Mr. Gorbachev Tears Down This Speech
Bill McGurn ·
April 24, 2012 at 9:07pm
Apparently the former Soviet premier is no fan of our own Peter Robinson. I was caught by this headline from the Chicago Tribune. Operative paragraph:
“Well, I’ll tell you the truth,” Gorbachev said through a Russian interpreter, in response to a question about Reagan’s Berlin Wall speech, after addressing an audience at Judson University in Elgin. “Don’t be surprised but we really were not impressed. We knew that Mr. Reagan’s original profession was actor.”
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Jun '11
Re: Mr. Gorbachev Tears Down This Speech
An actor he may have been, but he delivered Peter's perfect lines with dramatic flare and precision. Mr. Gorbachev might not have been impressed, but apparently the rest of the world was, given the events that quickly unfolded thereafter.
Re: Mr. Gorbachev Tears Down This Speech
Come on, Mr. Robinson. Your chance to rebut Mr. G.
Mar '11
Re: Mr. Gorbachev Tears Down This Speech
Gorbachev's original profession was Communist Party apparatchik.
How'd that work out for you, Mickey?
Re: Mr. Gorbachev Tears Down This Speech
Personally, I find Mr. Gorbachev's comment fascinating. It confirms a suspicion that far from being the wise man leading the USSR to a better day, the Soviet leader did not really understand what was happening around him. In the West, liberals like to regard him as the real hero, but my impression was that he was a guy who was led by events rather than leading them.
By contrast, I recall reading in the Bernstein/Politi book on Pope John Paul II about Brezhnev's response when the prime minister of Communist Poland tried to explain to the leader of the Communist U.S.S.R. that, as a fellow Pole, he knew how best to handle this new pope. If the church weren't dealt with, Brezhnev retorted prophetically, "sooner or later it would gag in our throats, it would suffocate us."
Feb '11
Re: Mr. Gorbachev Tears Down This Speech
I agree especially with your #4, Mr. McGurn. Gorbachev's comment is snotty, if nothing else.
Mr. Gorbachev never did tear down that wall, did he? As I recall, it was the people tired of being ground under the bootheel of the oppressors that tore the wall down themselves.
Jan '12
Re: Mr. Gorbachev Tears Down This Speech
I love that Gorby said that. It proves my understanding of Soviet tin-eared obsolescence. Like others have said, it doesn't really matter that Gorbachev didn't think much of it.
Re: Mr. Gorbachev Tears Down This Speech
The first time I met Gorbachev, Bill, he looked at me, smiled, and, as his interpreter explained that I'd written the Berlin Wall address, chuckled. "Dramaturg!" he said. "Dramaturg!"
I actually liked him--he was charming and funny and wonderfully warm to my wife, and I recall thinking that I at last I could understand what the Gipper had seen in him. But in charge of world events? Ahem. Whose country no longer even exists?
Dec '11
Re: Mr. Gorbachev Tears Down This Speech
“Don’t be surprised but we really were not impressed. We knew that Mr. Reagan’s original profession was actor.”
He forgot to mention that Reagan was a successful two term governor of a state with a GDP bigger than many countries and had learned a great deal about Socialists/Marxists while speaking on UC college campuses!
Re: Mr. Gorbachev Tears Down This Speech
Does anyone else find it extraordinary that the leader of the Soviet Union bought hook, line and sinker the liberal American line that the Gipper was just a Grade B movie actor? It helps explain who took whom to the cleaners in that matchup.
Sep '11
Re: Mr. Gorbachev Tears Down This Speech
Sour grapes.
Nov '10
Re: Mr. Gorbachev Tears Down This Speech
Ditto, bruised ego.
Nov '10
Re: Mr. Gorbachev Tears Down This Speech
I don't think less of Mr. G for this comment. I would be interested in what else he had to say beyond that one line. He is on record as having both respect and collegiality toward Mr. And Mrs. Reagan. On the face there is nothing wrong with what he's saying.
At the time they knew little of the man, but they did expect him to be able to stir people with his words. And he did. This was their assessment of the speech -- they did not see it as a direct threat. But they understood the rhetorical value of those words as a tool to galvanize the people. They did not see the words as a direct threat, but they surely understood what would happen in the people's hearts when a stirring orator with the world's largest army throws down a gauntlet in that fashion.
Come to think of it, as they marched the last garrison out of Iraq Obama's team should have hired actor/politician Arnold S to stand on the shore, shake his fist at the chuckling Sadr army folks and declaim:
May '10
Re: Mr. Gorbachev Tears Down This Speech
Despite being addressed by name in the speech, Gorbachev was not the intended audience. I expect that Reagan was more interested in what the German and American people would think of the speech than Gorby.
Mar '11
Re: Mr. Gorbachev Tears Down This Speech
On the other hand, it is reassuring that the elitist of the Soviet elites were still no match for the American star of Bedtime for Bonzo.
If I were Gorbachev, the fact that Reagan was an actor would be embarassing for me, not him.
Re: Mr. Gorbachev Tears Down This Speech
Bill McGurn: ... “Don’t be surprised but we really were not impressed. We knew that Mr. Reagan’s original profession was actor.”
· 3 hours ago
Yes, well, Ronald Reagan knew a great deal about the original profession of those at the helm of the Evil Empire too.
Feb '11
Re: Mr. Gorbachev Tears Down This Speech
Mendel
On the other hand, it is reassuring that the elitist of the Soviet elites were still no match for the American star ofBedtime for Bonzo.
If I were Gorbachev, the fact that Reagan was an actor would be embarassing for me, not him. · 0 minutes ago
It's funny because it's true!
Jun '10
Re: Mr. Gorbachev Tears Down This Speech
Remind me who won? Wait, I remember, it was Reagan.
Jul '10
Re: Mr. Gorbachev Tears Down This Speech
Well, You should have done a little more homework, because President Reagan's "original" profession was Lifesaver.
Edited on April 25, 2012 at 1:41amFeb '12
Re: Mr. Gorbachev Tears Down This Speech
Gorbachev at his prime had more gaffes than Biden... And the reporter, it seems was struggling to find a catch phrase to put in the headline. The rest of the article is mundane and boring. So, given his age, and the interpreter - it's easy to lose something in translation.
Overall, this phrase doesn't sound like Gorbachev - too rude and feisty for him. Now, if he mentioned something about eating dogs in hungry days of WW2...
Nov '11
Re: Mr. Gorbachev Tears Down This Speech
Perhaps we in the West should be grateful that Gorbachev was not a man of greater will to action, that he had not the greatness of soul to resist the mythical "tide of history" (a tide flowing nowhere humans do not cause it to flow), but instead was pleased to attempt to "manage the decline," to obtain a more respectable position on the ash heap.
Yet a greater soul might might have prepared his country for something better than the evil banality of an endless succession of a Putin followed by a Puttana followed by a Putin followed by Puttana.
Gorbachev's shame is not that the Soviet Union fell, but that Russia did not rise.
Edited on April 25, 2012 at 3:03am