SDI No. 3 - U.S-U.S.S.R.

Military-to-Military Exchange Program

INTERNATIONAL TRANSFORMATION PROGRAM

Group meditations at the Pentagon Meditation Club (PMC) for a number of years typically ended with imaging leaders from East and West coming together to resolve issues and remove barriers that divide nations.  In this and other ways the PMC contributed behind the scenes to improving relations between American and Soviet military.

As a further demonstration and another example of the SDI technology for transformation the Pentagon Meditation Club’s  “spiritual defense force” attempted to exert a strong influence on American and Soviet Government’s actions to adopt a program of military exchanges. The prayer became a reality, and it is believed that the PMC helped to change perspectives on how to improve international security. 

It is noteworthy that  Soviet leaders at the 1988 “Citizen's Summit"  included Genrikh Borovik, President of the Soviet Peace Committee.  According to the US Department of State Mr. Borovik was a top ranking communist.  His dream was, “Let them see each other face to face, not through the hole of a rifle,”  and he publicly advocated a joint conference of Soviet and American soldiers (not leaders) that would give young and old soldiers the chance to meet on a “football field, not a war field.” At a Pentagon prayer breakfast Mr. Borovik spoke about his impossible dream with the Pentagon Chaplain and others on February 4, 1988.  At the time the idea for “soldier-to-soldier exchanges” -- a formal Soviet/American military exchange program seemed impossible, but it did not fall on deaf ears.

At the request of the Pentagon Meditation Club President, Edward Winchester, the Executive Director of the Center for Soviet-American Dialogue carried a message to Moscow.  He suggested that Mr. Borovik ask Soviet Minister of Defense, Dimitri Yazov, to discuss the idea of military exchanges with the U.S. Secretary of Defense.  According to Mr. Borovik that is exactly what happened.

(Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Crowe and Chief of Staff Marshal Fedorovich Akhromeyev entering the Pentagon)

As Executive Director for the Center for Soviet-American Dialogue Rama Vernon created an operational framework for citizens of the United States and the Soviet Union to meet and conduct personal dialogue.  She traveled to the Soviet Union 25 times in five years and had taken over 1,000 citizen diplomats to meet with Soviet citizens.