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- [00:00]
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- [00:27]
Peter Frankopan
Hello and welcome to a special Legacy encore episode.
- [00:30]
AFWA Hersh
While we take a outbreak, we're dipping back into the archive to revisit some of our favorite episodes. And this is one of Peter's greatest hits.
- [00:40]
Peter Frankopan
So here we go then, the Life and the Legacy of Mikhail Gorbachev.
- [00:44]
AFWA Hersh
We'll let the episode speak for itself, but before we do, here's a quick reminder that the full back catalogue is always there for you to explore.
- [00:54]
Peter Frankopan
Welcome to Legacy and the second part of our series on Mikhail Gorbachev, the former Soviet leader who's a hero in the west. But in his homeland, even Stalin's more.
- [01:04]
AFWA Hersh
Popular when we left you last time. Gorbachev has overcome his humble background, rising through the Communist Party and then taking advantage of the quick succession of deaths of aging leaders to become the new fresh faced symbol of change.
- [01:20]
Peter Frankopan
However, his reforms are causing economic chaos, but it's on the international stage that Gorbachev looks like he's going to achieve success and popularity. As a matter of fact, even before he'd become leader of the Soviet Union, one of the West's most formidable leaders had spotted something she liked in the Rising Star.
- [01:43]
AFWA Hersh
December 16, 1984 Chekhus, the British Prime Minister's country residence. In a walnut paneled drawing room, Margaret Thatcher adjusts her pearl and gold trifari brooch across the snow covered lawn. She watches the Russian delegation's car arrive. Umbrellas shelter the visitors from the drifting snowflakes. An aide announces their arrival. Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Soviet legislature, Mr. Mikhail Gorbachev and his wife, Raisa. Mrs. Thatcher shares a knowing glance with her husband, Dennis. Visits from authoritarian states invariably follow the same pattern. Initial bemusement at a woman prime minister, then condescension. Finally, surprise as she exceeds their expectations. So she feels a jolt of surprise as a balding man with a distinctive port wine birthmark bounds towards her, a wide grin on his face, arm outstretched. Beside him in a pinstriped grey jacket and silk necktie, his wife cuts a poised, confident figure. Interpreters relay his words. Prime Minister it's wonderful to be here. My wife has studied your country's history in depth. Thatcher paints on a welcoming smile, invites them for Cocktails in the lounge, watching Gorbachev's sharp eyes. Something about him suggests a shrewd political operator. Now she fixes him with a steely gaze. I believe that in order to create allies, we must first understand one another's core beliefs. There's a twinkle in Gorbachev's eye when he quips, I thought Britain had no eternal allies, only eternal interests. For a second, Thatcher is speechless. It's not only the obscure quote from former Prime Minister Lord Palmerston, it's his playful, almost mocking tone. Collecting herself, she smiles warmly, feels a bond of connection forming. They may be ideological opposites, but he's clearly a man of culture, erudite and engaged. Perhaps here is a Soviet leader she and the west can do business with.
- [04:06]
Peter Frankopan
From Wondery and Goal Hanger. I'm Peter Frankopan.
- [04:09]
AFWA Hersh
I'm AFWA Hersh.
- [04:11]
Peter Frankopan
And this is Legacy, the show that tells the lives of the most extraordinary men and women ever to have lived and asks if they have the reputation they deserve.
- [04:31]
AFWA Hersh
This is mikhail gorbachev. Episode 2 shutting down the cold war. So that meeting with the British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, happens five years after she had taken office and four months before Gorbachev takes over as leader of the Soviet Union.
- [04:54]
Peter Frankopan
The meeting had been Thatcher's idea. She didn't want to invite the leader, Chinenko, who she knew wouldn't be around for much longer. It isn't all harmony in the talks, though, as Thatcher characteristically takes the opportunity to to accuse the Kremlin of funding the British miners who were in the midst of a bitter dispute with her government.
- [05:12]
AFWA Hersh
But there's no doubt there is a connection, and it leads to the quote that puts the name of Gorbachev into Western minds.
- [05:20]
Margaret Thatcher
I like Mr. Gorbachev. We can do business together. We both believe in our own political systems. He firmly believes in his. I firmly believe in mine. We're never going to change one another, but we have two great interests in common, that we should both do everything we can to see that war never starts again. And therefore we go into the disarmament talks determined to make them succeed.
- [05:45]
Peter Frankopan
Well, it's the first part of that Thatcher quote that's remembered, of course, that we can do business together line. But it's the second part which doesn't often get replayed. That's the key bit here. That's the bit about the war never.
- [05:56]
AFWA Hersh
Starts again, because at this time in the mid-80s, the threat of nuclear war has been hanging over everyone for the past 40 years.
- [06:05]
Public Service Announcement Voice
You may be in your schoolyard playing when the signal comes, that signal means to stop whatever you are doing and get to the nearest safe place fast. Always remember, the flash of an atomic bomb can come at any time, no matter where you may be.
- [06:24]
Peter Frankopan
And it's really hard to explain, I think, to younger listeners or those who weren't around then, just how acute those fears and worries were. I mean, it's really hard to kind of capture just how scary that world was. I mean, in 1981, the Home Office produced a pamphlet that warned British citizens how to build their own nuclear bunkers. You know, it said packed books, tins of food, sleeping bags, guitar. I'm not sure you'd have survived my singing underground for months. Afwe, what do you reckon what would be in your nuclear bunker?
- [06:54]
AFWA Hersh
This is something that we can credit to Gorbachev's legacy that we didn't get there.
- [06:58]
Peter Frankopan
PETER but then there were films that were made, you know, I remember there's one called when the Wind blows, made in 1983, about an elderly couple who see nuclear detonation and are slowly killed by radiation poisoning. And that was kind of mainstream discussions about when would nuclear holocaust happen, how would we suffer? Would there be a nuclear winter? And now looking back on it in the 80s, there were lots and lots of close shaves where things could have gone really badly wrong. You know, it's the problem about nuclear weapons is its heartbeat of a single person's decision. And that fractured, tense world, it's really hard to capture how really terrifying it really was.
- [07:35]
AFWA Hersh
We've talked a lot about the deteriorating economic situation in the Soviet Union, but in terms of military capacity and nuclear armaments, they really did achieve parity with the west during this period of the Cold War. And it was therefore a legitimate fear that people all over the world had, that this really was something that could happen.
- [07:54]
Peter Frankopan
Yeah, and, you know, contact between airplanes, submarine collisions or potential engagements in 1983, it turns out a few years ago, declassified documents showed there was something called Operation Able Archer, which was a NATO dummy plan for what would happen if there was invasion of water pact countries and how the Soviets would respond. And the Soviets collected intelligence about this and thought this would be real, that maybe NATO was about to do an assault into Soviet influence world and possibly Soviet Union itself. And those kinds of misunderstandings could have played out in very, very different ways. And it would often come down to intelligence assessments shared by very small numbers of people and then decisions being made right at the top. And that kind of fracture point where a world was on the edge of armageddon was one that was truly terrifying. So finding someone who you could work with, as Thatcher called it, avoiding war was absolutely the priority on both sides actually. And Gorbachev, to his cred it, and to be fair to him, was very concerned about a nuclear confrontation because there was parity and there was nothing to be gained from thousands of missiles and nuclear warheads going off against each other.
- [09:04]
AFWA Hersh
And it wasn't a constant. There were obviously these peaks and troughs in the levels of tension and fear. But at this time that Gorbachev is taking office, it was a period of heightened anxiety because of course of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, which was one of these proxy wars that threatened to bring the superpowers into direct conflict again.
- [09:23]
Peter Frankopan
Well, you know, that had come in the same decade as the US final withdrawal from Vietnam. And it had always been a concern all over the west about the sort of the fall of dominoes one after another, about spheres of influence being expanded. And in December 1979, the Soviet Union had invaded Afghanistan to try to boost the new communist regime and to put down the Mujahideen rebellion. And that had turned into an absolute catastrophe. So although to start with, cities had fallen to the well armed Soviet forces, it went on for almost a decade. It was such a diplomatic incident that many countries, including the United States, boycotted the Moscow Olympics and then four years later the Soviet Union boycotted the Olympics in LA as a sort of tit for tat. So you're right, there were real tensions around what would happen and also what would happen next. Maybe Afghanistan was the first place to go and there'd be others that would follow. And in the meantime, the CIA were pumping weapons into Afghanistan to support the Mujahedeen. That turned out had long term consequences too. But those confrontations were hugely worrying for everybody around the world because it looked like escalation would happen.
- [10:29]
AFWA Hersh
And on the face of it, the chances of the Soviet Union and the US coming together to try and sort out their differences really did seem remote. Especially after a speech by Reagan in 1983 in which he denounced the USSR as I quote, an evil empire.
- [10:42]
Ronald Reagan
If history teaches anything, it teaches that simple minded appeasement or wishful thinking about our adversaries is free folly. To ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong and good and evil.
- [11:03]
AFWA Hersh
But leaders of neither nation actually wanted to reach nuclear conflict. It would have led to mutual destruction. That was the point of Nuclear proliferation. And so it's this weird psychological drama in which everybody's security is vested in these weapons that could ultimately lead to their own destruction. And it's the fact that Gorbachev and Reagan are able to find some way of coming together over that mutual disdain for an outcome that would lead to nuclear Armageddon that actually opens the way for a different tone in their talks with each other.
- [11:38]
Peter Frankopan
And the only way that works is face to face meetings. As we all know from all of our daily contacts, it's about seeing each other, it's about being on the same page, being able to open up. And that's been the problem with Brezhnev and Chernenko and Andropov, either old or ill or dead. You know, you can't get them out of Moscow, you can't go and see them. So having neutral territory, finding somewhere where you can talk and start to build those relationships, and as Thatcher rightly says, to do business with, is why the two leaders agreed to a summit. And they agreed to meet in Geneva towards the end of 1985, just five days before the summit, we still have.
- [12:12]
Public Service Announcement Voice
Both superpowers with deeply held suspicions about the other.
- [12:15]
Peter Frankopan
Most Americans, myself included, are not prepared to trust the Soviets.
- [12:21]
Public Service Announcement Voice
The differences are too great.
- [12:23]
Peter Frankopan
Mr. Reagan is considered here as a tough man, a bellicose man, man who has a sort of a gut anti Soviet feelings. The summit starts awkwardly, with dozens of officials and interpreters present, preventing any personal chemistry between the two men.
- [12:39]
AFWA Hersh
But then, famously, Reagan initiates a move to a more intimate friend. Fireside location Sounds like a bad movie script. Well, Reagan knows all about those. And Gorbachev fancies himself as a bit of an actor too.
- [12:58]
Peter Frankopan
November 1985. Villa Flo, Geneva, Switzerland. Sinking into a cream leather armchair, Mikhail Gorbachev watches logs crackle on a roaring fire opposite the tanned face of American President Ronald Reagan grins playfully. It wasn't only B movies. I was also in a few good ones. Gorbachev chuckles. He's seen Reagan's performance in the film King's Row. As a high school leading man himself, he was impressed by the President's ability. But part of him wonders how much of his amiability is also an act. Earlier, Reagan had said that that the United States and the Soviet Union were the only two countries who could bring peace to the world. To Gorbachev, the idea that two farm boys now command such power on the world stage feels faintly absurd. During the day's plenary meetings, he'd felt growing frustration with the Americans. Sensitive words were falling on deaf ears. Finally, he'd accused Reagan of violating the Anti Ballistic Missile Treaty by trying to make militarize space. But with the fire warming his legs, Gorbachev feels the day's tension ebb. With the other delegates now absent, he decides to try again. Mr. Reagan, I know you are attached to this space defense program. A pained look clouds Reagan's face. I don't know why you keep talking about goddamn space weapons. Gorbachev holds his gaze. We both want to reduce nuclear weapons. This will have the opposite effect. A popping log catches Reagan's attention. He stares at the flames. Once again, anger surges through Gorbachev. He's not sure if it's the language barrier, but something feels lost in translation. He speaks slowly, urgently. If the US implements this plan, the Soviet Union will build more weapons in order to smash your shield. In the flickering light, he can see his words have finally landed. In a soft voice, Reagan suggests they return to the plenary. Outside, in the brisk evening air, Gorbachev realizes that as men, they have much more in common than separates them. Perhaps the President was right to suggest that between them, they can change the world.
- [15:13]
AFWA Hersh
So the key issue here, and it will become the major sticking point over the next few years, is something called the Strategic Defence Initiative, or sdi, but colloquially known to the public as Star Wars.
- [15:23]
Peter Frankopan
This is Reagan's big plan to make the United States immune to nuclear weapons. Previously, nuclear states had pinned their hopes of avoiding Armageddon on the basis of Mutually Assured Destruction, or mad, that is, if you wipe out your enemy, they'll wipe you out in return.
- [15:39]
AFWA Hersh
Reagan calls this, understandably, a suicide pact and asks his leading scientists to develop a system that will render opponents weapons useless by being able to shoot them out of the sky with lasers or other utopian means. A workable system is never close to being developed, but it is a useful propaganda tool.
- [15:58]
Peter Frankopan
Despite the unease over sdi, the Geneva summit is seen as a guarded success. And at least the two leaders are talking.
- [16:05]
Ronald Reagan
I leave Geneva today and our fireside summit determined to pursue every opportunity to build a safer world of peace and freedom. General Secretary Gorbachev, we ask you to join us in getting the job done, as I'm sure you will.
- [16:23]
AFWA Hersh
I mean, that is the thing, isn't it? There aren't really a list of tangible outcomes from the Geneva summit that were game changers in themselves. It was more the change in the atmosphere, the fact that, as you said, they're now talking. It's the imagery and the symbolism of these two leaders sitting by a Fireside. It's a literal thawing of these icy tensions during the Cold War.
- [16:47]
Peter Frankopan
That's absolutely spot on. But the US understand this in a different way and they can tell that Gorbachev is rattled. The USSR is spending huge amounts of its budget on an unsuccessful war in Afghanistan, on maintaining its own nuclear arsenal. And the fact that Gorbachev goes on about SDI betrays the fact that first he's not quite sure how advanced American plants are for the shields, which as you say, they're not that close to anything real. But the fact that there might be more spend required, more innovation, all the things where there are weak spots. The Americans figure they've got maybe Gorbachev not where they want him, but there's an opportunity to do a deal. And that's kind of new, I think, in the post war age. And Gorbachev has shown his hand probably slightly too early. So it allows Reagan to think that there's an opportunity to get some concessions and peace is one of them. But another one is around what freedoms in Eastern Europe look like and in the Soviet Union. And the Americans start to push quite hard on that.
- [17:49]
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- [19:01]
Peter Frankopan
To critics of Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan. And both men have plenty. Geneva hasn't really achieved anything concrete other than giving them both a nice photo opportunity in front of a roaring log fire.
- [19:13]
AFWA Hersh
And this is true to an extent, but there's no doubt the personal warmth between the two leaders is evident. Reagan says Privately, he doesn't see the coldness, bordering on hatred I've experienced with other Soviet leaders I've met up until now.
- [19:27]
Peter Frankopan
Most bizarrely, later, Gorbachev recalls that when the two men go for a walk by the lake, Reagan asks him apparently seriously, what would the USSR do if the United States were attacked by aliens? And he asks Gorbachev would the Soviet Union help? And Gorbachev says yes, he would. And then there's a pause and Gorbachev says if the Soviet Union was attacked by aliens, would the United States support us? And Reagan says yes. And already as we mentioned, you know, if you're worried about what tricks the Americans have up their sleeves, you've got to go back home and think, what is this about aliens?
- [20:01]
AFWA Hersh
What did Reagan know that we still don't?
- [20:03]
Peter Frankopan
Absolutely. I think that that was very unsettling for the Soviets. I mean there was, you know, the Star wars movies were out at that time. There's lots of excitement about sci fi as well. And I think that was a touch point where the Soviet Union just felt that they were behind the curve and behind the game. So there was a real opportunity to, to do some business together.
- [20:21]
AFWA Hersh
In the aftermath of Geneva, much as it did indicate a positive thaw, the two leaders exchanged letters, but actually didn't make very much progress at all. And Gorbachev suggests the next summit, this time in Reykjavik, Iceland. And at first it looks again as if not much solid will be achieved there.
- [20:38]
Peter Frankopan
But things then start heating up. A Gorbachev advisor gives an unscheduled interview suggesting huge reductions in nuclear weapons could be on the table. Is it true that the Russians have made offers of very deep cuts of long range missiles in return for a clean air? Made very serious proposals, very serious proposals of historic kind? What will be the answer of Americans? We will know in a couple of hours.
- [21:04]
AFWA Hersh
Suddenly a world without nuclear weapons is becoming more than just a pipe dream. Both sides have agreed an outline to decommission all of their weapons by the end of the century in just 14 years time.
- [21:16]
Peter Frankopan
But the deal falls apart over a single innocuous word.
- [21:27]
AFWA Hersh
October 11, 1986 Hofdi House, Reykjavik, Iceland Trailed by assorted aids and translators, Mikhail Gorbachev stomps down the stairs into the parquet floor floored lobby. After three days of intense negotiation, only anger prevents exhaustion overtaking him. Outside, a slate grey sea tosses waves into the blustery air. Ahead, a wind whipped Regan turns back. His conciliatory expression only deepens Gorbachev's fury. I still feel we can find a deal, Regan says, but the facade of diplomacy is long gone. I don't think you wanted a deal. I don't know what more I could have done. From the back of a car, he watches the American entourage depart for the airport. With it, he thinks, the chance of securing world peace. He considers the last few days the incremental shifts toward an agreement, the delirium of possibility. In the end, Reagan's commitment to Star wars was unshakable. His refusal to rule out testing in space feels impetuous. Now Gorbachev was is going to meet the press, and he's going to tell the world exactly who the President is. Outside the opera house, photographers dart into position. In the foyer, he hears the distant clamor of excited journalists. But inside the cavernous auditorium, a hush descends. Reporters rise to their feet from the stage. Gorbachev surveys the crowd, but instead of a sea of pressmen, he sees a delegation of humanity. Anxious faces full of expectation, waiting to learn their fate. Under the glare of the lights, the reality of what they've achieved finally sinks in. They may have fallen short of total agreement, but their decision to drastically reduce the nuclear stockpile is unprecedented, and it will have lasting consequences for the security of the world. Gentlemen, Gorbachev begins. Today was a historic moment of accord between two great nations on the subject of nuclear abolition.
- [23:35]
Peter Frankopan
So there's no agreement. But Gorbachev is right. It is still a historic moment in the long term. The Reykjavik summit is widely seen as the beginning of the end of the Cold War.
- [23:45]
AFWA Hersh
But what's the word that scuppers the deal? Somewhat bizarrely, Peter, can you guess? You know.
- [23:51]
Peter Frankopan
No. Go and remind me.
- [23:52]
AFWA Hersh
Laboratories.
- [23:53]
Peter Frankopan
There you go.
- [23:54]
AFWA Hersh
The sticking point is a line that Gorbachev insists on, that the Americans can only test SDI or Star wars in labs rather than in actual real space itself.
- [24:04]
Peter Frankopan
So it's slightly bonkers, but I mean, it shows that Gorbachev and the Soviets are really concerned that Americans have advanced technologies that they're not sharing. And the risk that SDI offers, or some form of shield is that all of your weapons can be knocked out of the sky, and so you can't defend yourself if you need to. So the risks that the Americans would ever invade or attack the Soviet Union, I think were very close to zero. But everything depended on being able to convince your opponent and your rival that you might if you had to.
- [24:32]
AFWA Hersh
I think, you know, there are some contemporary events that help us understand the mindset of getting stuck on these details. I mean, every time a new Nation evolves its space technology, the world freaks out. You know, when India launched its first space shuttle, Russian space capacity now again in this new era of tension is constantly under scrutiny. The capacity of China to launch an attack from space is something that comes up. The capacity to have aerial and space objects is something that still really rattles people and security strategists. So it's easy to imagine in the 80s when this was all such pioneering technology and where it was still a Cold War situation, that neither side knew what the other had. The stakes did feel really high. You know, in hindsight, it's easy to find it slightly ludicrous because the US still doesn't have the SDI that Gorbachev so feared at the time, that technology was so elusive. It still hasn't been developed now, so.
- [25:26]
Peter Frankopan
Far as we know.
- [25:27]
AFWA Hersh
I mean, as far as we know, that's true.
- [25:28]
Peter Frankopan
Highly classified. I mean, I think that one of the things that gets easily pushed out of the kind of. Well was, was there a moment where we could have gone nuclear free? I mean, the proposal had been to reduce 50% of ICBMs in five to seven years, no space weapons, and also pulling out of all nuclear weapons out of Europe that had been on the table and that the world would be nuclear weapon free by the year 2000. I mean, looking back on that, thinking what the world, how different it would have been, would it have been different? But one of the things that was positive was environmental agreements that were reached as a result. One of the things about the space program was about environmental pollution, but also around the ozone layer. And what Reagan and Gorbachev really did at Reykjavik also was to lay the ground for the Montreal agreement that followed in 1987 about limiting ozone. And at the time, a bit like some of the climate discussions we have now, half the population of the world went bananas, going, well, people use deodorant, they spray under their arms and you know, no one's going to be able to, you know, it's taking away our freedoms or the way fridges and freezers are cooled. You know, that's ridiculous. And it's going to be, the technology will never evolve. And it turned out the transition to a cleaner way of living was totally fine. And in fact, the agreement that was made by Reagan, Gorbachev and signed up at Montreal in 87 has meant that the ozone layer we expect in the ozone hole over the poles will have closed by 2060 and the world would today be about 1 degree warmer were it not for that. So it's True, Reykjavik broke up without a concrete agreement on weapons, but there was common ground and there were proper outcomes that really had an input. And the two men will meet again the following year in Washington to have another go at reaching an agreement.
- [27:02]
AFWA Hersh
For people who had been terrified by the prospect of nuclear Armageddon since the Cold War, you know, who experienced the Cuban Missile Crisis as potentially the end of it all, and then lived with that lingering resurging fear throughout the 70s and 80s as well. What did it mean to see Reagan and Gorbachev talking, agreeing to reduce nuclear stockpiles? How significant was it for just the ordinary person watching these events unfold on TV?
- [27:27]
Peter Frankopan
Well, I was 15, I was fished out of my lessons to come and watch it. You know, it was that symbolic. I mean, I was studying Russian, my first couple of weeks of studying Russian, and it felt almost too good to be true. You know, we'd had all these fears of nuclear devastation and you know, and I think now as a historian looking back into the 80s on that period, you know, it really felt that things were on, on the move. You know, it looked like perestroika and glasnost would make the Soviet Union a better competitor. You know, obviously those kind of changes were going to be important. Maybe the Soviet Union would reform in a way that made them more of a threat. But the idea that there was talk of nuclear free world or reducing stockpiles, there was elation. People thought, my gosh, maybe we're going to be able to think about our children and our grandchildren's worlds. Maybe we should think about climate action, maybe we should think about greenhouse gases, because those gonna be well worth preserving, rather than the way which my generation brought up and the generation before which is that the shadow of world war is real nuclear devastation. These new weapons we have could kill us all. So I think the fact that this was happening, it kind of felt like it was out of body experience of my go, maybe there's hope for us all. Maybe we humans are going to be happy, maybe we are going to be democratic, more open minded, liberal, rebuilding people in the Soviet Union, be able to say and denounce Stalin. It felt like a completely new age. And looking back on it now, it feels equally surreal because again, we took a dark turn in recent years and decades. But yet at the time it was kind of felt like it was an epoch making, history making moment for sure.
- [28:57]
Ronald Reagan
The first treaty ever that did not just control offensive weapons, but reduced them and yes, actually eliminated an entire class of U.S. and Soviet nuclear missiles. These are momentous events. Not conclusive, but momentous.
- [29:19]
AFWA Hersh
While the two leaders were trying to work together, the same can't necessarily be said for their wives.
- [29:27]
Peter Frankopan
Foreign.
- [29:33]
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- [30:18]
Peter Frankopan
At the end of 1986, Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan can reflect on a year where some progress has been made in building a future with a serious reduction in nuclear weapons, too.
- [30:28]
AFWA Hersh
One of the leader's wives had accompanied their husband to Reykjavik. Raisa Gorbachev one had stayed home. Nancy Reagan the frosty relationship between these two women becomes one of the great soap operas of the 1980s. Right from the start, they never hit it off.
- [30:50]
Peter Frankopan
November 19, 1985 Chateau de Berrive, Lake Geneva, Switzerland Nancy Reagan winces as her aching cheeks start to tremble. She's holding a grin for the assembled press cameras while Raisa Gorbachev and her entourage shuffle slowly into the lake house, closing the door against the biting Swiss wind. Nancy ushers her guest towards a table set with teacups and cake. Raisa is 15 minutes late, but her expression is blank rather than contrite as she takes off her fur coat. Nancy steals a glance at the monochrome outfit. Black skirt, white blouse, and a black tie. More like a prison warden than a first lady, she thinks. Nancy smooths her own royal blue Adolfo suit jacket and forces a smile. Raisa, it's so nice to finally meet you. Earlier, Ronald had expressed how important this meeting with the Soviets is for America. Soviet Relations despite the clear differences between Nancy's Hollywood background and Raisa's academic credentials, she's determined to find common ground. But she has barely started speaking when a look of discomfort appears on Raisa's face. Nancy watches in surprise as she raises a hand, clicks her fingers, and barks an instruction to an attendant. Seeing Nancy's confusion, she points at her chair and says, this seat is uncomfortable. Soon a new chair is found and Nancy resumes small talk. But a few minutes later, Reiser's Hand raises again, fingers clicking at the man from the KGB demanding another chair. Nancy feels stunned. In her four years as first lady, she's not witnessed behavior like it. And from the wife of a new leader, no less. As the Soviet entourage rushed to accommodate her, Nancy waits in silence. She's heard Raisa described as the Kremlin's secret weapon, owing to her political acumen. But Nancy can't help but wonder, who the hell does this woman think she is?
- [32:54]
AFWA Hersh
Well, from that frosty start, relations between Nancy Reagan and Vaissa Gorbachev never really improve. And of course, the press loves every minute of it.
- [33:04]
Peter Frankopan
They didn't exactly stand side by side, but they had apparently buried the hatchet. Not in each other. A secret serviceman joked, yeah, so the press, they went nuts for the rivalry and the tension.
- [33:17]
AFWA Hersh
I remember each first lady separately, and they definitely were queens of their own queendom, So I can see how there was no one room big enough for both of them.
- [33:26]
Peter Frankopan
It's so odd, the kind of leader's wife, right? The fact they're having tea and cupcakes and people watching. But this isn't the kind of era where Dynasty is the biggest TV program at the time. And the rivalries between these two powerful women who can't see eye to eye, Alexis Colby and Crystal Castle Carrington. It's an age when the media are kind of very interested and engaged and even intrusive on leading figures, not just in the media and in film, but also in politics, too. You know, Charles and Diana and their relationship. And so it's kind of catnip, and people watching and, you know, looking for signs, are desperate to see how does this wife of a supposedly charismatic young Soviet leader never smiles, seems humorless. And Nancy Reagan, who has, you know, her own slightly old things that she works on and believes in, constantly consulting with an astrologer to not just tell her fortune, but to tell her husband what he should be doing. And everybody is kind of gripped by this kind of drama between the two women.
- [34:21]
AFWA Hersh
I can imagine, from their perspective, it must have been an incredibly frustrating time to be a woman with your own ideas and plans, because this is peak misogyny for the media. I mean, it's so much worse than it is now, and we still have such a long way to go. And there was a really hardcore social expectation of what a first lady was. This dutiful wife, the arm candy of the leader. And neither of these women conformed perfectly to those expectations. Raisa, in particular, was not a first lady. She was a serious thinker. She was a major advisor. She was Gorbachev's main strategist. He consulted her on everything. They really were a political powerhouse together. And I can imagine she would have bristled at the confines of having to perform this dutiful wife on the world stage. But it's just curious that Nancy Reagan so brought out that frustration in a way that other first wives and other international occasions didn't seem to really rile her in the same way.
- [35:18]
Peter Frankopan
It still happens, though, you know, when there are the big G7 meetings, you know, the partner comes along, too, and very bizarre. Goes shopping or goes to the galleries, and they sort of have their own meeting where, you know, there's a kind of dynamic that you're somehow serving your country or your spouse or your partner.
- [35:34]
AFWA Hersh
For me, Michelle Obama was really the person who most brought that to the fore, because it was just so ridiculous that this woman who's beyond accomplished, incredibly talented, professional thinker, writer, you know, to see her kind of talking about the White House garden used to really rile me. I was like, why has she been reduced to talking about gardening? I know people love gardening, and I'm not trying to disrespect gardeners who are listening to this. It's just that it didn't really feel like that was authentically who she was. And it felt like she was being required to fit this mold because these were the domestic confines of what is expected from a first lady. And you can see since Barack Obama left office, she's reverted to being who she actually is, which is a major writer, thinker, political figure in her own right. And I just find it frustrating that women are still expected to conform to these ridiculously outdated ideas.
- [36:25]
Peter Frankopan
I think one of the challenges with Raisa, though, was that she conformed to what a Soviet woman was like. So she was humorless. She didn't smile, she clicked her fingers. You know, she was very demanding. It doesn't seem very egalitarian. You know, you sit in the chair. You know, you're taught that at kindergarten. Here, you sit still and do what the teacher tells you rather than ask for a more comfortable place to sit, and didn't want to engage and was humorless. Dogmatic Marxist is what Nancy said. And then worse, when they got asked by the press Rice, who just wouldn't comment. And, you know, Nancy Reagan, she would sort of say, well, we get on very well. You know, why do you ask us this? And the more she said it, the more the press realized that they really didn't, because their roles are very Different. So you've got the kind of odd dynamic, like you say, afwa, why are the partners involved? And it's sort of misogynistic to have women being expected to sort of make small talk, but they're there in support roles for their powerful husbands. It's all weird in its own right, but that was a way into the press to really think about what these two epitomes of the Soviet person and the American person. And in a way, Ray, to crystallize and harden those ideas because unsmiling, very dour was what people wanted to see in the Soviet Union. In fact, Gorbachev was more complicated because he was a bit more humorful, he was a bit younger, he was a bit more engaging. So she played a role actually that set up the cartoon of the Cold War in a useful way.
- [37:39]
AFWA Hersh
Do you think she was performing that Soviet woman for the domestic audience?
- [37:44]
Peter Frankopan
I don't think so because, I mean, in those days it was all press reported. The full control over state media in the Soviet Union meant that you could control whatever message you wanted so nothing would leak back in. I think it was a product of the fact that the Soviet delegations felt that they were being trapped, they were being outplayed and that you had to play with a straight bat, to use a cricketing expression. You had to play things with a straight face, not show any cracks because there was always a trap. I think that was the kind of Cold War mentality that the cat and mouse game was constant about everything where you sat. Raisi would have thought that she'd been deliberately given an uncomfortable chair, right, to test her, to see how she reacted and see if she'd sit straight and so on. So when you're stuck within that kind of hall of mirrors games, everything's always difficult. So you know the tension is always going to be there.
- [38:31]
AFWA Hersh
Despite the less than harmonious relationship between their wives, Gorbachev and Reagan's four day summit in Washington in 1987 is declared a success when the two leaders sign the INF Treaty, which limits short range and intermediate range ballistic missiles. Missiles. It's not quite the agreement to rid the world of all nuclear weapons that was talked of in Reykjavik, but it's still a hugely significant moment in bringing the Cold War to an end.
- [38:56]
Peter Frankopan
Mikhail Gorbachev's legacy on the world stage seems assured. He's greeted by crowds chanting Gorby Gorby wherever he goes. The British electronic band the Shaman even names their latest album in Gorbachev We Trust.
- [39:10]
AFWA Hersh
But back in the Soviet Union, Union all is not so rosy. Gorbachev hasn't managed to reform the Soviet economy, which is now in chaos. Criticism is mounting from all sides within the country. On the 26th of April, 1986 comes an event that will have fallout literally across the world, and which will become Gorbachev's greatest lesson. Chernobyl. That's next time on Legacy.
- [40:02]
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