The images of Mikhail Gorbachev in the company of Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr. today seem as distant from the Russian reality as from that of the Republicans in the United States, a party that very probably would not be recognized by its elders today. Photographs of Gorbachev and Reagan wearing cowboy hats at Gorbachev’s ranch in 1992; chatting animatedly and without a hint of tension between them or posing for the photographers with Bush on numerous occasions: moments of concord and possibility, those that shelved the 20th century. The US media have surrendered to pay homage to the late Soviet leader, but also to an old way of doing politics, which involved pacts and commitments, despite criticism. “I bet the hawks in my country and yours will squirm when they see us shake hands,” Reagan told him on November 23, 1985, before a meeting that began with a big handshake and a nodding signal. Soviet assent. A gesture in the antipodes of the polarization encouraged by the epigones of Reagan and Bush: compared to the current aggressiveness, the Republican Party then seemed like a gentlemen’s club, despite having among its ranks devious representatives such as Henry Kissinger, inspiration of some who another coup.
The official reaction of the Democratic White House was long in coming. President Joe Biden was returning from an event in Pennsylvania when the news of Gorbachev’s death broke, and the official statement exudes a personal, barely protocol tone, given that the president treated Gorbachev when he was a senator. “Few high-level Soviet officials had the courage to admit that things had to change. As a member of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, I saw him do that and more,” explains Biden, who describes the statesman as a “man of remarkable vision (…) who believed in glasnost and perestroika not as mere slogans, but as the way forward for the USSR after so many years of isolation and deprivation”. The statement ends by recalling his last meetings, such as one in the White House in 2009, with Gorbachev already retired, “but still deeply committed.” “It was easy to understand why he was held in such high regard by so many around the world.” Both then spoke of reducing the respective nuclear arsenals, recalls the text.
The TASS agency reported last year that Biden had congratulated him on his 90th birthday while underlining his contribution to a safer world. “His commitment to freedom and her courage over decades to make difficult but necessary decisions have made the world a safer place and continue to be a source of inspiration. It is my sincere hope that the five-year extension of New START is proof that the United States and Russia can continue to work together as we uphold its legacy,” Biden congratulated March 2, 2021, almost new to the House. White. New START was extended in extremis shortly after, but it is all that remains of those confident days when the nuclear threat seemed to have passed into history.
The authoritarian drift of Vladimir Putin, the invasion of Ukraine and six months of war at the gates of Europe have turned Biden’s purposes into a dead letter, hence the official reaction from the White House was made to beg: the moment cannot be more delicate. But Gorbachev has plenty of apologists in the United States: former senior administration officials, all of them Republicans. James Baker, who was US Secretary of State between 1989 and 1992, glossed his figure in the following terms: “History will remember Mikhail Gorbachev as a giant who guided his great nation towards democracy. He played a critical role in the peaceful conclusion of the Cold War by his decision not to resort to force to maintain the empire… He is sorely missed by the free world.” The Republican Baker served in the Administrations of Ronald Reagan, as Secretary of the Treasury, and George Bush dadas head of diplomacy.
Few witnesses remain of the special relationship established by Gorbachev and Reagan, his main interlocutor in the United States, but the foundation that watches over his legacy has claimed the momentum. “The Reagan Foundation and Institute mourns the loss of former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, the man who was once a political adversary of Ronald Reagan, only to become a friend. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the Gorbachev family and the people of Russia,” the institution said in a statement.
The all-powerful Henry Kissinger, who was secretary of state from 1973 to 1977 but whose influence on international politics was felt even after his term ended, voiced veiled criticism of Gorbachev’s performance as a statesman. “He performed great services, but he could not implement all his visions,” the Republican told the BBC program Newsnight. “The people of Eastern Europe and the German people, and ultimately the Russian people, are indebted to him for the inspiration, for the courage to present these ideas of freedom (…) He will be remembered by history as a man who undertook historical transformations that benefited humanity and the Russian people.”
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With a message posted on the social network Twitter, the former Secretary of State and expert on Russia, Condoleezza Rice, also a Republican, joined the chorus of praise for the former Secretary General of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), who he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990. “He was a man who tried to bring a better life to his people,” Rice tweeted. “His life was momentous because, without him and his bravery, it would not have been possible to end the Cold War peacefully.” Of all the Republican apologists, Rice was the only one who had a direct relationship with Putin, during her first official visit as Secretary of State to Russia in April 2005. Tension dominated the meeting.
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