September 25, 2024

Capturing a Churchillian Image and the End of the Cold War

Finest Hour 201, First Quarter 2023

Page 06

On 6 May 1992, former President of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev delivered the John Findley Green Foundation Lecture at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri. The speech, entitled “The River of Time and the Imperative of Action,” was delivered from the same lectern used by Winston Churchill for his famous “Iron Curtain” Speech at Fulton in 1946. The former communist leader attracted an audience of 20,000, and his appearance signaled the end of the Cold War era. The massive crowd waited patiently as Gorbachev, a fan of Churchill, insisted upon first touring America’s National Churchill Museum. Photographer and Westminster College alumnus David Spielman recalls the moment he captured this image of the famous Soviet statesman:

“Knowing that my time was very short, I worked quickly. As I was about ready to finish, I asked through the President’s interpreter for my last picture. Would Mr. Gorbachev please sit in Churchill’s chair, turn facing me, and give Churchill’s famous “V” for victory sign? I feared he would not, but he sat down, and, in the blink of an eye, there it was. I was surprised and thrilled! Mr. Gorbachev then asked if I would please take a picture of him and his wife Raisa, which I happily did.

“Standing there, saying our good-byes, I asked for the President’s autograph. ‘Happy to,’ was his reply, and, taking my fountain pen, he signed. But then, through his interpreter, he asked if he could sign another, since the first one was scratchy, and he was not happy with it. Signing a second time, he was pleased. Through the interpreter he said, ‘You know you can sell the first one for a great deal of money.’ Without hesitation or thought, I said, ‘You certainly have embraced the Western ways of the world!’ Again in the blink of an eye, he grabbed my face between his hands, smiling, but this time in English, he said, ‘Yes, I have!’

“That ended my visit with Mikhail Gorbachev, as he still had to address a huge crowd of people who had been waiting for a very long time. Later I found out that Malcolm Forbes, the magazine publisher, had given Gorbachev the use of his private jet for his American visit. The name of the plane was The Capitalist Tool.”