Soviet Union leader and reformer Mikhail Gorbachev paid a historic visit to Canada on this day in 1990, where he met with then-prime minister Brian Mulroney before heading to Washington.
Archived footage of CTV National News reveals a guardedly optimistic moment from world history on May 29, 1990, as the last General Secretary of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev paid a 29-hour visit to Canada's capital.
CTV’s then-National News anchor Lloyd Robertson called it a "low-key" visit for Gorbachev, but a big deal for the Canadian public.
"Even though no major announcements are expected, the visit is still cause for major excitement," Robertson reported at the time.
Robertson described Gorbachev as "the man who captured the world's imagination," before introducing a report from CTV’s then-Ottawa Bureau Chief Craig Oliver.
"The glasnost and perestroika show comes to Ottawa and packs them in," Oliver said in the opening line of his report, as video showed Gorbachev walking through a crowd of cheering Canadians.
For those not up on their Cold War lingo, "glasnost and perestroika" translates to "openness and restructuring," the two words Gorbachev used to describe his reform approach to overhauling the Soviet Union.
Those core tenets of Gorbachev's government made him a popular figure on the world stage in 1990, as he introduced a number of policies to move the Soviet Union away from Communism while simultaneously scaling back Cold War tensions with the United States.
Oliver's story shows Gorbachev and his wife, Raisa, meeting with Brian and Mila Mulroney for a lunchtime sit-down between the two leaders. The report also shows Canada rolling out the red carpet for Gorbachev, who was met at the airport by then-Gov. Gen. Ray Hnatyshyn and a full RCMP honour guard.
In his welcoming speech, Hnatyshyn described Gorbachev as "the man who single-handedly is sweeping away the Cold War map of Europe." He also praised the Russian leader for forging new ties with the West.
Gorbachev's Canadian visit came just six months after he played a key role in the fall of the Berlin Wall in East Germany. The Soviet Union loosened its grasp on many Eastern Bloc nations during Gorbachev's tenure, and that won him a lot of support from the international community. Gorbachev also improved relations with Western nations such as the United States by inking several treaties to reduce the number of stockpiled nuclear weapons.
He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in October of 1990 for his work.
But it wasn't all sunshine and progress under Gorbachev's watch. The Soviet economy struggled badly with Gorbachev's economic policies, and many old-guard Communist Party members were not pleased when their country began moving toward a free market system.
Those dark clouds cast a shadow over Oliver's story, even amid the jubilant atmosphere of "Gorbymania." CTV archive footage shows security personnel escorted Gorbachev everywhere he went, keeping the excited Canadian crowds at bay.
Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze was asked point-blank during the visit if Gorbachev was losing his grip on the Communist Party back home.
"I can't sense any weakening of the president's position, and I work day-to-day close to him in Moscow, and I don't think I can say that I have that feeling of weakening," Shevardnadze told reporters in Canada during the visit.
Shevardnadze would resign from his post at the end of the year over concerns that Communist hardliners were preparing to undo all of Gorbachev's reforms. He wound be up being right, as several individuals in the party staged an unsuccessful coup d'etat against Gorbachev in August of 1991.
Oliver hinted at that brewing unrest when speaking about the Mulroney-Gorbachev meeting.
"Unpopular economic policies and crises in national unity give the two men a lot to talk about right now," Oliver said, as footage showed the two leaders shaking hands at a staged photo op. Oliver was referring to Mulroney's push for closer economic ties with the United States, as well as his battle against simmering separatist sentiment in Quebec.
"Canadian officials hope they can corner Gorbachev long enough to discuss NATO, reunification of Germany, and future wheat sales in Canada," Oliver added.
Gorbachev left Canada the next day on a flight to Washington, D.C., where he met with then-President George H. W. Bush to sign the bilateral 1990 Chemical Weapons Accord. The deal saw both sides agree to destroy most of their chemical weapon stockpiles over the following decade, while also promising to support a global ban on chemical weapons from that point on.
