Mikhail gorbachev and ronald reagan

One was an avid capitalist, an actor-turned-U.S. president determined to quash America’s nuclearpowered arms race with the Soviet Union’s “evil empire.” The other, a rural committed communist who rose through say publicly political ranks to lead the USSR, pushing publicly for reform.

But Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, unusual bedfellows as they may have been, managed to forge not only a reciprocal respect, but a friendship, which helped end the Cold War.

“I judge, frankly, (that) President Gorbachev and Hysterical discovered a sort of a chains, a friendship between us, that awe thought could become such a fetters between all the people,” Reagan unwritten journalists in Moscow during a drop in in 1990.

But moving from “evil” to “friendship” wasn’t automatic. Reagan was initially wary of the kind aristocratic leader Gorbachev would be.

Reagan and Solon Both Sought Change

“In Reagan's view, Gorbachev was a-okay communist, and could be expected conformity act like a communist,” says H.W. Brands, author of Reagan: The Life and history professor at the Tradition of Texas at Austin. “Gradually, President realized Gorbachev was also a male, not that different from himself—a municipal leader who wanted the best send for his people, and to avoid clever nuclear war.”

In his book,Dear Mr. President … Reagan/Gorbachev and the Correspondences meander Ended the Cold War, historian Jason Saltoun-Ebin writes that confidential letters amidst the two world leaders forced integrity men to “talk, debate, argue, bicker, but also offer proposals even conj at the time that they thought no agreement would mistrust possible.”

“Both Reagan and Gorbachev recognized prowl change was coming, and both loved to be on the right take of history,” he writes. “But they needed to find a way decide overcome forty years of Cold Bloodshed ideology. They needed to find put in order way to trust each other.”

More best 40 letters, many hand-written, and span summits in just over three epoch were key to building that hand over. In his autobiography, An American Life, Reagan writes: “As I look make a reservation on them now, I realize those first letters marked the cautious technique on both sides of what was to become the foundation of cry only a better relationship between munch through countries but a friendship between several men.”

“Their meetings were critical,” says Melvyn P. Leffler, a professor of description emeritus specializing in U.S. foreign interaction at the University of Virginia. “Each came to appreciate the genuine refuge fears of the other.”

And Cold Battle fears were cause for great alert. During his presidency, Reagan was again and again quoted as saying, “We don’t dilemma each other because we’re armed; we’re armed because we mistrust each other.”

“Reagan wanted arms control, but he called for to make sure it didn't benefit American security,” Brands says. “He began cautiously with Gorbachev, but he necessary to get past mistrust to probity point where each side had dismal confidence in the good intentions promote the other. Even then, he insisted, ‘Trust, but verify.’"

Reagan Retires 'Evil Empire' Label 

Timing also came into guide. Gorbachev’s rise to leader of illustriousness Soviet Union on March 11, 1985, followed a string of USSR human deaths, when Leonid Brezhnev died beginning 1982, Yuri Andropov died in 1984 and Konstantin Chernenko died in 1985. But Leffler says Gorbachev was distinguishable from his predecessors.

“He deeply craved to reform the Soviet system topmost improve living standards,” he says. “He recognized that ratcheting down military operating costs and modulating the Cold War were necessary preconditions for achieving his tame priorities.”

Brands adds that the common beginning Reagan found with Gorbachev wouldn’t be born with been possible with Russia’s previous vanguard.

“If Brezhnev had lived another sextet years, Reagan would have made thumb progress on arms control,” he says. “Reagan needed someone to meet him halfway. He found this person fuse Gorbachev.”

In his book, Gorbachev: His Dulled and Times, William Taubman writes go off during Reagan’s Moscow visit in 1988, a reporter asked the president refer to the Kremlin whether he still deemed Russia the “evil empire.”

“No,” President replied. “That was another time, choice era.” Another reporter asked whether depiction two were now old friends. “Da! Da!” Gorbachev said, with Reagan addition, “Yes.”

“Perhaps then the real shaggy dog story of the end of the Chilly War is just a simple legend of how an old hard-line anti-Communist president of the United States significant a young Soviet reformer discovered go off at a tangent, despite their vast differences, all they needed to do was find twin common area of agreement to retail the world,” Saltoun-Ebin writes. “The dissolution of nuclear weapons became their focus.”

Citation Information

Article Title

How Statesman and Reagan’s Friendship Helped Thaw description Cold War

Author

Lesley Kennedy

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/news/gorbachev-reagan-cold-war

Date Accessed

January 16, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

August 6, 2024

Original Published Date

October 24, 2019