Three Days in Moscow

by Bret Baier

  It was an amazing performance. “Here’s a guy who throughout his career talked about fighting communism,” said Duberstein. “And, you know, really stepping up to the Red threat and even as an actor way back when. And here he is standing in Moscow, in the Soviet Union, delivering this speech about American values. It was kind of a cap to what had been a long road to that moment.”

  The speech was well received, the New York Times declaring “It may have been Ronald Reagan’s finest oratorical hour.” If there was any sense of disappointment, it was that the media in Moscow didn’t give the speech as much attention as expected, a preglasnost throwback. He’d hoped for live television coverage, but that hadn’t happened. According to an analysis by the Foreign Broadcast Information Service, all Russian media coverage was selective. Moscow radio covered only a third of the speech, while Pravda published a fifth of the speech. The media published synopses rather than exact quotes. While speaking, Reagan had been mindful of addressing all the Soviet people, not just those in the room, but he hadn’t quite reached his target audience.

  The “odd couple” of press spokesmen, Marlin Fitzwater and Gennadi Gerasimov, jointly met the press later that afternoon. Gerasimov—articulate, sharp, and with a good sense of humor—was up to the fast-paced, tough questioning. In his opening remarks, he was effusive in his description of the events of the day. Serious talks were being held, he emphasized, and sometimes disputes—citing a man in Red Square who had quoted a Russian saying to Reagan and Gorbachev, “The truth is born in disputes.” Gorbachev, he said, had added another: “If these disputes are too hot, then the truth evaporates.”

  Fitzwater, despite his private observation that the “ordinary citizens” in Red Square had been undercover KGB agents, praised the people of Moscow and mentioned how much Reagan had enjoyed meeting them: “The president’s reaction was one of great enthusiasm and excitement for the people that he got a chance to talk to and for the description of Red Square and the Kremlin that the General Secretary gave him. He enjoyed that walk [in Red Square] very much—a chance to get out and see the city.”

  When a reporter suggested that Reagan had looked “tired and listless” that day—an ungenerous assertion, considering his nonstop schedule, culminating with his masterful speech at the university—Gerasimov jumped in to defend him: “After they had a walk on the Red Square, we went up on very high, steep stairs and I will tell you, I felt breathless but the president felt okay.”

  Fitzwater and Gerasimov sparred with reporters, seeming at ease and almost like a practiced act. When two Pravda reporters asked a pair of tough questions of Fitzwater, he joked to Gerasimov, “How come the Pravda guy never asks you a question, Gennadi?”

  “Well,” Gerasimov replied, “we’re not supposed to ask questions of each other.”

  Fitzwater laughed. “I see.”

  The summit could feel surreal to American staffs and reporters. They watched the Reagans interact effortlessly with the Russian people, seemingly unconcerned about potential danger. Yet, for the others, being in the heart of Moscow was charged with danger. It was impossible not to summon up images of the Evil Empire they’d been hearing about for years. They knew that most of their rooms were bugged and that the principals, including Reagan, went into “the box” for secure communications. Paranoia was high at the Mezhdunarodnaya Hotel, nicknamed “the Mez,” where most staffers and reporters stayed. Dolan’s secretary, whose parents collected salt and pepper shakers from all over the world, was delighted when she received several from the hotel staff as souvenirs. But then she noticed that there was a paper with a printed message rolled up in one of them. She froze. Was it a secret message? A spy communication? She hurried to find Dolan, who told her not to worry. The next day at the embassy, Dolan noticed his secretary talking with a translator. There was a sudden roar of laughter. He went over to look and found out that the secret message was an ad for a Moscow Domino’s Pizza. It occurred to him that, at that moment, he might have glimpsed the end of the Cold War.

  The evening of Reagan’s speech, he and Nancy hosted the Gorbachevs for a small dinner at Spaso House, with a performance by Dave Brubeck. Nancy glowed, although she’d had a strenuous day, traveling to Leningrad. She’d been accompanied by Andrei Gromyko’s wife, Lidiya. Raisa had stayed home, as if it were too taxing for her to spend another day with her counterpart. Relations between the two women continued to be chilly. As Helen Thomas put it, “You could have stored meat in the room when those two were together.” At one point Raisa had felt compelled to tell reporters, “I don’t believe in astrology. I believe in facts and practical things.” The press ate it up.

  “Mrs. Gorbachev was quite a problem,” Ed Rowny remembered, citing a particularly uncomfortable tour she had given Nancy of the Moscow Portrait Gallery.

  She kept [Nancy] waiting while she talked to the press about the United States. She complained that the United States was lecturing them on human rights. She added: They’ve enslaved and kept blacks back for three hundred years. Moreover, they’ve taken land away from the Indians. Who do they think they are, lecturing us about human rights? I must say, I admired Nancy for keeping her cool and not answering Raisa in kind. She just changed subjects. She comported herself very well.

  Relations with Raisa aside, Nancy made the most of the trip. She’d found her Leningrad tour invigorating, and said it was the most beautiful city she had ever visited. She was overwhelmed by the reception she received from the people—many thousands lined the road to welcome her as she drove from the airport. Her only regret was that she hadn’t been able to linger longer at the historic sights. Perhaps, she thought, in retirement she and Ron could return for a longer stay and do justice to Leningrad. A visit, once unimaginable, was now just a matter of scheduling.

  Reagan was exhilarated by the day. The faces of those students, lifted to hear his words, with all their aspirations and doubts, were just like those of the students in his American audiences. In such moments, frozen in time, he could picture the future he believed would unfold.

  Chapter 12

  Morning in Moscow

  Camera bulbs flashed when reporters were allowed into the room before the final meeting of the summit on Wednesday morning. A reporter shouted a question in Russian to Gorbachev: Had there been any surprises at the summit? Gorbachev was ready for it. That was the point of the summit, he said—to eliminate surprises and build a relationship based on greater predictability.

  When the meeting began, Shevardnadze and Shultz each gave a report on where his side stood. In sum, although there would be a ceremony to sign the ratified INF Treaty, only moderate progress had been made on the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. Shultz tried to put a positive spin on the negotiations, saying that there were substantial areas of agreement, but there was more work to be done.

  Shevardnadze and Shultz spoke of the joint statement from the summit, which their teams had been working on through the night. There were some disagreements, but they had worked out most issues. That’s when everything almost fell apart again over a seemingly innocent phrase: “peaceful coexistence.”

  At their first meeting Gorbachev had handed Reagan a few lines he wanted included in the final joint statement. They read, “Proceeding from their understanding of the realities that have taken shape in the world today, the two leaders believe that no problem in dispute can be resolved, nor should it be resolved, by military means. They regard peaceful coexistence as a universal principle of international relations. Equality of all states, noninterference in internal affairs, and freedom of sociopolitical choice must be recognized as the inalienable and mandatory standards of international relations.”

  Reagan had glanced at it and seen no problem. He’d turned it over to his staff, and had never given it another moment’s thought. But now, when they were finishing up the business of the summit, Gorbachev suddenly asked, “What about the statement I gave you?”

  “Well, I know my people negotiated our joint statement all nig
ht long. I don’t know about this statement. Let me confer with them.”

  To Reagan’s astonishment, Gorbachev erupted in anger. “Why? Why? This is a simple statement. You had no objection to this last Sunday.”

  “I just want to make sure we all understand the change you want to make,” Reagan said.

  Gorbachev demanded, “What do you mean? Don’t listen to George [Shultz], Ron. George doesn’t know anything. He’s only the secretary of state. Don’t listen to him.”

  “Well, I want to know what he thinks.”

  “Don’t listen to Frank [Carlucci]. Frank doesn’t know. This is about peace and getting along together. What does he know about it? Quit listening to all your aides around you, Mr. President, and think for yourself.”

  Gorbachev was plainly baffled that the president of the United States would not simply assert his authority but preferred to abide by the recommendations of his advisors. “Should we record,” he asked sarcastically, “that the Americans would not agree to the paragraph because of George Shultz or Frank Carlucci? Are they the intransigent parties? Is one of them a revisionist? If not, perhaps we need to look for a scapegoat elsewhere. Perhaps Ambassador Matlock or Assistant Secretary Ridgway?”

  Whoa! Fitzwater gaped at the two men. “I thought Reagan might walk out,” he said. “Or there might be a fistfight. George Shultz, usually so calm, looked like he was ready to turn the table over. What was going on here?”

  Reagan was seated next to Colin Powell. Fitzwater, standing back, saw Powell rip off a corner of his pad and scribble something on it. Then he slid it under the table to Reagan. The president took it, glanced at it, and laid it on the table. Then he told Gorbachev he was going to confer with his people. They gathered at the far side of the room, where Shultz, Carlucci, and the others explained the problem. Gorbachev’s addition might have seemed innocuous, but it actually had important implications—as was clear from Gorbachev’s fury. “I argued strongly that this represented a return to détente-era declarations that could be variously interpreted, had not stopped the Soviets from invading Afghanistan, and implied, by the phrase ‘peaceful coexistence,’ a willingness to leave unchallenged areas of Soviet conquest and control,” Shultz wrote. In other words, it was a sneaky way of returning to détente. Although it was one of Gorbachev’s favorite ideas, Reagan had never supported “peaceful coexistence”—the idea that the United States and the Soviet Union were equal powers with manageable differences. That was a stance he had held throughout his administration, hearkening back to his speech at Westminster. He could never allow “peaceful coexistence” to appear in any statement with his signature.

  Returning to Gorbachev, he said, “The answer is no. We’re not going to do it.”

  Gorbachev glowered at him. “Ron, we’ve got to get rid of these people,” he said. “I want to talk to you privately. Let’s you and I go down here to the end of the table and have a private talk about this.” They walked to the end of the table, away from their advisors. There they stood, toe to toe, and Gorbachev, who was shorter than Reagan, looked up at him and shook his finger in Reagan’s face. He was shouting, and his words could be heard: “Think for yourself. Tell me what’s wrong with this. What’s wrong with this sentence?”

  Fitzwater recalled, “President Reagan looked down at him quietly and said, ‘We’re not accepting it. No. The answer is no.’ And Gorbachev’s shoulders just collapsed. He dropped his arms, his head went down, and he took a step away. And then he raised back up again, put his arm around Reagan, and said, ‘Let’s go to the press conference.’ ” Gorbachev had given in. He knew Reagan well enough to realize that he wouldn’t change his mind. The line was struck from the joint statement.

  As he walked out of the room, Fitzwater noticed that the piece of paper Powell had handed Reagan was still on the table. He picked it up. It read, “That means you agree to never criticize them again.”

  Observing the scene, which made the people in the room extremely uncomfortable and even alarmed, Korchilov argued that it was actually a positive moment; Reagan and Gorbachev were treating each other as equals, not with the false deference that masks the truth. “This enabled Gorbachev and Reagan to speak with each other freely and frankly,” he concluded, “stepping literally on each other’s toes at their last meeting. If they had not become friends in the real sense of the word, they had become partners who held each other in genuine respect.”

  “Toe to toe”: that was the essence of the relationship that had developed between the two men. Such intimacy can expose painful differences, but it has the advantage of being more honest than rhetorical volleys sent from a distance. When Gorbachev cried, “Think for yourself!,” he was confronting a friend, not an abstract foe. One cannot imagine Khrushchev shouting that at Eisenhower or Brezhnev at Nixon. Those relationships had existed under layers of subterfuge, making it easier to break off negotiations over the flimsiest excuse. But Reagan and Gorbachev were bonded now; their fights were of the kind that families and friends have.

  After the summit, Reagan and Gorbachev gave separate press conferences, and Gorbachev was still smarting. He seemed to be damning the president with faint praise when he said the summit had moved relations “maybe one rung or two up the ladder.” He couldn’t quite let go of his disappointment that the “peaceful coexistence” language had not made it into the final statement and said, “I believe Mr. Reagan missed an important chance to take a step forward.”

  By contrast, Reagan stuck to a positive script, praising the tone of the summit and the leadership of Gorbachev. He made a point of crediting Gorbachev for the progress they had made. In Matlock’s opinion, those flattering words “probably did more than any other single event to build support in the Soviet Union for Gorbachev’s reforms.” Gorbachev needed that affirmation from Reagan to prove he was making progress with the United States.

  There was no sign of a chill when the Reagans and Gorbachevs met that evening for a performance of the Bolshoi Ballet at the nineteenth-century Bolshoi Theatre. Standing with the Gorbachevs in the royal box while “The Star-Spangled Banner” played, Reagan felt his spirits soar. “To hear that song, which embodies everything our country stands for, so stirringly played by a Soviet orchestra, was an emotional moment that is indescribable,” he wrote. “I knew the world was changing.”

  After the performance, they drove to a private dinner with the Gorbachevs at a guest dacha in a wooded area outside Moscow—a Soviet version of Camp David, some called it. The Shultzes and Shevardnadzes were also invited. Shultz recalled that the mood was warmer and lighter than it had ever been before, with many jokes from both sides—even from Raisa! More seriously, conversation turned to the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl, and Gorbachev expressed how deeply affected he had been by the accident and how it had strengthened his resolve to end the curse of nuclear weapons. He was newly horrified by the thought of the toll a nuclear event of any kind could take.

  It was a long dinner—too long, Nancy thought—and it was nearing midnight when they drove back to the city. They were tired, Nancy nearly falling asleep in the car. But as they passed Red Square, Reagan perked up. He wanted to show Nancy Red Square, where he had been with Gorbachev the previous day. She considered pleading tiredness, but later she was glad she hadn’t. The square was brightly lit, and they got out of the car and walked toward the building containing Lenin’s tomb. Inside, Lenin’s body was preserved and displayed in a sarcophagus, open for public viewing during daylight hours. They gazed up at the multicolored swirled domes of St. Basil’s Cathedral. Standing in the middle of the square, whose size and majesty symbolized a greatness that was now fading, the Reagans held hands and marveled at the large crowd of spectators waving at them from behind a rope line. How had those people known they’d be there? They hadn’t even known.

  At a friendly departure ceremony at the Kremlin the next morning, Reagan pulled out a copy of the Time magazine issue featuring Gorbachev as Man of the Year and asked him to sign it, which he
did. “Well, you are now a popular man,” Raisa teased her husband. “The president of the United States himself asks you for an autograph.” They all laughed, but the moment felt emotional, an ending of sorts. Reagan clasped Gorbachev’s hand. “I think you understand we’re not just grateful to you and Mrs. Gorbachev, but want you to know we think of you as friends,” he said.

  Riding to the airport, Reagan peered out the window, enjoying the crowds of people waving at him along the way. He’d noticed it during the entire trip—the happy, welcoming faces in the crowds. He told Duberstein that it was how he knew the trip had been a success—from the faces of the people. He always watched them, trying to make eye contact. “Some presidents, when they get in the limo, think they’re in a secure location, they’re just going to work,” Duberstein said. “Not Reagan. He said, ‘These people are giving me the courtesy of coming out to see me. I need to see them, too.’ ”

  As he boarded Air Force One for a side trip to Great Britain to debrief Margaret Thatcher before heading home, Reagan commented on the weather. It was drizzling, and he said to his aides, “We arrived in Moscow in sunshine, and we leave in rain. It means people are crying that we’re leaving.”

  As Air Force One lifted into the sky over Moscow, everyone spontaneously rose to their feet, including the press pool, and sang “God Bless America.” Reagan and Nancy led the singing.

  “Reagan felt he had hit a grand slam in Moscow,” Duberstein said. But there was much more to be done, and his time in office was nearing an end. He had less than eight months to finish his work, and he was humbled by the glacial pace of making history.