Gorbachev’s Greatest Hits

2 March 2021 — National Security Archive

Mikhail Sergeyevich Turns 90; Archive marks milestone with new publication of Gorbachev memcons with Castro, Mitterrand, and Shamir; compilation of dozens of Gorbachev primary sources. 

Gorbachev made history, then freed history by opening his documents

Washington, D.C., March 2, 2021 – The first and only president of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, is turning 90 years old today in Moscow.   On the occasion of his anniversary, the National Security Archive has compiled a collection of postings called “Gorbachev’s Greatest Hits.”  These documents help illuminate the story of the end of the Cold War, political reform of the Soviet system, and the vision of a world built on universal human values.

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Gorbachev’s legacy: Russia’s 9/11 or Let a hundred weeds bloom

9 August 2019 — Eric Walberg

Perestroika is like an airplane that takes off without knowing where it will land. (Bondarev)

Reading Taubman’s exhaustive biography of Gorbachev, Mikhail Sergeevich, I was rivetted time and again, marvelling (as did Shultz and everyone who cared): how did this guy get from collective farm winner of the Red Banner of Labour to the top? My first question in reading a bio is ‘would I like to have this person as a friend?’, then ‘would I like to be him?’ Gorbachev gets a firm Nyet on both. But he’s important and pleasant, and this 700-page bio is full of real characters acting out a drama of Shakespearian dimensions.

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America’s Withdrawal From The INF Treaty: Clear Reasons And Ulterior Motives By Vladimir KOZIN

14 November 2018 — Oriental Review

This year, the US has started to stress its intention of withdrawing from the 1987 INF Treaty not just because of Russia’s alleged non-compliance with it, but also because Asia has such delivery systems, particularly China. Donald Trump’s national security advisor, John Bolton, outlined Washington’s position during a recent visit to Moscow. The same message has previously been conveyed by the US president himself.

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The White House prepares the return of the Euromissiles By Manlio Dinucci

24 October 2018 — Voltairenet

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The announcement that “Trump breaks the historic nuclear treaty with Moscow” – the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) – was no surprise. Now, however, it is official. To understand the scope of this act, we should review the historical context from which the INF Treaty was born.

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The Clinton-Yeltsin Relationship in Their Own Words

2 October 2018 — National Security Archive

Clinton Presidential Library Releases Memcons and Telcons of the 1990s

“We’ll build the partnership on the basis of our friendship, yours and mine, and we’ll do so for the sake of world peace”

“I understand your point Bill, and I will act as you suggest I should, especially since this is part of past practice established between you and me, and it has never failed us in the past” (Yeltsin to Clinton, September 12, 1998)

National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 640

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NSA: NATO Expansion: What Gorbachev Heard

12 December 2017 — National Security Archive

Declassified documents show security assurances against NATO expansion to Soviet leaders from Baker, Bush, Genscher, Kohl, Gates, Mitterrand, Thatcher, Hurd, Major, and Woerner

Slavic Studies Panel Addresses “Who Promised What to Whom on NATO Expansion?”

National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 613 

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The Anti-Empire Report #151: Cold War then. Cold War now By William Blum

27 September 2017 — Anti-Empire Report

The anti-Russian/anti-Soviet bias in the American media appears to have no limit. You would think that they would have enough self-awareness and enough journalistic integrity -– just enough -– to be concerned about their image. But it keeps on coming, piled higher and deeper.

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The Last Superpower Summits

23 January 2017 — National Security Archive

New book analyzes detailed transcripts of Gorbachev, Reagan and Bush meetings 1985-1991

Key documents show Thatcher’s endorsement of Gorbachev, Bush’s anxiety about Gorbachev’s popularity, and missed opportunities on arms control, regional conflicts, and European integration 

National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 578

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Washington D.C., January 23, 2017 – The historic summit meetings between Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and two U.S. presidents, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, built an intensive learning process on both sides that ended the Cold War, but missed numerous other opportunities to make the world safer, according to the new book, The Last Superpower Summits, featured today in the Washington History Seminar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

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NSA:: New book combines Soviet and U.S. transcripts of highest-level meetings that ended the Cold War

19 December 2016  — National Security Archive

Gorbachev offered arms race in reverse; Reagan recommended quiet on human rights; Bush sounded very encouraging in 1987 but the 1989 pause interrupted progress

The Last Superpower Summits publishes virtually every word Reagan, Gorbachev and Bush said to each other from 1985 through 1991

National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 573

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Gorbachev’s Nuclear Initiative of January 1986 and the Road to Reykjavik

13 October 2016  — National Security Archive

Soviet nuclear abolition proposal in January 1986 welcomed by Reagan, set stage for historic Reykjavik summit and the INF Treaty 30 years ago

Gorbachev believed US dismissed idea as propaganda but declassified documents show major internal debate, consultations with allies, serious presidential support

National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 563

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Unilateral U.S. nuclear pullback in 1991 matched by rapid Soviet cuts

30 September 2016 — National Security Archive

Declassified documents tell inside story of “most spontaneous and dramatic reversal” of the arms race
Bush initiatives took up Gorbachev proposals from years earlier; combined effect produced “real disarmament at lightning speed”

National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 561

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National Security Archive: The Gorbachev File – British and CIA Assessments, Presidential Letters and Summit Conversations Illuminate Perestroika and the End of the Cold War

2 March 2016 — National Security Archive

The Gorbachev File

British and CIA Assessments, Presidential Letters and Summit Conversations Illuminate Perestroika and the End of the Cold War

First and Last President of the Soviet Union Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev Turns 85 Today

National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 544

Washington, D.C., March 2, 2016 – Marking the 85th birthday of former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, the National Security Archive at George Washington University (www.nsarchive.org) today posted a series of previously classified British and American documents containing Western assessments of Gorbachev starting before he took office in March 1985, and continuing through the end of the Soviet Union in 1991.

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WHAT IF GORBACHEV HAD WON TWENTY YEARS AGO? By Gaither Stewart

28 December 2011

(Rome) As a follow-up to Patrice Greanville’s article, “The Soviet Union—Environmental Degradation: Some Historical Antecedents”, I have presented here excerpts from some of my own articles written during the Gorbachev perestroika period, plus notes and reflections concerning Mikhail Gorbachev, the last General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and Chief of State of the USSR, and his role in the history of Socialism. As an intermittent correspondent in Moscow for a West European newspaper during the Gorbachev era I covered some of the evolving crisis in Russian Communism in the late 1980s-early 1990s. From my notes of over twenty years ago I have reconstructed here the essence of my various articles on the XIX Conference of the CPSU held in Moscow in June-July of 1988.

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Information Clearing House Newsletter 27 December 2011: The Man Who Prevented World War III

27 December 2011 — williambowles.info

Justifying War with Iran
By Russ Baker
A growing body of evidence points to a concerted campaign to prepare Americans and the world for war against Iran. This is not idle speculation. It fits a pattern that repeatedly preceded previous hostilities. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30084.htm

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