Dear CCI Friends,
Yesterday a great man, a truly great ‘thought leader’ left our planet. Mikhail Gorbachev made his mark on our world by being the only Soviet leader to come to the United States where he stole the heart of our American people. He got out of cars in the middle of Manhattan to shake hands with hundreds of ordinary Americans. This happened in city after city. His ever-ready smile and affable personality won the hearts of millions of us.
Fate didn’t allow Gorbachev to lead his nation after the USSR broke up; nonetheless, he still represents an era, a time … when both Americans and Russians thought that a new world order could be created by our two former adversarial countries.
As Secretary General, Gorbachev allowed us (the Center for US-USSR Initiatives, now CCI) to start Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) in the USSR, the first meeting being in Kiev in 1985, the next in Moscow where AA was advertised on a large video screen in central Moscow. This was unheard of at the time! He next allowed us to have ‘closed meetings’ (not allowed then) across 11 time Zones. Our AA citizen leaders took the program all the way to Magadan in the Far East. Today AA is all over Russia and eight of the former USSR states.
In recent years numbers of our CCI delegates have been able to meet with and question Mr. Gorbachev at his Foundation in central Moscow. The last CCI delegation was just before COVID. We are deeply grateful for those wonderful meetings with him in the past.