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Gorbachev's ice cream cup
Ten Minutes Left
In February 2008, Mikhail Gorbachev was in New Orleans to speak about abolishing nuclear weapons, and an Esquire writer, Cal Fussman, had been promised an hour and a half with him for the What I've Learned column. Then the publicist called: important people had been added to the schedule, and the interview was down to 10 minutes. After handshakes and translation in both directions, it would be closer to six.
A Question About His Father
The first question skipped nuclear weapons and Ronald Reagan, because a canned question would have drawn a canned answer. It asked about the best lesson his father had taught him. Gorbachev went quiet and looked up as if a movie of his childhood were playing on the ceiling, then described his father being called up to fight in World War II and the trip from the farm to the town where the family saw him off. They got ice cream there, and he remembered the aluminum cup as if it were in the palm of his hand.
Time Runs Over
The cup held the dread of not knowing whether he would see his father again, and both men seemed to realize that dread was why he could make peace with Reagan and end the Cold War. When the publicist knocked to say time was up, Gorbachev told her he wanted to keep talking. She returned ten minutes later and ten minutes after that, the last time in a panic about the line of people waiting, the mayor among them. He answered with a shrug and a grin, and the conversation ended with enough to fill the column.
Why did Gorbachev and Reagan sign a missile treaty?
In December 1987, Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in Washington. It eliminated an entire class of ground-launched missiles with ranges between about 500 and 5,500 kilometers. Those missiles could reach targets across Europe in minutes. It was the first arms treaty to remove a whole category of nuclear weapons instead of capping their numbers.
Why did Gorbachev win the Nobel Peace Prize?
The Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded Gorbachev the 1990 Peace Prize for his leading role in the peace process. It pointed to the easing of tensions between East and West during his years in power. The Soviet Union dissolved in December 1991, a little over a year after he received the prize.
How did World War II reach his village?
Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, when Gorbachev was ten years old. Millions of Soviet men were mobilized in the first months of the war. Gorbachev's home region of Stavropol in southern Russia was occupied by German forces for several months in 1942 and 1943. The Soviet Union lost an estimated 27 million people in the war.
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