Gorbachev flashed his "iron teeth"
It is 24 years since Reagan and Gorbachev opened the window on the Cold War. They met in November 1985 at a chateau on Lake Geneva.
I was lucky enough to be sent from Washington where I was resident correspondent for ITN. Today in a rather more low key moment, Obama meets Medvedev.
I happen to be blogging from Geneva today. I have a day off and am doing a bit of pro bono for the World Trade Organisation (WTO), chairing a discussion on the state of the Aid for Trade project.
Geneva was a fabulously dull back-drop for so exciting a moment as that first US-Soviet summit, in which undreamt of disarmament and tension reduction were discussed.
We didn’t know it then, but the meeting was also to herald, within half a dozen years, the demise of the Soviet Union itself. And here we are with the essentially dull Mr Medvedev meeting with Barack Obama, on a dullish event in Moscow.
There seems little pre-summit evidence of Obamaski-mania. But all the signs are that another major arms reduction commitment will flow from it.
Back in 1985, it was not the American President we were mesmerised by, but the Soviet.
I remember ABC’s legendary Sam Donaldson asking Mr Gorbachev whether it was true that his teeth were made of iron. Gorby gleamed his teeth for us to show us the whites of his (presumed) ivories.
Good god, the Russian had a sense of humour!
It has not served him well. Gorby now advertises Louis Vuitton luggage, and graces weddings and funerals, reduced at home to a resented figure who stands accused of selling Russia’s greatness down the Volga.
He’ll see Obama tomorrow, not for Russian consumption but for western. Putin too tomorrow, and most reckon that’s where any serious business will be undertaken.
No one will be holding the front page as they did a quarter of a century ago; joy it was to be alive!
I must run to my WTO meeting, of which more, anon.
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Why do airheads want warheads for? Get rid of them!
http://kennedycartoons.com
Makes no sense….?
It is encouraging that both sides are talking to reduce nuclear arms, but I wish Russia had refused to allow USA carry their supplies to Afghanistan through their air space.
Hi Atiya…
The USA supported the Mujahadin that drove the Soviets out of Afganistan.
Oh .and then along came another bunch of friendly locals to trash their country..
Oh and then there was the Taliban who were successful in destroying the poppy harvest whilst denying education for women and human rights and also fostered and harboured terrorists active in Al Qieda
And don’t forget the past…
for centuries warlords and tribal factions have ebbed and flowed to maintain power..trade and drugs, the silk road…
I am in disagrement with the view that Afghanistan is a nation State…It is not and will never be….it is a sparsely populated land occupied by loosely linked communities but strong in the fear of the outside world.
I have heard the Military espousing the view that that we have to win the war in Afganistan to defeat terrorism….rubbish…
The reason that Bin Laden etc are holed up between Afghanistan and North West Pakistan is that they are better able to avoid detection .
And everyday you can score, heroin from Afganistan and cocaine from Columbia ,in vast quantities within the UK.
Try any port, from Aberdeen, Leith, London and then the inner cities to reveal the grip and misery that is imported from these distant lands. Cocaine….consumed by bankers and the media….heroin… by street dwellers that live beneath the urban tide of city life…
In nuclear terms.. don’t worry about Russia..a comparative cuddly democracy with Oligarchs thrown in, it.. bears no relation to North Korea or Iran..
Russia and the US can sleep safe , in my opinion, knowing they can destroy lesser powers…..the ideological battle is over , they all want Porches and Superyachts…..a few disfunctional states that can be viewed by satellite, remote drone or blackbird …a worry but the USA and Russia could soon deal with that and still keep the oil flowing….!