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23 June 2008

Gorbachev to receive the 2008 Liberty Medal

The National Constitution Center will award its 2008 Liberty Medal to Mikhail S. Gorbachev for his historic leadership that helped end the Cold War and brought democracy to former communist states of the Soviet Union.

Former President George H.W. Bush, the center's chairman and the 2006 medal-winner, is to present the award to Gorbachev on Sept. 18 at a ceremony at the center. In a statement yesterday, Bush labeled him "a great world leader and dear friend."

Established in 1989, the Liberty Medal is awarded to men and women "who have strived to secure the blessings of liberty to people the world over." Winners have included Polish President Lech Walesa, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, and South Africa leaders F.W. de Klerk and Nelson Mandela.

Center president Joseph Torsella said the former Soviet leader was the natural choice given that this is the 20th Liberty Medal and that the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall is approaching.

"That made us take a broader historical look at the last 20 years," he said. "Few people have had the impact on the history of liberty that Mikhail Gorbachev has - opening irrevocably Soviet society and bringing an end to the Cold War."

As leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to 1991, Gorbachev, now 77, pressed for democratization in the Eastern European communist bloc by promoting glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring).

"It's hard for a lot of people today to remember what those times [before glasnost] were like, how threatening it all was," Torsella said. "What he did at home and abroad was remarkably brave."

In 1988, the Soviet Union abandoned the Brezhnev Doctrine and allowed Eastern bloc countries to run their own internal affairs. The following year, the Berlin Wall came down.

In 1989, the Soviet Union held its first free elections since 1917, and Gorbachev became president in 1990, the year he won the Nobel Peace Prize.

In 1991, following a coup during which he was under house arrest for three days, Gorbachev voluntarily resigned - an unprecedented move in Soviet history, which itself came to an end shortly thereafter.

His last phone call from the Kremlin was to Bush, according to Torsella.

Gorbachev "took a tremendous risk in bringing what we knew as the Soviet Union to the point where it is today," Mayor Nutter said. "It was a dangerous time."

After leaving office, Gorbachev remained in public life. In 1992, he founded the San Francisco-based Gorbachev Foundation, which promotes political and economic research.

In 1993, he launched Green Cross International, a nonprofit environmental organization based in Switzerland.

"People like Mikhail Gorbachev, even when they technically go off the public stage, don't really leave," Nutter said. "They're committed to their work."