On December 3, 1989. The first and last president of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev, and his US counterpart, George Bush – end the Cold War. The two heads of state meet on the tourist liner “Maxim Gorky” off the coast of Malta.
Some actions of Mikhail Gorbachev, especially in 1989, are indicative. The natural elements immediately before the meeting – also; on the night of December 1 and 2, a terrible sea storm arose near Malta, the waves reached a height of 2.5 m, recalls the website Russophili. Due to the bad weather, the negotiations cannot be held on either an American or a Soviet warship, it is assumed that they will take place on the tourist ship “Maxim Gorky”, sheltered in the bay of the Maltese capital, Valletta.
The meeting off Malta actually consisted of two short private meetings between Mikhail Gorbachev and George Bush and two longer general conversations, each lasting 4-5 hours.
At the first short meeting, at 10 a.m. on December 2, Gorbachev stated that the Soviet Union would not interfere in the development of the event in the Eastern European countries. This Soviet position is not particularly new, it was announced by Gorbachev as early as October 23-25, when he declared a refusal to use force in the development of events in Eastern Europe.
The reduction of armaments in Europe and of strategic offensive weapons is the second important topic of the meeting. Without a more extensive examination possible here, we will only summarize that, in practice, Mikhail Gorbachev accepted unilateral disarmament of the Soviet Union, indeed only within 20% of the strategic offensive weapons, not quite completely.
The third topic of the meeting was the internal situation in the USSR and the policy of “perestroika”. A distinctive feature here is the complete frankness of Mikhail Gorbachev, Bush was even given information about the internal situation in the country, which was known only to members of the Politburo.
On December 3, the main topic is the situation in the Baltic republics, with Bush stating quite bluntly that the USA never recognized these republics as part of the USSR. To this transparent hint about the integrity of the Soviet Union, Gorbachev responds with hazy general stories “about the specifics of the situation in the Soviet Union”. The fate of the Baltics was also decided, “in 15 minutes”, by secret verbal agreement.