Defense Official traveling with Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen:

I think all of you know that Secretary Cohen met with Minister Sergeyev this morning. The meeting actually went longer than it was scheduled, and I would say that the topic that everyone is thinking about received a frank discussion; that is, the current situation in Kosovo. There was agreement on both sides that the violence must stop. Cohen stressed that while we prefer a diplomatic solution, that the NATO air exercises that were directed yesterday and consideration of other steps were necessary in light of the ongoing violence. He said there should be no mistake about the seriousness with which NATO views this problem. The Russians stressed the diplomatic path, and the importance of the upcoming meetings in Moscow between Yeltsin and Milosevic.

On START II, Sergeyev said that Yeltsin and he were continuing to work this with the Duma, but that the political situation was a difficult one. On Secretary Cohen's side, he said he appreciated the efforts of Sergeyev and others to get the Duma to ratify START II, he acknowledged the political difficulties, but reiterated the precondition for START II ratification by the Russians before we can move on to START III.

There was a lot of discussion of the bilateral relationship at many levels, including that between President Clinton and Yeltsin, at the foreign minister's level, and of course between Sergeyev and the Secretary. Both sides mentioned the upcoming visit of General Shelton to Russia. Both sides mentioned...

(Side-bar discussion about Shelton's schedule)

General Habiger was also present for this meeting. General Habiger has just returned from a visit, and Sergeyev stressed that General Habiger had been shown everything that he and the Secretary wanted General Habiger to see.

The Secretary, Secretary Cohen, also raised the issue of Y2K, and indicated that this was an issue that we were spending a lot of money on, that we were looking into very carefully, and that the further we got into it, the more complex the difficulties were. He conveyed to Sergeyev that we would happy to share with them any of what we had learned, but that his overriding concern was that there be no misunderstanding and no problem when the year 2000 rolled around less some of the early warning computers go down.

Sergeyev mentioned his efforts on military reform, Secretary Cohen offered to share the U.S. experiences in downsizing which he said we had gained over the year and he acknowledged was a very difficult task. I would say that the meeting was very friendly, and as I said before frank throughout. They covered a lot of subjects in the time that they had.

Q: How long was the meeting? A: It ended up being about 45 minutes, it was originally scheduled to be 30 minutes as I recall.

Q: 45 minutes. A: Right. I would say about 45 minutes.

Q: Did Secretary Cohen talk to him at all yesterday about yesterday's press conference; he said that a U.N. mandate for action was desirable but not imperative?

A: That subject did not come up.

Q: So the Russians didn't insist on a U.N. resolution?

A: Did not get into that level of detail. It was on Secretary Cohen's--it was his stressing the seriousness with which both the United States and NATO view this, the violence, and also the fact that number one, we like the Russians hoped that the problem could be solved diplomatically, but that neither side should misunderstand our intentions here. Milosevic should get the message of the seriousness, and he also mentioned, as he did yesterday, that the Kosovar Albanians should not misunderstand this either.

Q: Was there any detail that the Secretary was able to give the Russians about exactly how the exercise might play out or when it might occur?

A: No, they did not get involved in any details of the exercise.

Q: Was there overt request for Russian participation/observation? A: No.

Q: Did he express opposition to military intervention in Kosovo?

A: The Russians, I would characterize their position throughout as stressing the diplomatic approach.

Q: So, he didn't directly address that the, what his attitude would be...

A: Jim, that's about as far as I want to go. I don't want to put words in the Russian's mouth. I would just say that Sergeyev stressed the diplomatic approach.

Q: In stressing that did he mention Monday's meeting with Milosevic... A: Oh yes.

Q: Did he say what their intention would be in the meeting with Milosevic?

A: Well only in very general terms, in that there would be a meeting and that they hoped that the problem could be solved diplomatically. I don't want to put words in their mouth, and I also think that they may want to talk about how they intend to approach that meeting. I don't know that they're going to do any backgrounding today. Do the Russians do much?

(Side-bar response/discussion)

Q: As a point of information, the early warning computers, could you explain what they do?

A: Well, Jim, just think of this, and I don't know enough about computers or early warning computers to give you a lot of color on this, but the concern is that because of the Y2K problem, when the year rolls over, because of various chips that are incorporated in computers, that suddenly screens may go blank, or that information which normally is very accurate may be jumbled or be inaccurate or convey information that is not appropriate, and that all of this could misunderstood, misinterpreted, and cause anxiety on one side or another. That's why we are spending a lot of time and effort on solving this problem. And why we think that NATO countries, and other countries need to look at this too. I think what Secretary is attempting to do here, is to just make sure that one, the Russians have an appreciation for the complexity of solving the problem. And if you've seen what Dr. Hamre has said in the past on this issue, it requires time, and it requires people to solve it. It is not something that is going to be solved by just simply coming up with a new algorithm that is going to solve the problem for everybody. It requires going in to computers, changing the codes so that it is a very man power intensive sort of an operation. And we for instance in the United States, I don't know if you are very familiar with this but not only in the Department, but throughout the entire U.S. Government, there is monitoring of how well this is going.

In the Department we have meetings on a monthly basis to up date in our case, it's Dr. Hamre, on the progress of how we are taking care of our most critical systems. And where we stand, ultimately what we have to do is test the fixes. So we go through quite a process to make sure that we are in a position to certify that the computers will act as we expect them to act, once the century rolls over. But what we have found as we get into this, so often there is not so much anymore a stand alone computer, there are computers that are connected to other computers that feed into whole systems. And that you need to make sure that everybody who is in the system, all of the computers that feed to one another have similar fixes so that lest the weak link in the chain effect the overall system. It's a very complex problem.

Q: Did Shelton say anything in the meeting with Sergeyev? A: No, both Cohen and Sergeyev did all the talking.

Q: Shelton was there?

A: There were greetings in advance, and of course, they knew one another, and Habiger, as I say, was there, and he was very well known to them. Because of this bilateral relationship that exists on so many levels, many of the people in this meeting knew one another from previous meetings.

Q: (inaudible) A: I can't say for sure.

Q: Was there any response from the Russians on the Year 2000 problem?

A: They acknowledged that. What they have said in the past is that their computers are different from ours, and...it is true the United States is more computerized than most other countries, so we perhaps have a larger problem than other countries do, and that's about all I know.

Q: Is there a concern that this might cause false alarms? A: I've never heard it expressed that way. The concern is that there will be misunderstandings, or anxiety about what is happening and misunderstanding of what is going on.

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