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colleagues to do the same. We would be taking similar action at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting; it was in the West's interest further to encourage the South Africans to continue to remove the pillars of apartheid. Speaker Foley said there was a question of legal interpretation of the precise requirements of the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act. But he felt that the total lifting of sanctions was not right as yet. Congress might wish to reach accommodation with the Administration, but President Bush took the legal position that they could not take off some and not all sanctions. Speaker Foley suggested this could lead to confrontation with Congress. Nonetheless he did not think there would be a sufficient Majority in the Congress to overturn a Presidential veto. Congressman Dante Fascell commented that before sanctions could be lifted, there had to be the right to vote for all. Senator Sarbanes said that there were three conditions to fulfil; the South African government must release political prisoners; political exiles must be allowed to return and take part in the political process; although the Group Areas Act had been repealed, four pieces of legislation had been put in its place, some of which were designed to maintain the status quo of the Group Areas Act. The Secretary of State acknowledged the points that had been made. There were clearly a series of benchmarks on future progress.
Europe/Soviet Union
10.
Senator Sarbanes asked the Secretary of State how he saw the future of Europe and the Soviet Union and whether there was a need for the development of new structures to cope with the changes which were taking place. Senator Warner thought security arrangments in Eastern Europe needed to be more clearly defined; NATO should broaden its mission. He wondered where troops would come from if the situation in Yugoslavia deteriorated. The Secretary of State replied that in the longer term NATO must change; smaller troop numbers were inevitable. But the Soviet Union would continue to be a massive nuclear, military power. unclear who would be running the Soviet Union. Further South, it was impossible to say what might happen in, for example, Algeria and Iraq. This also created anxiety. NATO needed a US component; history showed this to be necessary. But NATO could not give cast-iron guarantees to protect each frontier that would be going too far. Senator Stevens asked the Secretary of State for his view on Yeltsin - the press view of him was not favourable but Senator Stevens had found him very sharp on the three occasions when they met. The Secretary of State agreed with Senator Stevens that Yeltsin was an agile, astute politician who enjoyed a great degree of popular support and was worthy of Western attention. However, he was neither a liberal nor a Democrat. But we must deal with him. Yeltsin and Gorbachev had been forced into an unhappy alliance. Fortunately both
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