Collapse: The Fall of the Soviet Union

by Vladislav M. Zubok

Bush set out the American demands. He pushed Gorbachev to halt assistance to Fidel Castro’s Cuba and the communist Sandinistas in Nicaragua. This was top of the US list of priorities. The Soviet team was surprised. Gorbachev wanted to draw a “strategic and philosophical” line under the Cold War. On the second day of the summit he unveiled his surprise for the Americans—but it was not the one that Bush and Scowcroft feared. “I want to say to you and the United States,” Gorbachev said solemnly, “that the Soviet Union will under no circumstances start a war. The Soviet Union is no longer prepared to regard the United States as an adversary.” For the Soviet leader, this was a fundamental statement, a foundation for all future negotiations, but Shevardnadze and Chernyaev noted that Bush did not react. The Soviet offer was a hand extended, but without a handshake. The conversation dissipated into specific and familiar areas of discussion about arms control.