Interviews on US-Russian Relations

MIKHAIL GORBACHEV

INTERVIEWS ON US-RUSSIAN RELATIONS

MIKHAIL GORBACHEV

“It is time to stop and reflect on where we are. We are under the influence of those who want to draw us into new conflicts, new vilifications. We have to avoid this…

It is a time when we must remember John Kennedy. Do we think now, in the nuclear age, that you can make yourself happy with the thought that you can prevail over a potential adversary? You can’t succeed. No one can…

We must dream. We must dream. Because dreaming leads you to seek. To seek ideas... These are most precious, and to realize projects based on these ideas…”

—Mikhail Gorbachev, Interview, December 2017

WILLIAM PERRY

“We are, today, inexplicably recreating the conditions of the Cold War. We're recreating the dangers of the Cold War…Today the danger of some sort of nuclear catastrophe is greater than it was during the Cold War, and most people are blissfully unaware of this danger. We don't understand that…

Because we don't understand the dangers we make no attempt, no serious attempt, to repair the hostility between the United States and Russia. And so we are allowing ourselves to sleepwalk...to sleepwalk into another catastrophe. We must wake up.”

— Former Defense Secretary William Perry, Interview, November 2017

IGOR IVANOV

“Unfortunately today practically all channels of communication between Russia and the U.S. are frozen or blocked. This leads to an atmosphere of mutual suspicion. You do not know how the other side thinks so you take the worst case.

To find solutions, no instrument has been invented that is better than dialogue.”

— Igor Ivanov, former Russian Foreign

Minister, Interview,

December 2017

WILLIAM URY

Though we thought the Cold War was over, the nuclear missiles never went off of hair trigger alert. They're ready to be able to be fired at any moment...

What are we doing? We’re human beings, we share the same earth, we breathe the same air as President Kennedy said in his famous speech there in 1963. We're all mortal...

And so it's that kind of wake up I think that allowed someone like President Kennedy particularly after the Cuban missile crisis to basically shift and reach out to the Soviet Union. It's that kind of shift that happened between Reagan and Gorbachev. And it's that kind of shift that could happen today. We can just wake up, realize what's at stake, realize our children are at stake, our grandchildren are at stake.

— William Ury, Co-Founder, Harvard Program on Negotiation, and Co-Author of International Bestseller Getting to Yes, Interview, October 2017

SIGFRIED HECKER

"Nuclear terrorism. There is no cooperation that's more important than cooperation between Russia and the United States. We know nuclear weapons better than anybody else in the whole wide world…

Nuclear cooperation is being held hostage to the political differences between Washington and Moscow and that could indeed doom us in some fashion…”

— Sig Hecker, former Director, Los Alamos Labs, Interview, October 2017

IVAN URGANT

“I simply would like us to know more about one another, see more of one another, respect one another, take an interest in what is happening with one another and help each other... so that our countries which in fact share a border with one another at the Bering Strait can be good neighbors and good friends.”

"We should not fear one another. We should all fear the same thing together."

—Ivan Urgant, Most popular Russian Television host, Interview, October 2017

VLADIMIR POZNER

“We can simply say ‘Look, let’s agree or disagree on these things.’ But we have to find common ground. If we don’t, then we are pretty sure to destroy ourselves one of these days.

In the final analysis, all human beings are human beings. You can’t distinguish Chinese blood from Russian blood from Jewish blood. And we all die. And we all love… So I think we have to find this common ground and we should not insist that you have to be like me.

I have always felt that if the United States and Russia were able to be partners, we could probably solve the world's problems.”

— Vladimir Pozner, Russia’s most influential TV political-talk show host, Interview, October 2017

INGA YUMASHEVA

“Today we do not have a normal dialogue between Russia and the U.S. Our relationship is dominated by mutual accusations and denunciations…a mutual demonization of one another.

We need people who are sufficiently courageous and bold, recognizing that our actions may well be criticized… It is easy to do bad. It is harder to do good.

For the sake of a shared peaceful future, it is worth taking the steps, looking at our own behavior and attitudes, rising to see the situation as if looking from above the fray, and being sufficiently daring to do this work.”

— Inga Yumasheva, Head of Russian Parliament Coordination Group with U.S. Congress, Interview, December 2017