After the President's following remarks, Gorbachev specifically asked for interpretation and looked like he had not understood what the President had said. Interpreter's Note: Gorbachev's indication that he had understood what the President had said without translation was unexpected, since he had never shown any indication of understanding English in previous or subsequent conversations. Zarechnak then added his take on Gorbachev's interruption and what it might mean about Gorbachev's knowledge of English. He was familiar with the American political process, and the President should not hide behind this." That declassified MemCon captures a detailed flavor of the topics that were discussed during one meeting as well as Zarechnak's take about Gorbachev's.ĭuring a lengthy exchange on human rights in the Soviet Union, "Gorbachev interrupted, without listening to the translation, to say that he had understood what the President had said, and that he took all of this into account. Zarechnak recalls how the MemCon he wrote from his notes of the consecutive translation he took during the one-on-one meetings during the 1985 Reagan-Gorbachev summit in Geneva were declassified 15 years later. "So really what is saved is the memo not the notes themselves," said Obst. MemCon's are ultimately only accessible by the Secretary of State and Obst said often times an interpreter will destroy the handwritten notes used during a meeting because they are no longer as relevant as the classified official document. What might be more useful are the official classified documents, known as "memorandums of conversation" or MemCon's, that are compiled by interpreters using their handwritten notes. Interpreters use symbols or meanings for words or proper context that are only comprehensible to them at that specific moment in time. That's because as a matter of course the notes taken by professional interpreters are less about taking verbatim quotes than they are about getting the right inflection or meaning of a word or sentence. "I guess for the sake of their secrecy" they relied only on the Soviet interpreters during their meetings.īoth veteran interpreters question whether Gross' notes would be of much historical value.Įven if investigators successfully gained access to Gross' notes "they wouldn't know what to do with them in the first place" said Obst. "Unfortunately President Nixon and Kissinger specifically did not use our interpreters," said Zarechnak. Zarechnak noted that was something President Richard Nixon practiced during his his one-on-one meetings with Soviet leaders in the 1970s. "The president would also have a great incentive not to use our interpreter if there was a danger that that interpreter would then be subpoenaed in Congress," said Zarechnak. interpreter to not rely on American interpreters. leader thinking that 'well, the interpreter could be subpoenaed and tell Congress what the meeting was about.'"Īnd a subpoena could also lead a U.S. "What foreign leader would want to meet with the U.S. "The whole idea of subpoenaing an interpreter is atrocious," said Zarechnak. "Because you have a top secret clearance."Ī greater concern is the impact a subpoena could have on state leaders excluding interpreters from their meeting if they believe they could be subpoenaed by Congress in the future. "That's because of the oath that you swear to not divulge any classified information on any level," he said. Harry Obst, the former director of the Office of Language Services who interpreted for seven American presidents, said that if he was placed in a similar situation, "I would not divulge any information." A previous effort last year by Democrats to subpoena Gross and the interpreter at Trump's Hamburg meeting were shelved by Republicans who were in control the House of Representatives. Since then, Congressional Democrats have said they want to gain access to Gross' notes to understand what Trump may have spoken about with Putin. government has no internal notes of that meeting and that Trump seized the notes taken by his interpreter. Tillerson sat in with both presidents during their Hamburg meeting and provided other national security officials and reporters with a brief readout of issues that were discussed, but the Washington Post reported that the U.S. Trump has met with Putin five times, but only twice in formal one-on-one meetings held in Hamburg and Helsinki. But it is Gross' work in Helsinki on July 16 that has sparked the interest of Congressional Democrats because she was the only other American in the room for Trump's two-hour long meeting with Putin and his own interpreter.
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