Gorbachev came to Minnesota, and the KGB went garage-sale shopping

In what became a splashy national news event, Mikhail Gorbachev, the president of the Soviet Union, came to Minnesota 25 years ago, the most prominent international political figure to visit the state in perhaps the last half century.

The June 3, 1990, visit underscored the thaw in the Cold War and the impending meltdown of the Soviet Union itself, which collapsed 18 months later with Gorbachev's resignation.

The KGB was the notorious secret police agency of the Soviet Union and served as an advance team for Gorbachev. National event planners Paul Ridgeway and Kevin Foley, both of the Twin Cities, were coordinating the Gorbachev visit and got a taste of what the agency had become.

They took the Soviet agents on a tour of garage sales in Robbinsdale, New Hope and Crystal, where the agents stocked up on bluejeans, lamps and bicycles that were far more costly in the Soviet Union. The swag practically filled a cargo plane that flew back to Moscow along with Gorbachev's limousine, Ridgeway said.

Ridgeway and Foley invited the KGB agents to a back-yard barbecue at a "typical American family's home" on Lake Minnetonka. Indeed, it turned out to be a workers' paradise and a practical joke. The home was actually a mansion, belonging to Dr. Glen Nelson and Marilyn Carlson Nelson, daughter of the late Curt Carlson, owner of the Radisson Hotel chain and one of the richest men in America.

The visit was a coup for Minnesota but became a political football. Minnesota DFL Gov. Rudy Perpich, prime host for Gorbachev, did not invite the congressional delegation, including U.S. Sens. Rudy Boschwitz and Dave Durenberger, to any functions with Gorbachev, says Foley and Ridgeway. Republicans, meanwhile, were not interested in Perpich winning re-election, the two event planners said. So the Republican White House (the first George Bush was then president), tried to cancel Gorbachev's visit to the state. Foley got tipped about it the day before Gorbachev was due to arrive and saw to it that the word got out to the media. The White House denied it and the visit proceeded.

Foley then arranged for Boschwitz and Durenberger and the entire congressional delegation to meet with Gorbachev. Many of the details of Gorbachev's itinerary in Minnesota leaked out ahead of time, much to the dismay of the U.S. Secret Service and KGB. That was because one top KGB agent, who did not deal regularly with the Western media, spilled it all to the Star Tribune.

randyfurst@startribune.com 612-673-4224 • @randyfurst