WASHINGTON, Sept 1 — Mikhail Gorbachev stepped onto a Washington street and began shaking hands to cheers and applause in 1990 — a bit of unaccustomed political showmanship worthy of his friend Ronald Reagan.
It was the personal touch that Reagan, the Hollywood actor who became president and an icon of the American right, was known for. When Gorbachev became Communist party general secretary in March 1985 after Chernenko’s death, the White House sensed a potential opening, said Jack Matlock, then Reagan’s top negotiator with Moscow and later ambassador to Russia.“But from the very beginning, he talked about negotiating and the possibility of establishing a peaceful relationship if the Soviet leader was willing to get along with the free world.
The White House understood he was inheriting a weakened economy, a military that saw the Pentagon as increasingly superior and threatening, and a Communist Party rotting from the inside out. He saw “that we were in a position of strength to negotiate better with Moscow, and that we should explore some of the different venues.”Reagan had an invitation to visit Washington passed on to Gorbachev at Chernenko’s funeral, but nothing much happened for months.
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