American Experience

Mikhail Gorbachev on Relations with Ronald Reagan

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MIKHAIL GORBACHEV (AND TRANSLATOR): Well I would say that in the beginning the rapport was not working. We were accusing each other and were acting as kind of prosecutors toward the other side. And we had a lot to say in that respect. And it was at that time that I said, rather emotionally, and I would say with conviction and quite sincerely, I said, "Mr. President, let us not... let us not do this. Don't try to give me that kind of bunk. I am well informed. If you are convinced that the United States is the shining city on the hill, don't think that I will agree that there are no problems in your country. We know that you have great accomplishments, but we know that you have problems. So let us talk realistically," I said. Those first little tiffs; they really were there. We had a lot to say on both sides. The president had a lot to criticize Soviet policies and I had a lot of criticism, too. And then I said, "Good, OK, have we come here in order just to read to each other the list of accusations? People are expecting something different."

And this feeling that the world was waiting, that after the six years when there had been no summit contacts between Soviet and American leaders, that was very, very much present. That the world was waiting. That the world was the third character in that discussion. The world was waiting. The world wouldn't have forgiven us if after these tremendous years of worry, years of tremendous worry about what was happening, about the flight in to the abyss, well, we could not have left Geneva without saying something that would give people hope. And I think that this happened when at the end of the -- not at the end -- but during the summit, at one of the meetings during the summit, we really had a good handshake across the table. But that too, did not produce immediately agreement on the Joint Communiqué. The President was under tremendous pressure. There was that famous leak of the letter written by Caspar Weinberger, Secretary of Defense, containing a lot of warnings to the President from the Secretary of Defense. So the President was under tremendous pressure. I came with the authority to agree to a Joint Communiqué, to a short joint statement, so I had more room for maneuver. But then, in the process of negotiations, and the process of talks and dinners that we had that were involving not only the two of us, but also our delegations and our wives, eventually the human rapport and human atmosphere evolved. I cannot give you a moment or a day when it happened, but probably closer towards the end of the meeting, we had a feeling that we are in better contact, that we can look at things, talk about things more quietly, more solidly. And then when it happened that we were waiting for our Ministers to produce some papers, we spent about an hour together with the President in a small room, just talking. It just happened accidentally. But nevertheless, in that little cell, almost a kind of jail cell in which we were confined, we walked about. We talked and something emerged which eventually produced a partnership.

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