Gorbachev on PBS: Reagan Asked Me About an Attack from Outer Space

Tuesday’s Charlie Rose show on PBS was an hour with former Soviet dictator Mikhail Gorbachev and George Shultz, Reagan’s Secretary of State during the Gorbachev era. It was taped back on March 26 at at the Rainbow Room in New York for a luncheon of the American Jewish Historical Society. Quite a bit of the discussion centered on the first meeting between the two leaders in Geneva, which drew this science-fictional aside:

GORBACHEV (through translator): From the fireside house, President Reagan suddenly said to me, "What would you do if the United States were attacked by someone from outer space? Would you help us?" I said, "No doubt about it." He said, "We, too." So that`s interesting.

Rose didn’t offer all the credit for ending the Cold War to Gorbachev, as many media liberals do. The discussion had a nostalgic tone to it. Gorbachev asserted: "So my final view of President Reagan is that he was a great president. He was a person who represented the right wing of the Republican Party and who was able to go beyond many stereotypes."

Rose did suggest Reagan was awfully provocative in his rhetoric:

ROSE: When President Reagan said, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall," what did you think?

GORBACHEV (through translator): Well, this did not really impress us as it did you. (Laughter) We knew very well that the profession of President Reagan was an actor, a performer. So he did a performance. (Laughter) But nevertheless, this did not diminish -- did not diminish the role and the importance in these processes of President Reagan.

When we were talking with George this morning recalling the summit in Geneva, I recalled that after our first one-on-one meeting with President Reagan, both of us went back to our delegations, and I was asked by my delegation what is your impression? And I said, well, he`s a real dinosaur. And we learned, a week later, in Newsweek magazine, that the same question was put by the American delegation to President Reagan, and he said "Gorbachev is a die-hard Bolshevik." (Laughter)

But then two days later, we adopted a statement, a statement that in particular our ministers of foreign affairs worked on, had worked on. And that said, nuclear war is unacceptable and it cannot be won and must never been fought. For those words alone, it was worth it to meet.

So Reagan definitely was a person who played a very important role. But of course together with Shultz, and next to me was Shevardnadze. Those two persons played a very important role in all of those things.

Gorbachev took exception to the idea that somehow Ronald Reagan would have the audacity to lecture that communism wasn’t moral equivalent to freedom:

We’ve had some difficult discussions. We had several one-on-one meetings in Geneva, then later sometimes there were occasions such as during our visits, President Reagan started to talk to me in a lecturing way, as I felt. And I stopped him and I said, "Mr. President, you`re not a teacher and I’m not a student here. And even less, you are not a prosecutor and I`m not the accused here. If you intend to deal with me on an equal basis, then I think we can go very far together. If not, then maybe we should wrap it up and finish our conversation."

Reagan said that I had misunderstood him. And then soon after that, he said let’s go on a first name basis, Ron and Mikhail. He wanted to get along, and I stimulated that in every way. And I believe that that’s very important, particularly when leaders such as the heads of the Soviet Union and the United States at that time meet. Because until the Geneva summit, for six years there hadn’t been summits between the Soviet and American leaders, at a time when the situation was very tense.

So my final view of President Reagan is that he was a great president. He was a person who represented the right wing of the Republican Party and who was able to go beyond many stereotypes. And despite all the criticism from some members of his own team, from some people who are present here today, he still made reciprocal steps working with Gorbachev, working with the Soviet Union.

Rose also pressed Shultz with Reagan’s rhetoric:

CHARLIE ROSE: But you called his country an evil empire.

SHULTZ: I didn’t, but anyway...(Laughter) But I remember when -- I remember when Paul Nitze, who I had the privilege of working with, was testifying before a Senate committee. And one of the senators said to him, "Paul, how can you serve in an administration where the president would call the Soviet Union an evil empire?" And Paul said to him, "Senator, have you considered the possibility that the statement might be accurate?" (Laughter) So there was a difference. But we worked at it. And by the time we got through, I think there was a lot of change, genuine change.

GORBACHEV (through translator): When Reagan came on a state visit to Moscow -- and by the way, George knows that very well -- we decided that we will agree with whatever request the president and his people would make. They had meetings with refuseniks, they had meetings with other people who wanted to talk to the president. They walked the streets. Nancy went to Yasnaya Polyana and to Leningrad, St. Petersburg. We never said no.

And it was an interesting instant situation when we took a walk in the Kremlin. President Reagan was shown the Tsar Cannon, and there was a group of journalists there. We approached them, and one of the Russian reporters -- by the way, he had not been instructed by me, I can tell you that. He asked, "Mr. President, do you still believe that the Soviet Union is an evil empire?" He said, "No, I no longer think so." "Why?" He said, "I believed that when I said that."

So that question was off the table. So the time came when we were able to discuss things very directly.

Gorbachev surprised Rose (and perhaps the whole luncheon audience) by asserting that Reagan pressed him for the freedom of Soviet Jews every time they met. Near the beginning, Shultz also pressed Rose to ask him how he reacted to "tear down this wall" in Berlin:

I thought the president`s statement was dramatic, but I think almost everybody who went to Berlin, including me, and you look at the wall, you said "tear down that wall." It was a common, instinctive reaction to something artificial.

And sometimes your reaction has a personal dimension. One of my closest friends is Helmut Schmidt, who visited me in California when he was chancellor, and I knew that he liked Bach. And in Carmel, there is a Bach festival every year, so we went down there, stayed at a nice house nearby. And at the intermission, they had a special room for him as head of government, and they invited some of the musicians. The most outstanding musician was a violinist from East Germany, and he and Helmut started to talk. And afterwards, Helmut said to me, "Do you suppose we can invite him to come to our house after the concert?" And I said yes, I think we could, but we ought to invite maybe three or four other people too, so he isn`t picked out.

And so they came, and I talked to the others, and I saw Helmut and this East German violinist, outstanding musician, talking, tears streaming down their face, because this man was allowed and encouraged to go out and play, but never could take his family. They were the hostages that made him come back.

And then I talked almost the rest of the night with Helmut about it after they left. And it left me very deeply convinced that somehow, this division of Germany could not stand up over time.

And so, the wall coming down meant that to me, but it also was a symbol of the power of the idea of freedom. And I wasn't -- everybody was sort of surprised, but in a way I wasn`t so surprised because I had sat with President Gorbachev many times and I had seen his thinking evolve. It was a natural progression, not a sudden thing.