Harry Middleton Lectureship with Mikhail Gorbachev

Former President of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev visited the LBJ Presidential Library in Austin, Texas on October 18, 2011. When LBJ Library Director Mark Updegrove asked how history would regard him, Mr. Gorbachev replied through his translator, “The answer is ‘good.’ That’s a joke. My second joke is that history is a fickle lady, but I’m proud of the life that I have lived. And let history decide."
- - -
Lady Bird Johnson established the Harry Middleton Lectureship in 1994 to honor the career, loyalty, and legacy of Mr. Middleton, who served in the Johnson administration and as director of the LBJ Library for 30 years.
The lectureship was designed to attract and enrich the learning experiences of The University of Texas at Austin students and the Austin community. Speakers have included former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, Presidents Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, Tom Brokaw, and playwright and film director David Mamet.
Learn more: www.lbjlibrary.org

[@cundinamarca1]

I am astounded that 5 months after this was posted there are only two comments, mine included. This man was a world hero. He helped all of the Soviet Union and countries world wide realize a better future than we had. I think the U.S. has already spent its peace dividend derived from the end of the cold war and the changes dissolving the USSR, but that does not diminish in the least the accomplishments that happened in great part to this man's personal glasnost and openness to reform.
A story from a friend recounts the night he and his spouse went to the attend a public reception for Mr. Gorbachev and his lovely wife Raisa being hosted at the San Francisco Palace of Fine Arts (aka Exploratorium). As happens often, the arrival was delayed. My friend and wife decided to venture out through the passageway from which they expected the arrival. Once there they were able to be first in line to see the couple make their way in from the parking lot, passing journalists who seemed frozen. My friend and his wife gave a welcome in Russian at which Mikhail and Raisa stopped, approached my friend and his wife and said something to the effect of: "In our days visiting your country, yours is the first greeting we have received in our own language." That spoke volumes to them and to me when i heard this.
I have not forgotten the lesson it gives. To truly understand someone, we must learn to hear what they are saying. Welcome to America. Welcome. Dobro pozhalovat

[@arthurpineapplepen5209]

As a teenager in the 80s I remember this man well and he seemed to me that he is a good man and I remember the tides of change he brought.

[@seanbaskett5506]

I'm a Reagan baby, and I have always liked Gorbachev. I grew up conservative in Idaho, and I can always remember them talking about Gorbachev much differently than Andropov or Chernenko, in a way that made him seem like more of a friend to America, or at least somebody who will do what he says he will do, just like this video shows. I understood the significance of nuclear war at a very young age, and Perestroika and Glasnost were household words, even here in rural Idaho. Even when ruled by Hawkish Republicans, we were taught (in grade school) a lot about those two words and what they meant for the world, and for the freedom of the Soviet people. He is criticized for his response to Chernobyl, but a Soviet premier could not live outside his own time, and the decades long tradition of state secrecy that had long entrenched itself in the minds of the Politburo ultimately caused Perestroika and Glasnost to stumble. I am very hard pressed to say he's at fault for the repercussions and the ultimate fallout, in both the literal and political sense. I will always look up to him.

[@anhemta6979]

He is absolutely correct. War is never the answer . Peace is.

[@MrUltraworld]

I clearly remember him visiting the US. He charmed America, I liked him right away. Having grown up in the cold war, I felt a great hope for our countries, a new friendship between us. Americans don't want to fear a war with Russia, Russians don't want to fear a war with American. This is still true. He is a great man, he made the world a better place.