Summit in Malta

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The summit in Malta was a meeting between US President George Bush and the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), Mikhail Gorbachev . It took place on December 2nd and 3rd, 1989, just a few weeks after the fall of the Berlin Wall . At the summit, Bush and Gorbachev declared the Cold War to be over.

In the run-up to the summit

The power of the Eastern European regimes crumbled noticeably in the summer of 1989. Eastern European countries such as Hungary , which had previously been sealed off by the Iron Curtain , relaxed their travel regulations and dismantled border installations. The resulting movement of refugees via embassies to the West and the later renunciation of border controls resulted in an uncontrolled mass exodus of GDR citizens and the erosion of state power in all of Eastern Europe. On October 25, 1989, during a state visit to Helsinki, Mikhail Gorbachev proclaimed the so-called Sinatra Doctrine , which allowed the Warsaw Pact states to regulate their internal affairs sovereignly and independently. The Berlin Wall fell on November 9, 1989 .

Security adviser Brent Scowcroft and other US government officials were concerned ahead of the summit that it was too early for a summit meeting just a month after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Expectations for the summit were high, but it was feared that they could not be fulfilled. French President François Mitterrand , British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and other European leaders and members of the US Congress convinced President Bush to meet with Gorbachev in Malta .

Venue - from Malta to Yalta and back

Meeting place Maxim Gorkiy

The choice of neutral Malta as a meeting place was the subject of lengthy negotiations between the two great powers. With Malta, a former British colony , a symbolic place was chosen. The Maltese archipelago was considered by the British during World War II as an unsinkable aircraft carrier strategically located in the geographical center of the Mediterranean. The Malta Conference took place between January 30 and February 2, 1945 . It was a meeting of the Combined Chiefs of Staff , the joint chiefs of staff of the United States and Great Britain , and the foreign ministers of both states during the Second World War. American President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill also met on the last day . The conference was an important exchange between both sides about the further course of the war and the search for a common position in the upcoming negotiations with Stalin at the Yalta Conference .

Originally it was planned that the talks between Bush and Gorbachev should take place alternately on the two warships USS Belknap anchored in Marsaxlokk Bay and the Soviet guided missile cruiser Slawa . When a storm broke out, Gorbachev, on the advice of his advisors, refused to go to the Slava in a small motorboat . The meetings finally took place on board the Soviet cruise ship SS Maxim Gorki , which had docked in the port of Marsaxlokk . Because of the strong winter storms, the journalists present called the meeting Seasick Summit (summit of the seasick).

President Bush's decision to meet at sea was inspired by discussions held by President Franklin D. Roosevelt with foreign leaders aboard warships during World War II .

Summit destination

Bush and Gorbachev on board the cruise ship Maxim Gorkiy

No documents or contracts were signed at the Malta Summit. The main objective was to give the two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, an opportunity to exchange views on what was going on in Eastern Europe. Bush and Gorbachev praised the rapid changes that had occurred in Europe with the fall of the Iron Curtain. The summit marked the official end of the Cold War and the tensions in East-West relations. Many of the decisions taken at the Yalta Conference in February 1945 fell.

At a joint press conference, the Soviet leader said:

“The world is leaving one era and entering another. We are at the beginning of a long road to a peaceful era. Threats of violence, distrust, psychological and ideological struggle should be a thing of the past. "

"I assure the President of the United States that I will never start a nuclear war against the United States."

In response, President Bush said:

“We can achieve lasting peace and transform the East-West relationship into lasting cooperation. That is the future with which Chairman Gorbachev and I started here in Malta. "

Other summit participants

At the Malta Summit there were a. The following people are still present:

Soviet delegation

US delegation

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Annual review 1989: Summit in the Mediterranean On: tagesschau.de
  2. ↑ From Yalta to Malta On: The Time of December 1, 1989
  3. ↑ Interview with Dr. Condoleezza Rice on December 17, 1997
  4. ↑ Maureen Dowd, Special To The New York Times: THE MALTA SUMMIT: Reporter's Notebook; Superpowers Cooperating, But Not Seas . December 3, 1989. Retrieved May 16, 2017.
  5. ↑ Constantine Pleshakov : There Is No Freedom Without Bread !: 1989 and the Civil War That Brought Down Communism , Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009, p. 211