The lost future of Gorbachev's visit to Minnesota

When Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev visited the Twin Cities on June 3, 1990, it represented a coup for local political and business leaders — namely Gov. Rudy Perpich, who had requested that Gorbachev stop in Minnesota on his way to California, and William C. Norris, founder of Control Data Corp.

Gorbachev had just concluded a three-day summit in Washington with President George H.W. Bush. One signed agreement called for the elimination of most chemical weapons in both nations' arsenals. "The world has waited long enough. The Cold War must end," Bush said at the joint news conference.

In fact, it's been so long it's easy to forget how dramatic the events of late 1989 and 1990 were. The Berlin Wall had fallen during the November preceding Gorbachev's visit. The Soviet Union itself would dissolve in December 1991, a collapse that future Russian President Vladimir Putin would describe in 2005 as "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe" of the 20th century. But June 1990 was all about optimism.

A post-Cold War era of cooperation among the U.S. and Russia found concrete meaning in Gorbachev's brief visit to the Twin Cities that chilly June day. The visit was postcard-perfect, including the long motorcade that featured several iconic Russian-made ZIL limousines. Gorbachev shook hands with regular Minnesotans, and his wife, Raisa, visited a "typical" American family in south Minneapolis.

Importantly, the Soviet leader visited the Bloomington headquarters of Control Data. The company was in the process of selling several super computers (valued about $32 million) to the Soviet Union for the expressed purpose of nuclear power plant operations and safety. The Chernobyl disaster four years earlier had highlighted the archaic nature of most Soviet-era technology as well as the promise of commercial ties between the two nations.

There were some bright spots in bilateral trade in the 1990s, but the two nations never achieved the close economic or political relationship that many expected. Boris Yeltsin presided over a decade of austerity, falling life expectancies, high inflation and industrial stagnation in Russia, all of which paved the way for Putin's rise to power in 2000. Fast-forward to June 2021, and the state of U.S.-Russian relations are as cold as they were in the mid-1980s.

The Biden administration has issued executive orders sanctioning some 30 Russian individuals and technology companies for involvement in election interference in the United States. Russia responded in turn by expelling several diplomats and preventing Russian citizens from working in the U.S. embassy as consular staff. The most recent Biden administration order allows the U.S. Treasury Department to sanction a broad range of individuals and sectors in the Russian economy.

And across the globe, Russia and the U.S. do not see eye-to-eye on a broad spectrum of issues, from the future of the Assad regime in Syria to Iran's role in the Gulf region to Ukraine and now access to the Arctic as global temperatures rise.

Additionally, cyberattacks on U.S. government agencies and corporations have added a new level of anxiety to the bilateral relationship. Technology represented an American advantage back in 1990; today it presents numerous opportunities for malicious activities by state and nonstate actors.

The upcoming June 16 summit between President Joe Biden and Putin in Geneva will likely lack the feel-good moments seen at the end of the Cold War three decades ago: Gorbachev mingling with Control Data employees, Ronald Reagan casually strolling around Red Square. The likeliest outcome will be managing the numerous strategic disagreements that exist — "predictability and stability," as the White House announcement said last month.

Gorbachev's 1990 visit to Minnesota foreshadowed what is possible in American-Russian relations, from supercomputers to agribusiness to the intangible value of living room diplomacy conducted in a typical Minneapolis home. Time magazine named Gorbachev its "Man of the Decade" in early 1990, a label that represented the hope among American political and media leaders that the post-Cold War era would bring a refined Pax Americana with Russia as a nearly equal partner in diplomatic and economic endeavors. But history, and Putin, had other plans.

Those seven hours in June 1990 represented the ultimate expression of Minnesota hospitality for all the world to see. But U.S.-Russia relations in the immediate future will be one of realpolitik, an acknowledgment by the U.S. and its allies that Russia in 2021 represents a serious strategic challenge for the West rather than the humbled competitor who visited (and wowed) the Twin Cities in 1990.

Mark Mahon is a writer and public affairs consultant from Minneapolis. He served in the U.S. Peace Corps in Morocco from 2013 to 2015. On Twitter: @_MarkMahon.