Malta Summit: 35 Years On

malta - The Malta summit marked the end of the Cold War, but recent events suggest otherwise. Learn about the historic meeting and its relevance today.

The Malta summit took place during a period of profound change. With the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989, and the end of the Iron Curtain, the decades-long tension between the Soviet Union and the United States seemed to be coming to an end. Bush and Gorbachev wanted to discuss how to best navigate this transition. After rejection of Sicily and Cyprus due to political sensitivities, Malta, a neutral location in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, was chosen.

Both delegations stayed on warships: the Soviets on the missile cruiser Slava and the Americans on the USS Belknap. These ships were anchored off the coast of Marsaxlokk. The original plan was for the talks to take place there. However, when Bush and Gorbachev opened the portholes of their cabins the morning after arrival, they were greeted by a rough sea. Wind gusts of 90 kilometers per hour, torrential rains, and towering waves made commuting between ships extremely dangerous. President Bush even had to wear seasickness patches to endure the rough crossings. Not surprisingly, the summit quickly earned the nickname the "Seasick Summit" in the international press.

The stormy sea led to the cancellation of some meetings. It forced the organizers to come up with a pragmatic solution: the talks were moved to the Maxim Gorky, a stable German luxury cruise ship under Soviet flag, which was safely docked. This turned the tone of an official diplomatic summit into an informal gathering, unexpectedly benefiting the discussions. The privacy on board the Maxim Gorky brought the leaders closer together, both literally and figuratively. Eyewitnesses reported that Bush and Gorbachev sat so close to each other in the chart room that their documents touched. 'It's so tight in here that if we don't agree, we can kick each other,' joked Gorbachev, breaking the tension.

During the summit, the leaders spent hours discussing ending the Cold War and a shared future. Topics such as nuclear weapons reduction, troop withdrawal from Europe, and cooperation on chemical weapons were on the agenda. While no treaties were signed, the talks laid the groundwork for later important agreements. Gorbachev reassured Bush that the Soviet Union would never start a 'hot war' against NATO. In return, Bush promised to review trade restrictions with the Soviet Union to support the country economically during the reforms.

On December 3, 1989, Bush and Gorbachev announced their joint declaration to the world. Gorbachev spoke hopefully: 'The world is leaving one era and entering a new period. The threat of violence, distrust, and ideological struggle must belong to the past.' Bush followed with the words: 'We can achieve lasting peace and transform East-West relations into sustainable cooperation. That is the future we have set in motion here in Malta.' As a symbolic gesture to the rapid changes in Europe, Bush distributed pieces of the Berlin Wall to the attendees after the summit. These fragments were collected by American soldiers who were specially sent to Berlin with sledgehammers.

Thirty-five years later, the world seems to have once again descended into a Cold War. Tensions between Russia and the West are running high. With Donald Trump returning as president in January, speculation is rife about how relations with Russia and Vladimir Putin will evolve. The lessons from Malta, however, remain relevant. Even in the most stormy conditions, an open dialogue can pave the way to lasting peace.

The term Cold War refers to the period from around 1945 to 1991 when the West (US, etc.) and the East (Soviet Union, etc.) were opposed to each other, after they had previously defeated Nazi Germany together in WWII. The expression 'cold war' was subsequently used by writer George Orwell in 1945 in an article about the atomic bomb. About 700 years ago, the Spanish writer Don Juan Manuel (1282-1349) used it to refer to the armed peace between Muslims and Christians in Spain. The Cold War was a period of about 45 years during which the weapons remained 'cold,' but the battle was fought through media and propaganda, along with an arms race to intimidate the other. There was no direct military confrontation between the Russians and Americans, but they did support their 'camps' in the Korean War (1950-1953) and the Vietnam War (1955-1975). After the Malta summit, Germany was reunited (1990) and the Soviet Union disintegrated (end of 1991).