Gorbachev visits Eureka College, receives honorary doctorate

EUREKA, Ill. —

It was a welcome befitting a Cold War hero.

In honor of their most famous alum, former President Ronald Reagan, the Eureka College community honored the other Cold War hero, Mikhail Gorbachev, with an honorary doctorate, gifts and thunderous applause at a formal commencement ceremony Friday.

The last Soviet president said, “People always ask me about my attitude toward America, and I say, ‘I like Americans.’”

A choked-up Jack Desatnick blurted out, “We like you, too.”

Like others, Desatnick, the chief operating officer and chief financial officer of Enercon Engineering, had taken time off work to see Gorbachev.

“He’s one of the greatest men, and this man shaped the world with Ronald Reagan,” Desatnick said.

For months, the college community has planned for Gorbachev’s visit. The red carpet was laid out, the Peace Garden was trimmed, and a few tulips even managed to hold their heads up in the morning’s cool temperatures.

Accompanied by an entourage including his daughter, Irina, Gorbachev appeared calm and unruffled. With Eureka College President David Arnold leading him, Gorbachev walked thorough Burris Dickenson Hall. At seeing the Ronald Reagan Peace Garden, which includes a portion of the Berlin Wall and a bust of the U.S. president, Gorbachev said it was “nice, not excessive.”

It was Gorbachev’s first visit to campus, the site of Reagan’s Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty speech in 1982. He was in Eureka in honor of Eureka College’s Ronald Reagan Day and was the keynote speaker at the the Peoria Creve Coeur Club’s George Washington Banquet at the Peoria Civic Center.

Using an interpreter, Gorbachev spoke in detail about the events leading up to the fall of the Berlin War and the end of the Cold War. But there was also some levity.

After the summit between him and Reagan in Geneva in November 1985, Gorbachev said, he was asked his first impression of Reagan.

“I said he was a real dinosaur,” Gorbachev said Friday.

Gorbachev said he couldn’t explain his choice of words, but when Reagan was asked a similar question, he described Gorbachev as a “die-hard Bolshevik.”

“So I think there is a balance there,” Gorbachev said.

That summit, coming just two years after Reagan labeled the Soviet Union as the “evil empire,” marked the beginning of the end of the Cold War.

Gorbachev introduced many changes with his perestroika policy when he became Soviet leader in 1985. The world soon became familiar with two Russian words: “perestroika” or restructuring and “glasnost,” or openness. These initiatives essentially led to fundamental changes in the Soviet Union and end of the Cold War.

“This is one of the most historic days in college history,” Eureka College President J. David Arnold said.

Has the college changed much since the fateful day when the two world leaders met to discuss nuclear proliferation?

“In many ways it has and it hasn’t changed,” Arnold said.

“Eureka College is still a place of opportunity for all students and it is through these opportunities that leadership develops. It is still a place where students experience transformational change.”

Galesburg.com // 28.03.2009