“
President Reagan was a man of conviction. He was a man of values and a person who has his own views and who is deeply religious. There can be many things that can be said about Ronald Reagan.
“
All of us were surrounded with all kinds of problems, with all kinds of commitments and with a lot of suspicion and mistrust to transcend all of that. It’s incredible that we were able to do it. I’m still, I say, “amazed.” I am perhaps more amazed now than before that we were able to pull it off and I asked George, “Was there any other American leader other than Reagan who could have done that? Who could have reciprocated our initiative, who could have met us halfway?” After a moment, Shultz answered, “No. There was no other person at that time who could have done that.” President Reagan was a man of conviction. He was a man of values and a person who has his own views and who is deeply religious. There can be many things that can be said about Ronald Reagan. I was a very different person but we were able to pull it off. I think that today, standing here, here in the place where Ronald Reagan spent several years,
where he studied, where I understand he took part in 14 amateur performances, plays—and by the way, he continued to be an actor, and so when I was asked how I reacted to the famous speech in which President Reagan said, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall,” standing at the Berlin Wall, what was the impression, people asked. I said, “Well, very honestly, very honestly, that did not impress us that much because we knew that—we never forgot that—President Reagan’s initial career was as an actor.” Of course, today we can joke and laugh, but when all is said and done, he was a great man. I am ready to say that because it was he alone who could do that as a leader of his country and as a person bearing tremendous responsibility for this nation of great diversity. Once again, thank you. I wish the students to continue on the path of knowledge—on the path that was taken by that great man and by other people who were mentioned here and who made a great contribution to your country by addressing the problems that your country is facing.”
Eureka College students were given the opportunity to ask President Gorbachev questions after he completed his formal remarks. The following are some of the questions President Gorbachev was asked and his responses. How did President Reagan change your view of the United States and Americans? I would say that I saw in President Reagan a partner. We said that we don’t want to play games—gambits—that we don’t want to deceive the United States. When this was repeated many times and when this was reinforced by specific steps—first of all President Reagan started to change, his view changed. I think both of us remained committed to our values. As political leaders, we both understood that we could cooperate. I remember a meeting with President Reagan at which he started to, what I felt, lecture me. I had to stop him. I said, “Mr. President, you are not a teacher and I am not a student. And even less so, you are not a prosecutor and I am not the accused. If you want to work together to chart the road to the future, then, we can do it, but only if we work as equals and only if our cooperation is that of equals.” He said, “Well, you misunderstood me.” I was grateful that I had a chance to say what I had to say and that kind of lecturing never repeated itself, never happened again. Then a few days later, he said, “Call me Ron and I’ll call you Mikhail, is that okay?” The human side was very important.
6
People ask me often about that human side. Well, it was an evolving relationship and our trust emerged gradually. Of course, there was also the work of our diplomats—of our experts and various others who worked on the relationship. But I think that the starting point is the human relationship—establishing a normal human relationship—and that was accomplished. The next President, President Bush, in his memoirs—those of you who read those memoirs remember—that he said Gorbachev was a difficult negotiator but whenever we agreed on something, we knew that everything would be fulfilled, everything would