Former Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev, one of the original signatories of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty along with former President Ronald Reagan, said Sunday that President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the treaty, which Trump announced Saturday, was “not the work of a great mind.”
In an interview with the Russian outlet Interfax that was flagged and translated by The New York Times and other outlets, Gorbachev, 87, wondered aloud: “Is it really that hard to understand that rejecting these agreements is, as the people say, not the work of a great mind.”
Gorbachev called Trump’s decision “a mistake” and “very strange.”
“Do they really not understand in Washington what this can lead to?” he asked.
“All agreements aimed at nuclear disarmament and limiting nuclear weapons must be preserved, for the sake of preserving life on earth,” he added, per the Times.
The picture and headline just busted me out laughing!
Peace Prizer cracks wiser.
to be determined
Yes, but he should also ask Putin that question.
I was an exhibit guide in the Soviet Union, working for USIA, during the zenith of the Gorbachev era, which included the talks leading to the signature of this treaty. It really seemed to herald a new era, a significant lessening of east-west tension, maybe the beginnings of a better world. The Soviet Communist world was mostly ecstatic…the Soviet people saw a possibility for a better life, and the satellite countries an end to Soviet domination coming from sharp cuts in Moscow’s defense budget. It has been so dispiriting, watching the death of that hopeful time, and its replacement with a new generation of perspective-free authoritarians and warmongers.
So understated it cracks me up!! Go Gorby!! P.S. He looks like Ed Asner…