the debate about missiles showed, Cold War habits were slow to disappear. One December day in 1999, Stanislav Borisovich Gusev, a fiftyish “diplomat,” was arrested while sitting on a bench outside the State Department. He was, in fact, a spy harvesting data from a listening device that our agents had located in a conference room at the far end of the building from my office. The electronic bug had been hard to find; Gusev had not. To avoid detection, the Russians had used a battery with low power, but this meant that anyone listening to the signals had to be stationed nearby. Gusev spent much of that autumn ostentatiously maneuvering his car outside the department’s heavily guarded building, while inside our security people were scouring floors, walls, and furniture for whatever was prompting his movements.
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
With Russian foreign minister Igor Ivanov on the balcony of the State Department.
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Interceptor Missile, Lisa Vershbow.
Sorcerer, Z. Alandia; other designers unknown.
UFO, Jonette Jewelry.
Bug, Iradj Moini.
The incident attracted unwelcome publicity, but the Russians learned nothing from their eavesdropping that we wouldn’t have told them if asked. Nor did the episode disrupt our diplomatic relations with Moscow, which have survived far more embarrassing cases of espionage. I met with Foreign Minister Ivanov in Europe only a few days subsequent to Gusev’s arrest. We greeted each other as the friends we were, but Ivanov could not fail to notice on my dress a pin in the shape of an enormous bug.
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Perhaps it is my imagination, but this pin always seems to end the day higher on my jacket than where it began.
I was reminded while secretary of state that there is a political dimension to the operations of the gem industry. Valuable resources attract feverish competition for access and control. To regulate the market, the world has created a system that encourages trade based on agreed-upon standards and rules. In some cases, as with endangered species, those rules prohibit trade. In others, our leaders have found it necessary to limit or ban sales from particular countries. Two examples during my tenure are worthy of mention.
Jade has been called the stone of Heaven. It is a personal favorite of mine and has been sought after for centuries, initially by Chinese emperors and Asian warlords, more recently by lovers of fine gems on every continent. Carat for carat, jade’s value has soared. It is disquieting, then, that the majority of the world’s most precious jade (or, more properly, jadeite) is mined in Burma, home to some of the poorest people and one of the most repressive governments on Earth. Until the mid-1990s, ethnic groups controlled the mines, using the revenue to preserve autonomy from the military regime. Over the past decade, the government has seized control of the mines, exploiting them (and the beaten-down souls who labor in them) for money and power. While in office, I championed economic sanctions against Burma; these have since been extended to include the most lucrative types of Burmese gems that are processed elsewhere. The ban is firmly supported by