The Rapport Between Gorbachev and Reagan

We needed to try to search out
the people who would

guide this opportunity and after Brezhnev,
after Andropov.

And looking around there were about
two or three possible people in terms

of age and seniority.

We dispatched invitations to all three.

It was pure chance that Gorbachev was
the one who accepted first.

When Gorbachev came to the United Kingdom,
he'd brought his wife, and that was one of

the first signs that we were dealing with
someone quite different.

Soviet leaders very, very rarely travel
with their wives anywhere.

[Margaret Thatcher] I'm cautiously
optimistic.

I like Mr. Gorbachev.
We can do business together.

We both believe in our own political
systems.

He firmly believes in his.
I firmly believe in mine.

We're never going to change one another.

[cameras clicking]

We better hang on for a moment.

[Gorbachev speaking Russian]
[crowd laughing]

[narrator] March 1985.

Konstantin Chernenko was dead.

At his funeral, world leaders paid their
respects to Mikhail Gorbachev and weighed

up the new younger man in charge of
the Soviet Union.

[George Shultz] George Bush was there.

As vice president, he was head of our
delegation.

When we walked out of that meeting, I said
to George, I said, "This is a very

different Soviet leader that any we've
seen before."

[chatter in Russian]

[narrator] Russians, too, noticed the
difference.

[Russian dubbed into English]
Gorbachev was greeted

with great enthusiasm.

Everyone cheered in our institute.

We were all pleased that such an energetic
and educated person had become the new

Secretary General of
our Communist Party.

[Russian dubbed into English]
We expected a miracle.

We thought he was the messiah.
He would come to introduce change.

[Russian dubbed into English] The state of
the Soviet Union and its society could be

described very simply with a phrase used
by people across the country, "We can't

go on living like this any longer."

That applied to everything.

The economy was stagnating.

There were shortages and the quality of
goods was very poor.

[narrator] Gorbachev took over a
superpower sick with social breakdown,

corruption in the Communist Party, and
alcoholism.

To tackle these ills and to
revive a decrepit economy, Gorbachev

called for reconstruction, or
"Perestroika," and a new spirit of honesty:

"Glasnost."

[dubbed into English]
I remember very clearly what Gorbachev

said at that time.

He said, "There are two roads we can
take.

We can either tighten our belts very,
very tightly

and reduce consumption,

which the people will no longer tolerate;

or we can try to diffuse international
tension and overcome the disagreement

between East and West,

and so free up the gigantic sums that are
spent on armaments in the Soviet Union."

[narrator] In Washington, Reagan had to
overcome objections from inside his own

administration before he could meet the
new man in the Kremlin.

I truly believe that Ronald
Reagan would have had the foreign

policy battle of his life, if not the
broadly political battle of his life,

starting within his own party
and across history,

if he had tried to reach out to Gorbachev
without a seconder for his point of view.

[Thatcher] But you want to, but you
need to get away from the White House...

[Ridgeway]
It took Margaret Thatcher

to talk first with Gorbachev,

and then to publicly say, "This
is a man we can deal with."

[narrator] Geneva, Switzerland.

November 1985.

The stage was set for the first superpower
summit in six years.

Reagan, too, was keen to find out whether
he could do business with Gorbachev.

I felt, always, that
President Reagan was exactly the kind

of man that Russians under normal
circumstances would have really liked.

The kind of American
that they would really like.

First of all, he's kind of an icon,
you know? He's cowboy.

And they love that!

And the other was that he was very
patriotic.

You really had the sense that he was
going to break into "God Bless America"

every time you saw him.

And he wasn't corny.
He really believed it.

And Soviet Union, even some of the most
hardened, cynical Soviets

really respected patriotism.

[narrator] Many people in the West
wondered whether the 74-year-old Ronald

Reagan was up to taking on the
54-year-old Mikhail Gorbachev.

[Donald Regan] The president's aide
came in and said, "Mr. President, do you

want to put your coat on?"

And he said, "Oh, I'm not sure,"

and somebody said, "Well, it's very cold
outside. You should really wear a coat."

It was announced that the Soviet cavalcade
was at the gates, and Reagan turned,

and without putting on his overcoat,
walked to the door.

And there was much speculation
as to whether this tired, old-man

President of the United States, could
keep up with this wily, energetic, young,

vigorous Communist.

And to the amazement of the world, the
old man goes down the steps lickety-split,

meets and greets the Soviet leader who
comes up all bundled up in an overcoat,

hat, muffler, looking as though he
were in Iceland rather than Geneva.

[narrator] The summit agenda,

human rights, Afghanistan,
and arms control,

was daunting, but the body
language was encouraging.

The two leaders immediately held a
private meeting.

[Shultz] It was scheduled
for ten minutes.

Twenty minutes went by. Thirty minutes
went by. Forty minutes went by.

And the White House guy who keeps the
schedule going came around to me,

and he said, "I should go in and let them
know they're going overtime."

And I said, "If you do that, you should be
fired!"

The name of the game... it shows they're
getting along.