The Washington/Camp David Summit 1990

Svetlana Savranskaya

The Washington summit 20 years ago this month between Presidents George H.W. Bush and Mikhail S. Gorbachev brought dramatic realization on the American side of the severe domestic political pressures facing the Soviet leader, produced an agreement in principle on trade but no breakthrough on Germany, and only slow progress towards the arms race in reverse which Gorbachev had offered, according to previously secret Soviet and U.S. documents posted by the National Security Archive. The documents posted include Soviet memcons of the Washington summit itself (the American memcons remain classified today, in a surreal testimony to the decrepitude of the U.S. secrecy system), the preparatory documents from both Soviet and U.S. files for the preceding ministerial meeting in Moscow between Secretary of State James Baker and Soviet foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze (and Gorbachev), the...