1988- Invitation To Progress - Meeting Mr. Gorbachev

Gorbachev and Reagan 1987

When Secretary General Gorbachev visited the United States for the first time during last December’s summit meeting (1987) with President Reagan, he did an unprecedented thing. He asked to have three separate meetings with prominent American citizens to take place at the Soviet Embassy. The first meeting was with a group of U.S. artists and intellectuals, the second with a group of leading American businessmen and women, and the third with leaders of the House and Senate. It was quite a remarkable thing to do. I was both surprised and honored to be invited to the first meeting and would like to share both my experience of the meeting and my sense of this extraordinary man who is now the leader of one of he most powerful countries in the world.

Once inside the Embassy, we were invited upstairs to an ornate room where the guests were gathering. Secretary General Gorbachev and his wife, Raisa, entered the room to begin circulating among the invited guests. I was standing at the door visiting with my friends and associates of the Soviet Embassy and was the first person the Secretary General met when he came in the room. What was both extremely surprising and flattering to me is that he recognized me. He seemed to know me. He introduced me to his wife, we exchanged greetings, and they proceeded to meet the rest of the people in the room.

John attending the function with Mr. Gorbachev on December 20, 1987.

After about 30 minutes, we were escorted into the ballroom where we were seated six people at a table - two or three Americans together with two or three Soviets. Secretary General Gorbachev sat at a small table facing us. For the next 30 - 40 minutes he spoke to us very directly and clearly without using notes. Speaking from his own opinions, he described what was going on in the world.

Many of his ideas I related to very strongly. He suggested that we are living in a new reality; the world is a different place. He said we have always paid attention to our own interests - but the truth is, in today’s world, we can no longer serve our own interests without giving consideration to the interests of others. This was quite an interesting, and in my opinion, honest and accurate statement.

Mr. Gorbachev chided us artists and intellectuals, saying that we are not acting and living up to speed with the people of the world who are sensitive to this new reality of trust. He spoke of his own sense of this new feeling in people all over the world.

He said we are not living up to our jobs as artists and intellectuals in articulating what the people think. I personally thought these comments were very interesting because I have said for quite some time that it is the artist’s job to articulate what is going on in the minds and hearts of the people when they don’t know how to say it themselves. When we as artists are able to do this accurately, people say, “Ah, yes, that’s how I feel”, then people act. The perceptiveness of this statement meant a great deal to me. ..

...All in all, it was an extraordinary presentation. During the process of this meeting, Mr. Gorbachev recognized several people who were in the room - Drs. Henry Kissinger and John Kenneth Galbraith, among others. He had a great deal of charm and candor as he interacted with his guests by quoting from their works and saying at appropriate moments things like: “Dr. Kissinger, you would agree with this, I’m sure.” The Secretary General left me with an indelible impression of an articulate, charming and intelligent man. In fact, I think he knocked us all off our feet.

At the end of the presentation, Mr. Gorbachev stated that there were 40 minutes remaining and asked if there were anything that we would like to say to him. Without hesitation, one gentleman stood up and made some very nice comments about how positive he thought the whole exchange process was as well as the Secretary General’s work both in the Soviet Union and in the United States, specifying the treaty that had been signed that morning. When he sat down, there was a long pause - and I could not pass on the opportunity to speak.

What is interesting to me is that I had been thinking that if I had the chance to say something to the Secretary General, how would I say it? What would I do? Suddenly, all of those thoughts and feelings escaped me. As I prepared to stand up, I can honestly say that I have never been more scared in my life. I didn’t want to make a fool of myself in front of all these people. I wanted to represent both myself and my sense of our world accurately. I wanted to represent Windstar accurately.

With my heart in my throat, I stood up and said, “Mr. Secretary General”, at which point he interrupted me. He said, “It’s nice to hear you talking for a change.” (I didn’t quite know how to interpret that!) I went on to say something to this affect:       

·         “A great step has been taken today; however, as both of our countries, and both you and President Reagan have acknowledged, what we are trying to achieve- aside from the elimination of weapons from our world- is the experience of trust and partnership with one another, and in my opinion, the only way we can do that is working together. When two people work together, soon they do begin to understand one another. I would like you and President Reagan to have the United States and the Soviet Union play a leadership role in working together to end hunger and to deal with the environmental problems that affect us all.”

At that point I lost all my courage and didn’t know what else to say. He interrupted me saying, “like our joint efforts in space”, referring to the agreement made that day for a U.S./Soviet mission to Mars. It was a moment I will never forget - for the opportunity that presented itself, this acknowledgement that I received from the Secretary General, and for the extraordinary occasion that I was privileged to attend.

Other people then started to ask questions. It was a very interesting give and take. Although Mr. Gorbachev did not respond, other than with brief comments, it was obvious that he was listening intently to what was being said. There was also a point in the meeting when he was interrupted by Raisa.

                                                

Raisa and Mikhail Gorbachev

He was reiterating the story about a family vacation when she corrected a detail with regard to where they had been. He reacted in a gentlemanly manner. This small experience of them as a family was surprising yet elucidating in those who had certain preconceptions about life in the Soviet Union. The Gorbachev’s spoke back and forth and were very much partners in all of this. It was quite a beautiful thing to see.

At the end of the meeting, I left Mr. Gorbachev a copy of the book, Ending Hunger, created by the Hunger Project, along with tapes of the launching event in November for the second decade of the Hunger Project. I also left him a letter regarding my idea of the one percent option, which I described in a previous newsletter.

I mention this because of a few incidences that occurred after this visit. In early January, Joan Holmes, executive director of the Hunger Project, and some of her staff, met at the Soviet Embassy with Anatoly Gromyko, son of President Gromyko, to speak about the Hunger Project. Later that month, in a meeting at Addis Ababa, the capitol of Ethiopia, the Soviet Union - for the first time in history- made a commitment of 210 thousand metric tons of grain as a contribution to the famine starved people in northeastern Africa.

This contribution of grain makes the Soviet Union the largest single contributor in the world. Certainly these recent developments by Mr. Gorbachev and the Soviet Union demonstrates that this is a new country with which we are dealing. The Soviets have a much greater sense of the new reality that Mr. Gorbachev described- and they are willing to take steps to begin working with other people and nations around the world to deal with the problems that concern us all.

Being part of the process of change and being honored by Mr. Gorbachev’s invitation was an inspiring and wonderful experience for which I will always be grateful. In my ongoing relationship with the Soviet Union, I have new and exciting projects underway which will be the subject of future articles. In several weeks, I will be making my fifth trip to the Soviet Union, and I look forward to our next opportunity to communicate here in the Windstar Journal.

John Denver -

Windstar Journal, Spring 1988