Our columnist on the day Gorbachev and Reagan walked across Red Square and why he doubts Trump and Putin will follow in their footsteps.
One late afternoon in May 1988 I stood with my colleagues on the balcony of a Moscow hotel where we witnessed something we never thought we would see in our lifetimes. Walking in Red Square, in what I seem to remember was the glow of a sunny late afternoon, were the President of the United States, Ronald Reagan, and Mikhail Gorbachev, the leader of the Soviet Union.
So far as I can tell, wherever they were heading did not necessitate that walk – it was entirely symbolic – but they were doing it anyway and smiling broadly. Their body language was telling the world that they were celebrating what Reagan explained to reporters was "the friendship of two peoples". Gorbachev’s smile confirmed it.
We had to pinch ourselves to remember that this was the President of the United States, a fierce anti-communist who had called the Soviet Union the evil empire.
Yet here he was, strolling round its political centre, seemingly enjoying the company of its leader.
One of the central and most contentious issues of the time was arms control. There had been various agreements but there was also distrust between East and West. Both were cheating in secret, wanting to ensure they were producing weapons equally able to blow each other up in a nuclear Armageddon.
That was why a key factor in negotiations was the ability of each side to make sure that the other was not manufacturing more weapons than they were prepared to admit.
Before Gorbachev made his first visit to the White House, Reagan had been taught to say in Russian the old proverb "trust, but verify" (which rhymes in Russian). So pleased was the President to address his guest in his own language that whenever he saw Gorbachev he greeted him with the same words. I was told that at one point Gorbachev responded to Reagan in mock irritation by saying, "I wish you’d stop saying that".
Gorbachev was the kind of Soviet leader we had never seen before. People in his entourage made themselves easily accessible to the press and on his trips around Washington he usually insisted on finding a place to stop and shake hands with Americans on the sidewalk.
For his part, Reagan was convinced that had time been found to take his guest around the US, Gorbachev might give up communism and become a raging capitalist.
To think only 26 years earlier, during the Kennedy administration, the Russians were found to be placing missiles in Cuba – which almost precipitated an all-out nuclear war.
In some respects the days for big set-piece summits have passed, but world leaders and their diplomats must still deal with complex international problems in a world that feels every bit as dangerous today, but without the background of optimism that we felt in 1988.
We can reflect on how similar or different Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are as characters, but we are aware that they know each other well. They have met five times, most notably in Helsinki in 2018 when they talked for two hours with only interpreters present. Even when he was out of power, it’s claimed Trump talked to Putin on seven occasions.
As I write, the tortuous discussions on a ceasefire in Ukraine are continuing, with phone calls planned between the two. If an agreement is finally made it’s highly likely they’ll want to satisfy the world that any settlement made would be durable and that the region would not descend into war once more.
So the leaders will almost certainly meet again but there will be no walk in Red Square.
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