Former Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev Dies
Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev has died aged 91 after a long battle with illness.
Gorbachev was one of the most important political figures of the 21st Century and was the leader of the Soviet Union during the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War.
On the 2nd of December, 1989, Us president George Bush Snr. met with Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev at the highly-anticipated Malta Summit.
This meeting, which was referred to as the most important meeting since the meeting between US, UK, and Soviet leaders at the end of World War 2 in 1945, would lead to the end of the Cold War, a war of intelligence and espionage that had spanned decades.
The meeting happened just weeks after the fall of the Berlin Wall in Germany.
The summit took place aboard the ship Maksim Gorkiy, which was anchored in Marsaxlokk
However, the rough weather and stormy seas led to the conference being called the ‘Seasick Summit’ by international media.
Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that the choice of Malta as location was not easy: “it took a long time to get it arranged, finding a place, a place that would not be ceremonial, a place where you didn’t have to do a lot of other bilaterals. And fortunately – or unfortunately – they chose Malta, which turned out to be a really horrible place to be in December. Although the Maltese were wonderful, the weather was really bad.”
RIP
READ NEXT: Hunters Give Patron St Julian Gun Salute From Atop Parish Church During Festa Celebrations
